| Document | Document Title |
|---|---|
| US09190578B2 |
Lamp unit
The lamp unit includes a first substrate, a second substrate provided over the first substrate, a light emitting device provided over the second substrate, a first conductive layer and a second conductive layer provided over the second substrate, and at least one wire electrically coupling at least one of the first conductive layer and the second conductive layer to each of the light emitting device. A protective layer is provided over the first substrate and the second substrate and surrounding the light emitting device and the at least one wire, and the upper surface of the protecting layer is located at a position above the highest point of the at least one wire. |
| US09190577B2 |
Light emitting device with encapsulant formed with barriers and light emitting device package having the same
Provided are a light emitting device, a light emitting device package, and a lighting system. The light emitting device (LED) comprises an LED chip, a barrier over the LED chip, and an encapsulating material containing a phosphor, wherein the encapsulating material is disposed inside the barrier over the LED chip. |
| US09190576B2 |
Light emitting device having photonic crystal structure
A light emitting device comprising a photonic crystal structure having a crystal structure in which nanospheres are densely arranged in a 3D manner, wherein the nanospheres have phosphors excited by an excitation source to emit light of a wavelength longer than a pump photon of the excitation source, wherein the photonic crystal structure has at least a photonic bandgap (PBG) along a specific crystal orientation, and wherein the wavelength of the pump photon overlaps a photonic bandedge region. |
| US09190575B2 |
Method of manufacturing display device
According to one embodiment, a method of manufacturing a display device, includes preparing a first substrate configured such that a first display element module is formed on a first glass substrate, preparing a second substrate configured such that a first peeling auxiliary layer is formed on a second glass substrate, and then a first color filter layer is formed on the first peeling auxiliary layer, attaching the first display element module and the first color filter layer, and peeling the second glass substrate from the first peeling auxiliary layer. |
| US09190570B2 |
Laser annealing of GaN LEDs with reduced pattern effects
The disclosure is directed to laser annealing of GaN light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with reduced pattern effects. A method includes forming elongate conductive structures atop either an n-GaN layer or a p-GaN layer of a GaN LED structure, the elongate conductive structures having long and short dimensions, and being spaced apart and substantially aligned in the long dimensions. The method also includes generating a P-polarized anneal laser beam that has an anneal wavelength that is greater than the short dimension. The method also includes irradiating either the n-GaN layer or the p-GaN layer of the GaN LED structure through the conductive structures with the P-polarized anneal laser beam, including directing the anneal laser beam relative to the conductive structures so that the polarization direction is perpendicular to the long dimension of the conductive structures. |
| US09190565B2 |
Light emitting diode
A light emitting diode includes a substrate, graphene layer, a first semiconductor layer, an active layer, a second semiconductor layer, a first electrode and a second electrode. The first semiconductor layer is on the epitaxial growth surface of the substrate. The active layer is between the first semiconductor layer and the second semiconductor layer. The first electrode is electrically connected with the second semiconductor layer and the second electrode electrically is connected with the second part of the carbon nanotube layer. The graphene layer is located between the active layer and the first semiconductor layer. |
| US09190552B2 |
Method and device for adjusting the bias voltage of a SPAD photodiode
The present disclosure relates to a method for adjusting a bias voltage of a SPAD photodiode, comprising successive steps of: applying to the photodiode a first test bias voltage lower than a normal bias voltage applied to the photodiode in a normal operating mode, subjecting the photodiode to photons, reading a first avalanche triggering signal of the photodiode, applying to the photodiode a second test bias voltage, different from the first test bias voltage, subjecting the photodiode to photons, reading a second avalanche triggering signal of the photodiode, increasing the normal bias voltage if the first and second signals indicate that the photodiode did not avalanche trigger, and reducing the normal bias voltage if the first and second signals indicate that the photodiode did avalanche trigger. |
| US09190551B2 |
Photodiode and photodiode array
A p− type semiconductor substrate 20 has a first principal surface 20a and a second principal surface 20b opposed to each other and includes a photosensitive region 21. The photosensitive region 21 is composed of an n+ type impurity region 23, a p+ type impurity region 25, and a region to be depleted with application of a bias voltage in the p− type semiconductor substrate 20. An irregular asperity 10 is formed in the second principal surface 20b of the p− type semiconductor substrate 20. An accumulation layer 37 is formed on the second principal surface 20b side of the p− type semiconductor substrate 20 and a region in the accumulation layer 37 opposed to the photosensitive region 21 is optically exposed. |
| US09190549B2 |
Solar cell made using a barrier layer between p-type and intrinsic layers
