Patents by Inventor Duncan McKay

Duncan McKay has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 8676581
    Abstract: Embodiments are disclosed that relate to the use of identity information to help avoid the occurrence of false positive speech recognition events in a speech recognition system. One embodiment provides a method comprising receiving speech recognition data comprising a recognized speech segment, acoustic locational data related to a location of origin of the recognized speech segment as determined via signals from the microphone array, and confidence data comprising a recognition confidence value, and also receiving image data comprising visual locational information related to a location of each person in an image. The acoustic locational data is compared to the visual locational data to determine whether the recognized speech segment originated from a person in the field of view of the image sensor, and the confidence data is adjusted depending on this determination.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 22, 2010
    Date of Patent: March 18, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Jason Flaks, Dax Hawkins, Christian Klein, Mitchell Stephen Dernis, Tommer Leyvand, Ali M. Vassigh, Duncan McKay
  • Publication number: 20120245933
    Abstract: A device for suppressing ambient sounds from speech received by a microphone array is provided. One embodiment of the device comprises a microphone array, a processor, an analog-to-digital converter, and memory comprising instructions stored therein that are executable by the processor.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 8, 2012
    Publication date: September 27, 2012
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Jason Flaks, Ivan Tashev, Duncan McKay, Xudong Ni, Robert Heitkamp, Wei Guo, John Tardif, Leo Shing, Michael Baseflug
  • Patent number: 8219394
    Abstract: A device for suppressing ambient sounds from speech received by a microphone array is provided. One embodiment of the device comprises a microphone array, a processor, an analog-to-digital converter, and memory comprising instructions stored therein that are executable by the processor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 20, 2010
    Date of Patent: July 10, 2012
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Jason Flaks, Ivan Tashev, Duncan McKay, Xudong Ni, Robert Heitkamp, Wei Guo, John Tardif, Leo Shing, Michael Baseflug
  • Publication number: 20110184735
    Abstract: Embodiments are disclosed that relate to the use of identity information to help avoid the occurrence of false positive speech recognition events in a speech recognition system. One embodiment provides a method comprising receiving speech recognition data comprising a recognized speech segment, acoustic locational data related to a location of origin of the recognized speech segment as determined via signals from the microphone array, and confidence data comprising a recognition confidence value, and also receiving image data comprising visual locational information related to a location of each person in an image. The acoustic locational data is compared to the visual locational data to determine whether the recognized speech segment originated from a person in the field of view of the image sensor, and the confidence data is adjusted depending on this determination.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 22, 2010
    Publication date: July 28, 2011
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Jason Flaks, Dax Hawkins, Christian Klein, Mitchell Stephen Dernis, Tommer Leyvand, Ali M. Vassigh, Duncan McKay
  • Publication number: 20110178798
    Abstract: A device for suppressing ambient sounds from speech received by a microphone array is provided. One embodiment of the device comprises a microphone array, a processor, an analog-to-digital converter, and memory comprising instructions stored therein that are executable by the processor.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 20, 2010
    Publication date: July 21, 2011
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Jason Flaks, Ivan Tashev, Duncan McKay, Xudong Ni, Robert Heitkamp, Wei Guo, John Tardif, Leo Shing, Michael Baseflug
  • Publication number: 20070084326
    Abstract: An audio application programming interface (API) enables an audio processing graph to be modified during processing. If they are received while the audio graph is playing or paused, graph modifying commands may be inserted into either an asynchronous command queue or a deferred command queue. The audio API may also include a clock manager for synchronizing clocks from a number of different connected audio rendering devices, applications, processors, functions, operations, modules, or other resources. The clock manager may provide an interface that enables a number of control groups to be defined. Each such control group may include a master clock, a slave clock, and a control.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 30, 2005
    Publication date: April 19, 2007
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Ashutosh Tatake, Dugan Porter, Duncan McKay, Robert Williams, Stephen Handley
  • Publication number: 20060247918
    Abstract: Systems and methods for 3D audio programming and processing are provided wherein digital signal processing (DSP) settings are calculated for 3D audio effects for a digital audio signal independently of DSP rendering of the digital audio signal. Coordinates of locations within a 3D environment representing at least one sound source and at least one audio listener are created and passed (along with other distance modeling parameters) to a DSP settings generator having 3D audio library routines to calculate the DSP settings for 3D audio effects based on the distances between the at least one sound source and at least one audio listener and the distance modeling parameters. Support for positional multi-channel sounds and non point-source emitters is also present.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 29, 2005
    Publication date: November 2, 2006
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Brian Schmidt, Scott Selfon, Dugan Porter, Duncan McKay
  • Patent number: 6438977
    Abstract: An air conditioner cooling apparatus which is designed to be used in conjunction with a cabinet type air conditioner that has an air exhaust portal which has an exhaust airflow,path and a length of condenser coils. The cooling apparatus comprises a paddle which is to be placed within the exhaust airflow path and upon operation of the air conditioner, the paddle is to be pivoted from a crosswise position relative to the airflow path to an inclined position relative to the airflow path. The pivoting of the paddle connects by a linkage assembly to a control arm with this control arm to be raised from a lower position to an upper position when the air conditioner is activated. The control arm connects to a water supply valve which is opened when the air conditioner is turned on with water to be caused to flow through the valve to a series of discharge nozzles with this water to be dispensed onto the condenser coils of the air conditioner.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 2, 2001
    Date of Patent: August 27, 2002
    Inventor: Richard Duncan McKay