| Document | Document Title |
|---|---|
| US08990956B2 |
Systems and methods of exchanging information for a reward
Systems and methods for exchanging information for access to a computing resource are provided herein. Methods may include receiving a request to access a computing resource, the computing resource being selectively unavailable to the information provider, responsive to receiving the request, providing the information provider a problem that is to be solved by the information provider prior to making the computing resource selectively available to the information provider, wherein solving the problem elicits desired information from the information provider, and responsive to receiving the desired information, selectively making the computing resource available to the information provider. |
| US08990955B2 |
Controlling access to a shared file
A shared data store may be accessible to a plurality of electronic devices and used to share files in a collaboration setting. A shared file is shared by a first electronic device with a second device via a connection between the first electronic device and the shared data store. A coordinating electronic device associated with the shared data store monitors the connection with the first electronic device. If a loss in the connection is detected, the coordinating electronic device may cause access to the shared file to become restricted to the second electronic device responsive to the loss of the connection. |
| US08990948B2 |
Systems and methods for orchestrating runtime operational integrity
Instrumented networks and platforms having target subjects (devices, transactions, services, users, organizations) are disclosed. A security orchestration service generates runtime operational integrity profiles representing and identifying a level of threat or contextual trustworthiness, at near real time, of subjects and applications on the instrumented target platform. Systems and methods use a graphical user interface (GUI) console to orchestrate operational integrity of a platform. In an embodiment, a method presents a data center-level runtime operational integrity dashboard and remediation controls for infected systems in a display of a platform having a network trust agent, an endpoint trust agent, and a trust orchestrator. The method receives runtime integrity metrics for trust vectors and displays risk indicators based on the confidence level of received integrity metrics in the GUI. The method provides remediation controls for threat containment and risk mitigation and displays remediation status and progress results and malware analytics in the GUI. |
| US08990941B2 |
Apparatus for detecting and controlling infected mobile terminal
In a technique of isolating an infected mobile terminal, the disclosed embodiment relates to an apparatus for detecting and controlling an infected mobile terminal, in which the infected mobile terminal is detected from a communication network associated with a mobile communication network. |
| US08990940B2 |
Identifying whether an application is malicious
Identifying whether a first application is malicious. The first application can be presented for installation on a processing system. The first application can be scanned, via a static analysis implemented by a processor, to determine whether a user interface layout of the first application is suspiciously similar to a user interface layout of a second application installed on the processing system. When the user interface layout of the first application is suspiciously similar to the user interface layout of the second application installed on the processing system, an alert can be generated indicating that the first application is malicious. |
| US08990931B2 |
System-on-a-chip malicious code detection apparatus for a mobile device
System-on-chip (SoC)-based apparatus for detecting malicious code in portable terminal is provided. SoC-based apparatus includes SoC including central processing unit (CPU) configured to generally control respective units of SoC for SoC-based malicious code detection, SoC memory-based firewall configured to classify packets input from outside through network interface unit, perform filtering operation, such as allowing operation and dropping operation, on the classified packets according to a predetermined setting, and output the result of the filtering operation to an application memory or an anti-malware engine, the SoC memory-based anti-malware engine configured to detect malicious code by performing a pattern-matching operation between a code pattern in a file input from the firewall and a pattern of malicious code registered in a malware signature database (DB) of a mobile device application unit, and an SoC memory-based control module configured to control operation of the firewall and the anti-malware engine in connection with the CPU. |
| US08990929B2 |
Auditing application activities
A compiled application may be audited by analyzing the compiled application to identify methods that may be called during execution of the compiled application. The identified methods may be correlated with controllable activities, i.e., those activities facilitated by public APIs. An audit report may be used to report to a user or administrator indications that the compiled application may attempt certain activities. |
| US08990925B2 |
Security for a non-3GPP access to an evolved packet system
A home subscriber server (400) receives a request for authentication information from an authentication server (300) and transforms cryptographic keys for a user equipment (100) into access specific cryptographic keys based on an identity of an authenticator (200) controlling access from the user equipment (100) to an EPS network, and generates the authentication information including the access specific cryptographic keys and a separation indicator which is set. The user equipment (100) checks whether the separation indicator included in the authentication information is set, and if the separation indicator is set, transforms cryptographic keys into access specific cryptographic keys based on the identity of the authenticator (200), and computes a key specific to an authentication method from the access specific cryptographic keys. |
| US08990924B2 |
Multiple user accounts for managing stored information in an implantable medical device system
Techniques for managing stored information in an implantable medical device system using multiple user accounts are described. An implantable medical device system may provide a general user account and a set of authenticable user accounts. In some examples, the general user account does not require a user of a programmer in an implantable medical device system to enter user identity information to manage information stored in the implantable medical device system. The general user account may be permitted to perform a subset of actions available to an authenticable user account. In some examples, an authenticable user account may rollback changes made to the stored information by the general user account. An authenticable user account may also be able to synchronize changes made to the stored information across all or some of the user accounts. |
| US08990921B2 |
Apparatus for processing with a secure system manager
Method and apparatus for secure processing. The method includes detecting communication among secure and non-secure data entities, prohibiting execution of non-secure executable instructions on secure data entities unless the non-secure executable instructions are recorded in a permitted instruction record, and prohibiting execution of non-secure executable instructions if the non-secure executable instructions are recorded in a prohibited instruction record. The apparatus includes a processor, at least one non-secure data entity, and secure data entities including: a communication monitor adapted to detect communication among secure and non-secure data entities; a permitted instruction record; a first prohibitor adapted to prohibit execution of non-secure executable instructions on secure data entities unless the non-secure executable instructions are recorded in the permitted instruction record; a prohibited instruction record; and a second prohibitor adapted to prohibit execution of non-secure executable instructions if the non-secure executable instructions are recorded in the prohibited instruction record. |
| US08990916B2 |
System and method for supporting web authentication
A method is provided in one example embodiment and includes receiving a discover message over a network; determining that the discover message is associated with an unauthenticated client (e.g., identifying a media access control (MAC) address); communicating a proxy binding update (PBU) having a binding type value set to a temporary status; and establishing a bidirectional tunnel for transporting traffic for the client. |
| US08990913B2 |
Peer applications trust center
Concepts and technologies are disclosed herein for a peer applications trust center. A trust client can execute on a client computer and a trust service can execute on a server computer to provide the peer applications trust center. The trust client or trust server can register applications. During registration, the trust server or the trust client can generate a public key or other identifier for identifying the registered application. If another application requests access to the registered application, the trust server or the trust client can determine if the request specifies a registered application by name. If the requestor is granted access to the application, the requestor can be issued a token. Tokens can be revoked, updated, replaced, or renewed for various purposes. |
| US08990909B2 |
Out-of-band challenge question authentication
A system and method for challenge question authentication comprises determining whether a log-in attempt requires additional authentication. A user attempts to log-in using a first application and a first delivery channel. When additional authentication is required, a challenge question is communicated to the user using a second application and a second delivery channel. The challenge question is specific to the user. An answer to the challenge question is received, and the user provides the answer using the first application and the first delivery channel. The log-in attempt is completed when the answer to the challenge question is correct. |
| US08990908B1 |
Multi-domain login and messaging
A method, a computer readable medium and a system of multi-domain login and messaging are provided. The method for multi-domain login comprises inputting a local password by an agent, accessing a password vault with the local password, and retrieving at least one hidden password from the password vault, and logging the agent into at least one agent application using the at least one hidden password. The method for multi-domain messaging comprises retrieving information of an agent from a database, retrieving at least one skill group to which the agent belongs from the information, retrieving a message linked to the at least one skill group, and sending the message to the agent. |
| US08990906B2 |
Methods and systems for replacing shared secrets over networks
A method for replacing a shared secret over a network is provided that includes determining that a security breach could have occurred, determining that a shared secret of a user is to be replaced, and transmitting a renewal message to an authentication system requesting a new shared secret and an associated effective life for the user. Moreover, the method includes generating a new shared secret and an associated effective life at the authentication system for the user, and replacing the shared secret and associated effective life in an enrollment data record of the user with the new shared secret and associated effective life. Furthermore, the method includes transmitting the new shared secret and associated effective life to a communications device associated with the user, and replacing a shared secret and associated effective life stored in the communications device with the new shared secret and associated effective life. |
| US08990903B2 |
Extension point application and configuration of a login module
Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to applying application security to an extension point oriented application framework, and provide a novel and non-obvious method, system and computer program product for log-in module deployment and configuration in an extension point oriented application. In this regard, a method for log-in module deployment and configuration in an extension point oriented application can include installing a proxy to a login controller plug-in for the extension point oriented application, and proxying login module directives from an external security service to the login controller plug-in for the extension point oriented application. |
| US08990901B2 |
Systems and methods for network filtering in VPN
Described are systems and methods for managing network packet traffic between a client device and an enterprise server. A list of enterprise-authorized applications is maintained. Data packets, such as TCP and UDP data packets, communicated from applications running on the device are analyzed to determine an originating application corresponding to each packet. The originating application is compared to the list of authorized applications, and a VPN tunnel is created for the packet to access the enterprise server if the corresponding originating application is an authorized application. |
| US08990900B2 |
Authorization control
The application describes an attestation system (705, 707, 710) in a cloud computing environment. The authorization system is configured to allow a plurality of users (701a-d) and applications (702, 706, 708, 709) of the cloud computing environment to issue attestations regarding attributes of other users and applications. The authorization system is also configured to control access to said attestations and to allow a plurality of users and applications of the cloud computing environment to query the authorization system to determine whether a specified user or application has a specified attribute. Methods of controlling access to resources in a cloud computing environment and also of providing secure attestations are also described. |
| US08990899B2 |
Using a local authorization extension to provide access authorization for a module to access a computing system
Provided are a method, system, and computer program product for a local authorization extension to provide access authorization for a module to access a computing system. A memory stores information on a first validity range comprising position coordinates for a module seeking to access the computing system and a second validity range comprising position coordinates for a location authorization extension for a computing system. A determination is made of a first position signal from a first receiver of the module and of a second position signal from a second receiver of the location authorization module. Determinations are made as to whether the first position signal is within the first validity range and whether the second position signal is within the second validity range. The module is granted access to the computing system in response to determining that the first position signal is within the first validity range and the second position signal is within the second validity range. |
| US08990898B2 |
Connection leasing for hosted services
Aspects herein describe brokering hosted resources in a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) using connection leases to reduce demand on connection brokers and to allow hosted services to be maintained even in the event of a broker outage. When a client device desires to connect to a hosted resource (e.g., a hosted desktop or a hosted application), the client device may present a lease token to the session host. The lease token is a self-sustaining package of data from which a session host can determine whether the requesting client device is authorized to access one or more resources hosted by that session host. The lease token may be cryptographically signed to ensure its contents have not been altered, and further that the lease token originated from a trusted source. Lease tokens may be stored independently from a connection broker, thereby still being usable if the connection broker goes offline. |
| US08990893B2 |
Enterprise application session control and monitoring in a large distributed environment
Mechanisms are provided for performing centralized control of application sessions across a distributed computing environment comprising a plurality of application servers. A request to perform an application session control operation to control the application sessions associated with a specified user account identifier across the plurality of application servers in the distributed computing environment is received. A plurality of application instances upon which to perform the requested application session control operation are identified. An application session control request is transmitted to a plurality of session control clients associated with the application instances on the plurality of application servers of the distributed computing environment. The application session control request causes each session control client to control a user's ability to use the application sessions of application instances, associated with the session control client, that are associated with the specified user account identifier, to access the associated application instances. |
| US08990891B1 |
Provisioning layer two network access for mobile devices
In general, techniques are described for provisioning layer two access in computer networks. A network device located in a public network comprising an interface and a control unit may implement the techniques. The interface establishes a session with a mobile device. The control unit requests security state data identifying a security state of the mobile device via the established session. The interface receives a mobile device identifier and the security state data from the mobile device via the session. The mobile device identifier identifies the mobile device. The control unit publishes the security state information to a database such that the security state information is associated with the mobile device identifier. |
| US08990888B2 |
Method and apparatus for providing a one-time password
In a method for providing a one-time password for a user device belonging to a user, which password is intended to register the user device with a server, the server generates the one-time password using a cryptographic operation on the basis of a unique use identifier and transmits the password to the user device. The method provides a service provider with the possibility of tying additional conditions for registration to the one-time password and thus increases the flexibility of the service provider when configuring the services offered by the latter and increases security against manipulation. |
| US08990886B2 |
Techniques of transforming policies to enforce control in an information management system
In an information management system, policies are deployed to targets and targets can evaluate the policies whether they are connected or disconnected to the system. The policies may be transferred to the target, which may be a device or user. Relevant policies may be transferred while not relevant policies are not. The policies may have policy abstractions. |
| US08990880B2 |
Method, apparatus, and server for spreading file transfer notifications in time
The present invention relates to home devices such as set-top boxes, and more particularly to methods providing autonomous file transfers to and from such home devices. There is provided a method for spreading notifications pertaining to the completion of file transfers in time. The method is based on the concept of imposing different delay times on different devices, which delay times must be observed prior to notifying the server of a file transfer completion. |
| US08990878B2 |
Variable modulation unicast system
A system is described that consists of a variable modulation unicast system that utilizes multiple modulation schemes in a cable network for unicast applications and is capable of assigning users to different channels of differing modulation schemes in the network based on a feedback signal received in response to a transmitted probe signal. The system may also, in response to the feedback signal from a remote device in the network, assign a channel from a plurality of channels having differing carrier frequencies and modulation schemes to the remote device and may also modify the carrier frequencies of the channels. |
| US08990876B2 |
Method for receiving enhanced service and display apparatus thereof
Provided are a method of receiving an enhanced service and a video display device thereof. The method includes: receiving an audio-visual (AV) content; extracting first feature information from the received AV content; receiving a database including at least one of content information, enhanced service information, and an enhanced service, which correspond to the first feature information, from a first server by transmitting the extracted first feature information to the first server; storing the database received from the first server in a memory; extracting second feature information from the received AV content; and searching and obtaining one of content information, enhanced service information, and an enhanced service, which correspond to the extracted feature information, from the database. |
| US08990875B2 |
Internet service provider callback for satellite systems
A receiver and method for operating the same includes a memory storing purchase information therein and a communication module. A controller is in communication with the memory and the communication module. The controller determines whether an existing Internet connection is present at the communication module when the existing Internet connection is present and communicates purchase information to a service provider through the existing Internet connection. The controller determines whether a subscriber-initiated Internet connection has occurred within a mandatory callback time period, when purchase information has been communicated within the mandatory callback time period and advances the mandatory callback time period. The controller initiates the communication module to initiate a new Internet connection when there is no existing Internet connection present or no subscriber-initiated Internet connection has occurred within the mandatory callback time period. |
| US08990872B2 |
System and method for using a set-top box application to diagnose customer premises equipment
A device having a test module configured to connect with a server through a cellular telephone network and a wireless area network. The test module is also configured to initiate, in the server, a diagnostic test of an Internet Protocol television network and a set-top box device. The test module is further configured to receive information indicating problems with the Internet Protocol television network and the set-top box device, and to display the information on a display. |
| US08990870B2 |
Multi-source assisted content delivering system
While receiving content from a source via a first connection, a receiver determines the connection is interrupted, selects an alternative source, and continues to receive the content from the alternative source via a second connection. In some implementations, the alternative source may be a server. In implementations, the alternative source may be additional receivers configured in a peer-to-peer arrangement. In various implementations, after the receiver determines that the first connection is interrupted, the receiver may utilize the second connection until finished receiving the content, continue receiving the content utilizing the first connection once no longer interrupted, or determine that the second connection is interrupted and select an additional alternative source to continue receiving the content from via a third connection. In one or more implementations, various components of the broadcast system may assist the receiver in continuing to receive the content from the alternative source via the second connection. |
| US08990865B2 |
Calibration of a home entertainment system using a wireless home entertainment hub
A method of calibrating a home entertainment system containing a wireless home entertainment hub using a calibration device comprises obtaining a registration from at least one sink device in the home entertainment system. A first instruction is transmitted to the calibration device to begin receiving a calibration signal emitted from the at least one sink device, where the calibration device is a wireless device. A second instruction is transmitted to the at least one sink device to emit the calibration signal. A representation of the calibration signal emitted from the at least one sink device is received from the calibration device. The representation of the calibration signal is analyzed. One or more indications of adjustments to parameters of the sink device based on results from the analyzing is transmitted to each of the sink devices. |
| US08990858B2 |
Search-based media program guide systems and methods
An exemplary method includes receiving a program guide data search request, associating a time block with the program guide data search request, identifying a set of program guide data associated with the time block, searching the set of program guide data associated with the time block to identify at least one matching media content instance based on the program guide data search request, and generating data representative of a search-based program guide view for display in a graphical user interface, the search-based program guide view exhibiting graphical data representative of the at least one matching media content instance. In certain embodiments, the method further comprises generating a virtual search channel associated with the program guide data search request and providing graphical data representative of the virtual search channel for display in the search-based program guide view. Corresponding methods and systems are also disclosed. |
| US08990854B2 |
System and method in a television for providing user-selection of objects in a television program
A system and method in a television for providing user-selection of objects in a television program, substantially as shown in and/or described in connection with at least one of the figures, as set forth more completely in the claims. |
| US08990853B1 |
Systems and methods for determining a time period remaining until a live production system changes states
Disclosed herein are systems and methods for determining a time period remaining until a live production system changes states. An example method involves accessing a stored television-broadcasting traffic log; making a first determination that a log-entry A in the traffic log does not correspond to a live-production source; making a second determination that a log-entry B in the traffic log is the next log entry after the log-entry A to correspond to a live-production source; making a third determination that the log-entry B includes a start-time B; responsive to making the first, second, and third determinations, proximate a current time that is on or after a start-time A corresponding to the log-entry A and that is before the start-time B, determining a time period as a difference between the current time and the start-time B; and providing the determined time-period to an output device for presentation proximate the current time. |
| US08990852B2 |
Meta channel media system control and advertisement technology
Media system control technology, in which an advertisement on a selected content channel being experienced by a user using a media system is detected, advertisement preferences of the user are accessed from electronic storage, and secondary content is selected based on the accessed advertisement preferences of the user. The secondary content is substituted for the advertisement on the selected content channel, and the media system is controlled to output the secondary content instead of the advertisement. |
| US08990850B2 |
Personalized broadcast system
A system and method for providing personal broadcast channels are provided. In one embodiment, one or more users interact with a local broadcast agent hosted by a local server to define profiles for a number of personal broadcast channels. The profiles include information identifying types of content to be broadcast on the personal broadcast channels and optionally formats for the personal broadcast channels. Based on the profiles for the personal broadcast channels, the local broadcast agent generates a request for content types desired for the personal broadcast channels and provides the request to a content distribution agent hosted by a master server. Based on content provided to the local server in response to the request and the profiles of the personal broadcast channels, the local broadcast agent generates the local broadcast channels. |
| US08990848B2 |
System and method for temporally adaptive media playback
Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and computer readable-media for temporally adaptive media playback. The method for adaptive media playback includes estimating or determining an amount of time between a first event and a second event, selecting media content to fill the estimated amount of time between the first event and the second event, and playing the selected media content possibly at a reasonably different speed to fit the time interval. One embodiment includes events that are destination-based or temporal-based. Another embodiment includes adding, removing, speeding up, or slowing down selected media content in order to fit the estimated amount of time between the first event and the second event or to modify the selected media content to adjust to an updated estimated amount of time. Another embodiment bases selected media content on a user or group profile. |
| US08990847B2 |
Method, computer program product, and apparatus for delivering information and commands regarding a media program
A method, a computer program product, and apparatus are provided for delivering information and commands regarding a media program. An advertisement is provided that allows a user to request more information about the media program by clicking on or otherwise selecting the advertisement. The information may be based on the identity of the user. The information may include programming guide information regarding the media program that is available to an associated set top box of the user. The user may also be able to send commands, such as record the media program or set up a reminder about the media program, through a DVR scheduling facility to the set top box. The set top box may be able to send an acceptance of the command or a notice of conflict to the user through the DVR scheduling facility. |
| US08990844B2 |
Method and apparatus for processing digital service signals
An apparatus for processing digital service signals includes a receiving module configured to receive contents having watermarks, where the watermarks are inserted in audio or video frames of the contents, the watermarks carry channel information related to the contents, and content information having URL information for additional data of the contents. An extracting module is configured to extract the watermarks from the audio or video frames, and an obtaining module is configured to obtain the additional data over an IP(Internet Protocol) network using the extracted watermarks. |
| US08990843B2 |
Eye tracking based defocusing
Described herein are techniques and mechanisms for eye tracking based defocusing. According to various embodiments, video content may be transmitted from a server for presentation at a remote computing device in communication with the server via a network. Eye tracking information identified via an optical sensor at the client machine may be received from the remote computing device. The eye tracking information may describe a state of one or both eyes of an individual located proximate to the remote computing device. A first portion of the video content on which the eyes are more focused relative to a second portion of the video content may be identified. The video content may be updated based on the received eye tracking information. The second portion of the video content may be defocused relative to the first portion of the video content in the updated video content. |
| US08990841B2 |
Optical disc drive
Provided is an optical disc drive including a tray disposed in a case of the optical disc drive. The tray includes a guide fixed to the case, and a rail connected with the tray. The guide guides the rail as the tray is moved in and out of the optical disc drive. The rail further includes a supporter that is configured to stably support the rail with respect to the guide to prevent derailment of the rail from the guide. |
| US08990840B2 |
Methods and reconfigurable systems to incorporate customized executable code within a condition based health maintenance system without recompiling base code
A system for reconfiguring a node of a complex system health monitoring system without recompiling and relinking executable code is provided. The system includes a software module containing previously compiled instructions to perform one of a plurality of different standardized functions and a computing node comprising a processor and plurality of software objects, the processor configured to execute the previously compiled instructions. The system further includes a configuration file configured to provide static and dynamic data to the software module, the configuration file comprising a dynamic data store (DDS), a static data store (SDS) and a binary code database (BCD). The BCD comprises a library of externally compiled executable algorithms that are callable by the software module. The BCD being configured with database identification and retrieval data structures associated with library of externally compiled executable algorithms. |
| US08990836B2 |
Integrating software solution units
In one embodiment, a proxy transactional context corresponding to a transactional context of a first software solution unit is generated. Further, a business object of a second software solution unit corresponding to the proxy transactional context is retrieved. Furthermore, the assignment of the retrieved business object to a business object of the first software solution unit is defined and the defined assignment is stored in the proxy data object. The proxy transactional context may be accessed using a remote function call and upon executing the proxy transactional context, the program returns to the transactional context. Thereby, the first software solution unit is integrated with the second software solution unit without disrupting the transactional context of the first software solution unit. |
| US08990834B2 |
Managing healthcare information in a distributed system
A system and method for managing healthcare information is disclosed. The data servers each include a data manager that comprises a controller, a grid engine, applications, an application manager and a user interface engine. The controller manages the core functions and the transmission of data between data manager components. The grid engine manages information sent between data servers. The applications are applications that are created by the user or downloaded as third-party applications. The application manager manages the creation and communication between applications. The user interface engine generates user interfaces for displaying the applications and collecting clinical trial data. |
| US08990829B2 |
Optimizing virtual machine synchronization for application software
Real-time application metrics of an application executed by a virtual machine are dynamically monitored by a controlling agent and analyzed to determine an optimal configuration of the virtual machine for executing the application. Based on the measured metrics, tunable parameters of the virtual machine may be adjusted to achieve desired application performance. |
| US08990826B2 |
System and method for receiving analysis requests and configuring analytics systems
A method for analyzing data is disclosed that includes receiving an analysis request to analyze selected data corresponding to one or more monitored assets, wherein the analysis request includes one or more parameters corresponding to performance categories of computing resources for processing the analysis request; determining a computing resource allocation plan for processing the analysis request based on the one or more parameters; and processing the analysis request using the determined computing resource allocation plan to provide analysis results. Also disclosed is an analytic router that includes a mapper, an estimator, an optimizer, and a resource provisioner. |
| US08990820B2 |
Runtime task with inherited dependencies for batch processing
A batch job processing architecture that dynamically creates runtime tasks for batch job execution and to optimize parallelism. The task creation can be based on the amount of processing power available locally or across batch servers. The work can be allocated across multiple threads in multiple batch server instances as there are available. A master task splits the items to be processed into smaller parts and creates a runtime task for each. The batch server picks up and executes as many runtime tasks as the server is configured to handle. The runtime tasks can be run in parallel to maximize hardware utilization. Scalability is provided by splitting runtime task execution across available batch server instances, and also across machines. During runtime task creation, all dependency and batch group information is propagated from the master task to all runtime tasks. Dependencies and batch group configuration are honored by the batch engine. |
| US08990818B2 |
Multiple top level user interface displays
When a program invokes a synchronous user interface display, it is determined whether an asynchronous user interface (UI) display needs to be generated. If so, the user interface thread invoked by the synchronous program is blocked and the asynchronous UI display is generated and displayed so that it covers the synchronous display on the UI display screen. When the processing corresponding to the synchronous user interface display is complete, processing returns to the synchronous user interface display and the user interface thread invoked by the synchronous program is unblocked. |
| US08990816B2 |
Providing logical partions with hardware-thread specific information reflective of exclusive use of a processor core
Techniques for simulating exclusive use of a processor core amongst multiple logical partitions (LPARs) include providing hardware thread-dependent status information in response to access requests by the LPARs that is reflective of exclusive use of the processor by the LPAR accessing the hardware thread-dependent information. The information returned in response to the access requests is transformed if the requestor is a program executing at a privilege level lower than the hypervisor privilege level, so that each logical partition views the processor as though it has exclusive use of the processor. The techniques may be implemented by a logical circuit block within the processor core that transforms the hardware thread-specific information to a logical representation of the hardware thread-specific information or the transformation may be performed by program instructions of an interrupt handler that traps access to the physical register containing the information. |
| US08990813B2 |
Automated virtual machine image deployment and testing by accessing downloadable test packages and dynamically-changing test parameters
A mechanism for utilizing a virtual machine cloud for automated test system deployment is disclosed. A method of embodiments of the invention includes selecting a master image used to initialize one or more virtual machines (VMs), providing a list of repository definitions and test packages to the one or more VMs, and receiving test results from executing the test packages on a computer system of the VM defined by the master image, wherein the computer system includes an operating system and one or more software applications. |
| US08990812B2 |
Task decomposition with throttled message processing in a heterogeneous environment
Tasks for a business process can be decomposed into subtasks represented by messages. Message processing can be throttled in a heterogeneous environment. For example, message processing at subtask nodes can be individually throttled at the node level by controlling the number of instances of subtask processors for the subtask node. An infrastructure built with framework components can be used for a variety of business process tasks, separating business logic from the framework logic. Thus, intelligent scalability across platform types can be provided for large scale business processes with reduced development time and resources. |
| US08990809B1 |
Creating a virtual appliance using existing installation manifest
Technology is disclosed for generating a virtual appliance (“vApp”) for an application using an existing installation manifest of the application. The installation manifest can be part of a traditional installation package that is used to install the application on a computer system. The installation manifest contains configuration information for installing the application using the installation package. A vApp builder analyzes the installation manifest to identify and/or determine various configuration information of the application that may be required to generate the vApp. The configuration information can include information regarding the application components of the application, packages/dependencies on which the execution of the application components depend, an operating system on which the application components and/or their packages execute. The vApp builder generates the vApp using the information obtained from the installation manifest. The vApp can be executed as a virtual machine on a host computer system with a supporting hypervisor. |
| US08990807B2 |
Virtual instance reconfiguration
In a virtual computing environment allocating instantiations of computing resources based on a computing metric of a primary application for execution on the instantiated computing resources, an instance manager increases allocated computing resources in response to a performance shortfall. The virtual computing environment executes virtualization instances of computing systems as an autonomous computing entity in a physical environment shared with other virtualization instances. Each virtualization instance has a configuration including a processor type and quantity, memory, and mass storage (i.e. disk) allocation. Further, each virtualization instance has a performance capacity (capacity) based on a performance metric for identifying throughput in terms of a target application that the virtualization instance was designated to support. The instance manager performs a substantially real-time reconfiguration response based on an impact analysis that configures additional computing resources (virtualization instances) based on an actual, not computed or projected, demand. |
| US08990805B2 |
Method of dynamic resource allocation for a virtual machine cluster
A method of dynamic resource allocation for a virtual machine cluster is to calculate the resource usage weight of the respective virtual machine, the resource usage weight of the respective physical machine, and the average resource usage weight of the physical machines, to pick the physical machine with the greatest resource usage weight as the migration source machine, to pick the physical machine with the least resource usage weight as the migration object machine, and to move the virtual machine in the migration source machine with the resource usage weight thereof being closest to the migration difference value to the migration object machine to achieve the effect of load balancing. |
| US08990798B2 |
Software appliance installation systems and methods
Systems and methods of installing a software appliance via a computer network are shown and described. Such a method may include detaching, by at least one processing circuit, the software appliance from an operating system of a computing device. The method may further include establishing a network connection with a virtual server in a cloud computer system. The method may also include attaching the software appliance to an operating system of the virtual server of the cloud computer system. |
| US08990796B2 |
Method of automated operating system deployment for a network of multiple data processors
A method of deploying a new operating system on a plurality of data processors. Hardware and driver information is determined from the data processors. A general disk image for all of the data processors is prepared in a preinstallation environment. Hardware and software components for a specific target data processor are added to or associated with the preinstallation environment to create an installation operating system for that data processor. The components of the installation operating system are installed on the target data processor, thereby replacing the data processor's operating system with the new operating system of the preinstallation environment. |
| US08990794B2 |
Porting virtual images between platforms
In an embodiment, an approach is provided that differences a source topology model associated with a source platform and a target topology model associated with a target platform. This differencing is performed by a processor and results in a topology difference. An operation in a workflow model is obtained from an asset library, the operation being associated with the topology difference. At least a portion of the asset library is stored in a persistent storage medium. The operation to deploy a portion of a solution is transmitted for deployment. The deployed portion of the solution includes a target image compatible with the target platform. |
| US08990793B1 |
Updating an operating system
Systems and methods for updating operating system software are provided. In some aspects, an update for an operating system of a computing device is received, at a first time, at the computing device. A pre-reboot state of the computing device is stored at a second time. The pre-reboot state includes login information for logging into the computing device as a specified user of the computing device, the specified user of the computing device being logged into the computing device at the second time. The computing device is rebooted. Prior to or during rebooting of the computing device, the operating system of the computing device is updated according to the received update. After rebooting the computing device, user access is provided to the updated operating system according to the stored pre-reboot state of the computing device. |
| US08990792B2 |
Method for constructing dynamic call graph of application
A method of generating a dynamic call graph of an application is disclosed. The method includes collecting information on what program code pages are accessed during each sampling period, defining parts of an executable program code which are accessible during each sampling period according to the collected information, defining a set of functions within the defined parts of the executable program code, generating dynamic call graphs using the defined set of functions for each sampling period, and generating dynamic call graphs for an observation period by combining accurate dynamic call graphs of each sampling period. |
| US08990791B2 |
Intraprocedural privatization for shared array references within partitioned global address space (PGAS) languages
Partitioned global address space (PGAS) programming language source code is retrieved by an executed PGAS compiler. At least one shared memory array access indexed by an affine expression that includes a distinct thread identifier that is constant and different for each of a group of program execution threads targeted to execute the PGAS source code is identified within the PGAS source code. It is determined whether the at least one shared memory array access results in a local shared memory access by all of the group of program execution threads for all references to the at least one shared memory array access during execution of a compiled executable of the PGAS source code. A direct memory access executable code is generated for each shared memory array access determined to result in the local shared memory access by all of the group of program execution threads. |
| US08990790B2 |
Java native interface array handling in a distributed java virtual machine
A method for executing native code in a distributed Java Virtual Machine (JVM) is disclosed herein. The method may include receiving, in a first thread executing in a remote execution container, a first native code-generated call, such as a Java Native Interface (JNI) call, to a second thread, the first call including a first array write request. The first call may be stored in an instruction cache and bundled with a second native code-generated call and sent to the second thread. The calls are unbundled and executed in the second thread. An opaque handle to an array returned by the second call is bundled with corresponding array data and returned to the first thread. The array data of the bundle is stored in a data cache and retrieved in response to requests for the array data addressed to the second thread. A corresponding computer program product is also disclosed. |
| US08990789B2 |
Optimizing intermediate representation of script code by eliminating redundant reference count operations
Disclosed here are methods, systems, paradigms and structures for optimizing generation of intermediate representation (IR) for a script code by eliminating redundant object reference count operations from the IR. An IR of the script includes (a) a set of first code that increments a reference count of an object when a programming construct refers to the object, and (b) an associated set of second code which decrements the reference count of the object when a reference to the object is removed. The IR is analyzed to identify a subset of the set of second code which, upon execution, does not decrement the reference count of the object to a zero value. The subset of second code and the first code corresponding to the subset is removed from the IR to generate an optimized IR. The optimized IR is further converted to an executable code. |