A method for forming a photovoltaic device includes depositing a p-type layer on a substrate. A barrier layer is formed on the p-type layer by exposing the p-type layer to an oxidizing agent. An intrinsic layer is formed on the barrier layer, and an n-type layer is formed on the intrinsic layer. |
| US09190548B2 |
Method of creating two dimensional doping patterns in solar cells
An improved method of fabricating an interdigitated back contact (IBC) solar cell is disclosed. A first mask is used to perform a patterned ion implantation of n-type dopant to create the back surface field. A second mask is then used to create the p-type emitter on the same surface. The second mask may be aligned to the n-type implant, and may be used in a plurality of orientations to create the desired p-type emitter. In some embodiments, a p-type blanket implant is performed as well. In some embodiments, a doping gradient is created. |
| US09190547B2 |
Photo-electric device with inverse pyramid shaped recesses
A photo-electric device including a photoelectric conversion layer and a plurality of electrodes is provided. The photoelectric conversion layer includes a plurality of inversed pyramid shaped recesses and a plurality of a pyramids, wherein each of the inversed pyramid shaped recesses has at least three first reflection sidewalls, each of the pyramids is located in one of the inversed pyramid shaped recesses respectively, each of the pyramids has at least three second reflection sidewalls, and none of the first reflection sidewall and the second reflection sidewall is located in a same plane. The electrodes are electrically connected to the photoelectric conversion layer. |
| US09190546B1 |
Solar photovoltaic reflective trough collection structure
A photovoltaic (PV) solar concentration structure having at least two troughs encapsulated in a rectangular parallelepiped optical plastic structure, with the troughs filled with an optical plastic material, the troughs each having a reflective internal surface and approximately parabolic geometry, and the troughs each including photovoltaic cells situated so that light impinging on the optical plastic material will be concentrated onto the photovoltaic cells. Multiple structures can be connected to provide a solar photovoltaic collection system that provides portable, efficient, low-cost electrical power. |
| US09190544B2 |
Photodiode, optical sensor device, and photodiode manufacturing method
A photodiode and the like capable of preventing the responsivity on the short wavelength side from deteriorating while totally improving the responsivity in a type II MQW structure, is provided. The photodiode is formed on a group III-V compound semiconductor substrate, and includes a pixel. The photodiode includes an absorption layer of a type II MQW structure, which is located on the substrate. The MQW structure includes fifty or more pairs of two different types of group III-V compound semiconductor layers. The thickness of one of the two different types of group III-V compound semiconductor layers, which layer has a higher potential of a valence band, is thinner than the thickness of the other layer. |
| US09190542B1 |
Photovoltaic cell with light trapping for enhanced efficiency
The efficiency of a photovoltaic cell is enhanced by light trapping using Mie-scattering nanostructures. In one embodiment, an array of nanocylinders is formed on the front surface of a silicon film to enhance forward scattering into the film, and an array of nanocylinders is formed on the back surface to enhance backscattering so that more light is absorbed within the silicon film. In an alternate embodiment, a mirror layer is formed on the back surface of the silicon film to reflect light within the film back toward the front-surface nanocylinder array. |
| US09190520B2 |
Strained finFET with an electrically isolated channel
A fin structure includes an optional doped well, a disposable single crystalline semiconductor material portion, and a top semiconductor portion formed on a substrate. A disposable gate structure straddling the fin structure is formed, and end portions of the fin structure are removed to form end cavities. Doped semiconductor material portions are formed on sides of a stack of the disposable single crystalline semiconductor material portion and a channel region including the top semiconductor portion. The disposable single crystalline semiconductor material portion may be replaced with a dielectric material portion after removal of the disposable gate structure or after formation of the stack. The gate cavity is filled with a gate dielectric and a gate electrode. The channel region is stressed by the doped semiconductor material portions, and is electrically isolated from the substrate by the dielectric material portion. |
| US09190516B2 |
Method for a uniform compressive strain layer and device thereof
A methodology for forming a compressive strain layer with increased thickness that exhibits improved device performance and the resulting device are disclosed. Embodiments may include forming a recess in a source or drain region of a substrate, implanting a high-dose impurity in a surface of the recess, and depositing a silicon-germanium (SiGe) layer in the recess. |
| US09190515B2 |
Structure comprises an As-deposited doped single crystalline Si-containing film
Methods of making Si-containing films that contain relatively high levels of Group III or Group V dopants involve chemical vapor deposition using trisilane and a dopant precursor. Extremely high levels of substitutional incorporation may be obtained, including crystalline silicon films that contain at least about 3×1020 atoms cm−3 of an electrically active dopant. Substitutionally doped Si-containing films may be selectively deposited onto the crystalline surfaces of mixed substrates by introducing an etchant gas during deposition. |
