Patents by Inventor Stephen Edward Hodges

Stephen Edward Hodges 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: 12376228
    Abstract: The description relates to prototyping systems, including hubs for electrically connecting devices. One example can include an electrically insulative substrate and at least two connector tabs defined by the substrate, each connector tab including a data contact, a power contact, and a ground contact positioned over the substrate. A data bus can be positioned relative to the substrate and electrically connect all of the data contacts, a power bus can be positioned relative to the substrate and electrically connect all of the power contacts, and a ground bus can be positioned relative to the substrate and electrically connect all of the ground contacts.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2022
    Date of Patent: July 29, 2025
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Stephen Edward Hodges, Michal J. Moskal, Gabriele D'Amone, James Alexander Devine, Jonathan Paul De Halleux, Thomas Jaudon Ball
  • Patent number: 12177969
    Abstract: The description relates to electronic prototyping platforms. One example can include an electrically insulative substrate having generally opposing first and second major surfaces and that includes an orientation feature that is visible on both of the first and second major surfaces. The example can include a first mounting hole through the substrate that is bordered by a first electrical conductor associated with data transmission. The example can also include a second mounting hole through the substrate that is bordered by a second electrical conductor associated with electrical ground, and a third mounting hole through the substrate that is bordered by a third electrical conductor associated with electrical power. The example can also include an edge connector tab defined by the substrate and having three exposed electrically conductive contacts that are coupled to the data electrical conductor, the ground electrical conductor, and the power electrical conductor and insulated from one another.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 24, 2022
    Date of Patent: December 24, 2024
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Stephen Edward Hodges, Michal J. Moskal, Gabriele D'Amone, James Alexander Devine, Thomas Jaudon Ball, Jonathan Paul De Halleux
  • Patent number: 12142186
    Abstract: There is provided a display screen configurable via optical signals to display an image. The display screen is formed of an optical waveguide having a display surface and supporting a plurality of pixels for displaying the image on the display surface of the optical waveguide. The optical waveguide is arranged to guide a multiplexed signal in optical form to a plurality of pixel controllers, each coupled to at least one of the pixels and configured to demultiplex the multiplexed signal and thereby extract a component signal associated with the at least one pixel for controlling it to render an element of the image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 16, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 12, 2024
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC.
    Inventors: David Anthony Sweeney, Stephen Edward Hodges, Nicholas Yen-Cherng Chen
  • Patent number: 12105896
    Abstract: A computer mouse module comprising a power supply component; a movement sensor, an encoder operable to encode data collected by the movement sensor, a transmitter for transmitting the encoded data to a computer and a physical connector for detachably attaching a handle portion to the computer mouse module. The computer mouse module may be attached to the handle portion to form a functioning mouse where a user grips the mouse handle portion to control the mouse.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 29, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 1, 2024
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC.
    Inventors: John Franciscus Marie Helmes, Paul Kos, Nicholas Yen-Cherng Chen, Michael Hall, Stephen Edward Hodges, James Alexander Devine, Qing Feng, Masaaki Fukumoto
  • Patent number: 11838991
    Abstract: A smart wearable includes one or more sensors and one or more processors. The one or more sensors are configured to generate sensing data. The one or more processors are configured to process the sensing data and determine whether one or more predetermined conditions are satisfied based on the processing of the sensing data. In response to determining that the one or more predetermined conditions are satisfied, the smart wearable is caused to communicate with a second smart wearable.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 26, 2021
    Date of Patent: December 5, 2023
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Alemayehu Seyed, Stephen Edward Hodges
  • Patent number: 11793247
    Abstract: A piece of smart fabric for recognizing an object or a touch gesture includes a first layer and a second layer. The first layer has multiple resistive sensors and multiple capacitive sensors. Each resistive sensor corresponds to each capacitive sensor. Each capacitive sensor includes a first piece of conductive fabric and a second piece of conductive fabric, and each resistive sensor includes a piece of pressure sensing fabric sandwiched between the first piece of conductive fabric and the second piece of conductive fabric of the corresponding capacitive sensor. The second layer has multiple inductive sensors and multiple NFC sensors. Each of the multiple inductive sensors corresponds to each of the NFC sensors. Each inductive sensor and its corresponding NFC sensor share a same coil.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 28, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 24, 2023
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Alemayehu Seyed, Stephen Edward Hodges, Te-Yen Wu, Zheer Xu
  • Patent number: 10863098
