Patents Issued in March 8, 2016
  • Patent number: 9280940
    Abstract: An LCD device includes a four-color converter for converting an original RGB data into three grayscale values, executing a white balance process to the three grayscale values, and confirming a maximum value MAX (Ri, Gi, Bi) and a minimum value of the three white-balanced grayscale values Ri, Gi, and Bi, wherein, when the minimum value is greater than 0, determining that if the three data of the original RGB data are equal, and when they are equal, utilizing a formula Wo=Bi; Ro=Ri×Wo/MAX(Ri, Gi, Bi)+Ri?Wo; Go=Gi×Wo/MAX(Ri, Gi, Bi)+Gi?Wo; Bo=0 to calculate the output grayscale values Ro, Go, Bo, and Wo in the RGBW data. The device also includes a data driver for processing the RGBW data provided by the four-color converter to generate analog type data signals, a scanning driver for sequentially generating scanning signals, and an LCD panel for displaying colors.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 1, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Shenzhen China Star Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Lixuan Chen, Chih-tsung Kang
  • Patent number: 9280941
    Abstract: A direct type liquid crystal display device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure may enhance the brightness uniformity.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: LG Display Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: TaeUk Kang, SungYong Park
  • Patent number: 9280942
    Abstract: An electro-optical device is configured to be capable of using a region of a gate line drive circuit efficiently and preventing rising speed of a gate line selection signal from decreasing (rising delay), and a shift register circuit is composed of a single conductivity type transistor which is suitable for the device. The gate line drive circuit including an odd driver to drive odd rows of a plurality of gate lines, and an even driver to drive even rows thereof. Each unit shift register in the odd and even drivers receives a selection signal in the second previous row and activates its own selection signal two horizontal periods later. A start pulse of the even driver is delayed in phase by one horizontal period with respect to a start pulse of the odd driver.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 2, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC CORPORATION
    Inventor: Youichi Tobita
  • Patent number: 9280943
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method for reducing imaging artifacts during a frame-changeover from a current frame to a following frame displayed by a display device comprising a plurality of pixels, wherein the artifacts are reduced by overdriving at least one control signal for controlling the pixel intensity of the related pixel during the frame-changeover, wherein the overdrive is carried out in dependence of the magnitude of an intensity step between a designated start intensity value of the pixel within the current frame and a designated target intensity value of the pixel within the following frame.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 13, 2009
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: BARCO, N.V.
    Inventors: Tom Kimpe, Cédric Marchessoux
  • Patent number: 9280944
    Abstract: According to an aspect, a display device includes an image display panel, data lines, and scan lines. The image display panel includes arrays of pixels including a plurality of sub-pixels. The arrays of pixels include cyclically arranged columns of first columns each of which includes first sub-pixels, second columns that include second sub-pixels, and third columns. Third sub-pixels and fourth sub-pixels are alternately arranged in the third columns in the direction along the third columns, and are alternately arranged in a direction along the row in the same row of the third columns. Each of the scan lines is coupled to either of the third sub-pixels adjacent thereto or the fourth sub-pixels adjacent thereto, as sub-pixels to be selected thereby.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 17, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Japan Display Inc.
