Abstract: A virtual world environment is provided having chat clusters. Chat clusters are groupings of avatars of users who are engaged in a closed conversation. Accordingly, a request to initiate a chat cluster is received from a user. Next, the other participants of the chat cluster are identified, and a conversation area within the virtual environment is defined. The conversation area is a unseen demarcated area within which the avatars of the participants are positioned. The conversation area is generated responsive to the number of participants in the chat cluster, i.e., for two participants, the area is small, and for a cluster with many participants, the conversation area is large. Then, the avatars are oriented within the conversation toward each other. If the conversation area is a circular area, the avatars face the center of the circle. When displayed to the users of the virtual world, the avatars appear to be naturally displayed as groups of people having conversations with each other.

Abstract: A system and method for remote communication is disclosed that allows communication over a network but still provides a behavioral context within which the communication is interpreted. A visual representation of a user is provided to a recipient. A set of behavioral characteristics of the visual representation is provided to the user, the behavioral characteristics representing contexts within which data is to be interpreted. The user selects a behavioral characteristic and inputs data to be communicated to the recipient, along with any specific behavioral commands. Then, data is communicated to the recipient concurrently with a behavioral movement of the visual representation associated with the selected behavioral characteristic, wherein the behavioral movement provides context to the recipient for interpreting the communicated data. Behavioral characteristics include personality and mood intensity settings, and behavioral commands include gesture commands.

Abstract: Utterances comprising text and behavioral movement commands entered by a user are processed to identify patterns of behavioral movements executed by the user's visual representation. Once identified, the patterns are used to generate behavioral movements responsive to new utterances received from the user, without requiring the user to explicitly alter the behavioral characteristics selected by the user. An application module parses an utterance generated by a user to determine the presence of gesture commands. If a gesture command is found in an utterance, the utterance is stored for behavioral learning processing. A stored utterance is analyzed with existing stored utterances to determine if the stored utterances provide the basis for creating a new behavioral rule. Newly stored utterances are first analyzed to generate different contexts associated with the behavioral movement.

Abstract: A vehicular seat assembly includes a seat back portion which is translatable from first position wherein the lower end of the seat back is disposed proximate the back edge of a seat base member to a second position wherein the lower end of the seat back is disposed proximate the front edge of the base member. A latching and adjustment mechanism for controlling the attitude of the back with respect to the base member is also described.

Abstract: A lumbar support mechanism for inclusion within a seat back includes a fixed frame, a movable frame which is adjustably mounted to the fixed frame, and an outwardly bowed arcuate resilient lumbar support member which is adjustably mounted to the movable frame. A control box is provided for adjusting the lumbar support member in either a horizontal or vertical direction and a pair of cables interconnect the support mechanism with the control box.

Abstract: An analog-to-digital conversion system uses a fast analog-to-digital converter having a resolution less than the system resolution to convert the difference between a previously predicted value and the current analog value. The converted difference is summed with the predicted value to compute the actual value of the analog input signal to a resolution greater than that of the fast analog-to-digital converter. The high resolution digital value thus obtained becomes the predicted value for the next conversion. This predicted value is converted by a digital-to-analog converter having the same accuracy but not the same resolution as the system output to an analog signal which is compared with the input analog signal to obtain a difference signal. This difference signal is sampled and held to provide the input to the fast analog-to-digital converter.