Patents by Inventor Wendell Hicken

Wendell Hicken 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: 20060224260
    Abstract: A scan shuffle mechanism for building playlists. A user selects a scan shuffle button to cause the user's music collection to be sorted acoustically and scanned in the acoustically sorted order. Small segments of the sorted songs are played one by one until the user hears a desired song. The user selects the scan shuffle button again to set the currently played song as a seed song that generates a playlist of complementing songs.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 6, 2006
    Publication date: October 5, 2006
    Inventors: Wendell Hicken, Marc Campbell
  • Publication number: 20060217828
    Abstract: A music searching system and method conducting a metadata search of music based on an entered search term. Music identified from the metadata search is used as seed music to identify other acoustically complementing music. Acoustic analysis data of the seed music is compared against acoustic analysis data of potential candidates for determining whether they are acoustically complementing music. The acoustically complementing music is then displayed to the user for listening, downloading, or purchase.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 6, 2006
    Publication date: September 28, 2006
    Inventor: Wendell Hicken
  • Publication number: 20060212149
    Abstract: A distributed system for intelligent data analysis includes a first computer device including a first data store storing first data content, a second computer device including a second data store storing second data content, and a central database coupled to the first and second computer devices over a data communications network. Each computer device identifies the data content stored in its data store, communicates with the central database for determining whether the central database includes analysis information for the identified data content, and responsive to a determination that the central database does not include the analysis information, processes the data content according to stored processing instructions and generates the analysis information. The analysis information is then uploaded to the central database over the data communications network.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 24, 2006
    Publication date: September 21, 2006
    Inventors: Wendell Hicken, Marc Campbell
  • Publication number: 20060190450
    Abstract: An audio fingerprinting system and method. A server receives an audio fingerprint of a first audio piece, searches a database for the audio fingerprint, retrieves an audio profile vector associated with the audio fingerprint, updates user preference information based on the audio profile vector, and selects a second audio piece based on the user preference information. The audio fingerprint is generated by creating a matrix based on the frequency measurements of the audio piece, and performing a singular value decomposition of the matrix. To expedite the search of the database and to increase matching accuracy, a subset of candidates in the database is identified based on the most prominent musical notes of the audio piece, and the search is limited to the identified subset. One of the attributes of the audio profile vector is a particular audio class. An identifier for the audio class is generated based on an average of audio fingerprints of the audio pieces belonging to the audio class.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 31, 2006
    Publication date: August 24, 2006
    Inventors: Frode Holm, Wendell Hicken
  • Publication number: 20060150026
    Abstract: The present invention is a module testing tool for Web services. In one embodiment, the present invention automates the testing of Web services that use SOAP as a wire protocol and HTTP as a transport protocol. The invention provides an easy interface for exercising Web services and testing their functionality. The invention helps users confirm the responses to SOAP messages with such features as fault detection, textual comparisons, XML validation by DTDs or XML Schemas, and the ability to express and flag complex patterns in XML. The invention lets the users validate responses that require application-specific verification (such as business logic validation) by plugging in their own code. It also provides the capability to perform regression testing of web services. The invention can automatically creates regression test controls from SOAP Client responses, or users can create their own regression tests.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 7, 2006
    Publication date: July 6, 2006
    Inventors: Adam Kolawa, James Clune, Wendell Hicken, Luke Chen
  • Publication number: 20060123389
    Abstract: A system and method for collecting and correlating information about development of a computer software, including software tools reports. The system and method provides overview of entire software development lifecycle, provides decision support engine for project management, allows estimation of project timelines based upon empirical data, allows evaluation of project quality based upon empirical data, and correlates information from previous projects to estimate progress of current project (confidence factors). The system and method for collecting and correlating information about development of a computer software include collecting data from a plurality of software tools during each point in lifecycle of the computer software; storing the collected data in a database; and correlating the stored collected data to monitor the development of the computer software.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 17, 2005