    Inventors: Hidemasa Yamaguchi, Masaaki Kabe
  • Patent number: 9280945
    Abstract: An LCD device is disclosed which includes: a liquid crystal display panel in which there are a plurality of gate lines and a plurality of data lines; a data driver configured to apply data voltages to the data lines; a gate driver configured to apply gate pulses to the gate lines; and a charge share device configured to selectively perform a charge share operation by storing charges corresponding to a data voltage applied to one of the data lines during a first interval and providing the stored charges to said one or another one of the data lines during a second interval based on a comparison of first video data corresponding to said one of the data lines in the first interval with second video data corresponding to said one or another one of the data lines in the second interval.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 12, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: LG Display Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Dae Seok Oh, Bo Gun Seo, Yong Hwa Park
  • Patent number: 9280946
    Abstract: A driving device of a display medium, includes: an applying unit that applies a gray level adjusting voltage including unit pulses in accordance with a gray level of a pixel to the pixel of a display medium; and a control unit that controls the applying unit so that the number of unit pulses of the gray level adjusting voltage which is applied at a movement time of each of plural types of panicle groups is equal to the number of unit pulses of the gray level adjusting voltage which is applied at the movement time of a particle group having the highest threshold value among the plural types of particle groups.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 17, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: FUJI XEROX CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Yasufumi Suwabe, Masaaki Abe, Ryota Mizutani, Yoshinori Machida
  • Patent number: 9280947
    Abstract: A display device includes a display panel and a data driver. The display panel includes at least one gate line, at least two data lines, a display area including a pixel connected to the at least one gate line and the at least two data lines, and a peripheral area outside the display area, the peripheral area including a pair of fan-out wiring structures. The data driver is configured to apply data voltage to the at least two data lines. Each of the pair of fan-out wiring structures includes a bent structure, the bent structure of one of the pair of fan-out wiring structures includes the same material as the at least one gate line, and the bent structure of the remaining one of the pair of fan-out wiring structures includes the same material as the at least two data lines.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 27, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Samsung Display Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Duk-Sung Kim, Dong-Gyu Shin, Yeo Geon Yoon
  • Patent number: 9280948
    Abstract: A system on chip (SoC) includes a first display subsystem configured to perform first and second imaging functions and a second display subsystem configured to only perform the first imaging function. The SoC is configured to activate one of the display subsystems and deactivate the other display subsystem based on a comparison of a current frame of image data and a previous frame of image data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 12, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Kyoung-Man Kim, Jong-Ho Roh
  • Patent number: 9280949
    Abstract: Displaying colors in a color selection interface is disclosed. Displaying includes identifying a first plurality of colors associated with a color selection interface, mapping each color in the first plurality of colors to an allowed color in an allowed color set of one or more colors to obtain a second plurality of colors, wherein mapping is performed based at least in part on a color lookup table, and visually displaying the second plurality of colors in the color selection interface, wherein the color selection interface is configured to receive a color selection from the second plurality of colors.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 12, 2011
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Adobe Systems Incorporated
    Inventors: Robert Voliter, Teri Pettit
  • Patent number: 9280950
    Abstract: A display device includes an illumination unit that delivers a first light, a second light and a third light. The display also includes a driving circuit that supplies a pixel with a first data signal for displaying a first image by illuminating the first light, the driving circuit supplying the pixel with a second data signal for displaying a second image by illuminating the second light, the driving circuit supplying the pixel with a third data signal for displaying a third image by illuminating the third light.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 30, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION
    Inventors: Yoshio Arai, Akira Nakajima
  • Patent number: 9280951
    Abstract: A stereoscopic image display device, with which the influence of a CT-image by the 3D crosstalk is lightened so that a sense of discomfort is not felt by the observer even when the observing position of the observer is shifted, includes an image processing unit including: a relative position calculating unit which calculates a relative position of a stereoscopic display panel with respect to the observing position of the observer; an image filter value calculating unit which calculates an image filter value for adjusting an image blurring amount according to the relative position; and an image filtering processing unit which performs image filtering processing on image data according to the image filter value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 31, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: NLT TECHNOLOGIES, LTD.
    Inventors: Takefumi Hasegawa, Koji Shigemura
  • Patent number: 9280952
    Abstract: Text is extracted from a source image of a publication using an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) process. A document is generated containing text segments of the extracted text. The document includes a control module that responds to user interactions with the displayed document. Responsive to a user selection of a displayed text segment, a corresponding image segment from the source image containing the text is retrieved and rendered in place of the selected text segment. The user can select again to toggle the display back to the text segment. Each text segment can be tagged with a garbage score indicating its quality. If the garbage score of a text segment exceeds a threshold value, the corresponding image segment can be automatically displayed instead.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 10, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Viresh Ratnakar, Frances Bordwell Haugen, Ashok Popat
  • Patent number: 9280953
    Abstract: A display panel includes a plurality of rows of pixels, a gate driving circuit, and an inspection circuit. The gate driving circuit includes a plurality of gate driving units. The inspection circuit includes a plurality of transistors. Each transistor includes a first terminal, a control terminal, and a second terminal. The first terminal of the transistor is coupled to a contact pad. The control terminal of the transistor is coupled to the corresponding gate driving unit and a corresponding row of pixels. The second terminal of the transistor is coupled to the control terminal of the transistor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 13, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Chunghwa Picture Tubes, Ltd.
