Abstract: There is disclosed herein a toaster (10) including: a housing (12); a pair of opposing food guards (24a, 24b) located within the housing (12) and defining a toasting cavity (25a, 25b) for receiving foodstuff to be toasted; a pair of heating elements (28) located within the housing (12), each heating element (28) being located on a respective side of the pair of food guards (24a, 24b), wherein each food guard (24a, 24b) is spaced from the corresponding heating element (28) by a clearance (81); and wherein each food guard (24a, 24b) has an upwardly-extending portion (75c, 75d) that extends upwardly to a portion (75a, 75b) that extends transversely from the upwardly-extending portion so as to extend above the corresponding heating element (28), the transversely-extending portion (75a, 75b) of each food guard (24a, 24b) projecting away from the opposing food guard (24a, 24b).

Abstract: A kitchen device (100) having: a base (110) with a coupling (120) for receiving an accessory (130), the accessory (130) comprising a magnet and being configured for performing an operation when operated by the kitchen device (100); a controller configured to operate the kitchen device (100), and thereby the accessory (130), to perform the operation; and a magnetometer located in the base (110) and configured to interact with the magnet when the accessory (130) is coupled to the base (110) to provide an accessory signal indicative of a presence of the accessory (130) to the controller, wherein the magnetometer comprises a magnetoresistor.

Abstract: A toaster heating assembly (55A, 55B) including: a frame (60); a panel (65) at least partly supported by the frame (60); a spacer (80) mounted to the panel (65); and an elongate heating element (93) having a plurality of spaced apart elongate heating element portions (95) supported by the spacer (80), so that the spacer (80) is located between the plurality of heating element portions (95) and the panel (65) to provide a gap (94) between the plurality of heating element portions (95) and the panel (65).

Abstract: The invention relates to coffee packing and dosing devices and machines and more particularly to a portafilter dosing tools used to control the amount, distribution and/or packing of ground coffee within the filter basket of a portafilter prior to extraction. In one aspect the invention provides a device for vibrating the filter basket to vibrate coffee grounds therein to promote levelling and devoiding prior to tamping. In other aspects the invention provides machines and methods for filling a coffee filter basket with tamped ground coffee to a target level. In still other aspect the invention provides a tool for manually administering a uniform tamping force to coffee during tamping.

Abstract: An appliance (10) to heat a liquid, the appliance (10) including: a vessel (12) to receive the liquid to be heated, the vessel (12) having a generally central upright longitudinal axis (24), a bottom wall (26), and a side wall (28) extending upwardly from the bottom wall (26), with the bottom wall (26) and side wall (28) at least partly enclosing a chamber (40) within which the liquid is heated, with the chamber (40) having an upper region (42) axially spaced from the bottom wall (26), and a lower region (44) located between the bottom wall (26) and the upper region (42); a heating element (50) located within the chamber (40) for relative movement therewithin, with the element (50) at least partly formed of ferromagnetic material; a heater base (14) to be positioned relative to the bottom wall (26) of the vessel (12), the heater base (14) including at least a portion of an induction coil (18); connections to deliver an alternating current to the induction coil (18) so as to deliver a magnetic field to the low

Abstract: There is disclosed herein a toaster (10) including: a housing (12); a pair of opposing food guards (24a, 24b) located within the housing (12) and defining a toasting cavity (25a, 25b) for receiving foodstuff to be toasted; a pair of heating elements (28) located within the housing (12), each heating element (28) being located on a respective side of the pair of food guards (24a, 24b), wherein each food guard (24a, 24b) is spaced from the corresponding heating element (28) by a clearance (81); and wherein each food guard (24a, 24b) has an upwardly-extending portion (75c, 75d) that extends upwardly to a portion (75a, 75b) that extends transversely from the upwardly-extending portion so as to extend above the corresponding heating element (28), the transversely-extending portion (75a, 75b) of each food guard (24a, 24b) projecting away from the opposing food guard (24a, 24b).