    Publication date: June 8, 2006
    Inventors: Adam Kolawa, Wendell Hicken, Arthur Hicken, Marek Kucharski, Marek Pilch
  • Publication number: 20060026048
    Abstract: A computer system representing user preferences in an N-dimensional preference topography and making recommendations based on such topography. The preference topography depicts user ratings of products in a recommendation database. Each product is represented by a product vector associated with N objectively measurable characteristics. The user rating of a product, therefore, represents the user's preference for the particular combination of the N objectively measurable characteristics making up the product. In making a recommendation of products to the user, the system assigns a rating to each product in the recommendation database based on the preference topography. The system then selects a plurality of maximally unique choices from the rated products for recommendation to the user. These maximally unique choices are calculated to be as diverse from one another as possible but still to the user's liking.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 26, 2005
    Publication date: February 2, 2006
    Inventors: Adam Kolawa, Wendell Hicken, Marek Kucharski
  • Publication number: 20060020614
    Abstract: A computer system representing user preferences in an N-dimensional preference topography and making recommendations based on such topography. The preference topography depicts user ratings of products in a recommendation database. Each product is represented by a product vector associated with N objectively measurable characteristics. The user rating of a product, therefore, represents the user's preference for the particular combination of the N objectively measurable characteristics making up the product. In making a recommendation of products to the user, the system assigns a rating to each product in the recommendation database based on the preference topography. The system then selects a plurality of maximally unique choices from the rated products for recommendation to the user. These maximally unique choices are calculated to be as diverse from one another as possible but still to the user's liking.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 26, 2005
    Publication date: January 26, 2006
    Inventors: Adam Kolawa, Wendell Hicken, Marek Kucharski
  • Publication number: 20050065976
    Abstract: An audio fingerprinting system and method. A server receives an audio fingerprint of a first audio piece, searches a database for the audio fingerprint, retrieves an audio profile vector associated with the audio fingerprint, updates user preference information based on the audio profile vector, and selects a second audio piece based on the user preference information. The audio fingerprint is generated by creating a matrix based on the frequency measurements of the audio piece, and performing a singular value decomposition of the matrix. To expedite the search of the database and to increase matching accuracy, a subset of candidates in the database is identified based on the most prominent musical notes of the audio piece, and the search is limited to the identified subset. One of the attributes of the audio profile vector is a particular audio class. An identifier for the audio class is generated based on an average of audio fingerprints of the audio pieces belonging to the audio class.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 23, 2003
    Publication date: March 24, 2005
    Inventors: Frode Holm, Wendell Hicken
  • Publication number: 20050038819
    Abstract: A music recommendation system receives a user selection of desired music, retrieves analysis data associated with the selected music, and generates a playlist of songs based on the analysis data. The analysis data is generated based on a processing of one or more audio signals associated with the selected music. The analysis data may downloaded from a central server. If the analysis data is not available from the central server, it is generated locally at a user end, and uploaded to the central server. A plurality of user-selectable shuffling mechanisms are provided to allow the order of the songs to be shuffled according to the selected shuffling mechanism. The end user device may also receive recommendation of new music from different providers based on the analysis data of music for which the recommendation is to be based.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 13, 2004
    Publication date: February 17, 2005
    Inventors: Wendell Hicken, Frode Holm, James Clune, Marc Campbell
  • Publication number: 20050015675
    Abstract: In one embodiment, the present invention is a method for automatically preventing errors in computer software. The method includes storing the computer software in a code repository; executing a plurality of software verification tools to verify the computer software, wherein each of the plurality of software verification tools automatically generates one or more test cases; generating verification results responsive to executing the plurality of software verification tools and the automatically generated test cases; processing the verification results for generating an objective criterion of quality of the computer software; and customizing the scope of one or more of the plurality of verification tools responsive to the objective criterion of quality of the computer software.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 3, 2003
    Publication date: January 20, 2005
    Inventors: Adam Kolawa, Wendell Hicken, Arthur Hicken, Marek Kucharski, Gary Brunnell