    Inventors: Tzu-Chiang Liao, Chih-Wen Lai
  • Patent number: 9280954
    Abstract: A display device includes: a plurality of drive electrodes; a plurality of detection electrodes intersecting the plurality of drive electrodes; and a scan driving unit performing a first scan drive and a second scan drive. The first scan drive allows a display drive signal for driving the display elements to be applied to each of the plurality of common drive electrodes, and the second scan drive allows a touch detection drive signal for detecting an external proximity object to be applied to each of the plurality of common drive electrodes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 13, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Japan Display Inc.
    Inventors: Koji Noguchi, Yoshitoshi Kida, Takayuki Nakanishi
  • Patent number: 9280955
    Abstract: In a linked waveform update mode, an impulse-driven, particle-based electrophoretic display may be updated using a first waveform and then automatically up-dated using a second drive scheme when the update using the first waveform finishes. The display may be automatically up-dated using a third drive scheme when the update using the second drive scheme finishes. The automatic updating using a subsequent drive scheme may be interrupted if the desired display states for the region changes after performing the first update. Waveforms may be selected using: (a) the desired display state of a pixel if the desired display state is a valid display state for the specified drive scheme, or (b) a mapped display state of the pixel if the desired display state is an invalid display state for the drive scheme.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 25, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventors: John Peter Van Baarsen, Yun Shon Low, Eric Jeffrey
  • Patent number: 9280956
    Abstract: Systems and methods are described including creating a mask that indicates which pixel groups do not need to be loaded from Graphics Memory (GMEM). The mask indicates a pixel group does not need to be loaded from GMEM. The systems and methods may further include rendering a tile on a screen. This may include loading the GMEM based on the indication from the mask and skipping a load from the GMEM based on the indication from the mask.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 29, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: QUALCOMM Incorporated
    Inventors: Avinash Seetharamaiah, Christopher Paul Frascati
  • Patent number: 9280957
    Abstract: A practice system for a stringed instrument is disclosed. The practice system includes a rigid body having proximal end unto which one or more tuning pegs are disposed for attaching a first end of a cord, and a distal end until which a first rigid plate is disposed having one or more apertures therein configured for attaching a second end of said cord. The practice system further includes a second rigid plate fixedly attached to said proximal end having a first slot therein, and a second slot substantially matching said first slot disposed in said first rigid plate, wherein said first and said second slots cooperate to allow said practice system to be worn on a person by passing a fastening device therethrough.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 9, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Inventor: Chad Chaves
  • Patent number: 9280958
    Abstract: An adaptor for coupling to a drum having a drum head, shell, and rim, the rim having an outer diameter and configured to interface with a ring coupled to the drum head to hold the drum head in place on the shell, includes a monolithic body having a clip portion and an interface, the clip portion configured to extend around an outer section of the rim between a top surface of the drum head and a bottom portion of the rim, the clip portion having a clip end and the ring having an outer diameter, wherein the clip end is configured to extend to a position that is inward of the outer diameter of the ring when the clip portion is coupled to the drum; and wherein a substantial portion of the interface is configured to extend radially from the rim when the clip portion is coupled to the drum.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 7, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Inventor: Keith Jones
  • Patent number: 9280959
    Abstract: The present invention is directed to an apparatus providing a removable playing surface to a percussion instrument. The apparatus includes a mount assembly for fixing the apparatus to the percussion instrument and a paddle providing a playing surface. The paddle can movable between a playing position over the head of the percussion instrument and in a non-playing position away from the head of the percussion instrument.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 3, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Inventor: David M. Coheley
  • Patent number: 9280960