| US08990788B2 |
Compilation of code in a data center
Technologies are generally described for a system, method and data center effective to execute a code. In an example, a method may include receiving, by a first processor, a first code from a second processor. The method may further include compiling the first code for first and second hardware stacks to produce first and second executable codes. The second hardware stack may be different from the first hardware stack. The method may include generating a reference to the first executable code and the second executable code and storing the reference. The method may further include receiving, by a third processor, an instance and a request to execute the instance. The method may further include executing the first executable code by the first hardware stack. |
| US08990783B1 |
Scheduling generated code based on target characteristics
Embodiments can include computer-implemented methods or non-transitory computer readable media storing executable instructions. The method or instructions can perform execution scheduling for code generated from an executable graphical model, where the generated code is executed on a target. The method/instructions can perform execution scheduling for a first code portion having a first execution rate, and a second code portion having a second execution rate that is temporally related to the first execution rate. The execution scheduling can account for target environment characteristics obtained from a target, can use an execution schedule, and can account for optimizations related to the first code portion or the second code portion. The method/instructions can further schedule execution of the first code portion and the second code portion in generated executable code based on the performing. |
| US08990782B2 |
Instrumentation of software applications for configuration thereof
A solution is proposed for instrumenting a software application for configuration thereof. A corresponding method includes scanning a source code of the software application for detecting an indication of a set of configuration parameters each one being identified by a pre-defined non-executable statement, creating a set of instances of a pre-defined configuration object each one mapping a corresponding one of the configuration parameters, the configuration object being designed to manage the corresponding configuration parameter, and creating a set of configuration interfaces for editing the configuration parameters, the configuration interfaces being operable to interact with each instance of the configuration object to get and set the corresponding configuration parameter. |
| US08990781B2 |
Synchronization point visualization for modified program source code
Visualization of synchronization points in modified program source code includes identifying the synchronization points in a program source code segment. The identification is performed in response to a modification of the program source code segment. The visualization of the synchronization points also includes storing line numbers of the synchronization points and line contents corresponding to text located at stored line numbers in the program source code segment. The visualization of the synchronization points further includes implementing, as part of a debugging session: retrieving the synchronization points and the line contents, displaying the line contents of the synchronization points on a display screen, and providing a user with an option to step through the synchronization points in the program source code while skipping the remaining portions of the program source code segment. Displaying the line contents includes visually differentiating the synchronization points from remaining portions of the program source code segment. |
| US08990777B2 |
Interactive graph for navigating and monitoring execution of application code
Code elements may be selected from a graph depicting an application. The graph may show code elements as nodes, with edges representing connections between the nodes. The connections may be messages passed between code elements, code flow relationships, or other relationships. When a code element or group of code elements are selected from the graph, the corresponding source code may be displayed. The code may be displayed in a code editor or other mechanism by which the code may be viewed, edited, and manipulated. |
| US08990772B2 |
Dynamically recommending changes to an association between an operating system image and an update group
Dynamically recommending changes to an association between an operating system image and an update group includes monitoring a configuration of a deployed copy of a first master operating system (OS) image; detecting a modification in the configuration of the deployed copy; determining that the configuration of the deployed copy with the modification more closely matches a configuration of a second master OS image than a configuration of the first master OS image; in response to determining that the configuration of the deployed copy with the modification more closely matches the configuration of the second master OS image, generating an association recommendation that recommends associating the deployed copy with a second update group of the second master OS image; and associating the deployed copy with the second update group of the second master OS image instead of the first update group of the first master OS image. |
| US08990770B2 |
Systems and methods to configure condition based health maintenance systems
Methods and reconfigurable systems are provided for monitoring the health of a complex system. The system may include, but is not limited to a computing node including a memory and a processor. The processor can be configured to receive a plurality of standardized executable application modules, each standardized executable application module containing instructions to perform one of a plurality of different standardized functions, receive a binary file comprising instructions, which when loaded into memory by the processor, configure the standardized executable application modules and configure the memory by creating at least one data structure in the memory used by at least one of the plurality of standardized executable application modules. |
| US08990766B2 |
Construction of object-oriented programming (OOP) patterns by behavior delegation
Object-oriented programming (OOP) design patterns are constructed at least partially by delegating their behaviors to preconstructed OOP patterns to implement the behaviors. A new OOP pattern having one or more behaviors is defined. Each of at least one of the behaviors is delegated to a preconstructed OOP pattern, the preconstructed OOP pattern therefore implementing the behavior. The new OOP pattern is thus constructed at least partially by delegating at least one of its behaviors to the preconstructed OOP patterns. Delegating a behavior to one of the preconstructed OOP patterns can be accomplished within a graphical user interface (GUI). Graphical representations of the new OOP pattern and of the preconstructed OOP patterns are displayed. Dragging the graphical representation of a selected preconstructed OOP pattern onto the graphical representation of the new OOP pattern causes a behavior of the new OOP pattern to be delegated to the selected preconstructed OOP pattern. |
| US08990763B2 |
User experience maturity level assessment
The present subject matter provides a system and a method for assessing user experience maturity (UXM) level for a software product. The method includes defining a set of hierarchical UXM levels that may be associated with one or more user experience (UX) parameters. Each of the one or more UX parameters may be assigned a weight based on relevance of the each of the one or more UX parameters. In addition, the method may include determining ratings for the each of the one or more UX parameters and evaluating a UXM score of the software product based on the ratings. Moreover, the method may include categorizing the software product in one of the hierarchical UXM levels based on the UXM score of the software product. The software product may be categorized if the UXM score is greater than a pre-defined threshold value for that hierarchical UXM level. |
| US08990757B2 |
Dedicated interface architecture for a hybrid integrated circuit
An interface design for a hybrid IC that utilizes dedicated interface tracks to allow signals to interface distributively with the logic blocks of the FPGA portion providing for faster and more efficient communication between the FPGA and ASIC portions of the hybrid IC. |
| US08990754B2 |
Optimizing application specific integrated circuit pinouts for high density interconnect printed circuit boards
Techniques for optimizing application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and other IC pin assignment corresponding to a high density interconnect (HDI) printed circuit board (PCB) layout are provided. Applying the techniques described herein, pin assignments may be systematically and strategically planned, for example, in an effort to reduce the PCB layer count and associated cost, increase signal integrity and speed, reduce the surface area used by an ASIC and its support circuitry, reduce plane perforations, and reduce via crosstalk when compared to conventional designs with an ASIC mounted on a multilayered PCB. |
| US08990749B2 |
Method and apparatus for optimizing memory-built-in-self test
Testing of memories is done using an optimized memory built-in-self-test (MBIST) approach, including the generation of compact models for memory. Cost functions are constructed from estimated parameters affecting MBIST, and a user is able to assign relative weights to the parameters. Estimated parameters include MBIST area, wiring congestion, and timing overhead, as well as power consumption and timing. The cost functions are minimized using optimization techniques, resulting in an optimized grouping of memory devices and an optimized schedule for MBIST testing. The estimated parameters may be derived from a compact model constructed from data experimentally-derived from various memory devices. This approach allows a circuit designer to generate and revise groupings and schedules prior to running a full design flow, saving time and cost, while still achieving high-quality results. |
| US08990748B1 |
Timing in a circuit design having finite state machines
In one approach for improving timing in an electronic circuit design having a finite state machine (FSM), control bit logic is generated based on next state logic of the FSM that generates current state bits of the FSM. The control bit logic and a control state bit are added to operate in parallel with the next state logic and the current state bit registers, and the output signal from the control bit register replaces selected logic in logic downstream from the FSM and current state bit registers. If a worst case delay is improved with the design having the control bit logic and control state bit, the modified circuit design is saved for evaluating other possible timing improvements. Otherwise, the modification is discarded. |
| US08990739B2 |
Model-based retiming with functional equivalence constraints
A system and method tests for functional equivalence prior to automatically retiming a high-level specification. An Intermediate Representation (IR) includes one or more graphs or trees based on the high-level specification. A functional equivalence (FE) analyzer determines whether one or more components in the graph meet certain value and state conditions and thus is a candidate for retiming. A bounded scheduler then retimes only those components that pass the FE analysis. |
| US08990737B2 |
Image preview
A method, apparatus, and system are provided for displaying a graphical representation of at least a portion of a file by interfacing with a graphical interface relating to the file. A request for viewing a file content is received. A window for viewing a graphical representation of at least a portion of the content of a file is provided. |
| US08990733B2 |
Application-launching interface for multiple modes
This document describes techniques and apparatuses enabling an application-launching interface for multiple modes. This interface enables a user to quickly and easily select to launch applications associated with different modes. A user may avoid wading through multiple interfaces, making multiple selections, and/or a cognitive load associated with deciding on a mode with which to interact. |
| US08990724B2 |
Information processing apparatus, control method therefor, and storage medium
This invention provides an information processing apparatus which obtains screen information via a network from an external apparatus and displays an operation screen based on information registered in association with a specific application, when a predetermined key is operated while the specific application is in progress. To accomplish this, an MFP obtains screen information from a Web server based on URL information registered in association with a Web application, and displays the initial screen of the Web application, when a reset key is pressed while the Web application is in progress. |
| US08990723B1 |
System, method, and computer program product for managing a plurality of applications via a single interface
A system, method and computer program product are provided for managing a plurality of applications via a single interface. It is initially identified as to which of a plurality of applications are installed on a computer. A status of each of the applications is then presented via a single graphical user interface. |
| US08990721B2 |
Mobile terminal and method of controlling the same
A mobile terminal includes a display, a communication unit receiving, from other electronic devices, information related to contents being executed at the other electronic devices, and a controller controlling displaying of widgets individually corresponding to a respective one of the electronic devices on the display. Each of the widgets displayed on the display of the mobile terminal represents information relating to contents that is being executed at a corresponding one of the other electronic devices. |
| US08990713B2 |
Unified desktop triad control user interface for an application manager
Methods and devices for selectively presenting a user interface or “desktop” across two devices are provided. More particularly, a unified desktop is presented across a device and a computer system that comprise a unified system. The unified desktop acts as a single user interface that presents data and receives user interaction in a seamless environment that emulates a personal computing environment. To function within the personal computing environment, the unified desktop includes a process for docking and undocking the device with the computer system. The unified desktop presents a new user interface to allow access to functions of the unified desktop. |
| US08990711B2 |
Minimizing and maximizing between portrait dual display and portrait single display
Methods and devices for minimizing and maximizing displayed output associated with applications are provided. More particularly, an application presented as two or more pages in a portrait mode can be minimized to present one of the two or more pages following a minimization operation. The page that continues to be displayed can comprise a primary or preferred page, while the page that is dismissed can comprise a secondary or ancillary page. With respect to a maximization operation received with respect to a page of an application results in the display of an additional page associated with that application. Maximization can include controlling the respective screens on which first and second pages of the maximized application are displayed. |
| US08990707B2 |
System and method for group control in a metaverse application
A metaverse system and method for allowing a user to control a group of avatars in a metaverse application. The metaverse system includes a client computer, a metaverse server, and a group link engine. The metaverse server hosts a metaverse application over a network. The client computer interfaces with the metaverse application. The group link engine opens a group link connection. A linked group associated with the group link connection includes at least two linked users. At least one user is designated as a leader of the linked group. The group link engine includes a group link controller to allow the leader to control an action of an avatar of at least one other user. |
| US08990703B2 |
Smart-remote protocol
A remote menu control function mapping set including user interface control commands that control operation of a second device is obtained at a first device from the second device. The user interface control commands are encoded using a shared cross-communication library that defines a user interface sharing protocol. A menu that maps the encoded user interface control commands to menu items using the shared cross-communication library is generated. The generated menu is displayed on a display of the first device. A selection of a menu item from the displayed menu is detected. An encoded user interface control command that is mapped to the selected menu item is sent to the second device. This abstract is not to be considered limiting, since other embodiments may deviate from the features described in this abstract. |
| US08990701B2 |
Gathering and organizing content distributed via social media
The present disclosure relates to a method for gathering and organizing media content in a social media is provided. The method initiates with providing a stream of postings of media content for a user account and receiving, from the user account, selection of media content provided within the stream. The selected media content is moved from the stream to a playlist interface. The selected media content is organized within the playlist interface into categories based on content type to generate a playlist for the user account. The organized playlist of the selected media content is provided for rendering at a display device that is used for accessing the user account. |
| US08990700B2 |
Rating and review interface
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for receiving a search query for ratable entities, identifying at least one ratable entity responsive to the search query, and sending a webpage to a client device, the webpage including instructions that cause the client device to display one of a plurality of interfaces of a rating card for the at least one ratable entity, including instructions to initially display a first interface having a first graphical user interface (GUI) element for receiving a rating input, and instructions to display a second interface having a second GUI element upon receiving input in the first GUI element of the first interface. |
| US08990699B2 |
Unified workspace for thin, remote, and SaaS applications
Application-manager software authenticates a user of a client device over a channel. The authentication operation is performed using a directory service. The application-manager software presents a plurality of applications in a GUI displayed by the client device. The plurality of applications depends on the authentication, the client device, and the channel. And the plurality of applications includes a thin application and a software-as-a-service (SaaS) application. The application-manager software receives a selection as to an application from the user. If the selection is for the SaaS application, the application-manager software provisions the SaaS application. The provision includes automatically logging the user onto an account with a provider of the SaaS application using a single sign-on and connecting the user to the account so that the user can interact with the SaaS application. If the selection is for the thin application, the application manager software launches the thin application. |
| US08990694B2 |
Method for representing animated menu buttons
Optical storage media often contain data structures for a menu suitable for selection of a title, a chapter, a parameter or others. Such menus usually comprise a number of buttons to be displayed, with each button having a state. Possible states of buttons are “unselected”, “selected” or “activated”. According to the invention, the representation of a menu button may vary, depending on its state. An image or an image sequence, e.g. cartoon, may be associated to a buttons state, providing user animation. Further, a sound or sound sequence, e.g. melody or click, may be associated to a buttons state, and may be played back when the button enters this state. A data structure is disclosed which allows storage of such menu data e.g. on a Blu-ray disc. |
| US08990693B2 |
System and method for distributed media personalization
A method of generating edited video, the method comprises receiving, at a server, an unedited video from a user device; receiving, at the server, user input indicating one or more effects to apply to the unedited video from the user device; generating, at the server, a plurality of intermediate representations of the unedited video; and generating, at the server, an edited video based on, at least in part on the unedited video, the user input, and one of the plurality of intermediate representations. |
| US08990691B2 |
Video object behavior in a user interface
In one embodiment, presenting a video in a user interface in a first presentation mode of a plurality of presentation modes, each presentation mode has a specific size for presenting a visual portion of the video and a specific volume for presenting an audio portion of the video; and in response to a user interaction with the video in the first presentation mode, transitioning the video to a second presentation mode, comprising: changing the visual portion of the video from a first size of the first presentation mode to a second size of the second presentation mode; and changing the audio portion of the video from a first volume of the first presentation mode to a second volume of the second presentation mode. |
| US08990686B2 |
Visual navigation of documents by object
A navigable view of objects (e.g. charts, tables, graphs, data sources, individual sheets of a workbook, . . .) that are obtained from one or more electronic object sources are displayed as graphical objects. The objects may be automatically/manually organized within the navigable display (e.g. by type, by sheet, by relationship, by data source, . . .). A user may navigate through the displayed objects. For example, a user may zoom in on an object to see a full screen version of the object. When zoomed in on an object, the navigable display may be panned (e.g. left, right, up or down) to see adjacent objects. From one object, the user may explore related elements using the same shared data (e.g. exploring a table object also shows a data source element). A user may also perform supported operations on the objects (e.g. sort/filter/drill down/drill up) that affect a display of the related objects. |
| US08990682B1 |
Methods and devices for rendering interactions between virtual and physical objects on a substantially transparent display
Disclosed are methods and devices for rendering interactions between virtual and physical objects on a substantially transparent display are disclosed. In one embodiment, the method includes displaying a user-interface on a substantially transparent display of a wearable computing device. The method further includes displaying a virtual object in the view region at a focal length along a first line of sight and detecting a physical object at a physical distance along a second line of sight. The method still further includes determining that a relationship between the focal length and the physical distance is such that the virtual object and the physical object appear substantially co-located in a user-view through the view region and, responsive to the determination, initiating a collision action between the virtual object and the physical object. |
| US08990677B2 |
System and methodology for collaboration utilizing combined display with evolving common shared underlying image
A system and methodology for collaborating. The system as illustrated is comprised of at least two computing appliances, each of the computing appliances for use by a respective user. Each of the computing appliances is comprised of a processor, memory, communications interface, input apparatus, and display apparatus. Each said display apparatus provides a respective display presentation of a common shared underlying image. The respective input apparatus is responsive to input by the respective user to provide annotation data representative of a display image of annotations associated with the respective user. Thereafter, a respective user at each of the at least two of the computing appliances provides a combined display presentation comprised of a combination of the display image of the annotations associated with the respective user, shown as comprised of the display image of the annotations for the at least one of the respective users, which are aligned to and overlaid atop of the common shared underlying image in the combined display presentation. In one embodiment, the system is further comprised of communications apparatus providing voice (and/or video) communications between said respective users at least two of said respective computing appliances while also providing the display presentation at said at least two computing appliances. In an alternate embodiment, the display presentation starts as displaying only the base core image, and evolves at each subsequent finite point in time to provide a display presentation of an evolved combined image at each said subsequent finite point in time. |
| US08990673B2 |
System and method for providing digital content
A system and method for disseminating digital content, including receiving a video stream having embedded time code markers, copying the video stream, distributing a first copy to a player with a desired delay, distributing a second copy for association of content, and associating content with the second copy during the delay for playing of the first copy and the associated content at the player. |
| US08990672B1 |
Flexible design architecture for designing media-based projects in a network-based platform
Methods and systems of inter-relating themes via a design and a layout relationship are disclosed, offering flexibility in design and data relationships of media-based projects. In one embodiment, an Internet user at a user-device selects a theme from a plurality of available themes, the theme being a collection of designsets. The system automatically selects a design from the designsets that best fits the content provided by the user. The design automatically inherits a layout from a layoutset corresponding to the automatically selected design. The design defines style and formatting over the layout, while the layout defines the locations of photos and text. When a user selects a different theme, the system can quickly adjust the design without input from the user, increasing user friendliness and usability. The user can create additional personal customizations, and print the final design to create a photobook or other media-based project. |
| US08990670B2 |
Endurance aware error-correcting code (ECC) protection for non-volatile memories
Embodiments of the invention relate to endurance-aware ECC protection for memories (e.g., phase change memories). According to one embodiment, a method includes calculating first metadata for data bits and second metadata for ECC bits which protect the data bits and the first metadata. Embodiments can include one or more first metadata bits (for the data bits), and one or more second metadata bits (for the ECC bits). An additional level of ECC protection protects the second metadata. In one embodiment, the wear-reduction modifications applied to the data bits and the ECC bits are different, and can be tailored to the behavior of the bits. According to one embodiment, the endurance-aware ECC protection described herein reduces wear due to accesses to memories while addressing the complications wear-reduction mechanisms introduce to error detection and correction systems. |
| US08990668B2 |
Decoding data stored in solid-state memory
Embodiments of decoding data stored in solid-state memory arrays are disclosed. In one embodiment, multiple read operations are performed while taking inter-cell interference (ICI) into account. Soft-decision information, such as log-likelihood ratios (LLRs), is determined by using known data and its corresponding multi-read output. Soft-decision information is provided to a detector. Reliability is improved and performance is increased. |
| US08990662B2 |
Techniques for resilient communication
Techniques for resilient communication. A data path stores data to be transmitted over a link to a receiving node. An output stage is coupled between the data path and the link. The output stage includes double sampling mechanisms to preserve a copy of data transmitted over the link to the receiving node. Error detection circuitry is coupled with the output stage to detect transient timing errors in the data path or output stage. The error detection circuitry causes the output stage to send the copy of the data transmitted over the link in response to detecting an error. |
| US08990660B2 |
Data processing system having end-to-end error correction and method therefor
In a data processing system having a plurality of error coding function circuitries, a method includes receiving an address which indicates a first storage location for storing a first data value; using a first portion of the address to select one of the plurality of error coding function circuitries as a selected error coding function circuitry; and using the selected error coding function circuitry to generate a first checkbit value, wherein the selected error coding function circuitry uses the first data value to generate the first checkbit value. When the first portion of the address has a first value, a first one of the plurality of error coding function circuitries is selected as the selected error coding function circuitry. When the first portion of the address has a second value, a second one of the plurality of error coding function circuitries is selected as the selected error coding function circuitry. |
| US08990653B2 |
Apparatus and method for transmitting and recovering encoded data streams across multiple physical medium attachments
A method includes generating an encoded data block, dividing the encoded data block into a plurality of sub-blocks, and transmitting the plurality of sub-blocks over a plurality of physical medium attachments. The encoded data block may be generated using 64B/66B encoding, and the data being encoded could first be decoded using 8B/10B decoding. Another method includes receiving a plurality of sub-blocks over a plurality of physical medium attachments, generating an encoded data block using the plurality of sub-blocks, and recovering data encoded in the encoded data block. The data may be recovered from the encoded data block using 64B/66B decoding, and the recovered data may be subsequently encoded using 8B/10B encoding. Each physical medium attachment may be capable of serializing data for transmission over a physical transmission medium (such as printed circuit board tracks or lanes) and deserializing data received over the physical transmission medium. |
| US08990651B2 |
Integrated circuit (IC) with primary and secondary networks and device containing such an IC
Some embodiments provide an integrated circuit (“IC”) with a primary circuit structure. The primary circuit structure is for performing multiple operations that implement a user design. The primary circuit structure includes multiple circuits. The IC also includes a secondary monitoring structure for monitoring multiple operations. The secondary monitoring structure includes a network communicatively coupled to multiple circuits of the primary circuit structure. The secondary monitoring circuit structure is for analyzing the monitored operations and reporting on the analysis to a circuit outside of the IC. |
| US08990649B2 |
Access port selector for access port and compliant access port
The disclosure describes a novel method and apparatuses for allowing a controller to select and access different types of access ports in a device. The selecting and accessing of the access ports is achieved using only the dedicated TDI, TMS, TCK, and TDO signal terminals of the device. The selecting and accessing of device access ports can be achieved when a single device is connected to the controller, when multiple devices are placed in a daisy-chain arrangement and connected to the controller, or when multiple devices are placed in a addressable parallel arrangement and connected to the controller. Additional embodiments are also provided and described in the disclosure. |
| US08990648B2 |
Optimized synchronous scan flip flop circuit
According to at least one exemplary embodiment, a synchronous active high reset scan flip flop is provided. The synchronous active high reset scan flip flop may include a data input, a serial input, a test enable input, a reset input, a clock input, a device output. It may also include an AND gate configured to receive the serial input and the test enable input and a multiplexer configured to receive the data input and a first output signal received from the AND gate. The multiplexer is operable in response to the reset input which is used to reset the flip flop in function mode, and permit scan test in test mode. The synchronous active high reset scan flip flop may also include a storage element configured to receive a second output signal received from the multiplexer and operable in response to a clock signal received from the clock input. |
| US08990647B2 |
Memory devices and methods for managing error regions
Memory devices and methods include a stack of memory dies and a logic die. Method and devices include those that provide for repartitioning the stack of memory dies and storing the new partitions in a memory map. Repartitioning in selected configurations allows portions of memory to be removed from use without affecting the rest of the memory device. Additional devices, systems, and methods are included. |
| US08990646B2 |
Memory error test routine
An error test routine tests for a type of memory error by changing a content of a memory module. A memory handling procedure isolates the memory error in response to a positive outcome of the error test routine. The error test routine and memory handling procedure are to be performed at runtime transparent to an operating system. Information corresponding to isolating the memory error is stored. |
| US08990642B2 |
Managing error logs in a distributed network fabric
An approach is described for managing error logs and corresponding error descriptors among a plurality of controller nodes of a distributed network fabric. According to such approach, an error log may include output from a runtime code trace. The runtime code trace may include storing trace statements from a currently running process in one or more of a plurality of trace buffers. The trace buffers may be memory-mapped circular buffers. Additionally, an error descriptor may be created from the error log. A globally unique identifier may be assigned to the error descriptor, and both the error descriptor and the globally unique identifier may be broadcast to each other controller node among the plurality of controller nodes. |
| US08990636B2 |
Detecting and resolving errors within an application
Techniques for managing errors within an application are provided. Embodiments monitor errors occurring in each of a plurality of portions of the application while the application is executing. An error occurring in a first one of the plurality of portions of the application is detected. Additionally, upon detecting the error occurring in the first portion, embodiments determine whether to prevent subsequent executions of the first portion of the application. |
| US08990635B2 |
Detecting and resolving errors within an application
Techniques for managing errors within an application are provided. Embodiments monitor errors occurring in each of a plurality of portions of the application while the application is executing. An error occurring in a first one of the plurality of portions of the application is detected. Additionally, upon detecting the error occurring in the first portion, embodiments determine whether to prevent subsequent executions of the first portion of the application. |
| US08990634B2 |
Reporting of intra-device failure data
Methods and a computing device are disclosed. A computing device may include a managed device having embedded firmware. When a failure occurs with respect to the managed device, drivers within the computing device may collect failure data from a driver stack of the computing device and from the managed device. The computing device may send the collected failure data to one or more second computing devices to be stored and analyzed. The computing device may include a health monitor for periodically collecting telemetry data from the computing device and the managed device. When the health monitor becomes aware of conditions indicative of a possible impending failure, the health monitor may trigger collection of sickness telemetry data from the computing device and the managed device. Collected data from the managed device may be made available to a vendor of the managed device. |
| US08990633B2 |
Tracing support for interconnect fabric
Complex on-chip interconnect fabrics, particularly those that include point-to-point interconnects and coherent routing networks, can present significant challenges for conventional trace techniques that may be applied in an effort to efficiently provide an external debugger with visibility into on-chip interconnect transactions. Embodiments described herein generate and supply separate in-circuit-trace messages including address messages and data messages, which are sent out (i.e., off-chip) to external debug tools generally without delay and coincident with the distinct, but related, trace events within address and data paths of the interconnect fabric. These separate message instances embed appropriate tag and mark values to allow the message instances to be post-processed and correlated by the external debug tools so as to reconstruct the transaction information for operations performed in the on-chip interconnect. |
| US08990632B2 |
System for monitoring state information in a multiplex system
A multiplex system includes physical machines, and data communication cards respectively installed in the physical machines. If one of the physical machines equipped with an own data communication card is a physical machine of an own system and another one of the physical machines is a physical machine of another system, the data communication cards connect the physical machine of the own system and the physical machine of the other system communicably with each other over a communication network. Further, the data communication cards autonomously monitor the states of the physical machine of the own system and the physical machine of the other system and detect an abnormal state. |
| US08990622B2 |
Post-silicon validation using a partial reference model
Method, system and product for post silicon validation using a partial reference model. The method performed by a device having registers, the method comprising: first executing, by the device when operating in trace mode, a test-case, wherein during the execution utilizing a partial reference model to determine an expected value of at least one register; second executing, by the device when operating in non-trace mode, the test-case; and in response to said second executing, checking values of registers based on, at least in part, values determined during said first execution. |
| US08990617B2 |
Fault-tolerant computer system, fault-tolerant computer system control method and recording medium storing control program for fault-tolerant computer system
A fault-tolerant computer system that includes a computer including a virtual machine on which a guest operating system (OS) is operating and a computer in operation, the computer including a snapshot manager that saves a guest OS snapshot, which includes difference information at each checkpoint, of the guest OS in a memory of the computer, and sends an instruction at each checkpoint to copy the guest OS snapshot as a guest OS snapshot to a memory of a computer via a transfer unit, and that computer includes a snapshot manager that activates a guest OS based on the guest OS snapshot when the computer stops. |
| US08990616B2 |
Final faulty core recovery mechanisms for a two-dimensional network on a processor array
Embodiments of the invention relate to faulty recovery mechanisms for a two-dimensional (2-D) network on a processor array. One embodiment comprises a processor array including multiple processors core circuits, and a redundant routing system for routing packets between the core circuits. The redundant routing system comprises multiple switches, wherein each switch corresponds to one or more core circuits of the processor array. The redundant routing system further comprises multiple data paths interconnecting the switches, and a controller for selecting one or more data paths. Each selected data path is used to bypass at least one component failure of the processor array to facilitate full operation of the processor array. |
| US08990613B2 |
Data transfer and recovery
A backup image generator can create a primary image and periodic delta images of all or part of a primary server. The images can be sent to a network attached storage device and one or more remote storage servers. In the event of a failure of the primary server, an updated primary image may be used to provide an up-to-date version of the primary system at a backup or other system. As a result, the primary data storage may be timely backed-up, recovered and restored with the possibility of providing server and business continuity in the event of a failure. |
| US08990607B2 |
Memory interface circuits including calibration for CAS latency compensation in a plurality of byte lanes
A memory interface circuit for read operations is described. The circuit includes one or more controller circuits, one or more read data delay circuits for providing CAS latency compensation for byte lanes. In the system, control settings for the read data delay circuits for providing CAS latency compensation are determined and set using controller circuits according to a dynamic calibration procedure performed from time to time. In the system, determining and setting the control settings for the read data delay circuits for providing CAS latency compensation is performed independently and parallely in each of a plurality of byte lanes. |
| US08990602B2 |
Apparatus, method, and system for early deep sleep state exit of a processing element
An apparatus and method is described herein for providing an early wake scheme before spawning a new thread. An early wake indication is provided an amount of time, which may include an amount of time to perform a demotion from a current power state to a lower power state that is closer to an active power state, before a new thread is to be spawned and executed on a processing element (core or thread). Upon encountering the spawn of the new thread, such as a helper thread, the processing element is further transition from the lower power state to an active power state. And the new thread is executed on the processing element without incurring the latency associated with execution of the new thread waiting for the demotion from the current power state to an active power state after the spawn of the new thread. |
| US08990598B2 |
Method and apparatus for managing power in computer systems
The invention is directed towards minimizing power consumption in computer systems. One embodiment of the invention is a power management system that is used for a computer system that has at least one device and one power domain. This embodiment uses two different power managers to manage the power consumption of the device and the power domain. Specifically, this embodiment has (1) a first power manager that determines when to change power state of the device, and (2) a second power manager that determines when to change power state of the power domain. Each of these power managers decides to change the power state of its corresponding device or domain based on information from several different sources. These sources can include power-management clients and power managers of related domains or devices. |
| US08990597B2 |
Instruction for enabling a processor wait state
In one embodiment, the present invention includes a processor having a core with decode logic to decode an instruction prescribing an identification of a location to be monitored and a timer value, and a timer coupled to the decode logic to perform a count with respect to the timer value. The processor may further include a power management unit coupled to the core to determine a type of a low power state based at least in part on the timer value and cause the processor to enter the low power state responsive to the determination. Other embodiments are described and claimed. |
| US08990587B1 |
Method and apparatus for secure transport and storage of surveillance video
Security information such as fixed or dynamically received camera location information, laser signature information, timestamp information, and network information, may be used to secure the transport and storage of surveillance video. Where the surveillance video is to be transported on a communication network, the round trip time from a video data storage server to the surveillance camera and back to the video data storage server may be monitored and periodically added to the secured video data. By checking to see whether the round trip time has changed, it may be possible to determine whether the video has been tampered with. The secured video data may also be transported over two or more paths on the network to two or more video data storage servers so that redundant copies may be stored at different primary locations. By comparing copies of the data, alteration of one of the copies may be detected. |
| US08990583B1 |
Forensic investigation tool
Methods and systems are disclosed a digital investigation tool capable of recovering and decrypting content. The tool combines digital techniques with decryption capability for a wide range of encryption algorithms. In one implementation, the tool identifies the type and/or vendor of the encryption algorithm used to protect the content. The tool then automatically obtains the decryption information needed to decrypt the content. Depending on the encryption algorithm used, the information may include a master key, user-specific keys, user IDs, passwords, and the like. The decryption information may be accumulated in a local or remote storage location accessible by the tool, or it may be acquired in real time on an as-needed basis from a third-party encryption vendor, a key server, and the like. Such an arrangement allows law enforcement agencies as well as corporate security personnel to quickly recover and decrypt content stored on a computer system. |
| US08990581B2 |
Preserving redundancy in data deduplication systems by encryption
Various embodiments for preserving data redundancy in a data deduplication system in a computing environment are provided. In one embodiment, a method for such preservation is disclosed. A selected data segment, to be written through the data deduplication system, is encrypted such that the selected data segment is not subject to a deduplication operation. |
| US08990578B2 |
Password authentication circuit and method
A password authentication circuit includes a timer that measures first and second periods of a password authentication period, a control circuit that, in a first period, disables writing of a password received into a password register, in a predetermined period within a second period enables writing of a password received into the password register and outside the predetermined period within the second period disables writing of a password received into the password register; a password comparison unit that compares a password in the password register and a password expected value to perform authentication of the password; and a first period generation unit that controls variably the first period, a password last written into the password register in the predetermined period of the second period being made a target for authentication. |
| US08990577B2 |
Information processing apparatus and data protection method
According to an embodiment, an information processing apparatus includes a first storage unit, a second storage unit, a power supply state control unit, a cryptographic key movement unit, a communications unit, an information input determination unit, a communications state determination unit, and a cryptographic key control unit. The cryptographic key movement unit is configured to move at least part of the cryptographic key data stored in the first storage unit to the second storage unit before a shift from a power-on state to another power supply state. In the other power supply state, the cryptographic key control unit returns the cryptographic key data from the second storage unit to the first storage unit if it is determined that there is an input of information which matches the information stored in the second storage unit and it is determined that communications are enabled between the communications unit and a base-station apparatus. |
| US08990574B1 |
Secure device authentication protocol
Disclosed is a system and method by which a multimedia source device communicates with a display device, allowing the multimedia devices to securely confirm the identity of the devices and confirm their trustworthiness through a trust authority. |
| US08990573B2 |
System and method for using variable security tag location in network communications
A method of packet security management to ensure a secure connection from one network node to another. The method includes creating a security tag for each packet in a network session, selecting one of a number of possible tag locations within the packet, inserting the security tag at that location, transmitting the tagged packets from a sending node to the receiving node, authenticating the packets' security tags at the receiving node, and dropping non-authenticated packets. The method also includes determining best possible tag locations when sending a packet and locating a security tag when receiving a packet. |
