Patents by Inventor Hidetsugu Maekawa

Hidetsugu Maekawa 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).

  • Publication number: 20040068406
    Abstract: Even with an apparatus structure of a relatively small size, the possibility of misrecognizing speeches of a viewer can be reduced, and a conversation is smoothly sustained, whereby the viewer can readily have an impression that the conversation is established almost naturally. Such effects can be achieved by the following features. An image output section displays images which transit in a non-interactive manner for a viewer, such as broadcast images, or the like, on a display section. A conversation processing section outputs apparatus speech data for commencing a conversation based on conversation data which is stored in a conversation database and which is determined according to the transition of the images. When a speech is emitted by a viewer, the conversation processing section outputs apparatus speech data for replying to the speech of the viewer based on viewer speech data output from a speech recognition section and the conversation data.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 16, 2003
    Publication date: April 8, 2004
    Inventors: Hidetsugu Maekawa, Yumi Wakita, Kenji Mizutani, Shinichi Yoshizawa, Yoshifumi Hirose, Kenji Matsui
  • Publication number: 20040068362
    Abstract: When traveling to a destination reported in a television broadcast or the like, the user has had to make a memo while watching the television and, when actually traveling by car, the user has had to enter necessary information into an in-vehicle terminal by looking at the memo.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 22, 2003
    Publication date: April 8, 2004
    Inventors: Hidetsugu Maekawa, Yoshifumi Hirose, Shinichi Yoshizawa, Kenji Mizutani, Yumi Wakita
  • Patent number: 6471420
    Abstract: A game apparatus of the invention includes: a voice input section for inputting at least one voice set including voice uttered by an operator, for converting the voice set into a first electric signal, and for outputting the first electric signal; a voice recognition section for recognizing the voice set on the basis of the first electric signal output from the voice input means; an image input section for optically detecting a movement of the lips of the operator, for converting the detected movement of lips into a second electric signal, and for outputting the second electric signal; a speech period detection section for receiving the second electric signal, and for obtaining a period in which the voice is uttered by the operator on the basis of the received second electric signal; an overall judgment section for extracting the voice uttered by the operator from the input voice set, on the basis of the voice set recognized by the voice recognition means and the period obtained by the speech period detection
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 4, 1995
    Date of Patent: October 29, 2002
    Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Hidetsugu Maekawa, Tatsumi Watanabe, Kazuaki Obara, Kazuhiro Kayashima, Kenji Matsui, Yoshihiko Matsukawa
  • Publication number: 20020120436
    Abstract: A speech interpreting device which can be easily carried and operated is configured by: a speech inputting/outputting device 102; an image outputting device 103; one or more buttons 106; an image instructing device 105; a computation controlling device 101 which converts phonetically and linguistically data of the source language that are input by the user, and which supplies the converted data to the speech inputting/outputting device 102 and the image outputting device 103; an external large-scale nonvolatile memory device 104 which holds programs for instructing the computation controlling device 101 on procedures of the processes, and data; an external data input/output terminal 107 through which the computation controlling device 101 exchanges programs and data with external apparatuses; and a power source device 108 which supplies a necessary electric power.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 24, 2002
    Publication date: August 29, 2002
    Inventors: Kenji Mizutani, Yoshifumi Hirose, Hidetsugu Maekawa, Yumi Wakita, Shinichi Yoshizawa
  • Patent number: 6041141
    Abstract: There is disclosed a character recognition machine adapted to recognize Japanese characters such as kanjis and kanas. The machine comprises a character string storage portion, a character extraction portion, a character recognition portion, and a language processing portion. A character string to be recognized is stored as an image in the storage portion. The character extraction portion comprises a network consisting a plurality of interconnected operators each of which has numerous inputs and outputs. An evaluation function which assumes its minimum value when a character extraction produces the best results is calculated by the operators simultaneously so as to minimize the value of the function. The character recognition portion calculates degrees of similarity of a character pattern to various character categories, the character pattern being applied from the character extraction portion.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 10, 1995
    Date of Patent: March 21, 2000
    Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Hiroshi Yamamoto, Hisao Niwa, Yoshihiro Kojima, Susumu Maruno, Kazuhiro Kayashima, Toshiyuki Kouda, Hidetsugu Maekawa, Satoru Ito, Yasuharu Shimeki
  • Patent number: 5987170