    Abstract: A device is configured to display images of sheet music or electronic sheet music. The device may generate and display an index including markers, locations of markers and series of notes associated with the markers. The device may link directly to a particular image of the sheet music or a particular location in the electronic sheet music using the index. The device may identify musical symbols displayed in the sheet music and generate electronic musical symbols associated with the musical symbols. The device may modify the electronic musical symbols and display the modified electronic musical symbols superimposed over the images of sheet music. The device may generate and output audio using the electronic musical symbols. The device may detect a series of pitches and display the sheet music or electronic sheet music based on a most recent pitch in the series of pitches.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 15, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: AMAZON TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
    Inventor: Frederick Hughes Clarke
  • Patent number: 9280961
    Abstract: Apparatus for audio processing comprises: a beat tracking module for identifying beat time instants in an audio signal and a downbeat identifier for identifying downbeats occurring at beat time instants, each downbeat corresponding to the start of a musical bar or measure. A pattern identifier identifies two or more adjacent bars or measures containing musical characteristics which repeat within the audio signal, the pattern identifier being configured to: generate for each downbeat a plurality of scores using respective analysis methods for indicating different characteristics within the audio signal at the downbeat; combine the scores for each downbeat; and identify based on the combined scores non-adjacent downbeats that correspond to the start of a musical pattern.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 11, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy
    Inventors: Antti Johannes Eronen, Jussi Artturi Leppänen, Igor Danilo Diego Curcio
  • Patent number: 9280962
    Abstract: Provided is a sound preview device including, in an electronic musical instrument which includes a keyboard 2 and an operation button 1 to perform tone selection or a sound setting and in which tone selection or a sound setting corresponding to a key is performed in advance by pressing the operation button 1 while pressing one of the keys in the keyboard 2, a changed state recognizing unit 3 that recognizes from a pressed key a changed state of tone selection or a sound setting determined corresponding to the key in advance, a phrase storing unit 4 in which phrases of sounds by which an influence of the changed state is easily known are stored in plural numbers according to the changed state, and a sound emitting unit 5 that emits a phrase corresponding to the changed state.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 5, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: KAWAI MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS MANUFACTURING CO., LTD
    Inventors: Kohtaro Ilimura, Sachie Ilimura
  • Patent number: 9280963
    Abstract: A pad for generating rhythmic sound waves according to an embodiment of the present disclosure comprises: at least two first patterns configured to generate a first sound wave in response to friction; and at least two second patterns configured to generate a second sound wave in response to the friction, wherein each of the first patterns is spaced and positioned in a constant distance, the at least two second patterns are positioned between the spaced first patterns, and for each of specific directions between the spaced first patterns, the first patterns and the second patterns are spaced and positioned in a different distance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 19, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: HYUNDAI MOTOR COMPANY
    Inventors: Hui Sung Lee, Sung Min Park, Sung Jin Sah, Kwang Myung Oh
  • Patent number: 9280964
    Abstract: A method and device may color or modify the tone or sound quality of audio input signals. A processor such as a DSP, may apply two or more filters to the audio input signal, each filter comprising a set of filter coefficients. The processor may combine finite impulse response (FIR) filters of the two or more filters into a power-saving filter. A speaker or sound emitter may emitting an output audio signal from the filtered audio input signal. The output audio signal has a different tone quality than that of the input audio signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: FISHMAN TRANSDUCERS, INC.
    Inventors: Ching-Yu Lin, Lawrence Fishman
  • Patent number: 9280965
    Abstract: The invention provides a method for determining a noise reference signal for noise compensation and/or noise reduction. A first audio signal on a first signal path and a second audio signal on a second signal path are received. The first audio signal is filtered using a first adaptive filter to obtain a first filtered audio signal. The second audio signal is filtered using a second adaptive filter to obtain a second filtered audio signal. The first and the second filtered audio signal are combined to obtain the noise reference signal. The first and the second adaptive filter are adapted such as to minimize a wanted signal component in the noise reference signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 23, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS, INC.