| US08990571B2 |
Host device, semiconductor memory device, and authentication method
According to one embodiment, encrypted secret identification information (E-SecretID) and the key management information (FKB) are read from a memory device. Encrypted management key (E-FKey) is obtained using the key management information (FKB) and index information (k). The index information (k) and the encrypted management key (E-FKey) are transmitted to the semiconductor memory device. An index key (INK) is generated using the first key information (NKey) and the received index information (k). The encrypted management key (E-FKey) is decrypted using the index key (INK) to obtain management key (FKey), which is transmitted to the host device. |
| US08990570B2 |
Secure function evaluation for a covert client and a semi-honest server using string selection oblivious transfer
Methods and apparatus are provided for secure function evaluation for a covert client and a semi-honest server using string selection oblivious transfer. An information-theoretic version of a garbled circuit C is sliced into a sequence of shallow circuits C1, . . . Cn, that are evaluated. Consider any wire wj of C that is an output wire of Ci, and is an input wire of Ci+1. When a slice Ci is evaluated, Ci's 1-bit wire key for wj is computed by the evaluator, and then used, via string selection oblivious transfer (SOT), to obtain the wire key for the corresponding input wire of Ci+1. This process repeats until C's output wire keys are computed by the evaluator. The 1-bit wire keys of the output wires of the slice are randomly assigned to wire values. |
| US08990568B2 |
Mobile device enrollment for online banking transactions
Embodiments of the invention are directed to systems, methods and computer program products for enrolling a user in a device identification program. In some embodiments, a system is configured to: receive device identification information from a mobile device, receive user information associated with a user, the user information enabling identification of the user, associate the device identification information with the user information, and create a record based on the device identification information and the user information. |
| US08990567B2 |
Message originator token verification
A digital signature of a message originator of a message is validated by a processor on message retrieval by a message recipient as a first-tier validation of the message. In response to a successful first-tier validation of the digital signature of the message originator, a transaction token and a message originator identifier are extracted from a message payload of the message. Communication is initiated with a verification service within a secure messaging environment of the message originator as a second-tier validation of the message using the extracted transaction token and the extracted message originator identifier to confirm whether the secure messaging environment of the message originator generated the transaction token and inserted the transaction token into the message payload. Results of the second-tier validation of the message with the verification service within the secure messaging environment of the message originator are determined. |
| US08990566B2 |
Privacy-preserving publish-subscribe protocol in a cloud-assisted broadcast model
A method and system for providing privacy in a publish-subscribe protocol is provided. A server receives from a third party a topic-based key associated with a tree structure having a pseudonym of a topic as a root and at least one client as a leaf. The server encrypts a key associated with a conditional oblivious transfer protocol using the topic-based key. The server encrypts an item with the key associated with the conditional oblivious transfer protocol. The server transmits the encrypted key and the encrypted item to a plurality of clients. The encrypted item is decryptable by the at least one client with the key associated with the conditional oblivious transfer protocol when the key associated with the conditional oblivious transfer protocol is decryptable with an interest-based key associated with a tree structure having a pseudonym of an interest as a root and the at least one client as a leaf. |
| US08990562B2 |
Secure deployment of provable identity for dynamic application environments
An invention is described for securely deploying a provable identity for virtual machines (VMs) in a dynamic environment. In an embodiment, a fabric controller instructs a VM host to create a VM and sends that VM a secret. The fabric controller sends that same secret (or a second secret, such as the private key of a public/private key pair) to the security token service along with an instruction to make an account for the VM. The VM presents proof that it possesses the secret to the security token service and in return receives a full token. When a client connects to the deployment, it receives the public key from the security token service, which it trusts, and the full token from the VM. It validates the full token with the public key to determine that the VM has the identity that it purports to have. |
| US08990559B2 |
Automating the creation and maintenance of policy compliant environments
Embodiments of the present invention provide for a method, system, and apparatus for creating a policy compliant environment on a computer. In an embodiment of the invention, an encrypted file can be loaded into memory of a computing. The encrypted file can define a security policy for the computing device. The method can further include validating the encrypted file to ensure an authenticity of the encrypted file and updating the security policy of a target computing device in response to a successful validation of the encrypted file according to the validated encrypted file. |
| US08990558B2 |
Securing information in a cloud computing system
The method and system for secure data (information) inside a cloud computing system, allow data to be encrypted everywhere in the cloud on storage devices and in communication lines so that only the information owner has the encryption key and may decrypt the data. The main idea is using software filter technology inside the cloud virtual machine for encrypting and decrypting data and keeping the encryption key(s) only in the hand of the owner of the information outside the cloud. The encryption key is loaded into the appropriate filter only by permission of the information owner or an allowed user. The method allows combination of data encryption with application control and user control. |
| US08990543B2 |
System and method for generating and using predicates within a single instruction packet
In a particular embodiment, a method is disclosed that includes receiving an instruction packet including a first instruction and a second instruction that is dependent on the first instruction at a processor having a plurality of parallel execution pipelines, including a first execution pipeline and a second execution pipeline. The method further includes executing in parallel at least a portion of the first instruction and at least a portion of the second instruction. The method also includes selectively committing a second result of executing the at least a portion of the second instruction with the second execution pipeline based on a first result related to execution of the first instruction with the first execution pipeline. |
| US08990542B2 |
Efficient metadata protection system for data storage
A method for protecting page-level metadata in a storage system is provided. The method includes providing in a page table first protection data, receiving a command to read data from a page of the storage system corresponding to the page table, and comparing first protection data to second protection data. If the first protection data is different than the second protection data, then the method includes identifying third protection data in the storage system and comparing the third protection data to the first protection data. If the third protection data is different than the first protection data, then the method includes determining that the page-level metadata is inconsistent. |
| US08990537B2 |
System and method for robust and efficient free chain management
Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media for managing free chains of compute resources. A system configured to practice the method divides a free chain of compute resources into a usable part (UP) which contains resources available for immediate allocation and an unusable part (UUP) which contains resources not available for immediate allocation but which become available after a certain minimum number of allocations. The system sorts resources in the UP by block number, and maintains a last used object (LUO) vector, indexed by block number, which records a last object in the UP for each block. Each time the system frees a resource, the system adds the freed resource to a tail of the UUP and promotes an oldest resource in the UUP to the UP. This approach can manage free chains in a manner that is both flaw tolerant and has relatively high performance. |
| US08990535B2 |
Method for operating memory controller, and memory system including the same
A method for operating a memory controller capable of controlling a maximum count of a read retry operation is disclosed. The method includes programming a first real time clock (RTC) value indicating a time-of-day when a program operation is performed when the program operation for programming a data to a storage region of a non-volatile memory, obtaining information for the storage region by using the first RTC value read from the non-volatile memory and a second RTC value indicating a time-of-day when a read operation is performed, when the read operation for the data programmed to the storage region is performed, and decreasing a maximum count of a read retry operation by using the information, when the read retry operation is performed for the storage region. |
| US08990522B2 |
Digital signal processing data transfer
A technique for transferring data in a digital signal processing system is described. In one example, the digital signal processing system comprises a number of fixed function accelerators, each connected to a memory access controller and each configured to read data from a memory device, perform one or more operations on the data, and write data to the memory device. To avoid hardwiring the fixed function accelerators together, and to provide a configurable digital signal processing system, a multi-threaded processor controls the transfer of data between the fixed function accelerators and the memory. Each processor thread is allocated to a memory access channel, and the threads are configured to detect an occurrence of an event and, responsive to this, control the memory access controller to enable a selected fixed function accelerator to read data from or write data to the memory device via its memory access channel. |
| US08990521B2 |
Information processing device and computer program product
According to an embodiment, an information processing device that includes a first storage unit and a second storage unit having power consumption different from that of the first storage unit. The information processing device also includes a control unit configured to make a control to determine a priority of information that is to be stored in the first storage unit or the second storage unit. The control unit is configured to store the information into the first storage unit or into the second storage unit based on the determined priority. |
| US08990519B2 |
Electronic component
An electronic component is provided having a plurality of functionalities. The electronic component comprises a control logic, and a non-volatile storage element. The control logic is coupled to the non-volatile storage element and is adapted for storing values in the non-volatile storage element based on an external input signal to the electronic component, each value being indicative for one or more functionalities of the plurality of functionalities. The control logic is adapted for controlling the availability of the plurality of functionalities based on one or more values stored in the non-volatile storage element and for outputting a confirmation signal being indicative for the availability of the plurality of functionalities. |
| US08990516B2 |
Multi-core shared memory system with memory port to memory space mapping
A multi-core processor system includes a memory controller that includes multiple ports and shared memory that includes physical address spaces divided among the ports. A CPU acquires from a parallel degree information table, the number of CPUs to which software that is to be executed by the multi-core processor system, is to be assigned. After this acquisition, the CPU determines the CPUs to which the software to be executed is to be assigned and sets for each CPU, physical address spaces corresponding to logical address spaces defined by the software to be executed. After this setting, the CPU notifies an address converter of the addresses and notifies the software to be executed of the start of execution. |
| US08990511B2 |
Multiprocessor, cache synchronization control method and program therefor
There is provided a cache synchronization control method by which contents of a plurality of caches can be synchronized without a programmer explicitly setting a synchronization point, and the contents of the caches can be synchronized without scanning all cache blocks. A cache synchronization control method for a multiprocessor that has a plurality of processors having a cache, and a storage device shared by the plurality of processors, the method comprises: before a task is executed, a first step of writing back input data of the task to the storage device by a processor that manages the task and deleting data corresponding to the input data from its own cache by a processor other than the processor; and after the task is executed, a second step of writing back output data of the task to the storage device by a processor that has executed the task and deleting data corresponding to the output data from its own cache by a processor other than the processor. |
| US08990509B2 |
Accelerated path selection based on number of write requests and sequential trend
Embodiments herein relate to selecting an accelerated path based on a number of write requests and a sequential trend. One of an accelerated path and a cache path is selected between a host and a storage device based on at least one of a number of write requests and a sequential trend. The cache path connects the host to the storage device via a cache. The number of write requests is based on a total number of random and sequential write requests from a set of outstanding requests from the host to the storage device. The sequential trend is based on a percentage of sequential read and sequential write requests from the set of outstanding requests. |
| US08990502B2 |
Write cache structure in a storage system
A method of writing data units to a storage device. The data units are cached in a first level cache sorted by logical address. A group (Gj) of sorted data units is transferred from the first level cache to a second level cache embodied in a solid state memory device. Data units of multiple groups (Gj) are sorted in the second level cache by logical address. The sorted data units stemming from the multiple groups are written to the storage device. |
| US08990501B1 |
Multiple cluster processor
A multiple processor system is disclosed. The processor system includes a first cluster including a first plurality of processors is associated with a first cluster cache, a second cluster including a second plurality of processors associated with a second cluster cache, and a cluster communication network between the first cluster and the second cluster for sharing data between the first cluster and the second cluster. The first cluster includes a first unshared connection to the cluster communication network and the second cluster includes a second unshared connection to the cluster communication network. |
| US08990499B2 |
Caching of a site model in a hierarchical modeling system for network sites
Disclosed are various embodiments for caching of a hierarchical model of a network site. Upon receiving a request to resolve a network site, a hierarchical site model associated with a network site is retrieved. A directory model associated with the network site is also retrieved. A caching process is initiated that retrieves at least a subset of page models and loads them into a cache. The caching process is executed in parallel with the processing of the hierarchical site model. |
| US08990496B2 |
Method and system for the heterogeneous data volume
A method and system is disclosed for providing a heterogeneous data storage comprising a plurality of storage devices of different types with respect to device vendor, model, capacity, performance and/or function. The present invention employs data access mechanisms specific to the type of underlying storage and the type of data to be stored or retrieved, and provides for integrated remote mirroring, disaster recovery and hierarchical storage management (HSM), as well as improved I/O performance and life expectancy of storage disks. A method of writing to and reading from heterogeneous data volume is also disclosed. |
| US08990495B2 |
Method and system for storing data in raid memory devices
A redundant array of independent disk (RAID) memory storage system comprising data storage blocks arranged in a first plurality of data rows and a second plurality of data columns, wherein parity data is stored in additionally defined parity blocks, and wherein numbers of data blocks in respective columns are different, to accommodate the additional diagonal parity data block that the geometry of the system requires. The system is suitable for an SSD array in which sequential disk readout is not required. |
| US08990494B2 |
Home storage system and method with various controllers
In general, embodiments of the present invention provide a home storage system and method of production. Specifically, in a typical embodiment, the home storage system includes a main controller that is coupled to a display controller, an external memory controller, an external interface, and a PCI-Express-based hybrid RAID controller. Further, a set of semiconductor storage device (SSD) memory units and a set of hard disk drive (HDD/Flash) memory units are coupled to the hybrid RAID controller. The external interface allows the storage system to establish network connectivity, while the external memory controller allows the storage device to be coupled to different types of external memory devices. |
| US08990492B1 |
Increasing capacity in router forwarding tables
Aspects of the disclosure provide for increasing the capacity of ternary content addressable memories (TCAMs). For example, one aspect provides a method for adding rules to a TCAM, wherein the TCAM comprises multiple configurable banks. According to this method, a range of candidate banks in which the proposed rule may be stored is identified based on a priority of the proposed rule, and one of the candidate banks is selected for storing the proposed rule based on a width of the proposed rule and widths of the candidate banks. Another aspect provides a method for deleting one or more rules from a TCAM comprising multiple configurable banks. According to this method, once the rule is deleted, the bank from which it was deleted may be reduced in width, and therefore increased in capacity. For example, wider rules stored in this bank may be relocated to other banks using the method for adding rules to a TCAM. |
| US08990491B1 |
Eye scan for asymmetric shaped communication signal
Techniques for processing signal information from a high speed communication bus. The techniques includes determining spatial regions on an eye characterized by a start point, an end point, a middle point, a left point, and a right point. The start point is a beginning of an eye opening at a reference voltage. The end point is at an ending of eye opening at the reference voltage. The middle point is at a center point of eye opening at the reference voltage. The left point is a left sampling location characterized by a minimum setup time requirement, and the right point is a right sampling location characterized by a minimum hold time requirement. Determining the points is based on shifting a DQS position and a DQ position and running a plurality of memory built-in self test (BIST) engines and a plurality of results of BIST tests. |
| US08990490B2 |
Memory controller with reconfigurable hardware
Memory controller concepts are disclosed in which hardware resources of a memory controller can be re-used or re-configured to accommodate various different memory configurations. The memory configuration may be stored in mode register bits (228), settable by a host or operating system. By re-configuring or reallocating certain resources of a memory controller, for example command logic blocks (A, B, C, D in FIG. 1A), a single controller design can be used to interface efficiently with a variety of different memory components. Command logic blocks that support N×M memory ranks, for example, can be reconfigured to support N ranks and M threads for multi-threaded memories (FIG. 1A). Data buffer (232, 254) depth can be extended by reconfiguring the buffers responsive to the mode register bits (228). Request buffers can be shared across command logic blocks, for example to increase the request buffer depth (FIG. 3A). Unused circuits can be powered down to save power consumption (FIG. 4A). |
| US08990488B2 |
Memory buffer with one or more auxiliary interfaces
The present memory system includes a memory buffer having an interface arranged to buffer data and/or command bytes being written to or read from the RAM chips residing on a DIMM by a host controller. The memory buffer further includes at least one additional interface arranged to buffer data and/or command bytes between the host controller or RAM chips and one or more external devices coupled to the at least one additional interface. For example, the memory buffer may include a SATA interface and be arranged to convey data between the host controller or RAM chips and FLASH memory devices coupled to the SATA interface. The additional interfaces may include, for example, a SATA interface, an Ethernet interface, an optical interface, and/or a radio interface. |
| US08990487B2 |
Semiconductor memory card access apparatus, a computer-readable recording medium, an initialization method, and a semiconductor memory card
A predetermined number of erasable blocks positioned at a start of a volume area in a semiconductor memory card are provided so as to include volume management information. A user area following the volume management information includes a plurality of clusters. A size of a partition control area from a master boot record & partition table sector to a partition boot sector is determined so that the plurality of clusters in the user area are not arranged so as to straddle erasable block boundaries. Since cluster boundaries and erasable block boundaries in the user area are aligned, there is no need to perform wasteful processing in which two erasable blocks are erased to rewrite one cluster. |
| US08990486B2 |
Hardware and file system agnostic mechanism for achieving capsule support
Methods and apparatus relating to a hardware and file system agnostic mechanism for achieving capsule support are described. In one embodiment, content associate with a capsule are stored in a non-volatile memory prior to a cold reset. A capsule descriptor may also be constructed, prior to the reset, which includes information about the physical location of the capsule content on the non-volatile memory. Other embodiments are also described and claimed. |
| US08990483B2 |
Nonvolatile memory device, memory system, and program method therof
Disclosed is a method for programming a nonvolatile memory device, the nonvolatile memory device including cell strings formed in a direction perpendicular to a substrate, and which selects memory cells by a string selection line unit. The programming method includes detecting wear leveling information of a selected memory block, determining a selection sequence of string selection lines of the selected memory block according to the wear leveling information, and writing data at the selected memory block according to the determined selection sequence. |
| US08990479B2 |
Using persistent memory regions within memory devices to collect serial presence detect and performance data
An approach to determine a power-on-hour offset for a memory device that is newly-installed into a computer system is provided, which subtracts a current power-on-hour count of the memory device from a current power-on-hour value of a power supply that supplies operative power to the memory device within the computer system. In response to the computer system powering down, an accumulated power-on-hour for the memory device is determined by subtracting the power-on-hour offset of the memory from a current power-on-hour value of the computer system power supply. The determined power-on-hour offset and accumulated power-on-hour values are saved into one or more designated bytes of a free area of electrically erasable programmable read-only memory of the memory device that are available for data storage by a memory controller, and wherein data stored therein persists after operative power is lost to the memory device, the memory controller or the computer system. |
| US08990478B2 |
Protection of one-time programmable (OTP) memory
Aspects of the invention provide for masking a current profile of a one-time programmable (OTP) memory. In one embodiment, a circuit includes: a first one-time programmable (OTP) memory configured to receive a data input for a plurality of address fields; and a second OTP memory configured to receive an inverse of the data input for a plurality of address fields, wherein a current profile for a programming supply for the first OTP memory and the second OTP memory is masked, such that the data input for the first OTP memory is undetectable. |
| US08990477B2 |
System and method for limiting fragmentation
A method and system are disclosed for controlling the storage of data in a storage device to reduce fragmentation. The method may include a controller of a storage device receiving data for storage in non-volatile memory, proactively preventing fragmentation by only writing an amount of sequentially addressed logical groups of data into a main storage area of the storage device, such as multi-level cell (MLC) flash memory, and reactively defragmenting data previously written into the MLC memory when a trigger event is reached. The system may include a storage device with a controller configured to perform the method noted above, where the thresholds for minimum sequential writes into MLC, and for scanning the memory for fragmented data and removing fragmentation by re-writing the fragmented data already in MLC into new MLC blocks, may be fixed or variable. |
| US08990476B2 |
Power interrupt management
The present disclosure includes methods for operating a memory system, and memory systems. One such method includes updating transaction log information in a transaction log using write look ahead information; and updating a logical address (LA) table using the transaction log. The write look ahead information can include information about the location where data would have next been written to a memory system. |
| US08990471B2 |
Modular integrated circuit with common interface
A modular integrated circuit includes a hub module that is coupled to a plurality of spoke modules via a plurality of hub interfaces. The plurality of hub interfaces provide a plurality of signal interfaces between the hub module and each of the plurality of spoke modules, wherein each of the plurality of signal interfaces is isolated from each of the other signal interfaces of the plurality of signals interface, and wherein each of the plurality of signal interfaces operates in accordance with a common signaling format. |
| US08990470B1 |
Virtual hubs for communication interface
A communication interface hub includes multiple ports, where one of the ports is an upstream port operative to be in direct and/or indirect communication with a host and at least one other of the ports is a downstream port operative to be in direct and/or indirect communication with at least one device. At least one hub core is coupled to the ports and implements at least one physical hub, and at least one virtual hub core is coupled to the ports and implements at least one virtual hub. The virtual hub is detectable as at least one physical hub by the host to cause the host to allocate an additional time delay in waiting for responses to signals output by the host. |
| US08990468B2 |
I/O connection system, method and program
In execution of hot-plug processing consisting of a plurality of processing steps for connecting an I/O to a host, the hot-plug processing is temporarily stopped upon completion of predetermined processing steps in the hot-plug processing, and the hot-plug processing is resumed once it is detected that connection between the host and the I/O has been established and the host has been enabled to access the I/O. |
| US08990467B2 |
Printing apparatus and operation setting method thereof
This invention is directed to enhancement of flexibility when connecting an add-in card conforming to the PCI-Express specification. More specifically, the operation mode of the system board of a printing apparatus is configured to cope with both a root-complex and end-point. When an add-in card is inserted into an extension slot, the type of add-in card is discriminated by confirming the ON state of a detection pin. When the inserted add-in card operates as a root-complex, the system board is set to operate as an end-point. When the inserted add-in card operates as an end-point, the system board is set to operate as a root-complex. |
| US08990466B2 |
Arbiter for asynchronous state machines
An arbiter can be used for processing a plurality of asynchronous data signals. Each data signal is associated with a request signal and a respective acknowledge signal. The arbiter includes a latch array with an input coupled to receive the data signals and request signals and an output coupled to provide a data vector and a validity vector. The data vector includes values depending on the data signals and the validity vector includes values depending on the request signals when the latch array is in a transparent state. Logic circuitry is configured to trigger the latch array when any of the request signals becomes active, to activate a global request signal a delay time after the latch has been triggered, and to selectively activate the acknowledge signals for a channel or channels for which an active request signal has been latched. |
| US08990461B2 |
On-The-Go (OTG) USB devices configuration method for identifying configuration of other connected devices by reacting to change in resistance value on a resistive line
The present invention generally relates to the management of a configuration of a first device. The first device includes a control unit and an interface unit managing a communication interface. The communication interface comprises at least one resistive line having a resistance value. The resistance value allows the interface unit to identify a configuration for at least one second device adapted to be linked to the first device via the communication interface. The interface unit: /a/ detects a change of the resistance value on the resistive line corresponding to a configuration of said second device; /b/ processes said change of the resistance value to adapt the configuration of the first device according to the configuration of said second device. |
| US08990455B1 |
Offloading tasks from a central processing unit to peripheral function engines
An apparatus includes an array of universal digital blocks (UDBs) and a central processing unit (CPU) coupled to the array of UDBs via a bus. The UDBs may be coupled together to perform tasks, operations or functions that may be offloaded from the CPU to the array of UDBs. |
| US08990449B2 |
Systems and methods for out of band notification of hard drive status change
Systems and methods for out of band notification of a hard drive status change may be provided. In accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure, an information handling system may include a processor, a memory communicatively coupled to the processor, a hard disk drive communicatively coupled to the processor via an input/output (I/O) bus for communicating I/O data between the processor and the hard disk drive, and an indicator configured to provide a user-detectable indication of I/O activity occurring on the I/O bus. The hard disk drive may include general purpose input/output (GPIO) terminal independent from the I/O bus and communicatively coupled to the processor, and the hard disk drive may be configured to assert the GPIO terminal in response to an occurrence of a status event of the hard disk drive. |
| US08990448B2 |
Smart discovery model in a serial attached small computer system topology
Methods, systems and processor-readable media are disclosed for implementing a “smart” discovery process in a data transfer regime having one or more expanders and one or more initiators. Data traffic associated with such a discovery process can be reduced and one or more of the initiators can be prevented from blocking input/output to particular components in communication with the data transfer regime, thereby improving and completing the discovery process in an optimal time frame while enhancing the performance of the initiator(s). |
| US08990445B2 |
Control chip for communicating with wired connection interface by using one configurable pin selectively serving as input pin or output pin
A control chip includes a configurable pin and a control logic. The configurable pin is arranged for coupling a first pin and a second pin of a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) connector. The control logic is arranged for controlling the configurable pin to switch between a first operation mode and a second operation mode. The configurable pin serves as an input pin when operating in the first operation mode, and the configurable pin serves as an output pin when operating in the second operation mode. For example, the input pin is arranged for receiving a power supply signal derived from a +5V power signal received by the first pin, and the output pin is arranged for outputting a control signal for controlling hot plug detection (HPD). |
| US08990444B2 |
Fieldbus gateway using virtual serial fieldbus port and data transmission method thereof
A fieldbus gateway using a virtual serial fieldbus port and a data transmission method thereof are provided. By receiving a fieldbus frame containing target data through a virtual serial fieldbus port connected to a source device or a target device via a fieldbus gateway and sending another fieldbus frame containing the target data via other fieldbus port to target devices or source devices, the system and the method can provide two or more remote devices to control one controlled device at the same time. The invention also achieves the effect of using one virtual serial fieldbus port to transmit data between multiple source devices and target devices concurrently. |
| US08990440B2 |
Reusing system configuration information and metadata for related operations
Reusing system configuration information and metadata for related operations is disclosed. It is determined that a group of content management system commands may be treated as a related set for purposes of updating content management system configuration information and/or metadata. The content management system configuration information and/or metadata are updated once for purposes of processing the group. |
| US08990439B2 |
Transport mode data transfer between a channel subsystem and input/output devices
A computer program product is provided for performing an input/output (I/O) operation at a host computer system configured for communication with a control unit. The computer program product is configured to perform: sending a transport mode command message from a channel subsystem to the control unit, the command message including a command for data to be transferred to an I/O device controlled by the control unit; and sending a data transfer message to the control unit, the data transfer message having an amount of the data to be transferred, the amount of the data being less than or equal to a maximum amount of data, the maximum amount of data corresponding to a number of buffers associated with the control unit and a size of each of the number of buffers, the number and the size indicated by a value maintained in the host computer system. |
| US08990438B2 |
Receiver configured to pair to multiple wireless devices
A computer system includes a receiver configured to pair with a set of peripheral devices and have active connections with a first subset of the peripheral devices and inactive connections with a second subset of the peripheral devices. The first and the second subsets of peripheral devices are subsets of the set of peripheral devices. If a select one of the peripheral devices in the inactive set of peripheral devices is operated, the receiver is configured to activate a connection with the select one of the peripheral devices in a latency period that is below human perception levels of the latency period. |
| US08990433B2 |
Defining network traffic processing flows between virtual machines
Network devices include hosted virtual machines and virtual machine applications. Hosted virtual machines and their applications implement additional functions and services in network devices. Network devices include data taps for directing network traffic to hosted virtual machines and allowing hosted virtual machines to inject network traffic. Network devices include unidirectional data flow specifications, referred to as hyperswitches. Each hyperswitch is associated with a hosted virtual machine and receives network traffic received by the network device from a single direction. Each hyperswitch processes network traffic according to rules and rule criteria. A hosted virtual machine can be associated with multiple hyperswitches, thereby independently specifying the data flow of network traffic to and from the hosted virtual machine from multiple networks. The network device architecture also enables the communication of additional information between the network device and one or more virtual machine applications using an extended non-standard network protocol. |
| US08990432B2 |
Multi-service network system
A multi-service network system which forms a wide area network connecting a plurality of metropolitan areas, including a primary network ring including at least one primary node and at least one secondary node; and a secondary network ring connecting the at least one secondary node to business premises equipment, wherein the business premises equipment are associated with respective customer premises equipment. |
| US08990431B2 |
Systems and methods for identifying a processor from a plurality of processors to provide symmetrical request and response processing
Described herein is a method and system for distributing request and responses across a multi-core system. Each core executes a packet engine that further processes data packets allocated to that core. A flow distributor executing within the multi-core system forwards client requests to a packet engine on a core that is selected based on a value generated when a hash is applied to a tuple comprising a client IP address, a client port, a server IP address and a server port identified in the request. The packet engine selects a first IP address and a first port of the core, and determines whether a hash of a tuple comprising those values identifies the selected core. A modification is then made to the client request so that the client request includes a tuple comprising the first IP address, the server IP address, the first port and the server port. |
| US08990429B2 |
HTTP-based synchronization method and apparatus
An HTTP-based synchronization method includes obtaining a first response sent by a source server or a cache in response to an HTTP request for obtaining a file; determining time when the first response is sent in local time at server, according to a value of a Date field and a value of an Age field in the first response; determining time when the first response is sent in local time at client, according to the client time of an event related to the first response; and determining time offset between the server time and the client time according to the time when the first response is sent in local time at server and the time when the first response is sent in local time at client, and setting up a synchronization relationship between the client time and the server time. |
| US08990428B2 |
System and method for facilitating communication between different protocol stacks via virtual communication devices
A computer-implemented method for facilitating interoperation between communication devices of different networks following different protocols is provided. The computer-implemented method enables creating a virtual device. The virtual device is a software representation of a first communication device in a first network. The computer-implemented method further comprises linking a synchronization module within the virtual device to the first communication device. The synchronization module receives data related to one or more attributes of the first communication device. The computer-implemented method comprises linking at least one mapping module within the virtual device to a second communication device. The mapping module facilitates conversion of the received data and transmission of the converted data to the second communication device for facilitating interoperation therebetween. |
| US08990427B2 |
Method and apparatus for accessing an enterprise resource planning system via a mobile device
A method and apparatus for accessing an enterprise resource planning system via a mobile device is described. In one embodiment, the method includes parsing data from a host application access application into at least one object in an application-specific format, converting the data into an intermediate format that is compatible with a mobile device and communicating the converted data to the mobile device. |
| US08990426B2 |
Methods, systems, and computer program products for providing electronic transactions
Methods, systems, and computer program products for providing electronic transactions are provided. A method includes presenting an offer on a first communications device to conduct an electronic transaction on another communications device that is different from the first communications device. In response to an acceptance of the offer and selection of the other communications device, the method includes retrieving a network address for the other communications device from a storage device, and executing the electronic transaction on the other communications device via the network address. |
| US08990421B2 |
Method and device for processing data in a network component
Data received by a first network component from a second network component is processed by a filter function according to which the whole data or a portion of the data is used. |
| US08990419B2 |
Information processing apparatus and method therefor
A table is generated in which content information for digital contents and the relation between the digital contents are registered. A request message indicating a content identifier and data range of a requested digital content is received. A determination is made regarding the presence of a digital content corresponding to the requested digital content based on the table and the content identifier indicated by the request message, and a determination is made regarding a data range based on the table and the data range indicated by the request message. Based on the results of the determinations, the content identifier and data range of the digital content corresponding to the data range indicated by the request message are decided by referring to the table. A message to the request message is transmitted based on the determinations and the decision. |
| US08990418B1 |
Providing data feeds for video programs
A system, computer-readable storage medium storing at least one program, and a computer-implemented method for providing data feeds for video programs is presented. A request is received from a client device of a user to obtain a data feed for a set of video programs in a plurality of video programs, where the set of video programs includes video programs having at least one common attribute. In response to receiving the request, a data feed for the set of video programs is generated using metadata for the plurality of video programs and a profile for the user, where a respective data item in the data feed corresponds to a respective video program in the set of video programs and includes at least one link to at least one content source from which the respective video program is available. The data feed is then provided to the client device. |
| US08990416B2 |
Support for a new insert stream (ISTREAM) operation in complex event processing (CEP)
One embodiment of the invention includes a method of processing streaming data. The method includes initializing a stream of data and setting a time interval to apply to the stream of data. The time interval comprises a window for analyzing the data within the stream of data. The method further includes identifying one or more columns within the stream of data, designating one or more of the columns to be monitored for differences within the data over the time interval, and monitoring the designated columns over the time interval. Further, the method includes determining that at least one value from at least one of the designated columns has changed and in response to at least one value changing, outputting the changed values from the designated columns. |
| US08990411B2 |
Dynamic connection management on mobile peer devices
Dynamically evaluating candidate connections as alternatives to an active connection between a first computing device and a second computing device. The first computing device transitions to one of the candidate connections to replace the active connection based on the evaluation. The evaluation and transition occurs based on time intervals, events, or conditions. Maintaining the candidate connections enables mobile devices, for example, to be resilient to and tolerant of topology changes affecting the active connection. |
| US08990410B1 |
Devices, systems, and/or methods for processing transactions
Certain exemplary embodiments can provide a method, which can comprise, responsive to a determination that a Web-based transaction has caused an exceedance of a maximum threshold percentage of transactions processed offline, at a user interface of an information device, rendering an automatic alert indicative of the exceedance. The Web-based transaction can be requested from a browser. |
| US08990408B1 |
Providing control information to a multimedia server
Control information may be provided to a server by a computing device before or while the computing device sends a media stream to the server. The control information is associated with processing of the media stream by the media server. When the computing device is not sending the media stream to the media server, the computing device may send the control information to the media server while establishing a connection with the media server. When the computing device is sending the media stream to the media server, the computing device may send the control information without interrupting communication of the media stream to the media server. For example, the control information may be embedded into the media stream or may be sent via a separate connection to the media server. |
| US08990401B2 |
Fast path message transfer agent
A method of providing a fast path message transfer agent is provided. The method includes receiving bytes of a message over a network connection and determining whether the number of bytes exceeds a predetermined threshold. If the number of bytes is less than a predetermined threshold, then the message is written only to memory. However, if the number of bytes exceeds the predetermined threshold, then some of the bytes (e.g. up to the predetermined threshold) are written to memory, wherein the remainder of the bytes are stored onto the non-volatile storage. If the message was received successfully by each destination, then the message is removed from the memory/non-volatile storage. If not, all failed destinations are identified and the message (with associated failed destinations) is stored on the non-volatile storage for later sending. |
| US08990400B2 |
Facilitating communications among message recipients
A system, method, computer program product, and carrier are described for obtaining an indication of a first device receiving a message portion during a time interval in which a second device received the message portion and signaling a decision whether to facilitate a signal transfer at least between the first device and the second device. |
| US08990394B2 |
System and method for providing session-level access management of access requests to a redirected device from a predetermined session
Managing access requests to a device is provided. The operations may include determining that a device stack corresponds to the device that is remote to the server and is connected locally to a client that is remote to the server, the device stack comprising one or more device objects; attaching a device access restriction object on top of the device stack; facilitating restriction of access to the one or more device objects from sessions different from a session associated with the device; receiving, at the device access restriction object, an access request to the device; and determining, at the device access restriction object, whether the access request is allowed access to the device. The access request may be allowed if a session from which the access request is received is a predetermined session. |