    Abstract: There is disclosed a character recognition machine adapted to recognize Japanese characters such as kanjis and kanas. The machine comprises a character string storage portion, a character extraction portion, a character recognition portion, and a language processing portion. A character string to be recognized is stored as an image in the storage portion. The character extraction portion comprises a network consisting a plurality of interconnected operators each of which has numerous inputs and outputs. An evaluation function which assumes its minimum value when a character extraction produces the best results is calculated by the operators simultaneously so as to minimize the value of the function. The character recognition portion calculates degrees of similarity of a character pattern to various character categories, the character pattern being applied from the character extraction portion.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 6, 1997
    Date of Patent: November 16, 1999
    Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Hiroshi Yamamoto, Hisao Niwa, Yoshihiro Kojima, Susumu Maruno, Kazuhiro Kayashima, Yasuharu Shimeki, Toshiyuki Kouda, Hidetsugu Maekawa, Satoru Ito
  • Patent number: 5884257
    Abstract: A voice recognition apparatus is provided which includes a first detection circuit for receiving an electric signal corresponding to voice. The first detection circuit detects a voice termination point representing a time at which the input of the electric signal corresponding to the voice is terminated based on the electric signal. The apparatus further includes a second detection circuit for determining a speech period, the speech period being a period in which the voice is uttered within a whole period in which the voice is input, based on the electric signal. In addition, the apparatus includes a feature amount extracting circuit for producing a feature amount vector, on the basis of a part of the electric signal corresponding to the speech period. A memory is provided for storing feature amount vectors for a plurality of voice candidates which are previously generated.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 30, 1997
    Date of Patent: March 16, 1999
    Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Hidetsugu Maekawa, Tatsumi Watanabe, Kazuaki Obara, Kazuhiro Kayashima, Kenji Matsui, Yoshihiko Matsukawa
  • Patent number: 5689583
    Abstract: A character recognition unit recognizes a document image to output character candidates; a character correction unit selects a corrected character string which is correct with respect to grammar and vocabulary, from a set of character candidates from the character recognition unit; a keyword extraction unit extracts keywords of a document to be recognized, from the corrected character string; and wherein the character correction unit selects the corrected character string by a use of BUNSETSU evaluation representing correctness with respect to grammar and vocabulary, and an evaluation of the BUNSETSU is increased when the BUNSETSU has the keyword outputted from the keyword extraction unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 23, 1996
    Date of Patent: November 18, 1997
    Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd.
    Inventors: Hisao Niwa, Kazuhiro Kayashima, Yasuharu Shimeki, Hidetsugu Maekawa
  • Patent number: 5522308
    Abstract: The griddle of this invention includes a temperature adjustment element for adjusting a cooking temperature for a material such as meat and vegetable, a thin plate having a small heat capacity for heating the material, an adiabatic frame for supporting the thin plate with an adiabatic structure, a plurality of heating elements for heating the thin plate, a plurality of temperature sensors for measuring temperatures of a plurality of positions on the thin plate, and a power distribution element for determining power to be distributed to each of the heating elements based on the outputs from the temperature sensors and the cooking temperature.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 23, 1994
    Date of Patent: June 4, 1996
    Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Kazuhiro Kayashima, Hidetsugu Maekawa
  • Patent number: 5434869
    Abstract: A test pattern generating apparatus for generating test patterns to test a sequential circuit having at least one memory element. The apparatus calculates, in response to a primary input applied to the sequential circuit, analog logic values for signal lines in the sequential circuit using a nonlinear function, then stores history data for the analog logic values with an inverse covariance matrix of the analog logic values. The apparatus then calculates an evaluation value according to the degree of variance between the analog logic values and the history data. A primary input setting unit is used for producing a next primary input which provides a maximum evaluation value from the evaluation value obtained from the present primary input. inputs produced by the primary input setting unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 28, 1992
    Date of Patent: July 18, 1995
    Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Hidetsugu Maekawa, Yasuharu Shimeki, Kazuhiro Kayashima, Hisao Niwa, Seiichi Shin
  • Patent number: 5276822
    Abstract: An information processor includes an immediate data latch and a pair of multiplexers in an input portion of an adder in a data address generator. The structure controls operation of the multiplexer in accordance with a register conflict detecting control signal and eliminates an idle state of a pipeline by detecting a register conflict between a register for holding immediate data, indicated by a precedent instruction instructing a specific register to store the immediate data, and a register used for calculation of memory addresses to be used for execution of a succeeding load/store instruction. The immediate data latch directly latches an immediate data indicated by the precedent instruction and outputted by an instruction decoding portion. Then, if the register conflict detecting portion detects the register conflict, the immediate data latched by the immediate data latch is used for calculation of memory addresses.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 14, 1990
    Date of Patent: January 4, 1994
    Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Hidetsugu Maekawa, Takashi Koizumi