| US09190514B2 |
Three-dimensional non-volatile memory device
A semiconductor device includes at least one first conductive layer stacked on a substrate where a cell region and a contact region are defined; at least one first slit passing through the first conductive layer, second conductive layers stacked on the first conductive layer; a second slit passing through the first and second conductive layers and connected with one side of the first slit, and a third slit passing through the first and second conductive layers and connected with the other side of the first slit. |
| US09190512B2 |
High density trench-based power MOSFETs with self-aligned active contacts and method for making such devices
Aspects of the present disclosure describe a high density trench-based power MOSFET with self-aligned source contacts. The source contacts are self-aligned with a first insulative spacer and a second insulative spacer, wherein the first spacer is resistant to an etching process that will selectively remove the material the second spacer is made from. Additionally, the active devices may have a two-step gate oxide, wherein a lower portion of the gate oxide has a thickness T2 that is larger than the thickness T1 of an upper portion of the gate oxide. It is emphasized that this abstract is provided to comply with rules requiring an abstract that will allow a searcher or other reader to quickly ascertain the subject matter of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. |
| US09190511B2 |
Semiconductor component with a drift region and a drift control region
A semiconductor component with a drift region and a drift control region. One embodiment includes a semiconductor body having a drift region of a first conduction type in the semiconductor body. A drift control region composed of a semiconductor material, which is arranged, at least in sections, is adjacent to the drift region in the semiconductor body. An accumulation dielectric is arranged between the drift region and the drift control region. |
| US09190506B2 |
Field-effect transistor
The field-effect transistor comprising: a semiconductor laminated structure comprising a first layer of a first nitride semiconductor, a second layer of a second nitride semiconductor having a bandgap larger than that of the first nitride semiconductor, and a two-dimensional electron gas layer; a source electrode; a drain electrode; and a gate electrode disposed over the second layer, the gate electrode being adapted to control the flow of electrons passing through the two-dimensional electron gas layer; a third layer of a p-type nitride semiconductor containing p-type dopant between the gate electrode and the second layer; and a fourth layer of a nitride semiconductor between the third layer and the gate electrode, wherein the fourth layer is in contact with the gate electrode, and wherein the fourth layer is an undoped layer which has a larger bandgap than that of the third layer. |
| US09190505B2 |
Field effect transistor with channel core modified for a backgate bias and method of fabrication
A semiconductor device includes a substrate and a source structure and a drain structure formed on the substrate. At least one nanowire structure interconnects the source structure and drain structure and serves as a channel therebetween. A gate structure is formed over said at least one nanowire structure to provide a control of a conductivity of carriers in the channel, and the nanowire structure includes a center core serving as a backbias electrode for the channel. |
| US09190501B2 |
Semiconductor devices including a lateral bipolar structure with high current gains
A semiconductor device includes an emitter region, a collector region and a base region. The emitter region is implanted in a semiconductor substrate. The collector region is implanted in the semiconductor substrate. The base region is disposed between the emitter region and collector region. The base region includes no more than one LDD region and no more than one halo region. The base region contacts directly with at least one of the emitter region and the collector region. |
| US09190500B2 |
Spin polarization transistor element
There are provided with a source part made of a ferromagnetic material magnetized in a first direction, a drain part made of a ferromagnetic material magnetized in the first direction, and separated from and arranged in parallel to the source part, a channel part arranged between the source part and the drain part, and bonded with the source part and the drain part directly or through a tunnel layer, and a circularly polarized light irradiation part that irradiates the channel part with circularly polarized light for controlling a direction of spin of the channel part. |
| US09190498B2 |
Technique for forming a FinFET device using selective ion implantation
A three-dimensional structure disposed on a substrate is processed so as to alter the etch rate of material disposed on at least one surface of the structure. In some embodiments, a conformal deposition of material is performed on the three-dimensional structure. Subsequently, an ion implant is performed on at least one surface of the three-dimensional structure. This ion implant serves to alter the etch rate of the material deposited on that structure. In some embodiments, the ion implant increases the etch rate of the material. In other embodiments, the ion implant decreases the etch rate. In some embodiments, ion implants are performed on more than one surface, such that the material on at least one surface is etched more quickly and material on at least one other surface is etched more slowly. |
| US09190497B2 |
Method for fabricating semiconductor device with loop-shaped fin