| US08990393B2 |
System and method for managing relationships with independent multi-dimensional grouping, individualized privileges, and interactive feedback in a social network
A system and method for managing relationships in a social network with independent multi-dimensional groupings, individualized privileges & interactive feedback. The contributing member can assign a privilege level from a sliding scale of at least three levels for each item of information, represented as C1, C2, C3, . . . CN. The contributing member then grants direct privilege levels as they make new friends or grants indirect privilege levels when they join groups or networks. When a requesting user (T) wishes to see contributed information, their privilege level (L) with respect to the contributing member is accessed. The system retrieves all items of information (C), and selectively displays those items of information which have been assigned a privilege level C1, C2, C3, . . . CN matching or less than the privilege level granted to the requesting member TL. A contributing member can also chose to allow ‘friends of friends’ to inherit the privilege level assigned to them by their friends so that ‘friends of friends’ can be granted access to their private information despite the lack of direct connection. |
| US08990389B2 |
Using a router based web meter in a mixed mode configuration
A method for associating a web event with a member of a group of users is implemented at a first computing device, the method including: receiving a data access request from a second computing device; examining the data access request to determine whether the second computing device provides a user login service; if the second computing device provides the user login service: causing the second computing device to collect personal information and authorization from the user of the second computing device using the user login service; receiving the user's personal information and authorization from the second computing device; and associating the data access request with the user's personal information in accordance with the user's authorization; and otherwise, associating the data access request with an identifier of the second computing device. |
| US08990386B2 |
Searching virtual resources
A mechanism is provided for searching a virtual resource in a large scale computing system environment. The virtual resource is deployed on at least one server. Each server is coupled to a sensor and communicates with the sensor. The sensors communicate with each other and consist of a communication network. Each sensor stores an identifier of a virtual resource deployed in a server connected with the sensor and the location information of the sensor itself. The mechanism receives a searching request for a virtual resource by the at least one sensor, the searching request containing an identifier of the virtual resource being searched; forwards the searching request in the communication network of the sensors; and returns a location information of a senor storing the identifier of the virtual resource by the sensor itself. |
| US08990378B2 |
System and method for collection and analysis of server log files
A method of handling log files in a network with multiple servers, including, installing an agent application on each server in the network, collecting log files on each server by the agent application, defining a uniform format for providing the log files to a central server, transforming the log files to the defined uniform format, transmitting the transformed log files to a central server, storing the log files in an archive by the central server, analyzing the log files received by the central server, producing reports responsive to the analysis of the log files. |
| US08990375B2 |
Subscription groups in publish-subscribe system
Disclosed is a method and system for publishing subscriptions in a publish-subscribe system in accordance with subscription groups. Embodiments may include (i) determining a consumption characteristic by which each of a plurality of subscribers in a publish-subscribe system consumes a subscription published by a publisher; (ii) identifying the subscribers whose consumption characteristics satisfy a specified similarity criterion; (iii) defining a plurality of subscription groups, each of which includes subscriptions of those of the subscribers whose consumption characteristics satisfy the specified similarity criterion; and (iv) transmitting the subscriptions to the subscribers in accordance with the subscription groups. Embodiments may also include moving a subscription of the subscriber, from a first subscription group having subscriptions of those of the subscribers whose consumption characteristics correspond to a first specified similarity criterion, to a second subscription group having subscriptions of those of the subscribers whose consumption characteristics correspond to a second specified similarity criterion. |
| US08990374B2 |
Method and apparatus of cloud computing subsystem
Example embodiments described herein are directed to providing cloud computing subsystems for computing resource provisioning with various service levels on specific network isolated areas. Example embodiments described herein may also provide protocols for controlling the flow of a frame from and to each tenant in a cloud computing subsystem. |
| US08990368B2 |
Discovery of network software relationships
Embodiments relate to systems and methods for automatic discovery of network software relationships. A set of managed machines, such as personal computers or servers, can be managed by a network management platform communicating with the machines via a secure channel. The network management platform can issue a set of discovery commands interrogating nodes of the network to report software or services which they consume. The network management platform can build a dependency map encoding the dependency or other relationships between nodes in the managed network based on their use of software resources. Network restorations can therefore be conducted in a rational order, maintaining stability in the restored nodes and network. |
| US08990364B2 |
Architecture for content awareness and control among peer-to-peer communication devices
Apparatus and methods for collaboratively presenting content that is distributed among a plurality of communication devices are disclosed. The method includes providing a control service at a player device to enable communicatively coupled controller devices to control playback of media on the player device, and creating a single play queue at the player device that includes identifiers of media content selected by the controller devices. A stream of particular media content from one of the multiple source devices is received when the particular media content is identified at a top of the single play queue, the particular media content is rendered at the player device, and the rendered media content is presented to users associated with the controller devices. |
| US08990361B2 |
Method and system for proximity-based, peer-initiated device configuration
A method and a system for configuring of a client device using a configuration device in a peer to peer communication local network including a plurality of client devices, the configuration device including configuration information designated as sharable information. The method comprises generating a discovery request at the configuration device, the discovery request targeted to the plurality of handheld devices, in response to the discovery request, generating a request for communication with the configuration device from at least one client device, establishing communication between the configuration device and the client device, assigning, at the configuration device, a group to the at least one client device, identifying, at the configuration device, a selection of components from among the sharable information, the selection of components associated with the assigned group and for downloading to the at least one client device; and downloading, for installation at the client device, the selection of components to the at least one client device of the assigned group. |
| US08990356B2 |
Adaptive name resolution
A method, system, and computer-readable memory containing instructions include receiving a DNS request containing information related to user-specific information, device-specific information, and/or authentication information, analyzing the information, determining an appropriate action to take based on analyzing the status, and taking the appropriate action. Actions may include responding with an individualized network layer address or service location address, delaying sending a response message, sending a network layer address or service location address corresponding to a site containing authentication information, and sending a response with a network layer address or service location address with a web address configured to mimic the website related to the requested resource. |
| US08990353B2 |
Recommended alteration to a processing system
The present invention relates to a method, processing system and a computer readable medium for determining a recommended alteration to a client processing system. In one aspect, the processing system comprises: a server processing system; a community application data store, in communication with the server processing system, having stored therein application data indicative of one or more applications used by a plurality of processing systems; a computer readable medium in communication with the server processing system, wherein the computer readable medium, when used by the server processing system, causes the server processing system to: determine, based on the community application data store, a recommended alteration to a client processing system, the client processing system being one of the plurality of processing systems; and transfer the recommended alteration to the client processing system. |
| US08990352B1 |
Stream of content for a channel
A system and method for generating a channel includes a channel engine that retrieves candidate content items based on a topic from heterogeneous data sources. The channel engine generates a stream of content with selected content items and populates the stream of content for the channel and providing the stream of content to users associated with the channel. In response to receiving feedback, the channel engine modifies the at least one topic based at least in part on the feedback. The scoring engine generates a second stream of content from the first stream of content that is personalized for the first user based at least in part on a model. Other users can subscribe to the second stream. |
| US08990345B2 |
Personalized account migration system and method
A method for migrating information, and a migrator for migrating information, are disclosed. The method may include extracting organizational information from at least two service providers, accessing a first at least one of the at least two service providers upon selection of a migration selection interface by the user, receiving of a first plurality of information related to the user from one of the service providers, accessing a second at least one of the at least two service providers, and writing the first plurality of information to the second at least one of the at least two service providers. The migrator includes an importer in communicative connection with at least one migrate-from service provider, a normalizer that receives a first plurality of information from the importer and converts the first plurality to a standard format, a denormalizer that receives the standard format from the normalizer and converts the standard format to a second plurality of information, and an exporter communicatively connected to a migrate-to service provider, which exporter receives the second plurality of information from the denormalizer and sends the second plurality to the migrate-to service provider. |
| US08990336B2 |
Networked system for interactive communication and remote monitoring of individuals
A system for remotely monitoring an individual. The system includes a server system for generating a script program from a set of queries. The script program is executable by a remote apparatus that displays information and/or a set of queries to the individual through a user interface. Responses to the queries that are entered through the user interface together with individual identification information are sent from the remote apparatus to the server system across a communication network. The server system also includes an automated answering service for providing a series of questions from a stored set of questions for an individual at the remote apparatus to respond to, storing responses to each provided question in the series of questions and providing a service based on the individual's response to the questions. |
| US08990335B2 |
Continuous full scan data store table and distributed data store featuring predictable answer time for unpredictable workload
A method for storing and retrieving data in a storage node of a data store and storage node of a data store, storing in main-memory at least one segment of a relational table. The storage node includes at least one computational core running at least one scan thread each dedicated to the scanning of one of the at least one segment. At least one scan thread uniquely, continuously and exhaustively scans the dedicated segment of the relational table. The storage node receives and processes batches of query and update operations for the at least one segment of the relational table. The query and update operations of a batch are re-indexed at beginning of each scan by the scan thread. Then, the indexed query and update operations of a batch are independently joined to data records of said segment that match with predicates of the indexed query and update operations. |
| US08990333B2 |
Multimedia alerting
A method, system, apparatus, and device provides alert information to a user of a device. In response to an alert notification of an alert, one or more alert geographical tiles of interest that are affected by the alert of a plurality of geographical tiles are determined; one or more location-enabled devices each having a location that falls within an alert geographical tile of the one or more alert geographical tiles are determined; a portion of the alert is retrieved from an alert database and processed to generate a media version of the alert; an alert text notification of the alert having the text portion of the alert, an alert identifier of the alert, a reference identifier for the media version of the alert, the one or more alert geographical tiles, and the one or more one or more device identifiers for each of the one or more devices is constructed; the one or more device identifiers for each of the one or more devices, the alert text notification and the alert identifier of the alert is retrieved and the alert text notification is transmitted to the one or more devices corresponding to the retrieved one or more device identifiers. |
| US08990328B1 |
Facilitating media streaming with social interaction
Disclosed are various embodiments for facilitating social interaction during a media item transmission. A group of participants may be formed based on a variety of factors. A media item is rendered on a first portion of a media player user interface. On a second portion of the media player user interface group members may communicate with each other concurrent with the streaming media item. The entire experience may be stored and replayed at another time. |
| US08990326B2 |
Communications system
There is provided a system for facilitating communications over a telecommunications network, the system comprising a data communications device having a unique identifier, the device adapted to generate information elements comprising machine information, the information elements conforming to a first message protocol, the first message protocol being a session-based message protocol. The system further comprises a network subsystem to provide an interface for communication with a plurality of entities. The network subsystem is adapted to receive the information elements and extract the machine information, generate an output message comprising the machine information, the message conforming to a second message protocol different from the first message protocol, and, forward the message to a specific entity of the plurality of entities in dependence on the unique identifier of the data communications device. The data communications device may be a cellular data communications device. An associated method is also provided. |
| US08990323B2 |
Defining a social network model implied by communications data
Systems and methods to define a social network for a user using data implied by communications of the user with others. In one embodiment, a method includes scanning a set of messages (e.g., emails to and from a user of a client device) to identify a plurality of primary persons addressed in the messages as a primary recipient and to identify a plurality of secondary persons addressed in the messages as a secondary recipient; mapping the primary persons to a plurality of friends and mapping the secondary persons to a plurality of other persons; and defining a social network model based on the friends and other persons, wherein the model comprises a friends category including the friends and an all category including the friends and other persons. |
| US08990322B2 |
Archive control for text messages
Systems and methods for controlling how text messages are archived. A system identifies a text message for delivery over a mobile network, and identifies protection information for controlling archiving of the text message. The system inserts the protection information in the text message, and transmits the text message with the protection information towards a destination. The same or another system, such as a message center, receives the text message, and identifies the protection information inserted in the text message. The receiving system further identifies an end user associated with the text message, and identifies privacy policies provisioned for the end user. The receiving system then processes the privacy policies and the protection information to determine if the text message is authorized to be archived, such as in an archive server. |
| US08990319B2 |
System and method for coordinating communication events using computer-assisted structured interaction
A computer-implemented method for negotiating a time and a medium for communications between users is described. The method is performed at a server including one or more processors and memory storing one or more programs. The method includes receiving a request from a first user to negotiate a time and a medium for communication with a second user. The request includes a plurality of acceptable mediums of communication. The method also includes generating a first notification based on the request. The first notification includes the plurality of acceptable mediums of communication. The method furthermore includes transmitting the first notification to the second user, and receiving a response to the first notification from the second user. The response indicates whether the second user has accepted one of the acceptable mediums of communication. |
| US08990317B2 |
Shared multimedia experience
A method includes receiving a request to establish a group presence session between at least a first device associated with a first network and a second device associated with a second network. During the group presence session, multimedia content is provided to the first device and to the second device at substantially the same time, and first presence information from the first device is provided to the second device at substantially the same time as second presence information from the second device is provided to the first device. The method further includes synchronizing the multimedia content, the first presence information, and the second presence information based on a first device capability, a second device capability, information associated with the first network, and information associated with the second network. Synchronized content streams that include the multimedia content and presence information are transmitted to the devices via the respective networks. |
| US08990311B2 |
Enhanced instant message connectivity
Connection state information for Instant Message (IM) users is collected and stored by an IM client. Connection state information for everyone in a sender's buddy list is replicated and stored by the sender's IM client. The IM clients are updated as updates are made on the IM server. This enables simplified direct connection between IM clients when the IM server is down. Client-to-client IM searches are performable, wherein a search is transparently initiated against entries in the user's buddy list, i.e., the user's client directly contacts each available buddy in the user's buddy list using the stored connection state information of the buddy(ies), and it then queries the connection state information of all of the entries in their buddy list(s). For times when a user is not actively on-line, a listener service can be enabled at boot time for the user's PC or laptop computer. |
| US08990302B2 |
Context data in UPNP service information
A system, device, and method provide for the selection of a device to perform a service using context information for the device. The context information may be included in a request from a control point device to the device or may be included in a response from the device to the control point device. The context information provides additional information relative to the services provided by the device or relative to the device itself. For example, if the device is a camera, the camera may include for each photograph taken by the camera a date the photograph is taken, a time the photograph is taken, a location at which the photograph is taken, a subject matter of the photograph, a temperature at the photograph location, a photographer, etc in the context information. Additionally, the camera may include the current geographic location of the camera in the context information. |
| US08990301B2 |
Broker designation and selection in a publish-subscription environment
Approaches for designating and/or selecting broker systems in a publication-subscription (pub-sub) messaging environment are provided. In one approach, a subscriber system may be designated as a broker system based on a capability of the subscriber system to function as a broker system for its peers. In another approach, a broker system may be selected from among a plurality of broker systems based upon a cache directory that identifies the content/messages that each broker system may have cached. If a particular broker system has previously cached content that is at least similar to an intended message, that particular broker system may be selected for distributing the intended message to a set of subscriber systems. |
| US08990298B1 |
Universal visitor identification system
A tag management system can include features to assist in developing a cross-vendor profile for individual visitors to content pages of a content site. The visitors to the content site can obtain universal identifiers usable by the content site to identify the visitors. The universal identifiers can be included in the content pages by the visitor end user systems so that browser tags that may not have native access to the universal identifier can access the universal identifiers. The universal identifiers may then be provided to tag vendor systems with associated visitor data, thereby enabling the tag vendor systems to provide processed or raw data that can be compared by individual universal identifiers. Using this processed data, the content site can prepare the cross-vendor profile of individual visitors and realize insights that may be unavailable using conventional systems and methods. |
| US08990295B2 |
Batching notifications to optimize for battery life
In one embodiment, a notification server 110 may batch together notifications to reduce power consumption. A notification server 110 may receive a power consumption profile 430 from a client device 120. The notification server 110 may assign a notification batch schedule at a notification server 110 based on the power consumption profile 430. |
| US08990292B2 |
In-network middlebox compositor for distributed virtualized applications
Techniques are provided for using a middlebox to composite displays from multiple hosted virtualized applications (HVAs) for transmission to a client endpoint device. The middlebox receives one or more HVA displays via a virtual desktop interface (VDI) protocol, each HVA display from an individual HVA. The middlebox renders and composites the HVA displays together into a hosted virtual desktop (HVD) display, and sends the HVD display to the client endpoint device via a VDI protocol. The client endpoint device is therefore able to display a composite image of multiple HVA displays even if it is a zero client endpoint lacking the capability to perform compositing itself. In some examples, the middlebox reduces computational load by reducing the HVD frame rate, so that it is able to maintain HVD functionality during times of high system activity. |
| US08990290B1 |
Network model for distributed computing networks
The invention sets forth a New Network Model for building and managing distributed computing networks based on a fundamental network building block referred to as a DIME; an acronym for Distributed Intelligent, Managed, Entity, and a Signaling Infrastructure. The network model enables dynamic management of the programs comprising the DIME. Five of these programs are used for implementing the functional management services commonly referred to as Fault, Configuration, Accounting, Performance and Security, or FCAPS, at the DIME level. A combination of FCAPS management and Signaling Infrastructure enables DIME based Workflows, which are groups of connected DIMEs programmed to execute in coordination with each other to produce desired results. The network model further enables basic Workflow requirements, including those of task specialization; priority based mediation; fault tolerance; reliability; and resiliency. |
| US08990288B2 |
Dynamically configured rendering of digital maps
Digital map rendering using dynamically updatable map configuration files is enabled. A map designer creates a map configuration file that specifies customizable attributes of a rendered map and stores the configuration file in a data store, either on the same local network as the map server that will be rendering the map, or at a remote location. The map configuration file can be included on a web page, wiki page, blog, etc. When a client requests a rendered map from the map server, the request specifies the location of the map configuration file to be used in the rendering. The map server retrieves the map configuration file and renders the map in accordance with the settings in the configuration file. The map server returns the rendered map to the client. In such a manner, the developer can modify the map configuration file and immediately effect subsequently rendered maps. |
| US08990285B2 |
Pre-summarization and analysis of results generated by an agent
According to an embodiment of the invention, an agent scans a storage server, and collects information about files stored on the storage server. The agent then summarizes the information into a summary, and stores the summary on a database server. The summaries can be accessed by a system administrator using a graphical user interface (GUI). The summaries contain information about the use of the storage server, and highlight potential problem areas. By having an agent, rather than a multi-appliance management application (MMA) scan the storage server and create the summary, the MMA is able to perform other tasks. |
| US08990284B2 |
Method and apparatus for signal filtering and for improving properties of electronic devices
The present invention relates to nonlinear signal processing, and, in particular, to adaptive nonlinear filtering of real-, complex-, and vector-valued signals utilizing analog Nonlinear Differential Limiters (NDLs), and to adaptive real-time signal conditioning, processing, analysis, quantification, comparison, and control. More generally, this invention relates to methods, processes and apparatus for real-time measuring and analysis of variables, and to generic measurement systems and processes. This invention also relates to methods and corresponding apparatus for measuring which extend to different applications and provide results other than instantaneous values of variables. The invention further relates to post-processing analysis of measured variables and to statistical analysis. The NDL-based filtering method and apparatus enable improvements in the overall properties of electronic devices including, but not limited to, improvements in performance, reduction in size, weight, cost, and power consumption, and, in particular for wireless devices, NDLs enable improvements in spectrum usage efficiency. |
| US08990281B2 |
Techniques for improving the efficiency of mixed radix fast fourier transform
Techniques for implementing mixed-radix FFT on SIMD vector processors efficiently for the latest standard in wireless communication technology by dynamically reordering stages are provided. In one aspect, a mixed-radix FFT implementation method for vector processors is provided which includes the following steps. Input data is decomposed into segments of factors based on a size of the input data, wherein the decomposing is performed in one or more stages, and wherein at each of the stages the input data is processed in blocks using one or more FFT butterfly computations for each of the blocks. The stages in which the decomposing is performed are reordered to insure complete utilization of the vector processors. The butterfly computations for one or more of the blocks are reordered to insure that the input data have memory addresses which are next to each other and contiguous. |
| US08990280B2 |
Configurable system for performing repetitive actions
In some embodiments, a data processing system including an operation unit including circuitry configurable to perform any selected one of a number of operations on data (e.g., audio data) and a configuration unit configured to assert configuration information to configure the operation unit to perform the selected operation. When the operation includes matrix multiplication of a data vector and a matrix whose coefficients exhibit symmetry, the configuration information preferably includes bits that determine signs of all but magnitudes of only a subset of the coefficients. When the operation includes successive addition and subtraction operations on operand pairs, the configuration information preferably includes bits that configure the operation unit to operate in an alternating addition/subtraction mode to perform successive addition and subtraction operations on each pair of data values of a sequence of data value pairs. |
| US08990279B2 |
Filter shaping using a signal cancellation function
A signal filter and accompanying methods. In one embodiment, the filter includes a first mechanism for receiving a first signal. A second mechanism employs one or more modified representations of the first signal to cancel one or more frequency components of the first signal, yielding an output signal in response thereto. In a more specific embodiment, the first mechanism includes a splitter for receiving the first signal and splitting the first signal onto a first path and a second path. The second mechanism further includes one or more delay modules and one or more phase shifters in the first path and/or the second path. One or more controllable amplifiers are optionally included in the first path and/or the second path. The one or more delay modules, phase shifters, or amplifiers are responsive to one or more control signals from a controller. The controller is adapted to modify behavior of the second mechanism so that the filter is characterized by a desired frequency response. |
| US08990276B2 |
Circuit and method for generating a true, circuit-specific and time-invariant random number
The invention relates to a circuit for generating a true, circuit-specific and time-invariant random binary number, having: a matrix of K−L delay elements that can be connected to each other by means of L−1 single or double commutation circuits into chains of delay elements of length L, a single or double demultiplexer connected before the matrix, a single or double multiplexer connection after the matrix, and a run time or number comparator, wherein the setting of the commutation circuits, the demultiplexer, and the multiplexer can be prescribed by a control signal, wherein the circuit comprises a channel code encoder whereby code words of a channel code can be generated and a transcriber, whereby code words of the channel code can be transcribed into the control signal of the L−1 single or double commutation circuits, and a method for generating a true, circuit-specific and time-invariant random number by means of a matrix of L−K delay elements, L−1 single or double commutation circuits, a single or double demultiplexer connected before the matrix, a single or double multiplexer connection after the matrix, and a run time or number comparator, comprising at least the steps a) generating a code word of a channel code, b) transcribing a code word of a channel code to a selection code, c) generating chains of L delay elements by setting a setting corresponding to the code word of the selection code for the L−1 single or double commutation circuits, the single or double demultiplexer, and the single or double multiplexer, d) pairwise comparing of two variables determined by the delay times of two chains defined by the setting of the L−1 commutation circuits corresponding to the code word of the channel code, by means of a number or delay comparator for generating a bit of the true, circuit-specific and time-invariant random number. |
| US08990269B2 |
Intelligent client cache mashup for the traveler
A data mashup on a user's device. The preferred and probably most useful device is a mobile one. However, there is no reason to so limit the invention. When the user makes an application data entry, such as a calendar entry for a meeting with a customer, the mashup uses rules and data patterns that have been defined by the user to query other relevant information sources to collect related information about the customer or the meeting, and to cache the collected information on the device for the user. |
| US08990266B2 |
Dynamic data transformations for network transmissions
A method of dynamically performing data transformations on information that is transmitted between a user device and a web service may include receiving interface code from the web service, receiving an input from the user device that identifies a data type, and a data transformation to be applied to data instances matching the data type. The method may also include causing a definition file to be stored with the data type, the data transformation, and a resource locator. The method may additionally include, in a second communication session, intercepting a transmission, accessing the definition file using the resource locator, determining whether the data instance matches the data type, causing the data transformation to be performed on the data instance to generate transformed data, and inserting the transformed data into the transmission if the data instance matches the data type. |
| US08990259B2 |
Anchored patterns
A method and apparatus relate to recognizing anchored patterns from an input stream. Patterns from a plurality of given patterns are marked as anchored patterns. An anchored state tree for the anchored patterns of the plurality of given patterns is built, including nodes representing a state of the anchored state tree. For each node of the anchored state tree, a failure value equivalent to a node representing a state in an unanchored state tree representing unanchored patterns of the plurality of given patterns is determined. |
| US08990256B2 |
Smart energy network configuration using link key database
Various embodiments include a method and system for configuring a smart energy network using a link key database. An energy services interface, on the smart energy network, extracts a unique identifier associated with a smart energy device from a communication with the smart energy device. The energy services interface may then use the unique identifier to receive information associated with the smart energy device from the link key database. |
| US08990255B2 |
Time bar navigation in a media diary application
A time bar that is navigable within a media diary application for the purpose of efficiently locating a date associated with a media file. The media diary is an application implemented on a digital device for the purpose of organizing by timeframe the digital media files that exist on the device. The time bar feature provides a means to easily and efficiently locate media files within the diary. |
| US08990254B2 |
Loan origination software system for processing mortgage loans over a distributed network
A loan origination and processing system is described. The system can reside on a server computer that is coupled to a data store storing data related to a borrower. The server computer is further coupled to a brokerage network that comprises a loan officer client, a loan processor client, and a broker manager client. Each brokerage client computer executes a unique interface to the loan origination and processing system. |
| US08990252B2 |
Anonymity measuring device
The invention concerns a data anonymity measuring device for selectively transmitting an anonymized database to a third party comprising: calculation means (402) coupled to at least one memory, the memory storing an original database (204) and said anonymized database (206), said calculation means arranged to calculate the conditional entropy for each entry in said anonymized database based on entries in said original database; comparing means (406) arranged to compare at least one of said conditional entropies with a threshold value; and output means (410) arranged to transmit said anonymized database based on the result of said comparison. |
| US08990250B1 |
Cohort selection with privacy protection
Assembling a cohort includes: receiving genetic characteristic information pertaining to a desired genetic characteristic; using the genetic characteristic information to search a data storage comprising information of previously genotyped individuals to derive a candidate group having the desired genetic characteristic; and assembling the cohort based at least in part on the candidate group. |
| US08990242B2 |
Enhanced query suggestions in autosuggest with corresponding relevant data
Methods and computer-storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that facilitate determining enhanced query suggestions are provided. A plurality of query suggestions responsive to a user query are received. Items of data corresponding to the query suggestions are received. Based on the received query suggestions and the received items of data, enhanced query suggestions are determined. In embodiments, an enhanced query suggestion includes one or more items of data related to a respective query suggestion. A user may select at least a portion of an enhanced query suggestion. In embodiments, selection of a portion of an enhanced query suggestion provides additional information. |
| US08990240B2 |
Predictive algorithm for search box auto-complete
In various exemplary embodiments, a system and associated method to predict search results in an electronic environment is disclosed. The system architecture comprises a communications module to receive a query from a remote end-user where the query includes one or more characters contained within a first single communications packet. A query engine is coupled to the communications module. The query engine uses the one or more characters from the query to predictively match keywords contained within a data structure (e.g., a database) and forms a response from the one or more characters. The response is transmitted back to the end-user within a second single TCP communications packet. |
| US08990236B2 |
Method, computer product program and system for analysis of data
A system, computer program product and a system for analysis of data, the method includes: extracting a concise representation of a content a sample of a first dataset, wherein the extracting is executed without being mainly based on a-priory knowledge of a content of the sample of the first dataset; querying a queried dataset using at least a portion of the concise representation of the content of the sample of the first dataset, to provide query results; and generating a concise representation of a content of the query results. |
| US08990233B2 |
Method for implementing context aware service application and related apparatus
Embodiments of the present disclosure disclose a method for implementing a context aware service application and a related apparatus. One method for implementing a context aware service application includes: receiving, by a context aware service platform, a first context request from a context aware client, where the first context request carries description information corresponding to requested context information; and matching released context sources by using the description information, and if matching succeeds, acquiring context information provided by at least one matched context source, and sending the acquired context information to the context aware client. The technical solutions according to the embodiments of the present disclosure help implement the context aware service application in a flexible and standard manner. |
| US08990229B2 |
Method for supplying a multimedia content proxy, proxy, and corresponding computer software product
The invention relates to a method for supplying a multimedia content proxy. According to the invention, the method comprises: the step of receiving at least one instance of at least one model of a profiled multimedia scene adapted to a predetermined profile of users having at least one common parameter and from a loom server; the step of storing in said content proxy said at least one instance of said at least one model of profiled multimedia scene. |
| US08990221B2 |
Device and method for updating a certificate
A method updates certificates for potential recipients. The method comprises determining whether the certificates require updating. The method comprises determining a number of the certificates that require updating. The method comprises requesting updates for each of the certificates that require updating when the number is at most a preset number and sets a timer to a first time duration. The method comprises requesting updates for up to the preset number of the certificates that require updating when the number is greater than the preset number and sets the timer to a second time duration. |
| US08990220B2 |
Management and storage of distributed bookmarks
Managing user bookmark information includes receiving a bookmark-related action request and determining a type of action associated with the bookmark-related action request and user information associated with the bookmark-related action request. In the event that the type of action corresponds to an add bookmark action, managing user bookmark information further includes generating a bookmark data record, the bookmark data record comprising the user information and information to be bookmarked; determining, using the user information, bookmark database information associated with a bookmark database to which the bookmark data record is to be stored, the bookmark database being one of a plurality of bookmark databases; generating index information based on the user information and the bookmark database information; storing the index information in an index database that is separate from the plurality of bookmark databases; and storing the bookmark data record in the bookmark database. |
| US08990218B2 |
System and method for dynamically configuring content-driven relationships among data elements
A computer system configures data elements based on textual sources by identifying subunits of a textual source, indexing the subunits into a sequence comprised of terms, identifies based on a target a base subsequence of the sequence, and stores the terms in such a way that they can be expanded or contracted and a user can rapidly and efficiently derive relevant information and context even from a vast amount of information including by navigable display to the user. Other methods and systems of configuring and displaying data elements from textual sources are provided. |
| US08990212B1 |
Systems and methods of mapping multidimensional data and executing queries
A method includes identifying a source fact table, where the source fact table includes a first set of dimensions and corresponds to a source multidimensional cube that is associated with a first set of measures. The method also includes identifying a mapped multidimensional cube, where the mapped multidimensional cube is associated with a second set of dimensions and a second set of measures. The method further includes adding, to the source fact table, a one or more mapped dimensions corresponding to the second set of dimensions. The method includes associating, with the source multidimensional cube, one or more mapped measures corresponding to the second set of measures. |
| US08990211B1 |
Managing information about entities using observations
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for managing entities using observations. In one aspect, a method includes receiving data identifying an entity; generating a user interface document that, when rendered by a user device, presents a plurality of attribute values to a user and allows the user to modify one or more of the plurality of attribute values; and storing an observation in a data store, the observation including a user-modified value of one of the plurality of attribute values and a context including one or more of the presented attribute values. |
| US08990210B2 |
Propagating information among web pages
Web pages of a Website may be processed to improve search results. For example, information likely to pertain to more than just the Web page it is directly associated with may be identified. One or more other, related, Web pages that such information is likely to pertain to is also identified. The identified information is associated with the identified other Web page(s) and this association is saved in a way to affect a search result score of the Web page(s). |
| US08990209B2 |
Distributed scalable clustering and community detection
Techniques, an apparatus and an article of manufacture for distributed scalable clustering and community detection. A method includes generating a label for each node in a graph, wherein said label identifies a community in which a node participates, propagating each label locally within two or more segments of the graph based on a participation percentage of each node in at least one identified community within the graph, and deriving at least one cluster of nodes in the graph that corresponds to the at least one identified community based on said propagating. |
| US08990207B2 |
Optimization and visual controls for regionalization
In accordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure, a regionalization method is disclosed. The method includes inputting a data set into a computer. The method further includes utilizing the computer to perform contiguity-constrained hierarchical clustering on the data set to generate two regions and performing a fine-tuning procedure on the two regions with the computer to iteratively modify the boundaries between the two regions. |
| US08990204B1 |
Processing and storage of spatial data
Generating and storing, for a multitude of polygonal areas, spatial coordinates of a multitude of piecewise-linear spatial boundary segments. The polygonal boundary of each area comprises boundary segments; each boundary segment forms a portion of the polygonal boundary of at most two adjacent spatial areas. Can further include one or both of (i) an indicator, for each spatial boundary segment, of the at most two corresponding adjacent spatial areas that are separated by that boundary segment or (ii) an indicator, for each spatial area, of one or more boundary segments that together form the entire polygonal boundary of that spatial area. The electronic indicia of the second dataset can be used, inter alia, (i) to determine in which of a multitude of at least partly contiguous spatial areas is located a given spatial point, or (ii) to graphically render the polygonal borders of the areas. |
| US08990202B2 |
Identifying and suggesting classifications for financial data according to a taxonomy
A method includes identifying a table within a first document. The method includes analyzing at least one of: a column heading in the table, a row heading in the table, and data in a cell in the table. The method includes determining, based on the analysis, that the table contains financial data classifiable according to a taxonomy. The method includes analyzing, by a classification component comprising at least one classification engine, at least one of a column heading in the table and a row heading in the table. The method includes generating, by the classification component, a classification suggestion for at least one element in the table, based on the analysis of the classification component. |
| US08990201B1 |
Image search results provisoning
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer program products, for selectively presenting search results responsive to search query suggestions. In one aspect includes receiving a partial search query including one or more characters; generating a first query suggestion based on the partial search query; determining whether the first query suggestion meets a filtering criterion, where the filtering criterion is a criterion specifying one or more filtering criterion topics against which the first query suggestion is evaluated independent of search results responsive to the first query suggestion; providing the first query suggestion; and in response to determining that the first query suggestion meets the filtering criterion, preventing a first set of one or more images responsive to the first query suggestion from being presented to a user. |