    Inventors: Markus Buck, Tobias Wolff, Toby Christian Lawin-Ore, Samuel Ngouoko Mboungueng, Gerhard Uwe Schmidt
  • Patent number: 9280967
    Abstract: According to one embodiment, an apparatus for supporting reading of a document includes a model storage unit, a document acquisition unit, a feature information extraction, and an utterance style estimation unit. The model storage unit is configured to store a model which has trained a correspondence relationship between first feature information and an utterance style. The first feature information is extracted from a plurality of sentences in a training document. The document acquisition unit is configured to acquire a document to be read. The feature information extraction unit is configured to extract second feature information from each sentence in the document to be read. The utterance style estimation unit is configured to compare the second feature information of a plurality of sentences in the document to be read with the model, and to estimate an utterance style of the each sentence of the document to be read.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 14, 2011
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
    Inventors: Kosei Fume, Masaru Suzuki, Masahiro Morita, Kentaro Tachibana, Kouichirou Mori, Yuji Shimizu, Takehiko Kagoshima, Masatsune Tamura, Tomohiro Yamasaki
  • Patent number: 9280968
    Abstract: A system and method for processing speech includes receiving a first information stream associated with speech, the first information stream comprising micro-modulation features and receiving a second information stream associated with the speech, the second information stream comprising features. The method includes combining, via a non-linear multilayer perceptron, the first information stream and the second information stream to yield a third information stream. The system performs automatic speech recognition on the third information stream. The third information stream can also be used for training HMMs.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 4, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.
    Inventors: Enrico Luigi Bocchieri, Dimitrios Dimitriadis
  • Patent number: 9280969
    Abstract: Techniques and systems for training an acoustic model are described. In an embodiment, a technique for training an acoustic model includes dividing a corpus of training data that includes transcription errors into N parts, and on each part, decoding an utterance with an incremental acoustic model and an incremental language model to produce a decoded transcription. The technique may further include inserting silence between a pair of words into the decoded transcription and aligning an original transcription corresponding to the utterance with the decoded transcription according to time for each part. The technique may further include selecting a segment from the utterance having at least Q contiguous matching aligned words, and training the incremental acoustic model with the selected segment. The trained incremental acoustic model may then be used on a subsequent part of the training data. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 10, 2009
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC
    Inventors: Jinyu Li, Yifan Gong, Chaojun Liu, Kaisheng Yao
  • Patent number: 9280970
    Abstract: A language processing system uses a lattice parser that semantically parses a command input represented by a lattice. The parser receives a hypotheses space of outputs as encoded in a lattice. Annotations of the input are projected back into the lattice and then lattice parsing is performed to rectify with the annotations. Parsing rules are applied to path fragments in the lattice. The rules that successfully parse from the start node to the end node of the lattice are used to determine whether the command input sentence invokes a specific action, and if so, what arguments are to be passed to the invocation of the action.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 25, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Jakob D. Uszkoreit, Percy Liang, Daniel M. Bikel
  • Patent number: 9280971
    Abstract: A mobile wireless communications device may include a housing and a wireless transceiver carried by the housing. The mobile wireless communications device may also include audio transducer carried by the housing, and a controller cooperating with the wireless transceiver to perform at least one wireless communications function. The controller may also cooperate with the at least one audio transducer to convert speech input through the audio transducer to converted text, determine a proposed modification for the converted text, and output from the audio output transducer the proposed modification for the converted text.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 27, 2009
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: BlackBerry Limited
    Inventor: Jennawae McLean
  • Patent number: 9280972
    Abstract: Embodiments that relate to converting audio inputs from an environment into text are disclosed. For example, in one disclosed embodiment a speech conversion program receives audio inputs from a microphone array of a head-mounted display device. Image data is captured from the environment, and one or more possible faces are detected from image data. Eye-tracking data is used to determine a target face on which a user is focused. A beamforming technique is applied to at least a portion of the audio inputs to identify target audio inputs that are associated with the target face. The target audio inputs are converted into text that is displayed via a transparent display of the head-mounted display device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 10, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC
    Inventors: Daniel McCulloch, Abby Lin Lee, Adam Benjamin Smith-Kipnis, Jonathan William Plumb, Alexandre David, Michael O Hale, Jeff Cole, Hendrik Mark Langerak
  • Patent number: 9280973