A fabrication method of a semiconductor device includes the following steps. First, sacrificial patterns are formed on a substrate and a space is formed on the sidewalls of each sacrificial pattern. Then, the sacrificial patterns are removed and patterns of the spacers are transferred into the substrate to form a fin structure. The fin structure includes a horizontal fin structure extending along a first direction and a vertical fin structure extending along a second direction. Subsequently, a gate structure, source/drain structures, and an electrical connecting structure are formed sequentially on the substrate. The gate structure overlaps portions of the horizontal fin structure. The source/drain structures are respectively on each side of the gate structure. The electrical connecting structure directly covers the horizontal fin structure and the vertical fin structure. |
| US09190493B2 |
Photopatternable materials and related electronic devices and methods
The present polymeric materials can be patterned with relatively low photo-exposure energies and are thermally stable, mechanically robust, resist water penetration, and show good adhesion to metal oxides, metals, metal alloys, as well as organic materials. In addition, these polymeric materials can be solution-processed (e.g., by spin-coating), and can exhibit good chemical (e.g., solvent and etchant) resistance in the cured form. |
| US09190489B1 |
Sacrificial pre-metal dielectric for self-aligned contact scheme
Various embodiments herein relate to formation of contact etch stop layers in the context of forming gates and contacts. In certain embodiments, a novel process flow is used, which may involve the deposition and removal of a sacrificial pre-metal dielectric material before a particular contact etch stop layer is formed. An auxiliary contact etch stop layer may be used in addition to a primary etch stop layer that is deposited previously. In certain cases the contact etch stop layer is a metal-containing material such as a nitride or an oxide. The contact etch stop layer may be deposited through a cyclic vapor deposition in some embodiments. The process flows disclosed herein provide improved protection against over-etching gate stacks, thereby minimizing gate-to-contact leakage. Further, the disclosed process flows result in wider flexibility in terms of materials and deposition conditions used for forming various dielectric materials, thereby minimizing parasitic capacitance. |
| US09190485B2 |
Fluctuation resistant FDSOI transistor with implanted subchannel
The structure, and fabrication method thereof, implements a fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (SOI) transistor using a “Channel Last” procedure in which the active channel is a low-temperature epitaxial layer in an etched recess in the SOI silicon film. A highly localized ion implantation is used to set the threshold voltage of the transistor and to improve the short channel behavior of the final device. Based on high-K metal gate technology, this transistor has reduced threshold uncertainty and superior source and drain conductance. |
| US09190481B2 |
Transistors and fabrication methods thereof
A method is provided for fabricating transistors. The method includes providing a substrate; and forming at least one dummy gate structure having a dummy gate dielectric layer and a dummy gate electrode layer on the substrate. The method also includes forming a dielectric film on the substrate and the dummy gate structure; and performing a thermal annealing process onto the dielectric film to increase the density of the interlayer dielectric film. Further, the method includes planarizing the dielectric film having the increased density until the top surface of the dummy gate structure is exposed; and forming a dense layer having an increased density on the dielectric film having the increased density. Further, the method also includes removing the dummy gate dielectric layer and the dummy gate electrode layer to form an opening; and forming a gate dielectric layer and a gate electrode layer sequentially in the opening. |
| US09190474B2 |
Semiconductor device and method of manufacturing the device
A semiconductor device includes a substrate; a carrier traveling layer formed on the substrate, made of first group III nitride semiconductor, and containing carriers traveling in a direction along a principal surface of the substrate; a barrier layer formed on the carrier traveling layer and made of second group III nitride semiconductor having a wider band gap than the first group III nitride semiconductor; and an electrode formed on the barrier layer. The device further includes a cap layer formed on the barrier layer at a side of the electrode, and made of third group III nitride semiconductor containing a mixture of single crystals and polycrystals. |
| US09190473B2 |
Apparatus and method for forming semiconductor contacts
A method for forming semiconductor contacts comprises forming a germanium fin structure over a silicon substrate, depositing a doped amorphous silicon layer over the first drain/source region and the second drain/source region at a first temperature, wherein the first temperature is lower than a melting point of the germanium fin structure and performing a solid phase epitaxial regrowth process on the amorphous silicon layer at a second temperature, wherein the second temperature is lower than the melting point of the germanium fin structure. |
| US09190472B2 |
Apparatuses and methods comprising a channel region having different minority carrier lifetimes
Apparatuses, such as memory devices, memory cell strings, and electronic systems, and methods of forming such apparatuses are shown. One such apparatus includes a channel region that has a minority carrier lifetime that is lower at one or more end portions, than in a middle portion. Other apparatuses and methods are also disclosed. |