| US08990200B1 |
Topical search system
A topical search computer system identifies topics from various definitional (i.e., data) sources. The system generates a catalog of different topics from the data sources. Topics with similar names are differentiated by the system based on the context in which each topic is used. The context for a topic is represented by a context vector, which describes the co-occurrence relationships between the topic and other topics derived from the data sources. Because the system has computed a context for each topic, the system can provide improved search results responsive to user queries for information. |
| US08990196B2 |
Knowledge management system with collective search facility
A search facility includes a computerized appliance coupled to one or more private enterprise networks with connected data repositories, the appliance executing software from a machine-readable media, and a portal from one of the one or more private enterprise networks to one or more networks external to the enterprise. The software provides an interactive interface on a display of the appliance, the interface providing an input mechanism for a user to enter search criteria and an initiation mechanism for the user to initiate a search using the entered criteria, and wherein a search thus initiated searches both the data repositories within the enterprise, and sources outside the enterprise accessible by the one or more networks external to the enterprise. |
| US08990194B2 |
Adjusting content delivery based on user submissions of photographs
Methods, and systems, including computer programs encoded on computer-readable storage mediums, including a method for adjusting content delivery based on user submissions. The method includes analyzing user submissions comprising photographs, the analyzing comprising: for each of the user submissions: identifying a time the user submission occurred; identifying objects represented in the photograph; determining a subject matter of the user submission based at least in part on the objects; determining a geographic location associated with the subject matter of the user submission; determining clusters of the user submissions, each user submission in a particular cluster being similar to each other user submission in the particular cluster based on the times the user submissions occurred, the subject matters of the user submissions, and the geographic locations associated with the user submissions; and adjusting content delivery to members of a network based on the determination of one or more of the clusters. |
| US08990193B1 |
Method, system, and graphical user interface for improved search result displays via user-specified annotations
A method, system, and graphical user interface for improved web searching via user-specified annotations are disclosed. One aspect of the invention involves a graphical user interface on a computer that includes a ranked set of links responsive to a search request by a user. At least some of the links are to documents that have not previously been annotated by the user and at least some of the links are to documents that have previously been annotated by the user. The graphical user interface also includes one or more corresponding annotations previously created based on the user's input for at least some of the links to documents that have previously been annotated by the user. |
| US08990192B2 |
Search engine optimization using a find operation
Provided are a computer implemented method, computer program product, and system for ranking search results. It is determined that a find operation with a find keyword has been issued for a page. In response to determining that the find keyword has been located on the page, the find keyword is stored in an index as relevant text for the page. In response to receiving a subsequent search request for which the page is retrieved, the page is ranked based on the find keyword. |
| US08990191B1 |
Method and system to determine a category score of a social network member
A method and system to determine a category score of a social network member is described. An example system comprises a sample selector, a weight value module, a storing module, an access module, and a category score module. The sample selector selects a random sample of member profiles from the profiles maintained by an on-line social network system. The weight value module obtains respective weight values associated with various phrases present in the random sample of member profiles. The access module accesses a member profile and the weighted phrases associated with a certain category. The category score module determines a category score for the member profile based on a presence of one or more phrases from the plurality of weighted phrases in the member profile. |
| US08990189B2 |
Determining relevant contacts based on expertise and availability
A method for identifying knowledgeable and available contacts in a given instant messaging system for possible communication purposes. The method includes a computer receiving a keyword and searching for the keyword in correspondence files of users of the instant messaging system. Based on the results of the search, the computer identifies users that have used the keyword in their correspondence. The computer determines the availability of each of the identified users and ranks the identified users based on predefined criteria, which includes at least the determined availability. |
| US08990182B2 |
Methods and apparatus for searching the Internet
Some embodiments relate to performing a search for content via the Internet, wherein user input specifying a search query is supplied to a mobile communications device, such as, for example, a smartphone. The mobile communications device separately issues the search query to a plurality of search engines and can receive the results from each search engine and display the results to the user. Thus, the user does not have to separately issue the query to each of the plurality of search engines. |
| US08990179B2 |
Time limited lock ownership
Described herein are techniques for time limited lock ownership. In one embodiment, in response to receiving a request for a lock on a shared resource, the lock is granted and a lock lease period associated with the lock is established. Then, in response to determining that the lock lease period has expired, one or more lock lease expiration procedures are performed. In many cases, the time limited lock ownership may prevent system hanging, timely detect system deadlocks, and/or improve overall performance of the database. |
| US08990177B2 |
Lock-free transactional support for large-scale storage systems
Described is a reliable and efficient design for a transactional status oracle (“ReTSO”), which supports large-scale storage systems. ReTSO uses a centralized scheme and implements snapshot isolation, a property that guarantees that read operations read a consistent snapshot of the data store. The centralized scheme of ReTSO enables a lock-free commit algorithm that prevents unreleased locks of a failed transaction from blocking other transactions. Each transaction submits the identifiers of modified rows to the ReTSO, the transaction is committed only if none of the modified rows is committed by a concurrent transaction, and a log of the committed transaction is cached. To recover from failures, before a client is notified of a change, the change cached is first persisted into a write-ahead log, such that the memory state can be fully reconstructed by reading from the write-ahead log. Furthermore, ReTSO implements a lazy, auto-garbage collector hash map that reduces the number of memory accesses per request. |
| US08990168B1 |
Efficient conflict resolution among stateless processes
A method, article of manufacture, and apparatus for efficient conflict resolution among stateless processes is disclosed. In some embodiments, a file system view request is sent to a process manager. A check is then made to ensure that a connection to the requested file system is available. A stateless process to interact with the file system is created, a stateless process to display the file system is created, and a state machine to check the validity of operational requests to be performed on the file system is also created. A display is then used to select one conflict resolution mechanism. A plurality of operational requests to interact with the file system is sent to the process manager. For each operational request, the state machine is used to check for valid requests. The valid requests are then performed. For each invalid operational request, the selected conflict resolution mechanism is used to determine whether to terminate or perform the invalid operational request. In some embodiments, software components are removed from the file system. In some embodiments, software components are added to the file system. |
| US08990166B2 |
Variable page sizing for improved physical clustering
A data size characteristic of contents of a related unit of data to be written to a storage by an input/output module of a data storage application can be determined, and a storage page size consistent with the data size can be selected from a plurality of storage page sizes. The related unit of data can be assigned to a storage page having the selected storage page size, and the storage page can be passed to the input/output module so that the input/output module physically clusters the contents of the related unit of data when the input/output module writes the contents of the related unit of data to the storage. Related methods, systems, and articles of manufacture are also disclosed. |
| US08990165B2 |
Methods, apparatus and articles of manufacture to archive data
Methods, apparatus and articles of manufacture to archive data are disclosed. An example method to archive data disclosed herein comprises determining an initial data model representing functional dependencies among attributes of the data, the initial data model having fully interdependent functional dependencies among all attributes of the data, pruning one or more functional dependencies from the initial data model to determine a verified data model, and archiving a transaction included in the data to memory according to the verified data model. |
| US08990163B2 |
Snapshot of distributed enterprise business data stored in various cloud services
A system and method for generating a snapshot of data associated with one or more cloud-based applications are disclosed. Application programming interfaces (APIs) and connections associated with one or more applications registered and on a server computer and used by a company are retrieved from a table by a lookup. All data associated with the one or more applications based on the APIs and connections are also retrieved. The data associated with the one or more applications is then mapped to a client-specific representation and data format. The data associated with the one or more applications is converted to the client-specific representation and data format. |
| US08990162B1 |
Metadata generation for incremental backup
Metadata generate for incremental backup is disclosed. A subset of blocks used to store file system metadata are identified in a set of blocks changed since a last backup. File system metadata stored in the subset of blocks is used to obtain file system metadata associated with file system objects that have been created and/or modified since the last backup. The file system metadata associated with file system objects that have been created and/or modified since the last backup is used to generate file system metadata files for the incremental backup. |
| US08990160B2 |
Managing data with backup server indexing
Indexing functionality can be shifted to one or more backup servers in a backup system. In one implementation, a backup server can receive one or more data backups from one or more production servers. The backup server can then build or create one or more indexes at the backup server, which correspond to the contents of the one or more data backups. In one implementation, one or more management agents can also identify any appropriate components that might be needed to read the backup data at the backup server pursuant to building the one or more indexes. In either case, the one or more indexes can be used for a wide range of purposes, such as to manage data usage quotas at the one or more production servers, as well as to retrieve data from the backup server based on specific file requests. |
| US08990150B2 |
Collaborative authoring
A collaborative authoring application provides an authoring environment in which two or more users can edit a document concurrently. Each user edits a copy of the document, sends updates to a master copy of the document, and receives updates from the master copy of the document. The authoring environment generally inhibits the users from providing conflicting editing instructions to the master copy of the document. For example, each user can generate a content lock about one or more data units within the document. The authoring environment may synchronize content locks automatically and content only at the request of the user. |
| US08990149B2 |
Generating a predictive model from multiple data sources
Techniques are disclosed for generating an ensemble model from multiple data sources. In one embodiment, the ensemble model is generated using a global validation sample, a global holdout sample and base models generated from the multiple data sources. An accuracy value may be determined for each base model, on the basis of the global validation dataset. The ensemble model may be generated from a subset of the base models, where the subset is selected on the basis of the determined accuracy values. |
| US08990147B2 |
Defining sub-cube scope based upon a query
Technologies are described herein for defining the scope of a sub-cube based upon a database query. A request is received to perform a query of a multi-dimensional database, such as a cube, stored at a server computer. In response to the request, the scope for a sub-portion, called a sub-cube, of the multi-dimensional database is determined based upon the query. The scope of the sub-cube may be determined by identifying the minimum sub-portion of the cube necessary to perform the query. Once the scope has been determined, the sub-cube is generated at the server computer and transmitted to a client computer. The client computer stores the sub-cube locally and performs the requested database query on the sub-cube stored at the client computer. A user interface may be provided through which a user can modify the scope of the sub-cube determined based upon the query. |
| US08990141B2 |
Method and system for performing root cause analysis
A root cause analysis engine uses event survival times and gradual deletion of events to improve analysis accuracy and reduce the number of required calculations. Certainty factors of relevant rules are recalculated every time notification of an event is received. The calculation results are held in a rule memory in the analysis engine. Each event has a survival time, and when the time has expired, that event is deleted from the rule memory. Events held in the rule memory can be deleted without affecting other events held in the rule memory. The analysis engine can then re-calculate the certainty factor of each rule by only performing the re-calculation with respect to affected rules that are related with the deleted event. The calculation cost can be reduced because analysis engine processes events incrementally or decrementally. Analysis engine can determine the most possible conclusion even if one or more condition elements were not true, because analysis engine can calculate the certainty factor of rule even if one or more events were not notified to analysis engine. |
| US08990139B1 |
Framework for flexible cognitive perception and action selection
Described is a system for flexible cognitive perception and selection. A pre-processing recognition module filters and tags input data from an environment resulting in a tagged percept. The tagged percept is stored and associated with a knowledge frame by a memory module based on shared descriptors, resulting in an activated knowledge frame. A utility rating is then supplied to each activated knowledge frame based on a set of reward values by an evaluation module. The activated knowledge frames are sorted, compared, and evaluated for a goodness of fit between the utility ratings of the activated knowledge frames and the input data by a hypothesis module. A best hypothesis for a current situation in the environment is determined based on a current highest rated activated knowledge frame. |
| US08990137B2 |
Apparatus for memristor/neuron emulation and testing
A method and a device are disclosed for an electronic neuron emulator for representing both passive and active electrical properties of a live neuron. The currents used to generate action potentials are derived from a pre-charged capacitor. The present invention provides for a more physiological state for testing neuroscience instruments such as the single-electrode voltage clamp and the patch clamp. The device can also include multiple pre-charged capacitors to represent ionic channels with more accurate physiologically parameters. |
| US08990136B2 |
Methods and systems for fractal flow fabric
A fractal flow fabric can include a substrate for growing at least one procedure, and a plurality of nodes formed on said substrate, wherein each node among said plurality of nodes connects to each other through at least one flow-stabilized link to grow said at least one procedure and automatically solve a problem via said at least one procedure. |
| US08990133B1 |
Apparatus and methods for state-dependent learning in spiking neuron networks
State-dependent supervised learning framework in artificial neuron networks may be implemented. A framework may be used to describe plasticity updates of neuron connections based on a connection state term and a neuron state term. Connection states may be updated based on inputs and outputs to and/or from neurons. The input connections of a neuron may be updated using input traces comprising a time-history of inputs provided via the connection. Weight of the connection may be updated and connection state may be time varying. The updated weights may be determined using a rate of change of the input trace and a term comprising a product of a per-neuron contribution and a per-connection contribution configured to account for the state time-dependency. Using event-dependent connection change components, connection updates may be executed on a per neuron basis, as opposed to a per-connection basis. |
| US08990130B2 |
Consolidating multiple neurosynaptic cores into one memory
Embodiments of the invention relate to a neural network system comprising a single memory block for multiple neurosynaptic core modules. One embodiment comprises a neural network system including a memory array that maintains information for multiple neurosynaptic core modules. Each neurosynaptic core module comprises multiple neurons. The neural network system further comprises at least one logic circuit. Each logic circuit receives neuronal firing events targeting a neurosynaptic core module of the neural network system, and said logic circuit integrates the firing events received based on information maintained in said memory for said neurosynaptic core module. |
| US08990129B1 |
Requesting a re-prompt based on learned behavior
A system for determining to request a re-prompt for a metering device, includes: a data store including a computer readable medium storing a program of instructions for determining to request the re-prompt; a processor that executes the program of instructions; a registration module to register a media consumer associated with the metering device; a behavior learning unit to learn a behavior associated with the registered media consumer; a behavior determination unit to determine a difference between the behavior associated with the registered media consumer and a behavior associated with a present media consumer; and a re-prompt determination unit to request the re-prompt to the metering device based on the difference being greater than a predetermined threshold. |
| US08990123B2 |
System and method of anonymous messaging, reviewing, quantifying, matching and searching people on map
The present invention relates to computer-implemented services and user interfaces for allowing users to send a request or message to another user or anyone with an email address without disclosing her or her identity, match friends, tag people with certain attributes to generate a social percentile, and review connections. The invention also relates to methods for sending a request or message anonymously, generating a social percentile with attribute tagging, reviewing individuals and matching a member with another individual. |
| US08990121B1 |
Establishment of a secure session between a card reader and a mobile device
Disclosed is a technique for establishing a secure communication session between a mobile device and a card reader. The technique can involve using a trusted, remote validation server to validate security information of both the card reader and a POS module in the mobile device prior to, and as a precondition of, the card reader and the POS module establishing a secure communication session with each other. In certain embodiments the POS module sends the security information of both the card reader and the POS module to the validation server. The security information can include cryptographic keys of the POS module and the card reader and additional security information related to the POS module and its software environment. |
| US08990120B2 |
Leveraging procurement across companies and company groups
A method and system for providing procurement services to customer companies. A user profile for each user, in a computer database, specifies: (i) each user is authorized by a first customer company of the customer companies to access procurement resources and the procurement services for purchasing items and (ii) the first customer company and a first company group of related customer companies. Access to volume discounts with respect to vendors is provided to all customer companies in the first company group. Companies are authorized to have access to and share each procurement resource, by providing a resource profile specifying for each procurement resource a set of customer companies authorized for accessing and sharing each procurement resource to be shared among the users. Access to the procurement resources is controlled resources based on: the first company group, the first customer company, and the resource profile for each procurement resource. |
| US08990117B2 |
Smartcard to virtual media conversion
In one embodiment, a method for converting a smartcard into a virtual media in a transit system is provided. The method includes reading data from a smartcard. The data includes product information related to a transit product stored on the smartcard. The data is communicated to a smartcard management system such that the smartcard management system may create a record of the smartcard. The data is also communicated to a ticket management system. An indication of the creation of an account from the ticket management system is received. The account includes a unique account identifier and the data. An input from a contactless media is received. The input includes an identifier of the contactless media. The identifier is communicated to an authorization service. A token created by the authorization service is received. The token is associated with the identifier. The token is communicated to the ticket management system. |
| US08990115B2 |
Method, apparatus and system for implementing verification and payment in content service
A method for implementing verification and payment in content services includes: pre-configuring a payment-related interface between a content service provider and an instant messaging service provider; providing the payment-related interface in a function library providing the instant messaging service's login verification interface; modifying the function library and a first jar package including a content service program provided by the content service provider, which includes: injecting the login verification interface and the payment-related interface into the first jar package and configuring the login verification interface as to be called before the content service program is executed; and combining the modified first jar package and function library to form a second jar package, modifying the value of attributes originally belonging to the first jar package in the second jar package to make the modified value of the attributes reflect corresponding attributes of the second jar package. |
| US08990110B2 |
Autonomous operations of securable devices
A system and method for assigning controlled access to a securable device may include a kiosk configured to receive a PIN and to collect payment from a user for rental of a securable device from among multiple securable devices. A lock unit associated with the securable device and in communication with the kiosk may be configured to receive the PIN from said kiosk. After receiving the PIN, the kiosk may be configured to operate autonomously with respect to the kiosk to enable the user to access the securable device in response to the user entering the PIN into the lock unit. |
| US08990109B2 |
Interface module, system and method
An interface module is provided for a sales processing system that facilitates the integration of a payment system and external systems with the sales processing system. In one implementation, the interface module includes a first interface configured to support a first protocol for communication with a sales processing module of the sales processing system, a second interface configured to support a second protocol for communication with a payment system, and a third interface configured to support a third protocol for communication with a transaction system for external services. The interface module further includes a controller operable to control routing of messages between the first, second and third interfaces, and reformatting of the messages in accordance with the first, second and third protocols, respectively. |
| US08990108B1 |
Content presentation based on winning bid and attendance detected at a physical location information in real time
A computer-implemented method for presenting content based on information detected in real time includes: receiving first information corresponding to detection of at least attendance at a physical location; selecting, in real time with the detection, at least one winning bid based on the first information, the at least one winning bid conditioned on the first information meeting an attendance criterion; and providing at least one winning content item associated with the selected winning bid to a content presentation device at the physical location. |
| US08990102B1 |
Method and system for compiling a consumer-based electronic database, searchable according to individual internet user-defined micro-demographics
A system and method includes storing user information, advertiser information and electronic user interest information including one or more of questions and factual information regarding a plurality of topics. A request for information is received from a first user computing device, and at least one relevance factor is determined, based on at least a relationship of the electronic request for information with one or more of the user information, the advertiser information and the user interest information. A likelihood of receiving electronic information from the first user computing device is determined and at least some advertiser information is selected, based on at least the at least one relevance factor. First electronic user interest information is selected and a transmission including the first electronic user interest information and the at least some electronic advertiser information is generated and transmitted to the first user computing device. |
| US08990101B2 |
Customizable situational awareness dashboard and alerts, and associated systems and methods
A customizable situational awareness system is described that allows a user to customize the type of information that the user receives through a user interface, e.g., a dashboard, displayed by the system. In particular embodiments, the system can allow the user to configure alerts that are sent to the user's mobile or other device based on situational awareness events. In further embodiments, the customizable situational awareness system receives user configuration data related to flight events, maintenance events, and alerts. When the system receives situational awareness data, the system can retrieve the user's configuration data and display the situational awareness data based on the user's configuration data. Thus, aspects of the customizable situational awareness system allow the user to access information that is more relevant to the user and to filter out less relevant information. |
| US08990098B2 |
Validated healthcare cleaning and sanitizing practices
A validated healthcare facility cleaning and sanitizing system provides a comprehensive and systematic approach to cleaning and sanitizing practices at a hospital or other healthcare facility. The validated hospital cleaning system identifies hospital vectors of contamination; that is, sources through which hospital acquired infections (HAIs) may be spread. The validated system defines a plurality of modules within a healthcare facility, each having an associated cleaning process map designed to meet the particular cleaning and/or sanitizing needs and challenges faced by that module. Various stages of the cleaning process map include validation points, at which certain parameters designed to ensure proper cleaning and/or sanitizing of the module are verified. |
| US08990097B2 |
Discovering and ranking trending links about topics
A system and a method for discovering and ranking trending links about topics are presented. The method comprises steps of receiving a plurality of messages from a social networking server, identifying a plurality of trending objects from the plurality of messages, generating at least one trending score for each trending object of the trending objects, and presenting a list of the trending objects based on the trending scores. |
| US08990094B2 |
Coding and decoding a transient frame
An electronic device for coding a transient frame is described. The electronic device includes a processor and executable instructions stored in memory that is in electronic communication with the processor. The electronic device obtains a current transient frame. The electronic device also obtains a residual signal based on the current transient frame. Additionally, the electronic device determines a set of peak locations based on the residual signal. The electronic device further determines whether to use a first coding mode or a second coding mode for coding the current transient frame based on at least the set of peak locations. The electronic device also synthesizes an excitation based on the first coding mode if the first coding mode is determined. The electronic device also synthesizes an excitation based on the second coding mode if the second coding mode is determined. |
| US08990087B1 |
Providing text to speech from digital content on an electronic device
A method for providing text to speech from digital content in an electronic device is described. Digital content including a plurality of words and a pronunciation database is received. Pronunciation instructions are determined for the word using the digital content. Audio or speech is played for the word using the pronunciation instructions. As a result, the method provides text to speech on the electronic device based on the digital content. |
| US08990086B2 |
Recognition confidence measuring by lexical distance between candidates
A recognition confidence measurement method, medium and system which can more accurately determine whether an input speech signal is an in-vocabulary, by extracting an optimum number of candidates that match a phone string extracted from the input speech signal and estimating a lexical distance between the extracted candidates is provided. A recognition confidence measurement method includes: extracting a phoneme string from a feature vector of an input speech signal; extracting candidates by matching the extracted phoneme string and phoneme strings of vocabularies registered in a predetermined dictionary and; estimating a lexical distance between the extracted candidates; and determining whether the input speech signal is an in-vocabulary, based on the lexical distance. |
| US08990082B2 |
Non-scorable response filters for speech scoring systems
A method for scoring non-native speech includes receiving a speech sample spoken by a non-native speaker and performing automatic speech recognition and metric extraction on the speech sample to generate a transcript of the speech sample and a speech metric associated with the speech sample. The method further includes determining whether the speech sample is scorable or non-scorable based upon the transcript and speech metric, where the determination is based on an audio quality of the speech sample, an amount of speech of the speech sample, a degree to which the speech sample is off-topic, whether the speech sample includes speech from an incorrect language, or whether the speech sample includes plagiarized material. When the sample is determined to be non-scorable, an indication of non-scorability is associated with the speech sample. When the sample is determined to be scorable, the sample is provided to a scoring model for scoring. |
| US08990081B2 |
Method of analysing an audio signal
A method of analyzing an audio signal is disclosed. A digital representation of an audio signal is received and a first output function is generated based on a response of a physiological model to the digital representation. At least one property of the first output function may be determined. One or more values are determined for use in analyzing the audio signal, based on the determined property of the first output function. |
| US08990080B2 |
Techniques to normalize names efficiently for name-based speech recognition grammars
Techniques to normalize names for name-based speech recognition grammars are described. Some embodiments are particularly directed to techniques to normalize names for name-based speech recognition grammars more efficiently by caching, and on a per-culture basis. A technique may comprise receiving a name for normalization, during name processing for a name-based speech grammar generating process. A normalization cache may be examined to determine if the name is already in the cache in a normalized form. When the name is not already in the cache, the name may be normalized and added to the cache. When the name is in the cache, the normalization result may be retrieved and passed to the next processing step. Other embodiments are described and claimed. |
| US08990079B1 |
Automatic calibration of command-detection thresholds
When a voice-activated device or application is first started, the signal levels corresponding to spoken commands are initially unknown, making it difficult to set detection thresholds. The inventive method provides an initial command-detection threshold based on the noise level alone. The first command is detected using this initial threshold. Then the threshold is revised according to the first command sound, and a second command is detected using the revised threshold. After detecting each command, the detection threshold is further refined according to the current noise and command sounds. Methods are also disclosed for optimizing the thresholds, adjusting parameters according to sound, and detecting voiced and unvoiced sounds separately. These capabilities enable many emerging voice-activated products and applications. |
| US08990069B1 |
Techniques for pruning phrase tables for statistical machine translation
A computer-implemented technique includes receiving, at a server including one or more processors, a phrase table for statistical machine translation, the phrase table including a plurality of phrase pairs corresponding to one or more pairs of languages. The technique includes determining, at the server, a redundant set of phrase pairs from the plurality of phrase pairs and calculating first and second probabilities for each specific phrase pair of the redundant set. The second probability can be based on third probabilities for sub-phrases of each specific phrase pair. The technique includes determining, at the server, one or more selected phrase pairs based on whether a corresponding second probability for a specific phrase pair is within a probability threshold from its corresponding first probability. The technique also includes removing, at the server, the one or more selected phrase pairs from the phrase table to obtain a modified phrase table. |
| US08990064B2 |
Translating documents based on content
A document containing text in a source language may be translated into a target language based on content associated with that document, in conjunction with the present technology. An indication to perform an optimal translation of a document into a target language may be received via a user interface. The document may then be accessed by a computing device. The optimal translation is executed by a preferred translation engine of a plurality of available translation engines. The preferred translation engine is the most likely to produce the most accurate translation of the document among the plurality of available translation engines. Additionally, the preferred translation engine may be identified based on content associated with the document. The document is translated into the target language using the preferred translation engine to obtain a translated document, which may then be outputted by a computing device. |
| US08990062B2 |
Method and program for estimating operation of program
The present invention is achieved as software which operates on a computer system and which performs calculation by receiving various data as inputs, and which outputs values. The present invention is applicable to a coarse-grained system architecture model including the foregoing event-driven simulation and receives, as inputs, execution time T and the number of memory accesses, N, in the simulation step of the model. Thus, various estimates at the occurrence of memory access conflict are obtained at a simulation speed sufficient for evaluating the effect of the memory access conflict and comparing it with many alternative architectures without information on the correct timing of memory accesses in consideration of memory synchronous accesses and arbitration. The results of this simulation are estimated simulation-step execution time T′ under memory access conflict and memory-bandwidth utilization factors {U′i} in individual simulation steps under memory access conflict. |
| US08990057B1 |
Representing geometry of a system in a modeling environment
In an embodiment, an element, that represents an entity in a system, is generated. The generated element may be incorporated in a network that represents the system. The generated element may include geometry information about a geometry of the entity. The geometry information may be used in one or more computations associated with a simulation or an analysis of the system. The element may have a frame port that exposes a frame. The frame may represent at least a position and an orientation in a two dimensional or three dimensional space with respect to another frame in the network. The other frame in the network may be a reference frame that may be defined by a “world” that the system resides in. The generated element may be incorporated into the network by connecting the frame port to the network. |
| US08990055B2 |
Method and apparatus for simulation of a system in a communications network
The invention relates to a method and apparatus for simulating a system in a communications network as a linear system in order to obtain a prediction of the load of a resource in the system. Measurements obtained at m different points in time of the event intensity aevent for a number n of key events occurring in a reference system are used to form the simulation model, together with measurements of the total load L in the reference system at the m different points in time. An optimization problem, defined by the simulation model and a set of event intensities of the system-to-be-predicted in a scenario to be simulated, is solved in order to obtain a prediction of the total load of the system in the simulated scenario. |
| US08990051B2 |
Geometry simplification apparatus, geometry simplification method, and program
A geometry simplification apparatus includes a determination unit configured to determine whether another component is in contact with a simplification target place, a simplification unit configured to simplify the geometry of the simplification target place, a determination unit configured to determine whether another component is in contact with the simplification target place of which the geometry is simplified, a comparison unit configured to compare contact relationship between another component and the simplification target place before and after the simplification of the geometry of the simplification target place, and a correction unit configured to correct the geometry of the component in which the geometry of the simplification target place is simplified to a geometry which does not interfere with another component according to comparison results by the contact relationship comparison unit. |
| US08990050B2 |
Systems and methods of updating graphical objects
Systems and methods of updating graphical objects are disclosed. The methods and systems receive polygonal data which describe discrete points on an object. A control mesh and a smoothed version of the control mesh are simultaneously displayed. When the control mesh is edited, the smoothed version is automatically updated by smoothing only a portion of the edited control mesh to generate a smoothed section, and replacing a portion of the smoothed version with at least a selected portion of the smoothed section. |
| US08990047B2 |
Neighborhood thresholding in mixed model density gating
The present invention provides automatic gating methods that are useful to gate populations of interest in multidimensional data, wherein the populations of interest are only a subset of the populations identifiable in the data. The populations are modeled as a finite mixture of multivariate probability distributions, preferably normal or t distributions. The distribution parameters that provide a best fit of the model distribution to the data are estimated using an Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm that further includes a dynamic neighborhood thresholding that enables gating of a subset of the clusters present in the data. |
| US08990044B2 |
Revolution counter and method for determining the number of revolutions of a shaft
A revolution counter including sensors, which generate position values that define an angular position of a shaft, and a determination unit that receives the position values and generates decision signals therefrom, wherein the decision signals determine counting sectors. The revolution counter includes a counting control unit that receives the counting sectors, and operates the revolution counter in a first mode or a second mode of operation. The counting control unit switches over to the second mode, if after a length of time no change in one of the counting sectors takes place, and switches over to the first mode if a change in one of the counting sectors does take place. The determination unit determines an uncertainty range between each pairing of the counting sectors. The counting control unit does not take the uncertainty ranges into account for the switchover from the second mode to the first mode. |
| US08990039B2 |
Calibration system for a pressure-sensitive catheter
A calibration apparatus includes a fixture, which is coupled to accept a probe so that a distal tip of the probe presses against a point in the fixture and produces first measurements indicative of a deformation of the distal tip relative to a distal end of the probe, in response to pressure exerted on the distal tip. A sensing device is coupled to the fixture and is configured to produce second measurements of a mechanical force exerted by the distal tip against the point. A calibration processor is configured to receive the first measurements from the probe, to receive the second measurements from the sensing device and to compute, based on the first and second measurements, one or more calibration coefficients for assessing the pressure as a function of the first measurements. |
| US08990035B2 |
Instrument and method for detecting partial electrical discharges
An instrument (1) and a method for detecting partial electric discharges involve acquiring a discharge signal (10), for example picked up by a direct-measuring impedance device (7) through a broadband HF acquisition channel (18), and acquiring the discharge signal (10) in a narrowband LF acquisition channel (180) complying with regulations, using on the LF acquisition channel (180) a trigger controlled in slave mode by a trigger of the broadband HF acquisition channel (18); they also involve acquiring another discharge signal (32) picked up by an indirect-measuring impedance device (8) through a second narrowband LF acquisition channel (180A) and comparing digital signals (34, 34A) generated in the first and second LF acquisition channels (180, 180A), in order to generate a balanced digital signal (36) without components representative of common mode electrical signals present in the measuring circuit. |
| US08990034B2 |
Redundancy for improved stack health monitoring reliability
A health monitoring system for a fuel cell stack using current fuel cell architecture to enable the electronic control unit (ECU) to continue to monitor the health of the fuel cell stack despite a component failure. The system uses an embedded measurement module (EMM) connected to a group of fuel cells in the fuel cell stack to monitor the health of that group of fuel cells. The EMM produces a pulse width modulation signal that is sent to the ECU. A total voltage value for the group of fuel cells is embedded into the calibration signal or end of frame sequence. The ECU uses an algorithm to determine a missing voltage of at least one fuel cell in the event of the component failure of that fuel cell by adding up the cumulative value for each fuel cell reporting their voltage and subtracting that value from the total voltage value found in the end of frame sequence. |
| US08990033B2 |
Monitoring operational conditions of a cargo ship through use of sensor grid on intermodal containers
A computer-implemented method, system, and/or computer program product monitors operational conditions of a cargo ship. A baseline composite vibration pattern is established from readings generated by multiple smart sensors. Each of the multiple smart sensors is a uniquely-identified smart sensor that has been affixed to one of multiple intermodal shipping containers that have been loaded onto a cargo ship, and each smart sensor includes a vibration sensor for detecting mechanical vibration. Subsequent readings are then taken from the multiple smart sensors to generate a new composite vibration pattern. In response to the new composite vibration pattern being different from the baseline composite vibration pattern, the new composite vibration pattern is matched with a known composite vibration pattern in order to identify a cause of the new composite vibration pattern. |
| US08990028B2 |
Fracture prediction method, device, a program arrangement and computer-accessible medium therefor
According to exemplary embodiments of the present invention, using a fracture limit stress line obtained by converting a hole expansion ratio into a stress as a criterion for a fracture, the risk of fracture in a material can be evaluated quantitatively by comparing the relationship between data obtained from a numerical analysis using a finite element method and the fracture limit stress line. Thus, when determining a fracture limit in a stretch flange portion in a thin plate in a process including one or more deformation path variations, it is possible to obtain the fracture limit curve easily and efficiently and predict the fracture with high accuracy, and the risk of fracture upon press forming or crash can be evaluated. |
| US08990027B2 |
Method and device for monitoring the state of a foundation embedded in the ground
The invention relates to a method for monitoring the state of a foundation supporting a building (I) and embedded in the ground, consisting of using a plurality of sensors (4, 5) arranged on the building to acquire a set of measurements (mi1, mi2) relating to the foundation and/or to the building according to a predetermined acquisition mode; calculating, from said set of measurements, a set of condition indicators (iJ1,iJ2) characteristic of an embedding rigidity of the foundation; and making a comparison between a set of values derived from the set of calculated condition indicators and a set of thresholds. |
| US08990025B2 |
Temperature-independent chemical and biological sensors
Methods and sensors for selective fluid sensing are provided. A sensor includes a resonant inductor-capacitor-resistor (LCR) circuit and a sensing material disposed over a sensing region. The sensing region comprises at least a portion of the LCR circuit. Temperature-dependent response coefficients of inductance L, capacitance C, and resistance R properties of the LCR circuit and the sensing material are at least approximately 5 percent different from one another. The difference in the temperature-dependent response coefficients of the properties of the LCR circuit and the sensing material enables the sensor to selectively detect analyte fluids from an analyzed fluid mixture substantially independent of temperature. |
| US08990023B2 |
High-throughput automated cellular injection system and method