    Abstract: In a content browsing environment, a system analyzes content to identify audio commands to be made available to users. The audio commands may be chosen so that they are easily differentiable from each other when using machine-based speech recognition techniques. When the content is displayed, the system monitors a user's speech to detect user utterances corresponding to the audio commands and performs content navigation in response to the user utterances.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 25, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Olusanya T. Soyannwo, Ramy S. Sadek, Edward Dietz Crump, Siddarth Raghunathan, Renwei Yan
  • Patent number: 9280974
    Abstract: In an audio decoding device of an embodiment, a plurality of decoding units execute different audio decoding schemes, respectively, to generate audio signals from coded sequences. An extraction unit extracts long-term encoding scheme information from a stream. The stream has a plurality of frames each including a coded sequence of an audio signal. The long-term encoding scheme information is a unit information for multiple frames and indicates that a common audio encoding scheme was used to generate coded sequences of the multiple frames. According to the extracted long-term encoding scheme information, a selection unit selects, from the plurality of decoding units, a decoding unit to be used commonly to decode the coded sequences of the multiple frames.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 12, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: NTT DOCOMO, INC.
    Inventors: Kei Kikuiri, Choong Seng Boon
  • Patent number: 9280975
    Abstract: Disclosed are a frame error concealment method and apparatus and an audio decoding method and apparatus. The frame error concealment (FEC) method includes: selecting an FEC mode based on at least one of a state of at least one frame and a phase matching flag, with regard to a time domain signal generated after time-frequency inverse transform processing; and performing corresponding time domain error concealment processing on the current frame based on the selected FEC mode, wherein the current frame is an error frame or the current frame is a normal frame when the previous frame is an error frame.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 24, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Ho-sang Sung, Nam-suk Lee
  • Patent number: 9280976
    Abstract: An apparatus comprising: a coding rate determiner configured to determine a first coding bitrate for at least one first frame audio signal multi-channel parameter and a second coding bitrate for at least one second frame audio signal multi-channel parameter, wherein the combined first and second coding bitrate is less than a bitrate limit; a channel analyser configured to determine for a first frame the at least one first frame audio signal multi-channel parameter and configured to determine for a second frame the at least one second frame audio signal multi-channel parameter; a multi-channel parameter determiner configured to generate an encoded first frame audio signal multi-channel parameter within the first coding bitrate from the at least one first frame audio signal multi-channel parameter and configured to generate an encoded at least one second frame audio signal parameter within the second coding bitrate from the at least one second frame audio signal multi-channel parameter; and a multiplexer config
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 26, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy
    Inventors: Adriana Vasilache, Lasse Juhani Laaksonen, Anssi Sakari Rämö
  • Patent number: 9280977
    Abstract: Content fingerprints and watermarks are combined in various ways for content identification applications. Fingerprints are used to identify content generally while watermarks provide more detailed localization of parts within the content, and vice versa. Fingerprint techniques are further used for signal synchronization and other pre-processing steps to assist in digital watermark decoding. A variety of fingerprint/watermark techniques identify characteristics of the channel of content from content samples.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 9, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Digimarc Corporation
    Inventor: Ravi K. Sharma
  • Patent number: 9280978
    Abstract: Disclosed is a speech receiving apparatus. A low-band PLC module and a synthesis filter reconstructs a low-band speech signal of a lost frame from a previous good frame. A high-band PLC module reconstructs a high-band speech signal of the lost frame from the previous good frame. A transforming part transforms the low-band speech signal into a frequency range. A bandwidth extending part generates at least an extended MDCT coefficient as information for the high-band speech signal from the low-band speech signal transformed by the transforming part. A smoothing part smoothes the extended MDCT coefficient. An inverse transforming part inversely transforms the extended MDCT coefficient smoothed by the smoothing part to a time domain. A synthesizing part synthesizes the low-band speech signal, and the high-band speech signal which is inverse-transformed by the inverse transforming part and reconstructed, to output a wideband speech signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 27, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology
    Inventors: Hong-Kook Kim, Nam-In Park
  • Patent number: 9280979
    Abstract: A feature transform for speech recognition is described. An input speech utterance is processed to produce a sequence of representative speech vectors. A time-synchronous speech recognition pass is performed using a decoding search to determine a recognition output corresponding to the speech input. The decoding search includes, for each speech vector after some first threshold number of speech vectors, estimating a feature transform based on the preceding speech vectors in the utterance and partial decoding results of the decoding search. The current speech vector is then adjusted based on the current feature transform, and the adjusted speech vector is used in a current frame of the decoding search.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 6, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc.