| US09190470B2 |
Semiconductor device which suppresses fluctuations in breakdown voltage
A semiconductor device including field insulating films and having first corner portions, provided on a P-type epitaxial growth layer; an N−-type cathode that is provided in the P-type epitaxial growth layer and is located on the inner sides of the field insulating films; and a P−-type anode that is formed on the cathode so as to be in contact with the cathode and covers the first corner portions provided on the inner sides of the field insulating films, wherein the junction between the cathode and the anode serves as a PN junction of the diode, and the PN junction is spaced apart from the first corner portions. |
| US09190468B2 |
Semiconductor device
A semiconductor device that can improve reliability while suppressing increase of a conduction loss or a switching loss. In the semiconductor device, when a two-dimensional shape on a main surface of the semiconductor substrate is an unit cell, the shape being a repeating unit of a plurality of well regions periodically disposed in a surface layer of a drift layer, one unit cell and another unit cell adjacent in an x-axis direction are disposed misaligned in a y-axis direction, and one unit cell and another unit cell adjacent in the y-axis direction are disposed misaligned in the x-axis direction. |
| US09190463B2 |
High density three-dimensional integrated capacitors
A capacitor can include a substrate having a first surface, a second surface remote from the first surface, and a through opening extending between the first and second surfaces, first and second metal elements, and a capacitor dielectric layer separating and insulating the first and second metal elements from one another at least within the through opening. The first metal element can be exposed at the first surface and can extend into the through opening. The second metal element can be exposed at the second surface and can extend into the through opening. The first and second metal elements can be electrically connectable to first and second electric potentials. The capacitor dielectric layer can have an undulating shape. |
| US09190461B2 |
Organic light-emitting display device
There is provided an organic light-emitting display device comprising a plurality of pixels arranged in a matrix pattern and a plurality of wiring lines formed in a zigzag pattern and extending in a row direction between the pixels. |
| US09190442B2 |
Imaging apparatus with sensor chip and separate signal processing chips
An imaging apparatus includes a sensor chip, a substrate, upper and lower signal processing chips and connection boards. The sensor chip has pad electrodes to which electrical signals to be supplied to a pixel array are input. The substrate has first wiring patterns connected to signal lines, to which signals of the pixel array are output, and second wiring patterns connected to pad electrodes. The upper and lower signal processing chips have pad electrodes to which signals processed by signal processing circuits are output. The connection boards have FPC wiring electrically connected to the pad electrodes and FPC wiring electrically connected to the second wiring patterns formed on the substrate. |
| US09190438B2 |
Sensor and method for fabricating the same
A sensor and its fabrication method are provided. The sensor comprises: a base substrate, a group of gate lines and a group of data lines arranged as crossing each other, and a plurality of sensing elements arranged in an array and defined by the group of gate lines and the group of data lines, each sensing element comprising a Thin Film Transistor (TFT) device and a photodiode sensing device, wherein the photodiode sensor device comprises: a bias line disposed on the base substrate; a transparent electrode disposed on the bias line and being electrically contacted with the bias line; a photodiode disposed on the transparent electrode; and a receiving electrode disposed on the photodiode; the TFT device is located above the photodiode. When the sensor is functioning, light is directly transmitted onto the photodiode sensor device through the base substrate. In comparison with conventional technologies, the light loss is largely reduced and the light absorption usage ratio is improved. |
| US09190436B2 |
Imaging apparatus
Provided is an imaging apparatus having a plurality of light receiving parts for each one microlens in order for capturing a three-dimensional image, while being capable of obtaining a more natural image when creating a two-dimensional image. The imaging apparatus includes: a microlens array (2) having a plurality of microlenses (20) regularly aligned two-dimensionally; an imaging lens for imaging light from a subject onto the microlens array (2); and a plurality of light receiving parts (22L, 22R) disposed for each of the plurality of microlenses (20). The plurality of light receiving parts (22L, 22R) associated with each microlens (20) receive the light from the subject that has been imaged onto the microlens and subject the light to photoelectric conversion. The imaging lens has a pupil which is disposed as being out of conjugation with a light receiving plane of the light receiving parts (22L, 22R). |
| US09190434B2 |
CMOS image sensor with reset shield line
Techniques and mechanisms to improve potential well characteristics in a pixel cell. In an embodiment, a coupling portion of a pixel cell couples a reset transistor of the pixel cell to a floating diffusion node of the pixel cell, the reset transistor to reset a voltage of the floating diffusion node. In another embodiment, the pixel cell includes a shield line which extends athwart the coupling portion, where the shield line is to reduce a parasitic capacitance of the reset transistor to the floating diffusion node. |