    Abstract: An imaging sensor system includes a control system that helps save energy, computing, and communication resources by capturing evaluation images with a gating image sensor and processing the evaluation images to determine whether there is a region of interest (ROI) present that warrants capturing a subsequent image with a gated image sensor for additional image processing. That is, the gating image sensor and preliminary processing operates as a gate for turning on the gated sensor for the additional image capturing and processing. The additional image captured by the gated sensor may include only the ROI, which is provided to an image processing algorithm for further image processing. In addition, a gating sensor may include infrared sensing to help determine whether the ROI includes thermal data indicative of human features.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 20, 2013
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2020
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing. LLC
    Inventors: Nissanka Arachchige Bodhi Priyantha, Matthai Philipose, Stephen Edward Hodges
  • Patent number: 10853275
    Abstract: A device, which may be a peripheral device or a host computing device, comprises a communication interface, a memory and a processor. The processor is arranged to detect imminent disconnection of a communication link between the peripheral device and the host computing device and in response to detecting the imminent disconnection of the communication link, to trigger a data transfer from the host computing device to the peripheral device via the communication interface. The data transfer defines, at least in part, a fixed output data set which, after disconnection, is output via an output device in the peripheral device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 25, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 1, 2020
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Tobias Alexander Grosse-Puppendahl, James William Scott, Stephen Edward Hodges, John Franciscus Marie Helmes, Nicholas Yen-Cherng Chen, Stuart Alastair Taylor, Pascal Knierim, Josh Fromm, Gavin Wood, Albrecht Schmidt
  • Patent number: 10606934
    Abstract: A computing device comprises an electronic paper display, a processor and a memory. The memory is arranged to store platform software and application software for at least one application that is not adapted to work with an electronic paper display. The platform software comprises a UI conversion module comprising device-executable instructions, which when executed by the processor, cause the processor to: access a UI element tree for the application; generate a modified UI element tree for the application by removing and/or re-styling at least one UI element; and render data from the application using the modified UI element tree for display on the electronic paper display.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 1, 2016
    Date of Patent: March 31, 2020
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: John Franciscus Marie Helmes, James Scott, Stuart Alastair Taylor, Stephen Edward Hodges, Nicholas Yen-Cherng Chen, Tobias Alexander Grosse-Puppendahl, Josh Fromm, Pascal Knierim, Gavin Wood, Albrecht Schmidt, Thomas Denney
  • Publication number: 20190294562
    Abstract: A device, which may be a peripheral device or a host computing device, comprises a communication interface, a memory and a processor. The processor is arranged to detect imminent disconnection of a communication link between the peripheral device and the host computing device and in response to detecting the imminent disconnection of the communication link, to trigger a data transfer from the host computing device to the peripheral device via the communication interface. The data transfer defines, at least in part, a fixed output data set which, after disconnection, is output via an output device in the peripheral device.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 25, 2019
    Publication date: September 26, 2019
    Inventors: Tobias Alexander Grosse-Puppendahl, James William Scott, Stephen Edward Hodges, John Franciscus Marie Helmes, Nicholas Yen-Cherng Chen, Stuart Alastair Taylor, Pascal Knierim, Josh Fromm, Gavin Wood, Albrecht Schmidt
  • Patent number: 10417515
    Abstract: A system is described which comprises an electronic display device, an annotation capture module and a camera. The annotation capture module is configured to trigger a change in an image displayed on the electronic display device responsive to a capture trigger and the camera is configured to capture one or more images of the electronic display device in response to the capture trigger and/or a trigger received from the annotation capture module. The annotation capture module is further arranged to identify any manual annotations made by a user on the electronic display device by analyzing the images of the electronic display device captured by the camera, wherein at least one of the images was captured after the change in the image displayed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 9, 2017
    Date of Patent: September 17, 2019
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: James Scott, Stephen Edward Hodges, Nicholas Yen-Cherng Chen, Stuart Alastair Taylor, John Franciscus Marie Helmes, Tobias Grosse-Puppendahl
  • Patent number: 10373549
    Abstract: A display comprises a plurality of autonomous pixels on a stretchable substrate. Each autonomous pixel comprises a display element and a control element arranged to sense an external stimulus and to generate, entirely within the autonomous pixel, a control signal to drive the display element based, at least in part, on a magnitude of the sensed external stimulus. The stretchable substrate comprises a plurality of less elastic regions separated by stretchable areas, where the less elastic regions are less stretchable than the surrounding stretchable areas and each control element of an autonomous pixel is located in or on a less elastic region of the stretchable substrate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2018
    Date of Patent: August 6, 2019
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Stephen Edward Hodges, Nicholas Yen-Cherng Chen, David Sweeney, Anja Thieme, Tobias Grosse-Puppendahl, Helene Steiner
  • Patent number: 10338753
    Abstract: A flexible multi-layer sensing surface comprises a first flexible layer and a second flexible layer. The first flexible layer is a sensing layer and the second sensing layer is another sensing layer or an output layer. The sensing surface also comprises a calibration module which is configured to use the first flexible sensing layer to detect the relative position of the first and second flexible layers and this detected relative position is then used to update one or more stored operating parameters.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 8, 2016