    Inventor: Daniel Willett
  • Patent number: 9280980
    Abstract: A method for encoding of an audio signal comprises performing (214) of a transform of the audio signal. An energy offset is selected (216) for each of the first subbands. An energy measure of a first reference band within a low band of an encoding of a synthesis signal is obtained (212). The first high band is encoded (220) by providing quantization indices representing a respective scalar quantization of a spectrum envelope in the first subbands of the first high band relative to the energy measure of the first reference band by use of the selected energy offset. An encoder apparatus comprises means for carrying out the steps of the method. Corresponding decoder methods and apparatuses are also described.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 9, 2011
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget L M Ericsson (publ)
    Inventors: Volodya Grancharov, Erik Norvell, Sigurdur Sverrisson
  • Patent number: 9280981
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for voice control of a mobile device are provided. The method establishes a connection between the mobile device and a voice-control module. Responsive to establishing the connection, the mobile device enters into an intermediate mode; and the voice-control module monitors for verbal input comprising a verbal command from among a set of predetermined verbal commands. The voice-control module sends instructions to the mobile device related to the verbal command received; and the mobile device acts on the received instructions. An apparatus/voice control module (VCM) for voice control of a mobile device, wherein the VCM includes a connection module configured for establishing a connection between the VCM and the mobile device; a monitoring module configured for monitoring for a verbal command from among a set of predetermined verbal commands; and a communications module configured for sending instructions to the mobile device related to the verbal command received.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 27, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: BlackBerry Limited
    Inventors: Ahmed Abdelsamie, Nicholas Shane Choo, Guowei Zhang, Omar George Joseph Barake, Steven Anthony Lill
  • Patent number: 9280982
    Abstract: A method for estimating acoustic noise in an environment where a mobile communication device is operating and where the acoustic noise includes nonstationary noise or speech-like noises, and wherein the environment also includes speech signals. The method includes searching for a local minimum energy over a plurality of frames using at least two reference signals including a first signal comprised of a time-sensitive current local minimum energy estimate, emin, and a second signal comprised of a time-weighted average of previous detected local energy minima, eminmean; and deciding whether the detected local energy minima of the second reference signal is a noise signal. Also, binning the detected input signal energy minima values within a plurality of histograms; and calculating a composite noise energy estimate comprised of a weighted sum of a maximum probability noise energy estimate and an expected value noise energy estimate. As such a nonstationary noise estimator is formed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 29, 2011
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: GOOGLE TECHNOLOGY HOLDINGS LLC
    Inventor: William M. Kushner
  • Patent number: 9280983
    Abstract: Embodiments are directed towards providing acoustic echo cancellation in a closely-coupled microphone/speaker system. A speaker may produce an audible signal from a reference signal, which may be captured with a microphone. Full band cancellation (FBC) may modify the captured signal to suppress an echo of the reference signal caused by a direct acoustic path between the microphone and speaker. FBC may include a fixed filter and an adaptive filter. The fixed filter may modify the captured signal based on the reference signal. The adaptive filter may automatically adapt based on the captured signal and the reference signal. If a comparison of a performance of the adaptive filter and the fixed filter is above a threshold, then the fixed filter may be updated based on the adaptive filter. Subband acoustic echo cancellation may generate an output signal that suppresses residual echoes of the reference signal based on the modified signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 3, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: CSR TECHNOLOGY INC.