| US09190429B2 |
Manufacturing method of array substrate
A manufacturing method of an array substrate, comprising the following steps: S1 forming a gate signal line and a gate electrode on a base substrate, successively depositing a gate insulating layer, an active layer, and a metal layer, faulting a mask formed of photoresist on the metal layer, and removing the metal layer outside a region for forming a data line and source/drain electrodes through the mask; S2. simultaneously etching the active layer and ashing the photoresist so as to expose the metal layer within a channel region; S3. etching the active layer exposed by the photoresist after being ashed after the step S2; S4. removing the metal layer within the channel region. |
| US09190427B2 |
Array substrate and manufacturing method thereof, and display device
An array substrate, a manufacturing method thereof, and a display device are provided. The array substrate comprise a base substrate (11), a gate line, a data line, and a pixel region defined by intersection of the gate line and the data line, which are formed on the base substrate (11), wherein the pixel region comprises a thin film transistor, and the thin film transistor comprises a gate, a gate insulation layer, an active layer, a source and a drain, the pixel region further comprise: at least one groove (110), formed on a surface of the base substrate (11); a first electrode layer (12) comprising at least one first electrode bar (120), the first electrode bars (120) are disposed in the groove (110) and electrically connected with each other; and a second electrode layer (13) comprising at least one second electrode bar (130), wherein the second electrode bars (130) are disposed outside the groove (110) and electrically connected with each other. No overlapping between the common electrode and the pixel electrode can be achieved, so as to improve display quality of the display device. |
| US09190421B2 |
Display device and fabrication method thereof
A display device and a fabrication method thereof are provided. In a dual-link structure for a narrow bezel, first link wirings are formed on the same layer that the gate lines are formed and second link wirings are formed on the same layer that the data lines are formed. The first link wirings and the second link wirings are formed in a non-display area. Or auxiliary link wirings are further formed over the first link wirings and the second link wirings respectively. Or the first link wiring and second link wiring are divided two pieces of sub-link wirings. The sub-link wirings consisting the one link wiring are connected respectively and are formed on the different layer, whereby a defective image due to a difference in resistance between neighboring link wirings can be improved. |
| US09190420B2 |
Thin film transistor substrate and manufacturing method thereof
A TFT substrate includes a TFT including a source electrode having a lower source electrode and an upper source electrode, which are electrically connected to each other, and a drain electrode having a lower drain electrode and an upper drain electrode, which are electrically connected to each other. The lower source electrode and the lower drain electrode are in contact with a lower surface of the semiconductor film, and the upper source electrode and the upper drain electrode are in contact with an upper surface of the semiconductor film. |
| US09190419B2 |
Diode structure and method for FINFET technologies
A method of fabricating an electronic device includes the following steps. A SOI wafer is provided having a SOI layer over a BOX. An oxide layer is formed over the SOI layer. At least one first set and at least one second set of fins are patterned in the SOI layer and the oxide layer. A conformal gate dielectric layer is selectively formed on a portion of each of the first set of fins that serves as a channel region of a transistor device. A first metal gate stack is formed on the conformal gate dielectric layer over the portion of each of the first set of fins that serves as the channel region of the transistor device. A second metal gate stack is formed on a portion of each of the second set of fins that serves as a channel region of a diode device. |
| US09190417B2 |
Fin-like field effect transistor (FinFET) device and method of manufacturing same
A FinFET device and method for fabricating a FinFET device is disclosed. An exemplary method includes providing a semiconductor substrate; forming a fin structure over the semiconductor substrate, the fin structure including a first material portion over the semiconductor substrate and a second material portion over the first material portion; forming a gate structure over a portion of the fin structure, such that the gate structure traverses the fin structure, thereby separating a source region and a drain region of the fin structure, wherein the source and drain regions of the fin structure define a channel therebetween; removing the second material portion from the source and drain regions of the fin structure; and after removing the second material portion, forming a third material portion in the source and drain regions of the fin structure. |
| US09190415B2 |
Memory having a voltage switch circuit with one bias voltage changed in each state of conditioning
A voltage switch circuit includes four transistors. The four transistors may be transistors used to build logic gates. The operation of the voltage switch circuit may include precharging the output terminal of the voltage switch circuit, conditioning of the voltage switch circuit and boosting the voltage of the output terminal. |
| US09190411B2 |
Retrograde doped layer for device isolation