Abstract: An induction heating circuit for an appliance, the induction heating circuit comprising: an AC power supply with an AC monitoring output connected to the active line of the AC power supply, the AC monitoring output providing an indication of current being drawn from the AC power supply; a control circuit comprising at least one processor and a semiconductor current sensor, the semiconductor current sensor arranged to i) detect the current being drawn from the AC power supply and ii) output an output voltage based on the detected current; and an induction driving circuit for driving an inductor of the appliance comprising a semiconductor switch, wherein the semiconductor switch is controlled by the processor based on, at least, the output voltage.

Abstract: A method of detecting and classifying mental states, comprising the steps of: detecting bio-signals from one or more than one bio-signal detector; transforming the bio-signals into one or more than one different representations; detecting values of one or more than one property of the transformed bio-signal representations; and applying one or more than one mental state detection algorithm to the detected properties in order to classify whether the bio-signals indicate the presence of a predetermined response by a subject.

Abstract: The invention is concerned with the transmission of streaming scalable data, particularly video data, through lossy communication channels, for applications in which limited retransmission is possible, and the associated reception and decoding of transmitted data. The PET (Priority Encoding Transmission) framework is used and the invention exploits both unequal error protection and limited retransmission. Each element in the scalable representation of each frame can be transmitted in one or both of two transmission slots, depending on the availability of the data received from the first of the two transmission slots. An optimization algorithm determines the level of protection which should be assigned to each element in each slot, subject to transmission bandwidth constraints.

Abstract: A method of detecting and classifying facial muscle movements, comprising the steps of: receiving bio-signals from at least one bio-signal detector; and applying at least one facial muscle movement-detection algorithm to a portion of the bio-signals affected by a predefined type of facial muscle movement in order to detect facial muscle movements of that predefined type.

Abstract: A method of detecting a mental state includes receiving, in a processor, bio-signals of a subject from one or more bio-signal detectors, and determining in the processor whether the bio-signals represent the presence of a particular mental state in the subject. A method of using the detected mental state includes receiving, in a processor, a signal representing whether a mental state is present in the subject. The mental state can be a non-deliberative mental state, such as an emotion, preference or sensation. A processor can configured perform the methods, and a computer program product, tangibly stored on machine readable medium can have instructions operable to cause a processor to perform the methods.

Abstract: The invention is concerned with the transmission of streaming scalable data, particularly video data, through lossy communication channels, for applications in which limited retransmission is possible, and the associated reception and decoding of transmitted data. The PET (Priority Encoding Transmission) framework is used and the invention exploits both unequal error protection and limited retransmission. Each element in the scalable representation of each frame can be transmitted in one or both of two transmission slots, depending on the availability of the data received from the first of the two transmission slots. An optimization algorithm determines the level of protection which should be assigned to each element in each slot, subject to transmission bandwidth constraints.

Abstract: A method of detecting and classifying mental states, comprising the steps of receiving bio-signals from one or more bio-signal detectors; generating multiple different representations of each bio-signal; determining the value of one or more features of the each bio-signal representation; and comparing the feature values to one or more than one mental state signature, each mental state signature defining reference feature values indicative of a predetermined mental state.

Abstract: A method of detecting and classifying mental states, comprising the steps of: detecting bio-signals from one or more than one bio-signal detector; transforming the bio-signals into one or more than one different representations; detecting values of one or more than one property of the transformed bio-signal representations; and applying one or more than one mental state detection algorithm to the detected properties in order to classify whether the bio-signals indicate the presence of a predetermined response by a subject.

Abstract: A method of detecting and classifying facial muscle movements, comprising the steps of: detecting bio-signals from a plurality of scalp electrodes; and applying one or more than one facial muscle movement-detection algorithm to a portion of the bio-signals affected by a predefined type of facial muscle movement in order to detect facial muscle movements of that predefined type.