    Inventors: Yi Zhang, Rogerio Guedes Alves
  • Patent number: 9280984
    Abstract: An embodiment of the invention provides a noise cancellation method for an electronic device. The method comprises: receiving an audio signal; applying a Fast Fourier Transform operation on the audio signal to generate a sound spectrum; acquiring a first spectrum corresponding to a noise and a second spectrum corresponding to a human voice signal from the sound spectrum; estimating a center frequency according to the first spectrum and the second spectrum; and applying a high pass filtering operation to the sound spectrum according to the center frequency.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 14, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: HTC CORPORATION
    Inventors: Lei Chen, Yu-Chieh Lai, Chun-Ren Hu, Hann-Shi Tong
  • Patent number: 9280985
    Abstract: A noise suppression apparatus selectively uses an adaptive beamformer and fixed beamformer for each frequency. A direction of a null of the fixed beamformer is determined from a direction of a null automatically formed by the adaptive beamformer. Filter coefficients of the adaptive beamformer based on an output power minimization rule are calculated by a minimum norm method using a norm of the filter coefficients as a constraint. The above selection is made based on, for example, a depth of a null automatically formed by the adaptive beamformer in the selection.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 23, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: CANON KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventor: Noriaki Tawada
  • Patent number: 9280986
    Abstract: Provided is an acoustic signal processing device for producing an output sound meeting listener's preferences by adjusting attack sound, reverberation, and noise component.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 23, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: CLARION CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Takeshi Hashimoto, Tetsuo Watanabe
  • Patent number: 9280987
    Abstract: An exemplary method for selecting data density values (e.g., bits per inch) and track density values (e.g., tracks per inch) for magnetic recording media having variable bit aspect ratios comprises obtaining a plurality of data density values and a plurality of track density values as a function of a corresponding plurality of bit error rates; determining a data density/track density correlation between the plurality of data density values and the plurality of track density values for at least one Sector Error Rate; and determining a data density capability value and a track density capability value that provides an areal density capability value that satisfies one or more predefined criteria (e.g., a substantially maximum areal density capability value) using the data density/track density correlation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 19, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Seagate Technology LLC
    Inventors: Haoji Bao, Myint Ngwe Maung, Cheun Pin Tan, Jose Mari Toribio
  • Patent number: 9280988
    Abstract: A tape head having offset transducer spans between adjacent modules of the tape head that serves to maintain the balance between debris removal and reduced magnetic layer/recording device spacing on the one hand and reduced tape/tape head friction on the other hand. In one aspect, opposite edges of each module are relatively sharper adjacent the transducer span and relatively rounded (e.g., less sharp) away from the transducer span. The sharp edges reduce magnetic spacing loss and scrape debris off of the tape while the rounded edges reduce or eliminate contact between the tape and the head in regions where no transducer spans are present and thus where no tape writing or reading would be taking place.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 4, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Oracle International Corporation
    Inventors: Anand V. Lakshmikumaran, Joseph E. Torline
  • Patent number: 9280989
    Abstract: An apparatus having at least an air bearing surface (ABS), the apparatus including a near field transducer (NFT) positioned adjacent the ABS of the apparatus, wherein the NFT includes a plasmonic material; and not greater than about 200 ppm of one or more microalloy dopants.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 21, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Seagate Technology LLC
    Inventors: Philip G. Pitcher, Sami C. Antrazi
  • Patent number: 9280990
    Abstract: A method and system provide a magnetic transducer having an air-bearing surface (ABS) location. The method includes forming a trench in the intermediate layer using a plurality of etches. A first etch substantially provides a first portion of the trench having a first sidewall angle. The second etch substantially provides a second portion of the trench having a second sidewall angle. The second sidewall angle is greater than the first sidewall angle. The second portion of the trench includes the ABS location. The method also includes providing a main pole in the trench. The main pole has a plurality of sidewalls. The sidewalls having the first sidewall angle in the first portion of the trench and the second sidewall angle in the second portion of the trench.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 28, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: Western Digital (Fremont), LLC
    Inventors: Jinqiu Zhang, Feng Liu, Hongmei Han, Ming Sun, Xiaotian Zhou