Embodiments herein provide device isolation in a complimentary metal-oxide fin field effect transistor. Specifically, a semiconductor device is formed with a retrograde doped layer over a substrate to minimize a source to drain punch-through leakage. A set of high mobility channel fins is formed over the retrograde doped layer, each of the set of high mobility channel fins comprising a high mobility channel material (e.g., silicon or silicon-germanium). The retrograde doped layer may be formed using an in situ doping process or a counter dopant retrograde implant. The device may further include a carbon liner positioned between the retrograde doped layer and the set of high mobility channel fins to prevent carrier spill-out to the high mobility channel fins. |
| US09190408B2 |
Semiconductor device employing trenches for active gate and isolation
A semiconductor device with multiple transistor devices includes a semiconductor layer of a first conductivity type formed on a substrate; a first trench formed in the semiconductor layer including a first trench gate; a second trench formed in the semiconductor layer and extending into the substrate and including a second trench gate; a first transistor device being an LDMOS transistor formed in the semiconductor layer between the first trench and the second trench; and a second transistor device formed in the semiconductor layer on the other side of the second trench. The first transistor device is electrically isolated from the second transistor device by the second trench. |
| US09190403B2 |
Display panel
A display panel and a manufacturing method thereof are disclosed herein. The display panel includes a substrate, a peripheral circuit, a plurality of pixel electrodes, a plurality of switches, and an insulating layer. The substrate has a display region and a non-display region. At least a portion of the peripheral circuit is located on the display region of the substrate. The pixel electrodes are located on the display region of the substrate. The switches are respectively and electrically connected to the pixel electrodes, configured to be respectively switched on according to a plurality of scan signals, so as to transmit a plurality of data signals to the pixel electrodes. The insulating layer is located between the peripheral circuit and the pixel electrodes, and is configured to prevent the peripheral circuit from interfering with the pixel electrodes. |
| US09190401B2 |
Stacked semiconductor packages
Semiconductor package includes a first semiconductor package including a first printed circuit board, and a first semiconductor device mounted on the first printed circuit board, and a second semiconductor package stacked on the first semiconductor package, and including a second printed circuit board and a second semiconductor device mounted on the second printed circuit board. The semiconductor package includes at least one first through electrode electrically connecting the second semiconductor package to the first printed circuit board through the first semiconductor device. |
| US09190398B2 |
Method for packaging an optical module
A package structure of an optical module includes: a substrate defined with a light-emitting region and a light-admitting region; a light-emitting chip disposed at the light-emitting region of the substrate; a light-admitting chip disposed at the light-admitting region of the substrate; two encapsulants for enclosing the light-emitting chip and the light-admitting chip, respectively; and a shielding layer formed on the substrate and the encapsulants and having a light-emitting hole and a light-admitting hole, wherein the light-emitting hole and the light-admitting hole are positioned above the light-emitting chip and the light-admitting chip, respectively. Accordingly, the optical module package structure simplifies a packaging process and cuts manufacturing costs. |
| US09190395B2 |
GaN-based LED
A GaN-based LED includes a substrate; an epitaxial layer over the substrate; a current spreading layer over a P-type layer; and a P electrode over the current spreading layer. The epitaxial layer includes the P-type layer, a light-emitting area, and an N-type layer. An annular reflecting layer and a metal reflecting layer are formed between the P electrode and the epitaxial layer. The geometric center vertically corresponds to the P electrode; the annular reflecting layer is formed between the current spreading layer and the P-type layer; the metal reflecting layer is formed between the current spreading layer and the P electrode; and a preset distance is arranged between the annular reflecting layer and the metal reflecting layer. The annular reflecting layer and the metal reflecting layer reduce light absorption of the P electrode and improve light extraction efficiency. |
| US09190394B2 |
LED module
An LED module has an electrically insulating main body, a base surface and a mounting surface located opposite the base surface. A number of electrical connection contacts are arranged at the mounting surface. The connection contacts do not adjoin the base surface. A heat sink is arranged in the main body. The heat sink extends from the mounting surface as far as the base surface. Furthermore, the LED module has a number of LED chips, each having an electrically insulating carrier substrate at a chip underside and two chip contacts at a chip top side. The LED chips are arranged with the electrically insulating carrier substrate on the heat sink. |
| US09190391B2 |
Three-dimensional chip-to-wafer integration
An integrated circuit device is disclosed that includes a semiconductor substrate and a die attached to the semiconductor substrate. A conductive pillar is connected to at least one of the semiconductor substrate or the die. An overmold is molded onto the semiconductor substrate over the die, and the conductive pillar extends through the overmold. |
| US09190388B2 |