An automated cell injection system and method are described, which can perform automatic, reliable, and high-throughput cell injection of foreign genetic materials, proteins, and other compounds. The system and method overcome the problems inherent in traditional manual injection that is characterized by poor reproducibility, human fatigue, and low throughput. The present invention is particularly suited for zebrafish embryo injection but can be readily extended to other biological injection applications such as mouse embryo, drosophila embryo, and C. elegans injections, capable of facilitating high-throughput genetic research at both academic and industry levels. A novel vacuum based cell-holding device is also provided. |
| US08990022B2 |
Direct velocity seismic sensing
A disclosed direct velocity seismic sensor includes a housing, a proof mass suspended in the housing by a resilient component, and a motion dampener that damps oscillation of the proof mass to a degree that displacement of the proof mass relative to the housing is substantially linearly proportional to a rate of change of seismic displacements of the housing over a frequency range of interest. A described method for constructing a seismic sensor includes using a calculated resonant frequency to determine a damping factor that causes the displacement of the proof mass to be substantially proportional to the rate of change of seismic displacement of the housing. One illustrative disclosed system includes an optical velocity sensor and a detector where a light beam produced by the velocity sensor and a reference beam interfere at the detector, and the detector produces a signal indicative of a velocity experienced by the velocity sensor. |
| US08990019B2 |
Methods and apparatus for rapid determination of target depth and transverse resistance
Disclosed are apparatus and methods for determining characteristics of a target region which is embedded in background material below a body of water. In accordance with one embodiment, a resistivity background is determined. In addition, characteristics of an electric dipole due to the target region are determined. A resistance for the target region is then computed using the characteristics of the electric dipole and the resistivity background. Other embodiments, aspects and features are also disclosed. |
| US08990018B2 |
Method of preparing a swallowable capsule comprising a sensor
A kit includes a swallowable capsule (1, 45) with a potentiometric sensor (3), such as a pH sensor, with an unfilled electrolyte cell (31). The kit further includes a separate container (46) containing a liquid electrolyte. The kit can, e.g., be packed in a blister package. After unpacking the capsule the electrolyte cell (31) is filled with the electrolyte. |
| US08990017B2 |
Navigation devices and methods carried out thereon
This invention concerns a method of determining a route using map data comprising a plurality of navigable paths, the map data divided into a plurality of regions. The method comprises using at least one processing apparatus to: receive an origin and a destination on the map data and a selection of one of a plurality of cost functions and determine a route from the origin to the destination using the map data and minimum cost data that identifies minimum cost paths between regions of the map data. The minimum cost data identifies more than one minimum cost path between a pair of the regions if different minimum cost paths exist between the pair of regions for different cost functions and determining a route comprises identifying from the minimum cost paths for the pair of regions comprising the origin and destination, the minimum cost path having a lowest cost for the selected cost function. |
| US08990015B2 |
Method for course prediction in driver assistance systems for motor vehicles
In a method for course prediction in driver assistance systems for motor vehicles, a dynamic course hypothesis is created on the basis of vehicle-dynamics data of the vehicle, which method includes the following steps: creating an infrastructure course hypothesis on the basis of data from at least one information source that describe the traffic infrastructure; calculating, on the basis of features of the information source, a weighting factor that describes the reliability of the infrastructure course hypothesis; and fusing the infrastructure course hypothesis with the dynamic course hypothesis, with weighting in accordance with the calculated weighting factor, to produce a definitive course hypothesis. |
| US08990014B2 |
Method to scale inertial location data using directional and/or scale confidence constraints
Methods, systems, and computer readable storage media are presented for directional scaling of inertial path data to satisfy ranging constraints. The presented techniques take into account scaling confidence information. In addition to bounding potential scale corrections based on the reliability of the inertial path and the magnetic heading confidence, the techniques bound potential scale parameters based on constraints and solve for directional scale parameters. |
| US08990011B2 |
Determining user device's starting location
A user device is equipped with one or more sensors that collect data relating to a movement of a user having the user device. An estimated area within which a starting location of the user device is located is determined based on one or more signals received from adjacent signal sources. A plurality of candidate locations is identified within the estimated area as the potential starting location of the user device. Map information of surrounding area that covers the estimated area is also obtained. One or more candidate locations are filtered out depending on whether they could have experienced the movement based on the map information. When one or more re-starting conditions have met during the movement, a then starting location of the user device needs to be determined. |
| US08990010B2 |
System and method for using skyline queries to search for points of interest along a route
A method and system for searching for points of interest along a route is disclosed. A relation that includes records that associate link identifiers, point of interest identifiers, and distances between the links and the points of interest is generated during the compilation process of a first version of a geographic database. The relation is stored in compiled database products. When a compiled database product is being used by a navigation system, for example, navigation application software programs use the relation to accurately and efficiently find points of interest along a computed route. Navigation systems can also use the relation to service skyline queries and responsively generate skyline graphs of points of interest. |
| US08990007B2 |
Vehicular navigation device
An identification unit identifies a departure point of a travel locus of a vehicle. The vehicle departs through the departure point from a departure road stored beforehand in map data. The map data has map link information including multiple links. An exit point set unit sets an exit point on a link included in the map link information. The link corresponds to the departure point of the departure road identified by the identification unit. A learning unit learns a new road based on the exit point set by the exit point set unit and the travel locus of the vehicle. |
| US08990004B2 |
Navigation system with query mechanism and method of operation thereof
A method of operation of a navigation system includes: preprocessing an intersection from map data into an edge in query data; generating a route having a turn at the intersection; and sending the route for displaying at a device and for maneuvering the turn at the intersection by querying the query data for the edge of the intersection. |
| US08989998B2 |
Predicted position and heading/track indicators for navigation display
A visual/graphical air traffic display tool to aid flight crews in determining future heading/track and position of ownship based on current climb rate, bank angle and groundspeed under current meteorological conditions. The tool displays symbols which indicate the predicted future position and heading/track of ownship on a traffic display unit. The tool is also capable of using ownship's predicted position and information received from surrounding traffic to identify a future conflict at ownship's predicted position and then display a future conflict warning on the traffic display unit. In one embodiment, the future conflict warning takes the form of a change in the coloration of the ownship position and heading/track indicator being displayed. |
| US08989996B1 |
Method and apparatus generating and/or using estimates of arterial vehicular movement
A roadway information system is disclosed with components generating and using vehicle signatures for vehicles passing near sensor pods located on or near lanes. These components in turn are part of and/or communicate with means and/or processors for generating an/or using Vehicle Movement Estimates based upon the vehicle signatures. The VME are used to create traffic feedback that may be presented to programmable field devices that may present at least some of the traffic feedback to drivers of the vehicles, thereby optimizing the fuel usage and travel time of the roadway. |
| US08989994B2 |
System and method for fault diagnosis in fuel injection system
A method for fault diagnosis in a fuel injection system having first and second fuel injectors. The method includes initiating a current flow in the first and second fuel injectors. Further, a rise duration of the current flow to reach a threshold level is measured. The method further includes comparing the rise duration and a preset duration. The fuel injection system is controlled based on the comparison. |
| US08989992B2 |
Method and system for estimating pressure in a motor vehicle
Method for estimating the negative pressure in a motor vehicle brake force booster, and a stop/start control device is disclosed. One embodiment of the invention relates to a method for estimating the negative pressure in a motor vehicle brake force booster with reference to the hydraulic pressure in a brake master cylinder. According to the embodiment, the negative pressure is estimated solely on the basis of hydraulic pressure in the brake master cylinder and of the actual engine speed. One embodiment of the invention also relates to a stop/start control device for a motor vehicles. |
| US08989988B2 |
Control apparatus for internal combustion engine
Valve stopping control is performed that changes an operating state of an intake valve and an exhaust valve to a closed-valve stopped state when executing a fuel-cut operation. A device is provided that sets an in-cylinder return-time target air-fuel ratio for an initial two return cycles when returning from a fuel-cut operation. The return-time target air-fuel ratio is set so that respective air-fuel ratios of air-fuel mixtures of fuel and air injected into the same cylinder for respective cycles during the initial return cycles each become values that fall within a combustible range, and so that even if a total amount of fuel injected into the same cylinder for the initial return cycles is supplied into the cylinder during an arbitrary single cycle, the air-fuel ratio of the air-fuel mixture of the total amount of fuel and air becomes a value that falls within the combustible range. |
| US08989986B2 |
Method and device for ascertaining the approach of the lean blow off of a gas turbine engine
A method is provided for determining the approach of the lean blow off (LBO) of a gas turbine engine having at least one combustion chamber into which a fuel is supplied and burnt generating a flame. The method includes determining a value indicative of the gas temperature in recirculation areas adjacent to the flame, and identifying the lean blow off (LBO) approach on the basis of this value. A device for determining the approach of the lean blow off (LBO) is also disclosed. |
| US08989984B2 |
Method to shut off adaptive cruise control when the uphill gradient is too steep
A method of controlling an adaptive cruise control (ACC) system of a vehicle. The method including determining a torque of an engine of the vehicle, determining a torque of a transmission of the vehicle, calculating an idle force of the vehicle, obtaining a maximum tolerable gradient, obtaining an actual gradient of a surface the vehicle is on, and turning off the adaptive cruise control when the actual gradient exceeds the maximum tolerable gradient. |
| US08989983B2 |
Motorcycle
A vehicle can include an anti-slip device configured to detect front and rear wheel speeds at a time of acceleration, and to compute a slip factor from a speed difference. When the slip factor has exceeded the first threshold, a throttle valve is closed so as to lower an engine output. An informing unit and a preliminarily notifying unit are configured to inform the driver when a slip factor has exceeded or is expected to exceed first and second thresholds. |
| US08989980B2 |
Brake device and saddle riding type vehicle
A lean angle detection sensor detects a lean angle of a vehicle. A storage portion stores a second relationship that represents a ratio of a braking force of a front wheel brake to a target braking force for each lean angle and/or a third relationship that represents a relationship with a ratio of the braking force of a rear wheel brake to a target braking force for each lean angle. A ratio setter determines which second relationship to refer to among the second relationships stored in the storage portion based on a detection result input to a detection result input portion and/or determines which third relationship to refer to among the third relationships stored in the storage portion based on a detection result input to a detection result input portion. The ratio setter sets a ratio of the braking force of the front wheel brake and the braking force of the rear wheel brake based on the second relationship and/or the third relationship. |
| US08989978B2 |
Method for operating a vehicle powertrain
Methods and systems for controlling a vehicle powertrain that may be automatically stopped and started are presented. In one example, a method adjusts a position of a transmission clutch in response to battery current during engine cranking. The method may reduce clutch wear and improve vehicle launch from a stop. |
| US08989977B1 |
Hill rollback speed control
A hill rollback control system and method for controlling a rollback speed of a motor vehicle with wheel brakes. Upon ascertaining that the vehicle is rolling back, the system and method determine, based on a grade angle of the terrain that the vehicle is traveling on and a temperature of a transmission, a target rollback speed for the vehicle. The target rollback speed is lower when the grade of the terrain is above a threshold value. Also, the target rollback speed is lower when the temperature of the transmission is above a threshold value. The actual rollback speed of the vehicle is set and maintained at the target rollback speed by applying the vehicle's wheel brakes. |
| US08989976B2 |
Method and apparatus for operating a multi-mode transmission system under dynamic conditions
A method for controlling a multi-mode transmission system employing torque machines under dynamic operating conditions includes calculating a phase shift between a control parameter of one of the torque machines and a response parameter of the multi-mode transmission system under dynamic operating conditions, comparing the calculated phase shift and an expected phase shift, and executing remedial action when the calculated phase shift exceeds a threshold associated with the expected phase shift. |
| US08989975B2 |
Smart touch type electronic auto-shift lever
A smart touch type electronic auto-shift lever may include a shift stage controller which is connected to a controller of an electronic auto-transmission of a vehicle and a touch screen which is arranged on a console of a vehicle and is connected to the shift stage controller to display information of a shift pattern received from the shift stage controller and transmit input information produced by a touch to the shift stage controller. The shift stage controller generates the information of the shift pattern including the shift pattern and transmits it to the touch screen, and generates stage shift information allotted to the input information received from the touch screen and transmits it to the controller of the electronic auto-transmission of the vehicle. |
| US08989973B2 |
Vehicle and control apparatus for automatic transmission
A control apparatus for an automatic transmission includes a running condition detector and a controller. a plurality of gear change stages include at least one specific gear change stage that has a specific transmission gear ratio, that involves at least one necessary engagement mechanism which needs to be engaged in order to obtain the specific transmission gear ratio, and that involves at least one no-change engagement mechanism which causes no change in the specific transmission gear ratio. Both of the at least one necessary engagement mechanism and the at least one no-change engagement mechanism are engaged during a time period from a timing to begin an operation to change a gear change stage to the specific gear change stage until a timing to complete the operation. The at least one no-change engagement mechanism is released after the timing to complete the operation. |
| US08989965B2 |
Electric power steering apparatus
An electric power steering apparatus includes a steering torque detector for detecting a steering torque applied to a steering mechanism, a motor for generating an assist force that assists steering of a steering wheel, a power voltage detector for detecting a power voltage of a power supply, a power voltage monitoring section for determining a power voltage detection value detected by the power voltage detector and a motor drive controller for calculating an assist amount based on the steering torque and controlling drive of the motor through a driving section. Assist control is maintained based on a drive possible characteristic corresponding to a reduction level of the power voltage of FETs when the power voltage monitoring section determines that the power voltage detection value is less than or equal to an assist operation possible power voltage. |
| US08989962B2 |
Structure for controlling active mount of vehicle
A structure for controlling an integrated active mount of a vehicle improves driving performance of a vehicle, not reducing noise vibration, by providing a control signal with an inverse phase to the phase of the main excitation force of an engine in accordance with driving conditions through an active mount disposed between the engine and a vehicle body in order to reduce noise vibration of the vehicle. |
| US08989960B2 |
Interactive engine
A system includes a unit configured to read information of a vehicle system, a projector configured to display the information on a surface of a vehicle, and a sensor configured to receive gesture input from a user. The information displayed on the surface of the vehicle is manipulatable based on the gesture input. |
| US08989957B2 |
Vehicle behavior data storage control system, electronic control unit and data storage device
A vehicle behavior data storage control system is disclosed. The system includes a storage control device and an electronic control unit (ECU). The storage control device determines whether or not an unexpected behavior has occurred based on a behavior data. When the ECU determines that a change in the behavior data is attributed to control performed by the ECU, the ECU transmits a determination result to an in-vehicle network. At a time when the storage control device determines that the unexpected behavior has occurred, the storage control device records the behavior data at this time in the memory. When determining that the unexpected behavior relates to the control performed by the ECU, the storage control device deletes or permits overwriting the behavior data stored in the memory. |
| US08989950B2 |
Diagnostic tool with smart camera
A diagnostic tool that includes a smart camera. The smart camera can be used to capture an image of the part that needs to be replaced. The image can also include the bar code that may be attached to the part. The image can be used to search a parts information database for additional parts information such as part number, manuals, pictures, etc. A further search of a parts supplier's database can be conducted using a location of the diagnostic tool to determine the nearest parts supplier that has the part available and the best price. |
| US08989949B2 |
Electronic motor vehicle control system of modular design
A modularly constructed electronic motor vehicle control system, includes wheel speed sensor inputs, at least one brake controller, and inertial sensors. The signals from the wheel speed sensors are fed into a chassis base module. The module evaluates the signals and feeds them to an electronic brake controller spatially separated from the chassis base module. The chassis base module and the brake controller are disposed in separate control device housings. |
| US08989947B2 |
Sonar system for remote vehicle
A SONAR system for use with a robotic vacuum having SONAR emitters and receivers thereon. The SONAR system comprises a waveguide or horn located in front of the emitters and receivers that can improve the overall target resolution and reduce the number of “dead zones” where targets are not easily resolved. |
| US08989946B2 |
System and method for area coverage using sector decomposition
The different illustrative embodiments provide a method for generating an area coverage path plan using sector decomposition. A starting point is identified on a worksite map having a number of landmarks. A first landmark in the number of landmarks is identified. A path is generated around the first landmark until an obstacle is detected. In response to detecting the obstacle, the path is made linear to a next landmark. The path is generated around the next landmark. |
| US08989935B2 |
Method and system for engine control
Methods and systems are provided for extending an engine-off period of a hybrid vehicle while reducing engine cold-start emissions. During an engine pull-up to meet operator demand, the engine is held at a higher power for a longer duration to aggressively heat the exhaust catalyst. Subsequently, the engine is pulled up to a lower power and held at the lower power for shorter bursts of time to activate the exhaust catalyst. |
| US08989933B2 |
Method for monitoring the conditions of driving systems, battery comprising a module for condition monitoring, and a motor vehicle comprising a corresponding battery
A method for monitoring the conditions of driving systems can be used in particular to control driving systems in hybrid vehicles with particular consideration given to the exhaust emission. The method monitors the conditions of driving systems that comprise an internal combustion engine and an electric motor with an energy source. A first power value for operating the internal combustion engine and a second power value for describing the power that can be provided by the energy source are ascertained, and the first and second power values are compared with each other to monitor the conditions of the driving system. The driving system is controlled dependent on the result of the comparison. |
| US08989931B2 |
Method and device for controlling the idle speed in a hybrid vehicle
A method for controlling the idle speed in a hybrid vehicle in which at least two power plants contribute together or separately to driving the hybrid vehicle, and a setpoint value is compared to an actual value for controlling the idle speed, the setpoint rotational speed being set as a function of the comparison by changing at least one intensification factor of the control. To adapt the control dynamics to the actual transmission characteristics of the first of the two power plants, the idle speed control for the at least two power plants is carried out simultaneously, the at least one intensification factor being continuously adapted to the power output of a first of the two power plants. |
| US08989929B2 |
Device for reducing the likelihood of damage to a trailing cable
A device for reducing damage to an electric vehicle powered by a trailing cable, the device including an electric sensor for determining the mobile equipment's position relative to a hazard, and an electric controller responsive to the electrical means for operating a motor to change the operation of the electric vehicle to reduce the likelihood of adverse effects to the trailing cable if the electric vehicle's position is near the hazard. |
| US08989926B2 |
Railroad signaling and communication system using a fail-safe voltage sensor to verify trackside conditions in safety-critical railroad applications
A method and system for verifying trackside conditions in safety critical railroad applications by reporting the status of trackside signals and switches to a remote train control system. The system comprises at least one sensor for providing trackside conditions electrically connected to a circuit for providing trackside conditions to a railroad, said sensor being powered by voltage applied to the circuit such that the sensor is energized only when said electrical component is engaged. The system and method further comprises a method and system which is failsafe and which enables the control system to independently verify signals from each sensor. |
| US08989925B2 |
Method and apparatus for conversion of GPS heading data for use by electronic flight director
An improved Horizontal Situation Indicator (HSI) module for use with an aircraft, wherein the HSI module is adapted for accepting Bank Angle Commands or waypoint data from the GPS flight module and for using the same to determine a heading error. The HSI module is further adapted for outputting the heading error to the Flight Director module where it can be used to create a Roll Command for output to the Auto-Pilot, whereby the Auto-Pilot can be commanded to follow a turn using the HSI and the Flight Director without requiring an additional module be added to the aircraft to create the heading error for use by the Flight Director. The waypoint data can be of the “flyover” type or the “flyby” type. |
| US08989923B2 |
Navigation performance specification
A method of formulating a specification for temporal and vertical required navigation performance is described. The method assesses various flight management guidance systems methods and allows a specification to be set for an airport. The specification may be used to increase aircraft traffic into the airport. The specification sets limits on deviations in time and altitude, for example, on approach into arrivals at the airport. The method comprises: calculating temporal and vertical deviations from a reference trajectory for one or more flight management guidance methods for one or more aircraft types; and comparing the temporal and vertical deviations with operational requirements of the airport. The deviations from a reference trajectory may result from uncertainties affecting trajectory prediction, such as wind and temperature prediction accuracy. |
| US08989919B2 |
Server, vehicle control system, and vehicle control method thereof
A vehicle control method of a server is provided. The vehicle control method includes receiving, when a user terminal is connected, user information from the user terminal, searching for vehicle environment information corresponding to the user information, and controlling an environment of a vehicle using the searched vehicle environment information. |
| US08989912B2 |
Apparatus and method for collecting and controlling temperature
An apparatus for collecting and controlling a temperature is closed, it comprises a temperature collecting unit (1), a temperature collecting path (2) and a temperature controlling unit (3). The temperature collecting path (2) comprises a fast sensing path (20) and a slow sensing path (22). The fast sensing path (20) is connected to temperature sensing spots of a device and is used for obtaining temperatures of the temperature sensing spots of the device in a first predefined period. The slow sensing path (22) is connected to functional units (5) of the device and is used for obtaining temperatures of the functional units in a second predefined period. The second predefined period is greater than the first predefined period. The temperature collecting unit (1) is used for collecting the temperatures of the temperature sensing spots and the temperatures of the functional units obtained by the temperature collecting path (2); and the temperature controlling unit (3) is used for controlling a temperature of the device according to a difference value between the temperature of the functional unit and the temperature of the temperature sensing spot at the same time. And a method for collecting and controlling a temperature is provided. |
| US08989911B2 |
Power consumption management system, and power consumption manager, power consumption management method, power supply manager, and power supply management method, which are used for the power consumption management system
A power consumption management system includes power consumption managers and a power supply manager. Each of the power consumption managers creates changeable power amount information with respect to a planned value of power consumption for each predetermined time range in a preset predetermined period in future, the planned value being related to a load of each piece of equipment in a building as a monitoring target. The power supply manager is connected to each of the power consumption managers through a network, decides a power change request amount for each building based on the created changeable power amount information, and transmits the decided power change request amount to each of the power consumption managers for the purpose of notification. |
| US08989908B2 |
Methods and systems for use in controlling irrigation
Some embodiments provide systems and methods of controlling irrigation, comprising: communicating an assumption broadcast from a first irrigation controller to each of a plurality of other irrigation controllers defining assumed states of control elements, wherein the control elements are shared with one or more of the first irrigation controller and the other irrigation controllers; determining whether a reply is received from one or more of the other irrigation controllers in reply to the assumption broadcast; identifying, from the reply, a correction to a state corresponding to a first control element; updating state information corresponding to the first control element in response to the identifying the correction; and communicating a subsequent notification from the first irrigation controller to each of the plurality of other irrigation controllers of the irrigation system, where the subsequent notification comprises the updated state information corresponding to the first control element. |
| US08989903B2 |
Methods and systems for indicating a clamping prediction
End effectors with closing mechanisms, and related tools and methods to facilitate clamping, are provided. An example surgical tool comprises a first and second jaw movable between a closed grasped or clamped configuration and an open configuration. The tool further comprises a soft grip mode for grasping the tissue at a first force during which a separation parameter between the jaws is measured, and a therapeutic clamping mode in which the jaws clamp on the body tissue at a force greater than the grasping force. The methods comprise grasping the body tissue between jaw members, measuring the separation parameter between jaws, indicating on a user interface the separation parameter for comparison to a desired separation parameter, and then releasing the body tissue for repositioning or therapeutically clamping the body tissue in response to the separation parameter indication. |
| US08989902B1 |
User interface for a tele-operated robotic hand system
Disclosed here is a user interface for a robotic hand. The user interface anchors a user's palm in a relatively stationary position and determines various angles of interest necessary for a user's finger to achieve a specific fingertip location. The user interface additionally conducts a calibration procedure to determine the user's applicable physiological dimensions. The user interface uses the applicable physiological dimensions and the specific fingertip location, and treats the user's finger as a two link three degree-of-freedom serial linkage in order to determine the angles of interest. The user interface communicates the angles of interest to a gripping-type end effector which closely mimics the range of motion and proportions of a human hand. The user interface requires minimal contact with the operator and provides distinct advantages in terms of available dexterity, work space flexibility, and adaptability to different users. |
| US08989901B2 |
Transfer system
A transfer system includes a substrate positioning device, robots having a first robot and a second robot; and robot control devices, the robot control devices including a first robot control device to which the first robot and the substrate positioning device are connected and a second robot control device to which the second robot is connected. The first robot control device includes an acquiring unit configured to acquire, from the substrate positioning device, at least an absolute deviation amount between the rotation center of the mounting table and a center position of the substrate positioned, and a transmitting unit configured to transmit correction information relying on the absolute deviation amount acquired by the acquiring unit, to the second robot control device to which the second robot is connected. |
| US08989899B2 |
Transfer system
A transfer system according to an embodiment includes a robot and a determination unit. The robot includes robot hands that hold a workpiece in a thin plate shape and that are located at different heights. The determination unit determines the robot hands that hold the workpiece based on a combination of temperature of the workpiece to be held by each of the robot hands. |
| US08989896B2 |
High efficiency automated pharmaceutical dispenser
A system, method and corresponding apparatus are provided for packaging, storing, tracking, and dispensing pharmaceuticals in unit doses in a highly efficient manner. In particular, a method of packaging pharmaceuticals within a ribbon having a plurality of adjacent segments each containing a unit dose of a pharmaceutical and having associated data indicia for efficient and uniform transport, tracking, storage and dispensing is provided. Pharmaceuticals are loaded into an automated dispenser that is networked with computers for accepting prescriptions and dispensing pharmaceutical accordingly. |
| US08989895B2 |
Substance control system and method for dispensing systems
A computationally implemented system and method that is designed to, but is not limited to: electronically receiving status information regarding a particular ingestible material portion as related to a first engagement of an automated dispensing system with at least one manufacture, the first engagement occurring during a first condition including the at least one manufacture being united with the particular ingestible material portion, the first engagement to facilitate access by the automated dispensing system to the particular ingestible material portion for dispensing of the particular ingestible material portion, the electronically receiving status information to receive status information influenced by whether any disengagements of the automated dispensing system from the at least one manufacture occur during the first condition prior to the first engagement, the at least one manufacture arranged to inhibit access to the particular ingestible material portion prior to any engagements of the automated dispensing system with the at least one manufacture during the first condition and arranged to inhibit access to the particular ingestible material portion by other than the automated dispensing system during engagement of the automated dispensing system with the at least one manufacture during the first condition; and electronically outputting selection information associated with the particular ingestible material portion including information related to the received status information regarding the particular ingestible material portion and associated with ingestible material other than that associated with the particular ingestible material portion subsequent to electronically receiving the status information regarding the particular ingestible material portion. In addition to the foregoing, other method aspects are described in the claims, drawings, and text forming a part of the present disclosure. |
| US08989892B2 |
Apparatus and method for the defined intermediate storage and picking of produced articles of the same type but different size
Apparatus and method for the defined intermediate storage of produced articles of the same type but different size and for the simultaneous composition of consignments of said articles, having the following features: a) a delivery path (3) for the continuous conveying of the produced products into the region of stacking robots (7), b) a multiplicity of transport vehicles (9) for transporting stacking pallets and order-picking pallets (6), c) a multiplicity of storing positions (10) for stacking pallets, d) one or more stacking robots (5) for filling order-picking pallets (6), e) a plurality of induction lines (8) for power supply and control of the transport vehicles (9). |
| US08989889B2 |
Identification information setting device and identification information setting method
The present invention provides an identification information setting device and an identification information setting method that can easily set identification information for a transfer chamber. In an embodiment of the present invention, a storage portion (31) stores field identification information that is previously set for each position where a transfer chamber having a transfer robot can be arranged. A reception portion (32) receives, as specification information, information on the position where the transfer chamber is actually arranged and the transfer chamber. The storage portion (31) stores correspondence between the actually arranged transfer chamber and identification information. |
| US08989886B2 |
System and method for identifying process bottlenecks
In some embodiments, a method includes defining a sequence of process resources. Each of the process resources is for performing at least one respective task on a work item. The method further includes calculating a resource utilization metric for each of the process resources. The method also includes displaying a representation of at least a portion of the sequence of process resources. The representation includes image elements that each have a dimension that is inversely proportional to the resource utilization metric for the process resource represented by the image element in question. |
| US08989883B2 |
Systems and methods for providing access to resources through enhanced audio signals
Systems and methods are provided for using a hidden audio signal. In one exemplary embodiment, the method includes registering, at a central database, one or more of an identifier and a destination resource associated with the identifier, and encoding the one or more of the identifier and the destination resource in a hidden audio signal. The method further includes transmitting the hidden audio signal, including the one or more of the identifier and the destination resource, in connection with an acoustic signal, and receiving the acoustic signal at a user device. In addition, the method includes decoding the encoded one or more of the identifier and the destination resource at the user device; and requesting, from the central database, information associated with the one or more of the identifier and the destination resource. Further, the method includes receiving, at the user device, the requested information. |
| US08989878B2 |
Methods, circuits, and computer program products for generation following load management
Two water heaters may be installed in series at a customer location, such that an output of a first (or storage) water heater is coupled to the input of a second (or primary) water heater, the output of which provides hot water to the customer location. During normal operation, only the primary water heater may actually heat water for use at the customer location. However, during periods of excess capacity, the electrical service provider may enable the storage water heater to store the excess electrical power that is generated by operating the power plant at higher output (which may be more efficient). Later, during hours of greater demand, the electrical service provider may disable the storage water heater used to store the excess capacity, whereas the primary water heater may operate normally. However, during the time of greater demand, the storage water heaters may provide pre-heated water to the primary water heater, which in-turn, may need to heat the water less or perhaps not at all. |
| US08989877B2 |
System and method for controlling a machine
A system for controlling a machine includes a first model, a second model, a controller, and a comparator. During a first cycle, the first model generates a response signal to the controller while the second model generates a predicted parameter signal. During the first cycle, the comparator transmits a feedback signal to the second model if a predetermined threshold is not met. A method for controlling a machine includes transmitting a response signal from a first model to a controller, generating a control signal to the machine, and generating a predicted parameter value in a second model. The method further includes transmitting a feedback signal to the second model if a predetermined threshold is not met. |
| US08989871B2 |
Pacing lead in an extended area of a heart cavity, implantable by over the wire technique in the deep coronary network
A pacing lead (20) having a lead body (22) with a central lumen and provided with structure for retaining the lead body to a wall of the coronary network, and a hollow tubular extension (26), bearing an active region of the lead and also traversed by a central lumen (28) communicating with the inner lumen of the lead body, so as to allow implantation by an over the wire technique. The hollow tubular extension has an outside diameter of between 2 and 3 French (0.66 and 1 mm) to allow implantation deep in the coronary sinus network, and it comprises on its outer surface an electrically insulated peripheral conductor, except for denuded areas intended to come into contact with the wall of a target vein and form a network of stimulation electrodes (32, 34) electrically connected together. |
| US08989867B2 |
Implantable nerve wrap for nerve stimulation configured for far field radiative powering
A particular implantable device may include an antenna configured to receive a far field radiative signal. The implantable device may also include a voltage rectifier configured to rectify the far field radiative signal received by the antenna to provide a rectified voltage signal. The implantable device may further include a charge storage element operative to receive the rectified voltage signal and to store charge responsive to the rectified voltage signal. The implantable device may also include a stimulation module powered by the charge storage element. The stimulation module may be operative to generate an electrical stimulation signal to stimulate a target nerve of a patient. The implantable medical device may further include a nerve wrap configured to house the voltage rectifier, the charge storage element, and the stimulation module. The nerve wrap may include one or more electrodes operative to deliver the electrical stimulation signal to the target nerve. |
| US08989865B2 |
Selective high frequency spinal cord modulation for inhibiting pain with reduced side effects, and associated systems and methods
Selective high-frequency spinal cord modulation for inhibiting pain with reduced side effects and associated systems and methods are disclosed. In particular embodiments, high-frequency modulation in the range of from about 1.5 KHz to about 100 KHz may be applied to the patient's spinal cord region to address low back pain without creating unwanted sensory and/or motor side effects. In other embodiments, modulation in accordance with similar parameters can be applied to other spinal or peripheral locations to address other indications. |
| US08989864B2 |
Implantable medical device providing stimulation therapy
An electrical stimulation system provides stimulation therapy to a patient. The system includes a neurostimulation lead that contacts patient tissue and couples with an implantable stimulation device, such as an implantable pulse generator, that receives stimulation parameters for providing stimulation therapy to a patient. The implantable stimulation device includes a header with a plurality of connector assemblies that receive an end of the neurostimulation lead, and a case containing a charging coil and a telemetry coil coupled to programming circuitry on a printed circuit board, which is in turn coupled to the connector assemblies via a feedthrough assembly. The telemetry coil receives data from an external programmer and transmits the data to the programming circuitry, which in turn uses the data to communicate to the connector assemblies and the neurostimulation lead to provide stimulation therapy to a patient. |
| US08989863B2 |
System and apparatus for increasing regularity and/or phase-locking of neuronal activity relating to an epileptic event
A method, comprising detecting, in at least a first brain region of a patient, an electrical activity relating to an epileptic activity; determining a first regularity index of said electrical activity; and applying at least one first electrical stimulation to at least one neural target of said patient for treating said epileptic event, in response to said first regularity index being within a first range. A non-transitive, computer-readable storage device for storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform the method. A medical device system suitable for use in the method. |
| US08989857B2 |
Control system and apparatus utilizing signals originating in the periauricular neuromuscular system
Loosing the ability to interact with one's environment can be devastating. The invention enables a person to control the real or virtual action or movement of an output device in from one to three dimensions through the use of at least one electrical sensor implanted beneath the skin or as a part of a headset on either one side or on both sides of the person's head in electrical communication with a vestigial periauricular nerve or muscle. Each sensor communicates through a selected channel to transmit information preferably in digital form to an output device designating an action to be taken or the position of a target location for enabling the output device to perform the action or to move toward or to a target location through real or virtual space. At least one and preferably up to four sensors are located on each side of the head. |
| US08989850B2 |
Retractable multi-use cardiac monitor
A retractable multi-use cardiac monitor is provided that includes a memory, and a first side that includes a first housing where a first sensing connector is on the outside of the first housing, and where the first sensing connector is configured to collect electrocardiogram (ECG) data and store ECG data onto the memory. The retractable multi-use cardiac monitor also includes a second housing including a wire retractor and a second sensing connector, where the second sensing connector is on the outside of the second housing, and the wire retractor is configured to extend and retract a wire that connects the second and first sides, and where the second sensing connector is configured to collect ECG data and store ECG data onto the memory. The retractable multi-use cardiac monitor further includes a wireless radio configured to transmit a portion of collected ECG data from the memory to a destination. |
| US08989848B2 |
Apparatus and method for non-invasively detecting diseases that affect structural properties in biological tissues
Apparatus and methods for spectroscopic analysis of biological tissues to classify an individual as diabetic or non-diabetic, or to determine the probability, progression or level of a disease or medical condition in an individual. |
| US08989846B2 |
Radiation treatment delivery system with outwardly movable radiation treatment head extending from ring gantry
Systems, methods, and related computer program products for image-guided radiation treatment (IGRT) are described. For one preferred embodiment, an IGRT apparatus is provided comprising a gantry frame including a ring member, the ring member being rotatable around a substantially horizontal, longitudinally extending central axis, the ring member having first and second horizontally opposing ends. The IGRT apparatus further comprises a radiation treatment head coupled to the ring member by an arm member, the arm member being connected to the ring member at an arm member base. Preferably, the IGRT apparatus is further characterized in that the arm member extends outwardly from the first end of the ring member in a direction away from the second end and is supported only by the arm member base, and the radiation treatment head is dynamically movable in at least a longitudinal direction toward and away from the first end of the ring member. |
| US08989843B2 |
Methods and apparatus for estimating the position and orientation of an implant using a mobile device
Methods and apparatus for providing an overlay image of an implant during a surgical procedure using a mobile computing device are provided herein. The implant may include radio-opaque internal markers adjacent to and defining edges of the implant. The method may include: capturing an image of a imaging display device screen; estimating a pose of the implant based on the relationship between the 2-D positions of the radio-opaque internal markers and the 3-D positions of the radio-opaque internal markers; retrieving or generating a 3-D model image of the implant at the determined pose using the 3-D implant data; and overlaying the 3-D model image onto the image of the implant. The captured image may include the implant and at least two of the radio-opaque internal markers being visible as fiducial markers within the image. The fiducial markers may be 2-D positions of the radio-opaque internal markers in a 2-D plane. |
| US08989838B2 |