    Date of Patent: July 2, 2019
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Greg Saul, Daniel Cletheroe, Nicolas Villar, Haiyan Zhang, Oscar Salandin, Christian Holz, Andrew Fitzgibbon, Stephen Edward Hodges
  • Patent number: 10290267
    Abstract: A method of fabricating a display comprising a plurality of autonomous pixels is described. Each autonomous pixel comprises a display element and a control element. The control element is configured to sense an external stimulus and to generate, entirely within the autonomous pixel, a control signal to drive the display element based, at least in part, on the magnitude of the sensed external stimulus.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 15, 2016
    Date of Patent: May 14, 2019
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: David Sweeney, Stephen Edward Hodges, Nicholas Yen-Cherng Chen
  • Patent number: 10269309
    Abstract: A display device which includes an electronic paper display additionally comprises power harvesting hardware and display update hardware which is configured to control the updating of the electronic paper display based on a sensed power harvesting level which may, in various embodiments, be a current incoming power level as generated by the power harvesting hardware or a stored power level in a power storage device within the display device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 5, 2015
    Date of Patent: April 23, 2019
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Stuart Alastair Taylor, Nicholas Yen-Cherng Chen, John Franciscus Marie Helmes, Stephen Edward Hodges, James Scott, Albrecht Schmidt, Pascal Knierim, Gavin Wood, Josh Wolff Fromm, Tobias Grosse-Puppendahl
  • Patent number: 10248584
    Abstract: A device, which may be a peripheral device or a host computing device, comprises a communication interface, a memory and a processor. The processor is arranged to detect imminent disconnection of a communication link between the peripheral device and the host computing device and in response to detecting the imminent disconnection of the communication link, to trigger a data transfer from the host computing device to the peripheral device via the communication interface. The data transfer defines, at least in part, a fixed output data set which, after disconnection, is output via an output device in the peripheral device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 1, 2016
    Date of Patent: April 2, 2019
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Tobias Alexander Grosse-Puppendahl, James William Scott, Stephen Edward Hodges, John Franciscus Marie Helmes, Nicholas Yen-Cherng Chen, Stuart Alastair Taylor, Pascal Knierim, Josh Fromm, Gavin Wood, Albrecht Schmidt
  • Patent number: 10203793
    Abstract: A display device is described which can be updated by applying pressure with a passive object. The display device comprises a transparent top conductor layer, a middle conductor layer and a bottom conductor layer. The middle conductor layer is segmented into a plurality of independent areas and a pixel of the display device is defined based at least in part on the way that the middle conductor layer is segmented. The display device further comprises an electrophoretic ink layer between the top and middle conductor layers, a layer of piezo-electric material between the middle and bottom conductor layers, and an electrical connection between the bottom and top conductor layers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 1, 2016
    Date of Patent: February 12, 2019
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Tobias Alexander Grosse-Puppendahl, Stuart Taylor, Nicholas Yen-Cherng Chen, James Scott, David Sweeney, John Franciscus Marie Helmes, Stephen Edward Hodges
  • Patent number: 10198233
    Abstract: A system is described which comprises an input arranged to receive attention tracking data from attention tracking hardware. The attention tracking data, along with parameters associated with each display change request, is then used to select a display change request from a plurality of stored display change requests received from a plurality of different applications and a change defined by the selected display change request is then rendered in a GUI on a display device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 1, 2016
    Date of Patent: February 5, 2019
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Tobias Alexander Grosse-Puppendahl, James Scott, Stephen Edward Hodges, John Franciscus Marie Helmes, Stuart Alastair Taylor, Nicholas Yen-Cherng Chen, Pascal Knierim, Gavin Wood, Josh Fromm, Albrecht Schmidt
  • Patent number: 10079001
    Abstract: An autonomous pixel comprises a display element, a plurality of different sensors and a control element. The sensors are arranged to detect one or more external stimuli and the control element is arranged to generate, entirely within the autonomous pixel, a control signal to drive the display element based, at least in part, on a magnitude of an external stimulus detected by one or more of the different sensors.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 6, 2016
    Date of Patent: September 18, 2018
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Stephen Edward Hodges, Nicholas Yen-Cherng Chen, David Sweeney, Anja Thieme, Tobias Grosse-Puppendahl, Helene Steiner
  • Patent number: 10062352
    Abstract: A display comprises a plurality of autonomous pixels on a substrate. Each autonomous pixel comprises a display element, a sensing element and a control element. The sensing element is arranged to detect an external stimulus and the control element is arranged to generate, entirely within the autonomous pixel, a control signal to drive the display element based, at least in part, on a magnitude of the external stimulus detected by the sensing element. Additionally, the control element comprises one or more groups of transistors, each group comprising two or more transistors arranged to perform the same function and connected in parallel with each other.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 6, 2016
    Date of Patent: August 28, 2018
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Stephen Edward Hodges, Nicholas Yen-Cherng Chen, David Sweeney, Tobias Grosse-Puppendahl