System for treatment of diseased tissue using controlled ultrasonic heating
The present invention provides a method and apparatus for delivering and controlling thermal therapy to a volume of diseased tissue. Specifically, the invention includes using thermal imaging and other inputs to determine an acoustic (ultrasonic) treatment regime employing interstitial ultrasound applicators to deliver a required therapeutic temperature or thermal dose to the affected region in a body or organ. Various aspects of the treatment that can be controlled include individual transducer element operating power and frequency, as well as the rate of cooling and rotation of the entire applicator. |
| US08989836B2 |
Electrode array and method of placement
A headset for detecting brain electrical activity may include a flexible substrate having first and second ends each configured to engage an ear of a subject and dimensioned to fit across the forehead of a subject. The headset may also include a plurality of electrodes disposed on the substrate and configured to contact the subject when the headset is positioned on the subject. First and second electrodes may contact top center and lower center regions of the forehead, respectively, third and fourth electrodes may contact front right and front left regions of the forehead, respectively, fifth and sixth electrodes may contact right side and left side regions of the forehead, respectively, and electrodes included within the securing devices may contact the ear regions. The third and fourth electrodes may be moveable in at least a vertical direction relative to the other electrodes. |
| US08989829B1 |
Layered superconductor device
A layered superconductor device includes multiple layers of a single crystal superconducting material having intermittent layers of superconducting material dispersed in a pattern with a second material such that each layer of the multiple layers a single crystal superconducting material are interconnected via superconducting material, allowing for a continuous current path, and a thickness of the superconducting material never exceeds a first predetermined thickness. |
| US08989826B1 |
Cellular phone case and storage accessory
A cellular phone case accessory device is disclosed. The case is attached to a cell phone and includes an upper section and a lower section sized to correspond with a cellular phone and to receive the phone in one of the sections. The upper section and lower section are attached by a hinge that enables pivotal movement of the upper and lower sections with respect to each other. Situated within the space defined between the upper and lower sections is a pocket or storage compartment where credit cards, cash, ID and other items may be stored safely. A mirror is also disposed between the upper and lower sections and usable when the upper and lower sections are pivotally disposed in an open position. Another embodiment includes a cell phone holding compartment comprised of two portions removably attached to one another for inserting and retaining a cell phone therein. |
| US08989825B1 |
Reconfigurable mobile device with keyboard cover and display areas of content and applications
A multifunction cover with touch screen display, icons, and a keyboard is described. A multifunction touch screen enabled mobile device may be configured to be connected to the separate cover, which may be attached to the device and detached from the device. The mobile device may be enabled with a cellular voice and data communication, WiFi connectivity, Bluetooth connectivity, and Internet Protocol connectivity. The mobile device may be enabled to play videos, capture photos, and stream multimedia content. |
| US08989824B2 |
Electronic devices with improved switch assembly constructions
Electronic devices are provided with housings that can have smoother profiles and with switch assembly input components with knobs that can move along tracks in directions at least partially offset from the directions of anticipated resistive forces. The housings can include switch assembly input components with knobs that may move along linear tracks and switch assembly input components with knobs that may move along curved tracks. |
| US08989821B2 |
Battery configurations for electronic devices
Electronic devices having improved battery configurations, and more specifically configurations reducing overall space required for a battery and attendant electronics, as well as providing restraining mechanisms to prevent a battery from impacting these electronics. |
| US08989817B2 |
Methods and apparatus for using antennas with different polarization and signal transmit powers
Method and apparatus related to implementing and/or utilizing different polarization antennas with different corresponding average transmit power levels are described. Inter-cell interference is mitigated by having different cells with different power relationships between polarizations antennas. For example, a first base station transmits at a high average power level on its vertical polarization antenna and transmits at a low average power level on its horizontal polarization antenna. Concurrently, a second base station, which is adjacent to the first base station, transmits at a low average power level on its vertical polarization antenna and transmits at a high average power level on its horizontal polarization antenna. In some hexagonal deployment schemes a base station has at most two adjacent base stations using the same power level to antenna polarization direction relationship as it is using. |
| US08989806B2 |
Network operator-neutral provisioning of mobile devices
Techniques are disclosed for provisioning mobile devices in a network operator-neutral manner in communication networks. For example, a method comprises a mobile device that is operator neutral attaching to a first operator network, and the operator neutral mobile device establishing a provisioning bearer in the first operator network. |
| US08989805B2 |
Mobile communication device providing N-way communication through a plurality of communication devices
A device may provide N-Way communication through multiple communication services. The device may receive user data from a user interface and incoming data from a communication interface. The incoming data may be received through a first communication service. The device may combine the user data and incoming data, including through any combination of encoding or decoding processes. The device may also send the combined data using the communication interface, such as through a second communication service. The device may also receive first incoming data through a first communication service and second incoming data through a second communication service. The device may combine the first incoming data and second incoming data for display on a user interface or to send across a third communication service. |
| US08989804B2 |
System and method for proximity-based radio management
A multi-modal wireless communication device contains multiple radios for communication with wireless networks utilizing different communication protocols. When a communication link with a first base station using a first communication protocol is broken, and a communication link established with a second base station, the mobile device stores the communication data related to the prior communication link and stores it in association with the current communication link. At some future time, the mobile device may establish a communication link with the second base station. The mobile device can check the stored data to see if there is a an alternative network connection in the proximity of the current connection. If so, the mobile device may activate the radio for communication with first base station and actively attempt to establish a communication link based on the proximity data recalled from storage in the mobile device. |
| US08989803B2 |
Method and system of synchronization in dual-beacon wireless networks
A wireless device (320) receives at least one beacon (325) of a first type (“Type-A beacon”), and synchronizes itself based on the timing of the Type-A beacon(s). Whenever the wireless device (320) synchronizes itself to the timing of a second wireless device (310) that is unable to receive Type-A beacons, then the wireless device (320) marks itself as a forced synchronization device and transmits Type-A beacons (325) that indicate that the first wireless device (320) is operating as a forced synchronization device. Whenever the wireless device (320) is marked as a forced synchronization device and receives a Type-A beacon (325) from a third alien wireless device (320) that is also marked as a forced synchronization device, but is synchronized to a fourth wireless devices (310) that is unable to receive Type-A beacons, then at least one of the first and third wireless devices (320) switches to a new channel. |
| US08989799B2 |
Methods of reverse link power control
Methods of reverse link power control are provided. In one example embodiment, a signal-to-interference+noise (SINR) is measured for a plurality of mobile stations. A power control adjustment is determined for each of the mobile stations based on the measured SINR for the mobile station and a fixed target SINR, the fixed target SINR being used in the determining step for each mobile station and sending the power control adjustments to the mobile stations. In another example embodiment, one or more signals are transmitted to a base station. A power control adjustment indicator indicating an adjustment to a transmission power level is received. The received power control adjustment is determined based on a measured signal-to-interference+noise ratio (SINR) for the one or more transmitted signals and a fixed target SINR threshold, the fixed target SINR threshold being used for power control adjustment of a plurality of mobile stations. |
| US08989798B2 |
Method and apparatus for power control
A power control method is provided, which is applicable to the communication field. The method includes: obtaining power headroom information of an aggregated carrier of a User Equipment (UE), where the aggregated carrier includes at least one component carrier group and at least one first carrier, or includes at least one component carrier group, or includes at least two first carriers, the component carrier group includes at least two second carriers, and the first carrier and the second carrier are single carriers; and adjusting transmit power of the aggregated carrier according to the power headroom information. The method enables reporting of power headroom of an aggregated carrier of the UE in a multi-carrier scenario, so that the base station can control the transmitting power of the UE reliably, and therefore, reliability and throughput of the system are improved. |
| US08989794B2 |
Method and apparatus for unplanned deployment of base stations
Methods and apparatuses are provided that include deploying a femto node in a wireless network. The femto node can measure received signal quality upon initialization in a wireless network and/or according to a timing. The femto node can determine whether to communicate in the wireless network based on comparing the received signal quality to a threshold signal quality. The timing can be determined based on various factors to ensure fairness among femto nodes initializing in the wireless network. A centralized entity can be used to determine the timing and/or whether a femto node should communicate. |
| US08989791B1 |
Systems and methods of talk group communication
In systems and methods of talk group communication, a group PTT call is established between a originating wireless device and recipient wireless devices. A group identifier of the PTT call group is provided to the recipient wireless devices indicating that the PTT call involves a call group without indicating an identifier of originating wireless device. In an embodiment, when the group PTT call is terminated, a response call request is received based on the group PTT call from one of the plurality of recipients and a bilateral PTT call is established between the one of the plurality of recipients and the originating wireless device. In an embodiment, a response is received based on the group PTT call from one of the plurality of recipients, the group PTT call is terminated, and a bilateral PTT call is established between the one of the plurality of recipients and the originating wireless device. |
| US08989789B2 |
Terminal mobility state detection
There are provided measures for terminal mobility state detection. Such measures may exemplarily include acquiring a statistical metric of measurements of a signal strength of a terminal with unknown speed over a predetermined time period, comparing the acquired statistical metric with mobility patterns stored in a database, each of said mobility patterns exhibiting a relationship between previously acquired statistical metrics of signal strength measurements of terminals with a specific terminal speed class, and determining a terminal speed class of the terminal according to a best match between the acquired statistical metric and the mobility patterns on the basis of the comparison. The database may exemplarily be prepared including acquiring a statistical metric of measurements of a signal strength of a terminal with known speed, and applying the acquired statistical metric for creating or updating the mobility pattern with respect to the specific terminal speed class corresponding to the known speed of the terminal. |
| US08989786B2 |
System and method for graphical expression during text messaging communications
A system and method are described herein that allow computing device users to convey emotional expressions graphically to other computing device users during a text messaging session. During the text messaging session, users run a text messaging application on their respective computing devices, each storing in memory a library of graphical expressions. A sender transmits a graphical expression by triggering a sensor which causes an expression command to be sent to the recipient. The expression command identifies for the application running on the recipient's computing device the graphical expression to retrieve from the memory of the recipient's computing device. The graphical expression is then displayed on the recipient's computing device using avatars that represent the sender and the recipient. |
| US08989782B2 |
System and method to automatically triangulate location based on popularity and density ranking of venues over distance
Methods, systems, and computer program products determine, for a number of individuals having a common interest, locations relevant to that common interest. Each individual possesses a user terminal that has a location and executes a messaging application. During the course of a messaging conversation, the application transmits search parameters to a central server. The search parameters may be entered manually or determined automatically by analyzing the conversation. The server identifies clusters of locations that satisfy the search parameters in addition to satisfying geographic proximity to the participants in the conversation. The server scores the clusters, and transmits to the user terminal data relating thereto, for integrated display in the messaging application. Relevant advertising may be identified and transmitted for contemporaneous display. |
| US08989781B2 |
Portable electronic device and power-saving method therefor
A portable electronic device includes a wireless communication module, a processing unit, a display device and a backlight driver. The wireless communication module wirelessly collects location information from at least one remote station. The processing unit executes a positioning application and thereby calculates a position of the portable electronic device based on the collected location information. The display device operates at a bright mode when the calculated position indicates that the portable electronic device is kept being moved. The backlight driver is coupled to the processing unit, and, the processing unit is further configured to control the backlight driver to make the display device leave the bright mode and enter a dim mode when the calculated position indicates that the portable electronic device is not moved for a first predetermined time period. |
| US08989779B1 |
Venue-based device control and determination
Methods and systems are provided for venue-based device control and user/position/venue context determinations. Venue corresponds to a geographic region. Venue relevant information is information associated with a venue. A controlled quasi-transient signal comprises a signal, emitted by an entity intrinsic to the venue and not intended to be utilized for operation of the device, coupled with a quasi-transient signal that is coded with the venue relevant information. When a device located in a venue receives a controlled quasi-transient signal, venue-relevant information associated with the venue can be extracted from the controlled quasi-transient signal. Based on the extracted venue relevant information, the device can be controlled in accordance with a control signal generated based on the venue relevant information. |
| US08989774B2 |
Method and system of semnatic indoor positioning using significant places as satellites
A method for locating a mobile device inside a building by using a plurality of reference areas in the building as satellites. A scan is obtained by the mobile device at an unknown location in the building. The scan includes a plurality of detected WAPs with a corresponding RSSI for each detected WAP. The method to improve accuracy of a semantic indoor positioning system by generating a vector of distance scores based on the scan for comparison with vectors of survey distance scores corresponding to the reference areas. The method includes arranging the detected WAPs into an ordered list, extracting a set of WAP tuples from the ordered list, retrieving a set of probabilities for each reference area, calculating a distance score for each reference area, generating the vector of distance scores, and comparing the vector of distance scores with each of the vectors of survey distance scores. |
| US08989773B2 |
Sharing location information among devices
Methods, systems, apparatus, and computer program products that include, on a first device executing a first instance of a location application, receiving an indication to begin sharing data describing a path traveled by the first device, receiving location data describing the path traveled by the first device, the location data received from a location system of the first device, and the location data including a plurality of locations of the first device, and transmitting the location data in a form usable to enable a user interface of a second instance of a location application executing on a second device to indicate the path traveled by the first device. |
| US08989772B2 |
Methods and apparatus for estimating time of arrival information associated with a wireless signal
Methods and apparatus for estimating time of arrival information associated with a wireless signal are disclosed. In an embodiment, a wireless device (102), or any other suitable device or system, determines a channel type based on multiple occurrences of a reference signal (700) (e.g., determine if a channel is delay-spread or non-delay-spread based on a ratio of largest peak to a mean of other peaks). The wireless device (102) then selects a time of arrival generator (800 or 900) based on the channel type (e.g., use delay-spread estimator if ratio is below threshold, and use non-delay-spread estimator if ratio is above threshold). The wireless device then (102) estimates the time of arrival information using the selected time of arrival generator (800 or 900) (e.g., sum peaks from multiple occasions and then estimate for delay-spread or estimate the time of arrival from each occasion and then average for non-delay-spread). |
| US08989771B2 |
Space recognition method and system based on environment information
A space recognition system obtains available RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator) information for a plurality of fixing devices in the vicinity of a user device in the wireless sensor network environment, collects environment information in a space where the user device is located, and collects environment information in a plurality of spaces in which the fixing devices are respectively located. The system combines the RSSI information and the environment information and performs a recognition function on the combined environment information to recognize the space in which a user having the user device is located. |
| US08989770B2 |
Method and apparatus for estimating displacement of a user terminal
An apparatus and method for estimating displacement of a user terminal are provided. The method includes estimating, by the user terminal, a moving state of the user terminal; determining a first moving direction probability index of a user, based on the estimated moving state of the user terminal; and determining a moving state of the user terminal and estimating a moving direction of the user terminal, based on the first moving direction probability index. |
| US08989768B2 |
Method of determining a position in a wireless communication system and apparatus thereof
A method of determining a position in a wireless communication system and apparatus thereof are disclosed. The present invention includes receiving system information including information on a reference cell and at least one neighbor cell from a location server, receiving positioning reference signals (PRSs) from the reference cell and the at least one neighbor cell using the system information, measuring reference signal time difference (RSTD) of each of the at least one neighbor cell for the reference cell, and transmitting the at least one measured RSTD to the location server. And, the RSTD is a relative timing difference between two cells. Moreover, the system information includes at least one cell for obtaining a system frame number (SFN) by the UE, as the reference cell or the at least one neighbor cell. |
| US08989767B2 |
Wireless communication system with NFC-controlled access and related methods
A wireless communication system may include a wireless access point including a first wireless transceiver and a controller associated therewith and providing wireless communications within a defined space having an entrance, and mobile wireless communications devices, each including a first near field communications (NFC) device and a second wireless transceiver communicating with the first wireless transceiver. The wireless communication system may also include a second NFC device adjacent the entrance of the defined space, and a third NFC device within the defined space. The controller may permit wireless communications of a given mobile wireless communications device with the wireless access point based upon communication of the corresponding first NFC device with the second and third NFC devices. |
| US08989766B2 |
Systems and methods for the detection of transmission facilities
A method of detecting a transmitting device within an obstruction rich environment is disclosed. The method may involve detecting the transmitting device with a wireless transmission detection facility; communicating signal information relating to the detected transmitting device from the wireless transmission detection facility to a central unit; determining the location of the transmitting device; displaying information of the detection and location of the transmitting device through a user interface; and providing an action facility for causing actions related to the detected transmitting device. |
| US08989763B2 |
Updating position assist data on a mobile computing device
A mobile computing device comprises a memory, a processor and a transceiver. The memory is configured to store at least one type of position assist data. The processor is configured to provide a position fix based on the position assist data. The transceiver is configured for wireless communication. The memory is configured to store updated position assist data for the type of position assist data. The processor is operable in a first operating mode in which the type of position assist data is not updated and operable in a second operating mode in which the type of position assist data is updated in response to at least one triggering event. |
| US08989761B2 |
Scheduling data transmissions in a mobile telecommunication network
The invention relates to a method of communicating in a mobile telecommunication network (100; 200), the mobile telecommunication network comprising a plurality of cells (102; 104; 106), wherein resource blocks are used for transmitting data in the mobile telecommunication network, and wherein the method comprises:—dividing (S2) a resource into at least a first plurality of resource blocks and a second plurality of resource blocks, wherein the resource blocks of the first plurality do not overlap with the resource bocks of the second plurality;—assigning (S3) the first plurality of resource blocks to a first group of cells and assigning the second plurality of resource blocks to a second group of cells;—scheduling (S4) first data transmissions in the first group of cells on the first plurality of resource blocks;—scheduling (S5) second data transmissions in the second group of cells on the second plurality of resource blocks;—scheduling (S6) third data transmissions in the first group of cells on the second plurality of resource blocks, when all resource blocks of the first plurality are already used for data transmissions; and—scheduling (S7) fourth data transmissions in the second group of cells on the first plurality of resource blocks, when all resource blocks of the second plurality are already used for data transmissions. |
| US08989758B1 |
Systems and methods for dynamically configuring femtocell pilot beacon based on application usage at femtocell
Methods and systems are provided for prioritizing frequencies in femtocell frequency-hopping pilot beacons. The frequency-hopping pilot beacon may prioritize transmission on particular frequencies according to usage of one or more particular applications by mobile devices served by the femtocell. The femtocell and/or femtocell control elements in the macro-network may determine that one or more particular applications are used by mobile devices served by the femtocell, identify one or more frequencies associated with the one or more frequencies, and then cause the femtocell to prioritize transmission on the identified one or more frequencies as compared to other frequencies. |
| US08989753B2 |
Method for allocating transmission signals to transmission channels
A method for allocating a transmission signal to a transmission channel which has a transmission bandwidth and a rated center frequency and which is established between a radio transmitter and a radio receiver has the steps: emitting the transmission signal on the radio transmitter end with an actual transmitter frequency; receiving the transmission signal in the radio receiver; determining the frequency of the transmission signal in the radio receiver; and deciding on the allocation of the transmission signal to a transmission channel if the frequency determined by the radio receiver lies in a predetermined frequency range. |
| US08989751B2 |
System and method for constructing a carrier to interference matrix based on subscriber calls
A conventional wireless device constantly measures the signal strength of its server base station and the strength of signals from surrounding base stations for handoff purposes. The wireless device transmits this information to its serving base station, which discards the information a short time afterward, following handoff. The present system and method store the formerly discarded information in one of several existing network elements or in a separate computer system. This information is used to generate a carrier to interference ratio, which indicates the level of interference between station pairs, and to also generate a carrier to interference matrix, including identifying potential interference for each station pair. The frequency of occurrences during predetermined desired periods of time and the volume of traffic affected by each level of interference may also be calculated. This provides comprehensive, continuous, real-time information for wireless frequency planning. |
| US08989750B2 |
Control circuit, impedance adjusting circuit, impedance automatic adjusting circuit, radio transceiver circuit, control method, impedance adjusting method, impedance automatic adjusting method, and radio transceiving method
There is provided a control circuit (1) including: a cell area (2A) comprising a plurality of cells (2) arranged therein, each of the cells including: a first conductor (3) having at least one capacitance component (C1, C2); a second conductor (4) connected to the first conductor and having an inductance component; and a feed line (5) provided to be in non-contact with the first conductor and the second conductor, wherein a size of each of the cells is smaller than a wavelength of a signal to be influenced by the cells; and at least one feed controller (6) configured to control at least one of permittivity and permeability of the cell area by changing the amount of a power supply provided to the feed line of each of the cells. |
| US08989749B2 |
Method and apparatus for a dual-network terminal to perform communication
An apparatus for performing communication by a dual-network terminal is disclosed by the present invention, wherein the dual-network terminal is a dual-network and dual-standby terminal, and the dual-network and dual-standby terminal comprises an application subsystem, a 3G wireless communication subsystem, a 2G wireless communication subsystem and an identification card management module. The identification card management module is connected with an identification card, which stores information used for the 2G network and 3G network to perform identity authentication, and the 3G wireless communication subsystem is connected with the application subsystem and the identification card management module, and the 2G wireless communication subsystem is connected with the application subsystem and the identification card management module. A method for performing communication by a dual-network terminal is also disclosed by the present invention. The invention is beneficial to the design of hardware and structure, thus saving the cost. |
| US08989746B2 |
Performing association during handover in wireless access system
A method of associating a mobile station to a base station in a wireless communication system comprises transmitting to a serving base station a scanning request message comprising an association indicator. The method also comprises receiving from the serving base station a scanning response message comprising a rendezvous time associated with a neighboring base station for initiating ranging with the neighboring base station, wherein the serving base station communicates an association notification to the neighboring base station, the association notification comprising the rendezvous time. The method also comprises associating with the neighboring base station by transmitting a ranging request after passing of the rendezvous time determined from a transmission time of the scanning response message from the neighboring base station, wherein the rendezvous time is associated with a time the neighboring base station is expected to provide a non-contention based ranging opportunity for the mobile station. |
| US08989740B2 |
Method and apparatus for selecting one of a plurality of networks for an application service based upon performance metrics for the application service
A communication device performs a method for selecting a network for an application service based upon system performance. The method includes obtaining multiple sets of performance metrics. Each of the multiple sets of performance metrics comprises at least one performance metric for a same application service. The method further includes evaluating the multiple sets of performance metrics to select one of the corresponding networks to access the application service on the selected network. |
| US08989737B2 |
System and method for establishing a session initiation protocol communication session with a mobile terminal
A system is provided for establishing a communication session with a terminal (i.e., terminating SIP client). The system includes a network node (e.g., SIP proxy) located in a network across which an originating client is capable of communicating. The network node is capable of sending a trigger to the terminal independent of the network. The network node is also capable of receiving a registration message, in response to the trigger, from the terminal across the network. In this regard, the network node is capable of receiving the registration message to thereby identify the terminal across the network such that a communication session is capable of being established with the terminal based upon the identity of the terminal across the network. |
| US08989734B2 |
Method and apparatus for wireless network selection
The application relates to wireless network selection. The effect of wireless network selection upon operation time of the mobile device is considered in making the wireless network selection. |
| US08989730B2 |
Detection of faulty radio oscillator or faulty mobile timing measurements
Detection of a faulty radio oscillator is provided herein. Also provided herein is detection of faulty mobile timing measurements. Timing measurements, as observed by a mobile device, and an identification of primary scrambling codes associated with the timing measurements are captured. The primary scrambling codes match each timing measurement with a particular radio. The mobile device can also report its location information. Radios for which timing measurements have been received are paired. Based on the paired radios and an associated observed time delay derived from the timing measurements, comparisons can be made between paired radios having at least one common radio. Radios exhibiting an expected timing value can be removed from the analysis in order to isolate a radio that has a faulty radio oscillator. |
| US08989727B2 |
System and method for proximity area networking for mobile gaming
Embodiments of the present invention include improved communication system and methods. In one embodiment, the present invention includes a wireless communication method comprising, on a first wireless device, receiving one or more wireless device identifications associated with one or more other wireless devices, and transmitting at least one of the one or more wireless device identifications from the first wireless device to a remote computer system, and on the remote computer system, receiving the at least one wireless device identification, and accessing information associated with the at least one wireless device identification. Embodiments of the present invention may be used for electronic dating, social networking and other communication applications. |
| US08989726B2 |
Device call notification extensions
An aspect provides a method, including: detecting an incoming voice call at an information handling device; detecting one or more external notification extension conditions at the information handling device, tracking user-device interactions to build a pattern of user behavior with respect to external conditions; updating the one or more external notification extension conditions based on the pattern of user behavior; and in response to detecting one or more updated external notification extension conditions at the information handling device, extending a notification of the incoming voice call at the information handling device. Other aspects are described and claimed. |
| US08989721B2 |
Systems and methods for terminating telephony communications to mobile telephony devices
Systems and methods for terminating telephony communications to a mobile telephony device that is roaming outside of its native service area make use of a mobile roaming termination service. The mobile roaming termination service causes the native mobile telephony service provider that provides service to the mobile telephony device to forward incoming telephony communications directed the native telephone number of the mobile telephony device to a forwarding access number. The mobile roaming termination service receives telephony communications directed to the forwarding access number, and then terminates the telephony communication to the mobile telephony device via any one of multiple different methods. The mobile telephony service provider can be instructed to implement and cancel call forwarding instructions by dialing a special character string on the mobile telephony device. |
| US08989716B2 |
Method and apparatus for supporting CSG service in wireless communication system
A method and apparatus for supporting a closed subscriber group (CSG) service is provided. The apparatus includes a memory to store CSG subscription information and a processor operatively coupled to the RF unit and memory to implement a radio interface protocol. The processor accesses a base station (BS), transmits the CSG subscription information to the BS, receives an access mode from the BS where the access mode is determined based on the CSG subscription information, and negotiates with the BS with regard to a CSG service if the access mode supports a CSG to which the apparatus belongs. |
| US08989713B2 |
Selection of a link in a received message for speaking reply, which is converted into text form for delivery
A link, called an X-Link™ and is placed in a message (SMS, MMS, email etc.) that is sent to a user and displayed on their device (e.g. mobile telephone). When the link is selected by the user, it connects the user's device to a conversion system, enabling the user to speak a reply which is then converted to a text based reply message; the reply message is then sent to the original message sender (and/or another appropriate recipient). This approach enables a text message to be responded to by voice: it is an example of an asymmetric communication. There are many circumstances where this approach is very useful—for example if the message is a SMS and the recipient does not know how to respond using SMS, or is in an environment where it is difficult (perhaps when walking or driving). |
| US08989712B2 |
Mobile phone payment process including threshold indicator
System, methods, and apparatus provide account balance alerts for a mobile phone used to initiate a transaction when an account balance is close to a credit limit or close to zero or a minimum balance amount. When a consumer uses an account associated with a mobile phone to make a purchase, the account is checked to see if the purchase would result in an account balance within a predetermined threshold of the credit limit in the case of a credit account, or within a predetermined threshold of zero or a minimum balance, in the case of a debit account. If the threshold has been surpassed an account balance alert is automatically sent to the mobile phone. Since the mobile phone was just used for the transaction, the consumer is timely notified of the approach of the balance to the credit/debit limit and can take corrective action in a timely manner. |
| US08989710B2 |
Anonymous customer reference services enabler
Variable subscriber identifiers (V-SubIds) for protecting subscriber privacy are generated and managed. In one aspect, an Anonymous Customer Reference Services (ACRS) component generates a V-SubId, which is a short-lived subscriber identifier that is inserted in a request received from a user equipment during request enrichment. Moreover, a different V-SubId can be inserted in subsequent request from the user equipment and thus, cross-site behavior tracking can be mitigated. In one aspect, the V-SubId can be exchanged for a subscriber identifier (SubId) associated with the user equipment, upon query by trusted systems/applications. Further, the V-SubId can be exchanged for a site-specific Anonymous Customer Reference (ACR) upon query by untrusted systems/applications, if user authorization is received. Moreover, the life cycle of the ACR is managed by the ACRS component, based on subscriber input. |
| US08989708B2 |
Network device access ID assignment and management
One or more devices may receive an instruction to generate an index for a customer associated with a base station and may generate the index based on receiving the instruction. The index may include one or more spaces to store a corresponding one or more access identifiers (IDs) used to allow a user device to connect to the base station. The one or more devices may receive an instruction to add an access ID to the index; generate the access ID based on a format of the access ID, a customer type, a customer ID, or a space ID; store the access ID in one of the one or more spaces of the index; and provide the access ID to the user device and the base station. The access ID may permit the user device to connect to the base station to access a network via the base station. |
| US08989706B2 |
Automated secure pairing for wireless devices
Systems, methods, and/or techniques (“tools”) are described herein that relate to automated secure pairing for devices, and that relate to parallel downloads of content using devices. The tools for pairing the devices may perform authentication protocols that are based on addresses and on keys. The address-based authentication protocol may operate on address book entries maintained by the devices. The key-based authentication protocol may operate using a key exchange between the devices. |
| US08989705B1 |
Secure placement of centralized media controller application in mobile access terminal
A mobile access terminal (MAT) for use in an internet protocol multimedia system (IMS). The mobile access terminal comprises a first region of memory, a device application stored in the first region of memory, a second region of memory that implements a trusted security sector, and a centralized media controller application stored in the trusted security sector. The centralized media controller application is mated and paired with an incident internet protocol multimedia system network and wherein the centralized media controller application authenticates the device application and provides the device application with communications connectivity with the incident internet protocol multimedia system network. |
| US08989704B2 |
Invisible mode for mobile phones to facilitate privacy without breaching trust
Systems and methods for providing information security in an unobtrusive manner are presented herein. An authentication component can enable a primary user of a multi-user communications device, based on an authentication process initiated by the primary user, to classify information stored in the multi-user communications device as invisible to other users of the device. The information classified as invisible to the other users can include phone number(s), phone message(s), email address(es), email(s), electronic message(s), call history, email history, and/or personal data. In addition, an information access component can enable the primary user to access the information classified as invisible to the other users of the multi-user communications device upon authentication of the primary user's identity. An operational component can enable other users of the multi-user communications device to operate the device without receiving an indication that information stored in the device was classified as invisible to the other users. |
| US08989703B2 |
Methods and systems for electronic device status exchange
Methods, devices and servers for exchanging information about the status of mobile communications are described. In one aspect, a method is implemented on a device status exchange server, which includes: storing a plurality of profiles associated with a plurality of mobile communication devices that are serviced by a wireless service provider having a wireless service provider server which tracks information about the mobile communication devices, the plurality of profiles storing at least some of the information tracked by the wireless service provider server; receiving, from third party servers, subscription requests for notification of an update in information associated with one of the mobile communication devices; registering the received subscription requests; detecting an update to the information stored in one of the profiles based on information received from a server; and in response to detecting the update: updating the profile associated with the mobile communication device associated with the updated information; and notifying the third party servers of the update in accordance with registered subscription requests. |
| US08989698B2 |
Supplemental rescue resources
A supplemental rescue resources system can receive an emergency alert message from a mobile device and use data from the message and other sources to determine and select appropriate supplemental rescue resources, which may include may include any person that has volunteered or is otherwise a participant in the system that is not an on-duty emergency responder. The supplemental rescue resources system may select a supplemental rescue resources based on the location of such resources relative to the location of an incident, and/or the qualifications and/or preferences of such resources. The supplemental rescue resources system may direct resources to the incident and notify emergency services providers of the supplemental resources. The supplemental rescue resources system may request and/or receive additional information from supplemental resources, emergency services providers, and/or those reporting incidents and use this information to adjust the notified supplemental resources, update emergency services providers, and/or update affected parties. |
| US08989695B2 |
Wireless communication device and method for transmitting emergency data from outside a coverage zone
A wireless communication device is disclosed that is capable of transmitting emergency data to a base station even when the wireless communication device is out of range, or has insufficient battery life, to communicate with the base station using normal transmission means. When the wireless communication device is out of range or has low battery, the wireless communication device can transmit the emergency data to the base station by repeatedly transmitting the emergency data at a coding rate below a standard/minimum coding rate of the modulation scheme designated for use by the base station. The second wireless communication device can detect and decode the emergency data by storing the multiple transmitted iterations of the received signal and performing combining processing on those stored iterations. |
| US08989693B1 |
Power line network apparatus, system and method
Various aspects of the instant disclosure are directed towards a method for communicating time-based data in a power line communication system. In accordance with one or more example embodiments, firmware is downloaded to a multitude of endpoints over power distribution lines carrying alternating current (AC) power. Endpoint devices targeted for changes to stored firmware are grouped and the firmware is delivered in chunks to each group. As devices receive a particular chunk of firmware, the device advances to a next stage and provides information indicative of this stage, based upon which subsequent chunks of firmware are communicated. This occurs (e.g., on a daily cycle) until the endpoint has received all firmware for an update, after which the endpoint(s) are re-started using the firmware. Accordingly, such updates can be carried out in a cyclic and verifiable manner. |
| US08989692B2 |
High speed, wide frequency-range, digital phase mixer and methods of operation
The present disclosure is directed to a unit phase mixer in combination with an input buffer. The unit phase mixer has a pull-up path for pulling an output terminal up to a first voltage. The pull-up path has a first transistor responsive to a first enable signal and a series connected second transistor responsive to a first clock signal. The unit phase mixer has a pull-down path for pulling the output terminal down to a second voltage. The pull-down path has a third transistor responsive to a second clock signal and a series connected fourth transistor responsive to a second enable signal. The input buffer skews the first and second clock signals by different amounts to enable a break-before-make method of operation so that the first voltage is not connected to the second voltage. The unit phase mixer can be used as a building block in more complex mixers which may include the ability to weight the input clocks as well as providing feed-forward paths for certain of the signals. Because of the rules governing abstract, this abstract should not be used to construe the claims. |
| US08989686B2 |
Local radio mode for AM/FM broadcasts
A vehicle radio includes a memory including normal mode memory locations and local mode memory locations. User preset buttons are each associated with a normal mode memory location, and local preset buttons are each associated with a local mode memory location. A radio controller selectively operates in local mode, wherein the radio controller scans frequencies being received and stores some of the received frequencies as local mode frequencies in the local mode memory locations of the preset memory. In local mode, the controller enables both: selection of any one of the user presets; and selection of any one of the local presets. Optionally, the local memory locations can first be filled by PTY preference, with unfilled locations filled by closest PTY or signal strength. A frequency stored in a local mode memory location can be copied to a normal mode memory location. |
| US08989684B1 |
Voltage regulator for providing a regulated voltage to subcircuits of an RF frequency circuit
A voltage regulator for a plurality of radio frequency subcircuits of a radio frequency circuit. A first transistor configured to receive, based on a comparison between a reference voltage signal and a feedback signal, a bias signal corresponding to a desired regulated voltage for the plurality of radio frequency subcircuits, output the bias signal, and generate the feedback signal according to the bias signal as output from the first transistor. A second transistor configured to receive the bias signal as output from the first transistor and provide, based on the bias signal, the desired regulated voltage to a respective first one of the plurality of radio frequency subcircuits. A third transistor is configured to receive the bias signal as output from the first transistor and provide, based on the bias signal, the desired regulated voltage to a respective second one of the plurality of radio frequency subcircuits. |
| US08989682B2 |
Apparatus and methods for envelope tracking calibration
Apparatus and methods for envelope tracking calibration are provided. In one embodiment, a method of calibrating an envelope tracker having an envelope shaping table generated at a desired gain compression of a power amplifier is provided. The method includes generating a supply voltage for the power amplifier using the envelope tracker, operating the supply voltage of the power amplifier at a first voltage level associated with substantially no gain compression of the power amplifier, and measuring an output power of the power amplifier at the first voltage level. The method further includes decreasing a voltage level of the supply voltage one or more times and measuring the output power at each voltage level, determining a second voltage level of the power amplifier associated with a gain compression equal to about that of the desired gain compression, and calibrating the envelope tracker based on the determination. |
| US08989680B2 |
Determining a state of a receiver on a transmission line
According to one aspect, a method is provided for determining a state of a receiver on a transmission line. The method may comprise, for example, evaluating a first voltage arising at a circuit point between an impedance and a transmission line coupled to the impedance, wherein the impedance is coupled between a transmitter and the receiver, and determining a state of the receiver based on the first voltage. According to further aspects, various apparatuses are provided for performing this and other methods. |
| US08989677B2 |
Apparatus and method for switching from reception to transmission
The invention is related to an apparatus comprising: at least one definition unit configured to define signal characterizing parameters of a transmission; and at least one routing unit configured to route the transmission to at least one transmission path based on the signal characterizing parameters, the at least one transmission path arranged to convey the transmission to at least one antenna. |
| US08989673B2 |
System for delivering data to users
A system for delivering data to a user includes a beverage container provided with an electronic device having an electronic display, and a portable electronic apparatus such as an electronic mobile phone or an electronic tablet, so that a user operates the portable electronic apparatus to compose data, which are transmitted via ultra-sound to the beverage container and displayed on its electronic display. |
| US08989670B2 |
Location aware file sharing between near field communication enabled devices
Systems, methods, and computer-readable media are provided for connecting, selecting, and/or transferring data files among near field communication (NFC) enabled devices. An initial communication link may be established. A subsequent communication link may be established through an exchange of data communicated over the initial communication link. A data file may be provided facilitating a retrieval and rendering of a first device icon and a second device icon. The first device icon and the second device icon are utilized to transfer one or more selected files over the subsequent communication link. |
| US08989667B2 |
Apparatus and methods for a bandwidth efficient scheduler
Methods and apparatus for scheduling shared time resources. In one embodiment, Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11 interfaces with overlapping frequency ranges are managed by an intelligent scheduler entity or process that schedules time slots for human interaction devices based on predictions on which Bluetooth device is active. By reducing the number of time slots reserved for inactive Bluetooth devices, the scheduler can free up time slots for IEEE 802.11 systems without significant perceptible impact on the Bluetooth devices. The freed time slots can increase in IEEE 802.11 performance by providing additional bandwidth (which can be perceptible by the user), thereby increasing user satisfaction and experience. |
| US08989666B2 |
Information processing system, information processing apparatus, computer-readable storage medium having stored therein information processing program, and information processing method
A plurality of game apparatuses function as a master, a client, and an audience. The master and the client register each other by performing therebetween an authentication process. The authentication process is not performed between the master and the audience. The audience receives a beacon from the master and registers the master in an own apparatus while the audience is not registered in the master. The master and the client execute a predetermined program, exchanging data by communicating with each other. The audience receives the data exchanged between the master and the client, and executes the predetermined program using the received data, thereby watches a game which is progressed between the master and the client, as a spectator. |
| US08989661B2 |
Method and system for optimized architecture for bluetooth streaming audio applications
Methods and systems for processing data are disclosed herein and may include compressing audio information on-chip within a Bluetooth® transceiver chip utilizing an audio codec implemented within the Bluetooth® transceiver chip. The audio codec may be a low complexity sub-band codec (SBC). An audio stream with the audio information may be generated outside the Bluetooth® transceiver chip. The audio stream may be generated via an audio/video distribution transport protocol (AVDTP) external to the Bluetooth® transceiver chip. A data channel may be established by the Bluetooth® transceiver chip between a Bluetooth® enabled device and a peer Bluetooth® device, for communicating the established audio stream to the Bluetooth® transceiver chip for compression. The data channel may be established utilizing a logical link control and adaptation protocol (L2CAP) and/or an advanced audio distribution profile (A2DP). |
| US08989657B2 |
Radio frequency access control system and method
An access control system includes a transmitter initiator that has a magnetic flux antenna constructed and arranged to direct magnetic energy in an angular direction, a plurality of RF tone detectors, a microcontroller, and a plurality of RF burst generators. The system includes at least one receiver responder that has a magnetic flux antenna, a plurality of RF tone detectors, a microcontroller, and a RF burst generator. The transmitter initiator's magnetic flux antenna and the receiver responder's magnetic flux antenna define an open-air gap therebetween. The transmitter initiator's magnetic flux antenna has a paramagnetic housing, electromagnetic windings within the paramagnetic housing, and at least one ferromagnetic element disposed within the open air gap. The paramagnetic housing and the ferromagnetic element are constructed and arranged to direct a magnetic field across the open air gap. The system is configured for wireless communication via near-field magnetic induction. |
| US08989655B2 |
Method in which user equipment transmits a signal in a distributed antenna system, and user equipment using same
A method in which user equipment transmits a signal in a distributed antenna system in which a plurality of antennas is distributed in a cell, comprises the following steps: receiving uplink antenna information from a base station; controlling uplink power on the basis of the uplink antenna information; and transmitting an uplink signal on the basis of the uplink power control, wherein the uplink antenna information indicates a receiving antenna of the base station that receives the uplink signal. |
| US08989650B2 |
Printing medium alignment device with rollers attached and image forming apparatus having the same
A printing medium alignment device and an image forming apparatus having the same, the image forming apparatus includes a printing medium supply unit to supply a printing medium, a printing unit to print an image on the printing medium supplied from the printing medium supply unit, and a printing medium alignment device to align the printing medium fed toward the printing unit. The printing medium alignment device includes: a register roller; an idle roller to form a nip with the register roller, to feed the printing medium to the printing unit; a register to move to a first position to block the printing medium from entering the nip, to align the printing medium, and to move to a second position to allow the printing medium to enter the nip; and a shutter roller mounted in the register shutter. When the register shutter is in the second position, the shutter roller rolls while in contact with the printing medium, to decrease a friction between the printing medium and the register shutter. |
| US08989647B2 |
Toner conveying unit for collecting toner and conveying toner to toner storage container
A toner conveying unit includes a first toner conveying passage, a second toner conveying passage, a conveying member, a crank, and a vertical slide member. The first toner conveying passage includes a receiving port and allows toner to fall down from the receiving port. The second toner conveying passage joins a lower portion of the first toner conveying passage. The conveying member is provided in the second toner conveying passage and conveys the toner in a predetermined direction while rotating. The crank is provided in the second toner conveying passage below the first toner conveying passage and is connected to the conveying member. The vertical slide member is connected to the crank, is inserted into the first toner conveying passage, and is formed so as to come into slide contact with an inner wall of the first toner conveying passage. |
| US08989645B2 |
Image forming apparatus
An image forming apparatus is disclosed, including an image bearing member and a protective layer forming unit. In an embodiment, the protective layer forming unit includes a protective agent supplying member which rotatably contacts a surface of the image bearing member and an image bearing member protective agent. The image bearing member protective agent includes at least a metal salt of a fatty acid and an inorganic lubricant. The protective agent supplying member includes a core material and a foam layer formed on an outer periphery of the core material and including a plurality of cells. Finally, a drive torque of the image bearing member and a drive torque of the protective agent supplying member satisfy a formula. |
| US08989643B2 |
Fixing device with endless belt and image forming apparatus incorporating same
The fixing device includes a nip formation assembly partially pressing against an opposed rotary body via an endless belt to form a fixing nip between the endless belt and the opposed rotary body. The nip formation assembly includes a base pad defining the fixing nip and including a pressure portion, an extension portion, and a curved portion. The pressure portion presses against the opposed rotary body via the endless belt. The extension portion is contiguous to and disposed upstream from the pressure portion in a recording medium conveyance direction. The extension portion does not press against the opposed rotary body via the endless belt. The curved portion is disposed upstream from the extension portion in the recording medium conveyance direction and smoothly blends into the extension portion. The curved portion does not press against the opposed rotary body. |
| US08989642B2 |
Fixing device preventable unevenness of heat generation of paper passing region
A fixing device includes a heating member, a pressing member, and an induction heating unit. In this fixing device, (i) a wound width Wc of a center portion of an induction heating coil in a longitudinal direction seen from an axial direction of the heating member, (ii) a wound width Wp in the vicinity of and inside edges of a maximum recording medium passing region of a recoding medium, and (iii) a wound width We of at least one of both edges of the induction heating coil in the longitudinal direction satisfy parameters that the wound width Wc is smaller than the wound width Wp and is larger than or equal to the wound width We. |
| US08989638B2 |
Developer carrying device, development device and image forming apparatus
A developer carrying device includes a first developer containing part configured to contain developer, a first rotational member arranged in the first developer containing part, a second developer containing part arranged side by side with the first developer containing part, a second rotational member arranged in the second developer containing part, an opening part formed between the first developer containing part and the second developer containing part, and a restriction part arranged between the first rotational member and the second rotational member. |
| US08989637B2 |
Developing device and image forming device
A developing device including a first developer holding member disposed opposite to an image holding member that holds an electrostatic latent image, a second developer holding member, disposed opposite to the image holding member and the first developer holding member, a developer supply mechanism that supplies a developer to a position located further downstream than a development area in a direction of rotation of the second developer holding member and located further upstream than opposite locations of the two developer holding members, a regulation member that regulates the developer supplied by the developer supply mechanism, a developer division unit that divides the developer, supplied from the developer supply mechanism into two parts for the two developer holding members, and a developer carrying unit that holds and carries the developer after division toward the development area in a state where the developer is separated. |
| US08989634B2 |
Developer case that suppresses clogging due to developer, developer replenishment unit having the same, and image forming apparatus having the same
A developer case includes a main body, a first transportation portion, a first transportation member, a supply member, a discharge port, and a second transportation portion. The main body contains developer. The first transportation portion has a first region that receives developer from the main body and a second region that extends from the first region in a first direction. The first transportation member transports developer in the first direction. The supply member supplies developer to the first region. Developer is discharged through the discharge port. The second transportation portion has an inlet port communicating with the second region. Developer that has not been discharged through the discharge port is supplied to the second transportation portion through the inlet port. The second transportation portion transports developer in a second direction. |
| US08989633B2 |
Image forming apparatus
An image forming apparatus includes an image bearing member; a developing device; a sealing member for unsealably sealing a space containing an initial developer; a first supplying device communicatable with the space to supply the developer into the developing device; a second supplying device for supplying the developer into first supplying device; an unsealing mechanism for unsealing the sealing member; and a controller capable of executing an operation in an unsealing mode in which the unsealing mechanism is operated, after supplying operation of second supplying device, to unseal the sealing member. |
| US08989632B2 |
Toner anti-bridging agitator for an image forming device
A removable unit for an electrophotographic image forming device according to one example embodiment includes a housing having an inner volume forming a toner reservoir and a channel for accumulating toner. An auger advances toner within the channel and has a rotational axis and a flight. An agitator is mounted on an inner surface of the housing and is positioned to extend toward the auger. The agitator has a first segment and a second distal segment connected to the first segment. When the auger rotates, the flight of the auger engages the agitator causing movement of the second distal segment to push toner accumulated in the channel into the auger. |
| US08989631B2 |
Image-forming apparatus and method
An image-forming apparatus includes an image unit that forms an image using a white toner and a color toner and a fixing unit that fixes the image to a medium with heat. The toner mass per unit area of the white toner θ (g/m2) in an image of the color toner superimposed on the white toner formed on paper used as the medium satisfies: 0.03+1.31×Rw−0.47×Rc+0.02×Gw−0.07×Gc≦θ≦0.05+1.06×Rw+0.42×Rc−0.02×Gw+0.05×Gc where Rw is the average particle diameter (μm) of the white toner, Rc is the average particle diameter (μm) of the color toner, Gw is the storage modulus (kPa) of the white toner at 120° C., and Gc is the storage modulus (kPa) of the color toner at 120° C. |
| US08989627B2 |
Image forming apparatus
An image forming apparatus is provided. The image forming apparatus includes a chassis having an opening, a cover, photosensitive members, an intermediate transfer belt, a primary-transfer member, a secondary-transfer roller, a cleaner device, a waste toner container, which is movable along a predetermined direction to be removably installed in the chassis through the opening and stores residual toner, a connector, and a feed roller, which is arranged within the feeding path to feed the recording sheet in the feeding path. The feed roller is arranged in a position to at least partially fall within a vertical range of the waste toner container and to be aligned with the waste toner container along an axial direction of the second feed roller. |
| US08989626B2 |
Image forming apparatus having a movement mechanism for reducing interference of an opening and closing member with a transfer body
An image forming apparatus having an apparatus body includes an image carrying body carrying an image, a transfer body which is provided in the apparatus body and to which the image is transferred, a first opening and closing member, a second opening and closing member, and a movement mechanism. The first opening and closing member is rotatable so as to open and close an opening of the apparatus body. The transfer body is detachable from the apparatus body through the opening. The second opening and closing member, which is displaceable relative to the first opening and closing member, together with the first opening and closing member opens and closes the opening in conjunction with opening and closing operations of the first opening and closing member. The movement mechanism causes the second opening and closing member to move in a direction away from the transfer body. |
| US08989619B2 |
Image forming apparatus having transfer belt contact and separating mechanism interfering with removable unit
An image forming apparatus includes an image carrier removably installed in the apparatus to carry an image; a transfer member contacting with the image carrier to transfer the image onto the transfer member or a recording medium; a contact and separation mechanism causing the transfer member to contact with or separate from the image carrier; and a removable unit removably installed in the apparatus from the same direction as an installation direction of the image carrier to be disposed proximal of the image carrier and the transfer member in the installation direction, and at least partially overlapping the image carrier and the transfer member as viewed in the installation direction. The removable unit interferes with the contact and separation mechanism and is prevented from being installed in the apparatus, when the transfer member is separated from the image carrier by the contact and separation mechanism. |
| US08989618B2 |
Cleaning member for image forming apparatus, charging device, unit for image forming apparatus, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus
A cleaning member for an image forming apparatus includes a core member, a foamed elastic layer in which two or more strip-shaped foamed elastic members connected together at one or both of longitudinal end portions are spirally wound around the outer peripheral surface of the core member from one end of the core member to the other end thereof, and an adhesive layer for bonding the core member and the foamed elastic layer together. |
| US08989617B2 |
Printer internal climate control
In one example, a climate control system for a printer includes: an air flow path from an intake for receiving warmer, dirtier aft from a printing area of the printer to an exhaust for returning cooler, cleaner air to the printing area of the printer; a first heat exchanger in the flow path for exchanging heat between warmer air coming from the intake and cooler air going to the exhaust; and a second heat exchanger in the flow path for receiving warmer, dirtier air from the first heat exchanger and passing cooler, cleaner air to the first heat exchanger. The second heat exchanger is configured to cool the air to a predetermined dew point temperature corresponding to a desired level of a contaminant in the air. |
| US08989616B2 |
Image forming apparatus
An image forming apparatus includes first and second image bearing drums; first and second developing devices for forming a toner image on the drums; an intermediary transfer member for carrying images transferred front the drums and secondary transferring the toner image onto a recording material; a heater for heating the recording material; an executing portion for executing a first mode for forming a toner image on the intermediary transfer member from both drums and a second mode for forming a toner image on the intermediary transfer member only from the second drum; a temperature detecting portion; a fan; a controller for controlling the fan based on a detected temperature; a setting portion for setting a temperature at which an air feed amount of the fan is increased in the second mode is lower than a temperature at which the all feed amount is increased in the first mode. |
| US08989613B2 |
Power supply device and image forming apparatus
The power supply device includes a transformer, a switching unit for driving a primary side of the transformer, a detection unit for detecting an output corresponding to a current flowing on the primary side, a transmission unit for transmitting an output voltage from a secondary side to the primary side, and a control unit for controlling an operation of the switching unit in accordance with an output from the transmission unit, in which, when a switching frequency for driving the switching unit falls within a predetermined frequency range including a resonant frequency of the transformer, the control unit controls the switching unit so as to shorten a turn-ON time of the switching unit in accordance with an output from the detection unit. |
| US08989605B2 |
Image forming apparatus
An image forming apparatus includes a plurality of white reference plates, a plurality of measurement units configured to be arranged in positions opposed to the respective plurality of white reference plates, irradiate the white reference plates with light, and measure reflected light from the white reference plates, and a determination unit configured to determine an abnormality of the plurality of white reference plates by using respective measurement results measured by the plurality of measurement units. |
| US08989601B2 |
Driver for multi-stage wave guide modulator and method
A modular hub driver architecture may include a multi-delay block configured to provide an enhanced delay match among N distinct stages of a distributed modulating electro-optical interface core. The electro-optical multi-core modulator driver may include an input impedance matching stage and a pre-conditioning circuit configured to generate a number M, an integer divisor of N, of delayed replicas of an electrical modulating signal. The electro-optical multi-core modulator may include an array of M launch buffers of the replica signals, and an array of M multi-delay blocks, each including delay circuit modules differently cascaded on distinct signal paths, and configured to receive, at respective inputs, the M replica signals and to output N/M differently delayed replicas of the input signals, each driving a correspondent output stage of one on the N electro-optical interface cores. |
| US08989593B2 |
Frequency domain clock recovery
Consistent with an aspect of the present disclosure, an optical signal carrying data or information is supplied to photodetector circuitry that generates a corresponding analog signal. The analog signal may be amplified or otherwise processed and supplied to analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) circuitry, which samples the analog signal to provide a plurality of digital signals or samples. The timing of such sampling is in accordance with a clock signal supplied to the ADC circuitry. A phase detector is provided that detects and adjust the clock signal to have a desired phase based on frequency domain data that is output from a Fast Fourier transform (FFT) circuit that receives the digital samples. Preferably, the phase detector circuit is configured such that it need not receive all the frequency domain data output from the FFT at any given time in order to determine the clock phase. Rather, a subset of such data is supplied to the phase detector circuit, such that the phase detector has a simpler design, operates faster, and is computationally efficient. |
| US08989592B2 |
Optical fiber transmission system
An optical fiber transmission system adapted to provide a remote passive identification of components deployed in said transmission system, wherein each component comprises an associated passive optical identification unit adapted to provide identification of a component type of the respective component on the basis of a received optical identification signature carried in an optical identification signal to said component. |
| US08989589B2 |
Method and apparatus for testing using a transceiver module
An apparatus in one embodiment includes a transceiver housing operable to be inserted into a port of a host system, the port comprising at least a first channel and a second channel. The transceiver housing may be a compact small form-factor (SFP) pluggable module housing. The apparatus also includes a printed circuit board mounted in the transceiver housing and an electrical interface of the printed circuit board operable to interface with the port of the host system. The electrical interface includes a first transmit pin and a first receive pin configured to interface with the first channel of the port and a second transmit pin and a second receive pin configured to interface with the second channel of the port. A first connector couples the first transmit pin and the second receive pin, and a second connector couples the second transmit pin and the first receive pin. |
| US08989587B2 |
Operational state information generation in an optical transceiver
Methods, algorithms, architectures, circuits, and/or systems for determining the status of parameters associated with optical transceiver operation are disclosed. The method can include (a) accessing and/or monitoring parametric data for each of a plurality of parameters that are related to operation of the optical transceiver; (b) storing the parametric data in one or more memories; (c) comparing the parametric data for each of the plurality of parameters against at least one of a corresponding plurality of predetermined thresholds; and (d) generating one or more states indicating whether the parametric data for a unique one of the parameters has crossed one or more of the corresponding plurality of predetermined thresholds. The invention also relates to an optical triplexer, comprising the described optical transceiver. |
| US08989585B2 |
Free space optical communications link node, network and method of transmitting traffic
A free space optical communications link node 10 comprising transmitter apparatus 12 comprising a first optical transmitter 14, arranged to transmit high priority traffic on a first upstream optical signal having a first wavelength and at a first optical signal power, and a second optical transmitter 16 arranged to transmit low priority traffic on a second upstream optical signal having a second wavelength, different to the first wavelength, and at a second optical signal power. The node 10 further comprises receiver apparatus 18 comprising a first optical amplifier 20 arranged to receive and amplify a first downstream optical signal having a third wavelength and carrying high priority traffic and a second downstream optical signal having a fourth wavelength, different to the third wavelength, and carrying low priority traffic. The node 10 further comprises traffic handling control apparatus 22 comprises a power monitor 24 arranged to monitor an optical signal power of the first downstream optical signal and a controller 26 arranged to generate and transmit a control signal 28 if said optical signal power is below a first threshold value. The control signal is arranged to cause the second optical signal power to have a value which is unsuitable for transmission. |
| US08989582B2 |
Timing interface module with daughter timing reference modules
A timing interface module installs within a rack to increase bandwidth. The timing interface module receives a reference timing signal and outputs the reference timing signal to an optical multiplexer. The optical multiplexer also receives multiple data streams of different formats, and the optical multiplexer synchronizes the multiple data streams to the reference timing signal. |
| US08989577B2 |
Methods and systems for implementing time-division duplexing in the physical layer
A physical-layer device includes a first sublayer to receive a first continuous bitstream from a media-independent interface and to provide a second continuous bitstream to the media-independent interface. The physical-layer device also includes a second sublayer to transmit first signals corresponding to the first continuous bitstream onto an external link during a first plurality of time windows and to receive second signals corresponding to the second continuous bitstream from the external link during a second plurality of time windows. The second plurality of time windows is distinct from the first plurality of time windows. |
| US08989576B2 |
Device and method for processing an optical signal
A method of processing optical signal (TE) whose power (PE) varies in a random manner in a range of variation of power (ΔPE) around a mean power (PEφ), the processing of the optical signal (TE) generating processing noise (GELECTRONIC), characterized in that the relative variation of power (GE) of at least a temporal part at said optical signal (TE) is optically amplified. |
| US08989573B2 |
Sensing apparatus
A sensing apparatus includes: a broadband optical source; a first pseudorandom number generator generating a first pseudorandom number code string to modulate the broadband optical source; at least one sensor reflecting an output of the first pseudorandom number generator at a wavelength corresponding to a center wavelength thereof when the output of the first pseudorandom number generator is inputted; a wavelength-time converter converting an output of the sensor by wavelength-time conversion; a second pseudorandom number generator generating a second pseudorandom number code string which is different in frequency from and is the same in bit length and code string as the first pseudorandom number code string; a mixer mixing an output signal of the wavelength-time converter with an output signal of the second pseudorandom number generator; and an integrator integrating an output of the mixer. |
| US08989566B2 |
Heating pump
A heating pump includes a motor, a housing fixed to the motor, an impeller driven by the motor and received in the housing, and a tubular heating member fixed in the housing. The housing includes an intake tube and a discharge port arranged at the periphery of the intake tube. The impeller includes an inlet communicating with the intake tube and a plurality of outlets around the inlet. The outlets communicate with the discharge port via a first passage surrounded by the heating member. A second passage, which communicates with the first passage, is formed between a radially outer surface of the heating member and a radially inner surface of the housing. |
| US08989565B2 |
Multistage furnace
The invention provides a compact multistage furnace of which the installation area in a factory is decreased. A multistage furnace is configured by piling up a plurality of furnace units in the vertical direction. Each of the furnace units includes an upper heater and a lower heater layered in the vertical direction and holding a heat insulator therebetween, a support pipe disposed on one end of the upper heater and extending in the horizontal direction, a support pipe disposed on other end of the upper heater and extending in the horizontal direction, and a plurality of work support bars mounted over the support pipes. The back surface of a work supported by the work support bars is opposed to the upper heater and the front surface of the work is opposed to the lower heater of the adjacent furnace unit disposed above. |
| US08989564B2 |
Multimedia visual progress indication system
A position indicator is displayed in a vicinity of a visual indicator to a user the visual indicator visually indicates an available amount of program material through which the user is able to navigate and play back. The position indicator visually indicates a current playback position within the available amount of program material. In response to receiving a single user command, the position indicator is placed in a new current playback position over the visual indicator. The new current playback position visually represents an end position of the visual indicator. |
| US08989562B2 |
Facilitating concurrent recording of multiple television channels
An arrangement for grouping multiple television channels for recording is presented. Television channel usage data indicative of television programs being requested by users of the television receivers may be received. The television channel usage data may provide usage data for television channels being transmitted using a plurality of transponders. The television channel usage data may be analyzed to determine a grouping of television channels. Based on the television channel usage data, a television channel may be reassigned from a first transponder to a second transponder for transmission to the plurality of television receivers such that the grouping of television channels are transmitted using the second transponder. |
| US08989559B2 |
Video importance rating based on compressed domain video features
Systems and methods are provided for identifying important video frames and segments in multimedia content such as a segmented compressed domain video. Video frames in a segment are analyzed to determine intensity, contrast, and motion values for the frames and their segments. The values among frames and segments are compared to identify one or more video segments likely to be important to a viewer. The systems and methods may additionally be augmented with audio data other characteristics associated with the video frames and segments analyzed. |
| US08989556B2 |
Recording medium, playback device, recording device, and recording method
On a recording medium, a monoscopic video specific section and a stereoscopic video specific section are continuous immediately after an extended data specific section. A shared section includes a continuous, interleaved arrangement having one each of main-view extents, sub-view extents, and extended extents. The stereoscopic video specific section includes a continuous, interleaved arrangement of extents having one each of the main-view extents and the sub-view extents. The monoscopic video specific section includes a continuous arrangement of a copy of the main-view extent arranged in the stereoscopic video specific section. The extended data specific section includes one of the extended extents that is to be used in combination with the copy of the main-view extent arranged in the monoscopic video specific section. The shared section is accessed when stereoscopic video images are played back, when monoscopic video images are played back, and when an extended stream is used. The stereoscopic video specific section is accessed during playback of the stereoscopic video images. The monoscopic video specific section is accessed during playback of the monoscopic video images. The extended data specific section and the monoscopic video specific section are accessed when the extended stream is read, immediately before or after a long jump. |
| US08989553B2 |
Video processing system and video processing method
A video processing system includes: a merge server configured to decode a plurality of individual videos provided from video providing units, encode the plurality of individual videos by adjusting an amount of data of each of the individual videos to generate a preliminary video, and provide the preliminary video; a display server configured to receive the preliminary video and configure final videos according to output conditions of a display device; and a control server configured to receive the output conditions from the display server and transfer an output control signal with respect to the preliminary video to the merge server. When a user wants, individual videos provided from the plurality of video providing units can be displayed on a display device without sacrificing resolution and a frame rate, and since videos can be zoomed in/out and panned in real time, operational responsiveness and usage efficiency of the video processing system can be enhanced. |
| US08989552B2 |
Multi device audio capture
At a master device are registered one or more other devices associated with one or more audio channels for recording at least one acoustic signal from one or more sound sources. The at least one acoustic signal is recorded using at least one of the master device and one or more other devices, and the at least one recorded acoustic signal is either collected by at least one of the master device and the one or more other devices, or transmitted to another entity by at least one of the master device and the one or more other devices. In the examples the registration assigns audio and/or video channels to different microphones of the different devices. In one embodiment these different recordings are mixed at the master device and in another they are mixed at a web server into a multi-channel audio/sound (or audio-video) file. |
| US08989551B2 |
Captioned video playback apparatus and recording medium
Disclosed is a captioned video playback apparatus comprising a storage unit that stores a caption signal defining a plurality of caption lines and a video signal defining a plurality of video images in association with a playback timing; a caption select unit that selects one of the plurality of caption lines defined by the caption signal stored in the storage unit; a caption playback unit that plays back the caption line selected by the caption select unit; a video playback unit that plays back the video signal stored in the storage unit; and a mode changeover unit that changes between a caption view mode for playing back a caption line selected by the caption select unit and a video image corresponding to the caption line using the caption playback unit and the video playback unit, and a normal view mode for playing back a video image using the video playback unit. |
| US08989550B2 |
Cable anchoring system for a fiber optic enclosure
A cable sealing and cable anchoring system has a primary sealant assembly that includes a primary volume of sealant that defines primary through-ports. The primary sealant assembly includes a primary actuator for pressurizing the primary volume of sealant. The system also has a secondary cable tube that mounts within one of the primary cable through-ports and a secondary cable sealant assembly that mounts within a first end of the secondary cable tube. The secondary cable sealant assembly includes a secondary sealant volume that defines secondary cable through-ports. The secondary cable sealant assembly also includes a secondary actuator for pressurizing the secondary sealant volume. The system further has a cable anchoring assembly for anchoring a strength member of a secondary cable to the secondary cable tube. The cable anchoring assembly is supported by the secondary cable tube adjacent the second end of the secondary cable tube. |
| US08989548B2 |
Connection box for glass fiber cables
The invention relates to a connecting box (1) for glass fiber cables, comprising a housing which is formed from at least two parts and has a lower part and a cover (2), with at least one holder (20) for a coupling (30) for holding glass fiber plugs being arranged within the housing, wherein the holder (20) is in the form of a double frame which comprises two first vertical struts (21) and two second vertical struts (22), with the second struts (22) being arranged closely to a front face (5, 40) of the cover (2) and of the lower part (3), and with the coupling (30) optionally being latchable to the first or the second struts (21, 22). |
| US08989541B2 |
Cable and dual inner diameter ferrule device with smooth internal contours and method
A fiber optic ferrule includes a body extending from a first end to a second opposite end, with the body including an axial passage extending between the first and the second ends. The axial passage includes a first diameter portion having a diameter of at least 125 microns, a second diameter portion having a diameter of at least 250 microns and less than a diameter of a buffer, and a smooth and continuous transition between the first and the second diameter portions. The second diameter portion is positioned between the first diameter portion and the second end. The axial passage further defines a tapered shape at the second end extending inward from the second end toward the second diameter portion. In certain embodiments, another smooth and continuous transition can be provided between the taper shape and the second diameter portion. In certain embodiments, the axial passage is smooth and continuous between the first and the second ends of the body. A hub holds the ferrule. A method of assembling a terminated fiber optic cable is also provided. |
| US08989535B2 |
Multiple waveguide imaging structure
In embodiments of a multiple waveguide imaging structure, an imaging structure includes a first waveguide for see-through viewing of an environment at a first field of view, and includes a second waveguide for see-through viewing of the environment at a second field of view. The first and second waveguides each include a polarizing beam splitter to reflect light that enters at a first polarization orientation angle in the respective first and second waveguides, and the polarizing beam splitters pass through the light that enters at a second polarization orientation angle. The imaging structure also includes a polarization switch to rotate the polarization of the light through the first and second polarization orientation angles. |
| US08989533B2 |
Apparatus and method for generating femtosecond pulses via temporal soliton compression in photonic crystals
Exemplary embodiments of an apparatus, method, and computer readable medium are provided for producing a radiation. For example, a radiation having at least one pulse with a pulse-width of less than approximately 30 picoseconds can be produced using a photonic crystal waveguide arrangement which is (i) specifically structured and sized so as to be placed on an integrated circuit, and (ii) configured to produce the radiation having at least one pulse with a pulse-width of less than approximately 30 picoseconds. |
| US08989529B2 |
Printed circuit board for optical waveguides and method of manufacturing same
Disclosed herein is a printed circuit board for an optical waveguide, including: a lower substrate; an insulation layer which has a through-hole and is formed on the lower substrate; an optical waveguide which is formed in the through-hole such that a clearance is present between the optical wave guide and an inner wall of the through-hole; and an adhesive material which is charged in the clearance. The printed circuit board for an optical waveguide is advantageous in that a lower clad material, a core material and an upper clad material are sequentially applied on the lower substrate partially, not entirely, based on the region in which a core is formed, and is then patterned to form an optical waveguide, so that the amounts of the lower and upper clad materials and the core material, which are used to form the optical waveguide, can be greatly decreased. |
| US08989527B2 |
Method and system for determining the location of a fiber optic channel along the length of a fiber optic cable
The location of one or more fiber optic channels (16) along the length of a fiber optic cable (12) is determined by: a) arranging an electrical conductor and a magnetic source at a known location adjacent to at least one of the channels (16); b) transmitting an electrical current through the electrical conductor, thereby deforming the electrical conductor by Lorenz forces in the vicinity of the magnetic source; c) conveying the deformation of the electrical conductor to deform an adjacent channel (16); d) transmitting light pulses through the fiber optic cable (12) and using variations in the light pulses back reflected by the deformed channel (16) and the known location of the magnetic source to determine the location of the deformed channel (16). |
| US08989526B2 |
Raman amplification in distributed optical fiber sensing systems
A method of providing Raman amplification in an optical fiber sensing system, comprises generating a probe pulse of light and launching the pulse into a sensing optical fiber, generating pump light at a shorter wavelength and modulating it to produce a time-varying intensity profile, and launching the pump light into the sensing fiber. such that the intensity of the launched pump light during launch of the probe pulse is different from the intensity at other times. Raman amplification of backscattered light produced by the probe pulse as it propagates along the fiber is achieved, as is amplification of the probe pulse if the pump power is non-zero during launch of the probe pulse. |
| US08989522B2 |
Isolation of components on optical device
The optical device includes an active component on a base. The active component is a light sensor and/or a light modulator. The active component including an active medium that includes a ridge and slab regions. The ridge extends upwards from the base and is positioned between the slab regions. The ridge defines a portion of a waveguide on the base. One or more isolation trenches each extends into the slab regions of the active medium and is at least partially spaced apart from the ridge of the active medium. |
| US08989521B1 |
Determination of dance steps based on media content
Methods and systems for determining dance steps based on music and/or other dancers. A wearable computing system may include a head mounted display (HMD). The wearable computing system may receive a media sample including an audio sample associated with a song and/or a video sample associated with one or more dancers performing a dance. The wearable computing system may communicate the media sample to a content analysis server that may include a content identification module. The content identification module may provide information associated with a content of the media sample, such as identification of the song and the dance, to the wearable computing system. The wearable computing system may determine dance steps corresponding to the content of the media sample and may generate a display of the dance steps on the HMD. |
| US08989519B2 |
Super resolution from a single signal
A method implementable on a computing device includes exploiting data redundancy to combine high frequency information from at least two different scales of an input signal to generate a super resolution version of said input signal. An alternative method includes exploiting recurrence of data from an input signal in at least two different scales of at least one reference signal to extract and to combine high frequency information from a plurality of scales of said at least one reference signal to generate a super resolution version of said input signal. An alternative method includes generating a super resolution version of a single input video sequence in at least the temporal dimension by exploiting data recurrence within the input video sequence or with respect to an external database of example video sequences. A signal may be an image, a video sequence, an audio signal, etc. |
| US08989516B2 |
Image processing method and apparatus
An image processing apparatus is arranged to process a first relatively underexposed and sharp image of a scene, and a second relatively well exposed and blurred image, nominally of the same scene, the first and second images being derived from respective image sources. The apparatus provides a portion of the relatively first underexposed image as an input signal to an adaptive filter; and a corresponding portion of the second relatively well exposed image as a desired signal to the adaptive filter. The adaptive filter produces an output signal from the input signal and the desired signal; and an image generator constructs a first filtered image from the output signal, relatively less blurred than the second image. |
| US08989515B2 |
Systems and methods for mobile image capture and processing
In various embodiments, methods, systems, and computer program products for processing digital images captured by a mobile device are disclosed. Myriad features enable and/or facilitate processing of such digital images using a mobile device that would otherwise be technically impossible or impractical, and furthermore address unique challenges presented by images captured using a camera rather than a traditional flat-bed scanner, paper-feed scanner or multifunction peripheral. |