Using an optically transparent solid material as a support structure for attachment of a semiconductor material to a substrate
Electronic devices and methods for fabricating electronic devices are described. One method includes attaching an optically transparent solid material to a body of semiconducting material in which microelectronic devices are formed. The method also includes attaching a first surface of a body portion, comprising a portion of the body, to a substrate while a portion of the optically transparent solid material is attached to a second surface of the body portion. The method also includes removing the optically transparent solid material from the second surface of the body portion after the attaching the first surface of the body portion to the substrate. |
| US09190387B2 |
Method for fabricating quad flat non-leaded package structure with electromagnetic interference shielding function
A quad flat non-leaded (QFN) package structure with an electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding function is proposed, including: a lead frame having a die pad, a plurality of supporting portions connecting to the die pad and a plurality of leads disposed around the periphery of the die pad without connecting to the die pad; a chip mounted on the die pad; bonding wires electrically connecting the chip and the leads; an encapsulant for encapsulating the chip, the bonding wires and the lead frame and exposing the side and bottom surfaces of the leads and the bottom surface of the die pad; and a shielding film disposed on the top and side surfaces of the encapsulant and electrically connecting to the supporting portions for shielding from EMI. A method of fabricating the package structure as described above is further proposed. |
| US09190386B2 |
Substrate, chip package and method for manufacturing substrate
A substrate includes a first wiring substrate, a second wiring substrate, and an adhesive sheet. The first wiring substrate includes a number of first connecting pads and a first penetrating room. The second wiring substrate includes a number of second connecting pads. The adhesive sheet includes a number of through holes and a second penetrating room. The through holes are filled with a conducting material. The adhesive sheet and the first wiring substrate are orderly pressed on the second wiring substrate. The conducting material is connected to the first connecting pads and the second connecting pads. The first penetrating room of the first wiring substrate and the second penetrating room of the adhesive sheet cooperatively form a receiving recess. |
| US09190382B2 |
Method for producing a semiconductor module by using an adhesion carrier
A method for producing a semiconductor module includes providing an adhesion carrier and a plurality of circuit carriers. The adhesion carrier has an adhesive upper side and a lower side opposite the adhesive upper side. Each of the circuit carriers includes a ceramic carrier and an upper conductor layer applied to the ceramic carrier, and a circuit carrier lower side. By placing the circuit carriers onto the adhesive upper side, the circuit carrier lower side of the circuit carriers contacts and adheres to the adhesive upper side, so that a quasi-panel is formed, in which the circuit carriers are processed while preserving the quasi-panel and can then be removed from the adhesive upper side. |
| US09190381B2 |
Connection method, connection structure, insulating adhesive member, electronic component having adhesive member, and method for manufacturing same
An insulating adhesive film is formed by laminating a first insulating adhesive layer which contains a filler in an insulating adhesive composition and a second insulating adhesive layer which contains no filler in an insulating adhesive composition. H/2 |
| US09190379B2 |
Perimeter trench sensor array package
One embodiment of a perimeter trench sensor array package can include a thinned substrate device that includes a perimeter trench formed near the edges of the device that can be configured to be thinner than a central portion of the thinned substrate device. The perimeter trench can include bond pads that can couple to electrical elements included in the thinned substrate device. The thinned substrate device can be attached to a core layer that can in turn support one or more resin layers. The core layer and the resin layers can form a printed circuit board assembly, a flex cable assembly or a stand-alone module. |
| US09190378B2 |
Semiconductor chip and semiconductor device
Provided is a semiconductor chip that is flip-chip mounted where an inner chip pad array and an outer chip pad array, which are arranged on an inner side and an outer side of IO cells in a staggered manner, are arranged to be spaced away from each other by a predetermined gap or greater. The predetermined gap represents a gap where one via can be arranged between an inner substrate pad array and an outer substrate pad array on a substrate which faces and is connected to the inner chip pad array and the outer chip pad array. In addition, the predetermined gap represents a gap where a plated wire is interconnected and then a resist opening for etch-back can be formed. Even in a case where a space for forming an interconnection is not present between outer substrate pad arrays, interconnection characteristics of the substrate are improved. |
| US09190376B1 |
Organic coating to inhibit solder wetting on pillar sidewalls
The present invention relates generally to and more particularly, to a method of fabricating a pillar interconnect structure with non-wettable sidewalls and the resulting structure. More specifically, the present invention may include exposing only the sidewalls of a pillar to an organic material that reacts with metal of the pillar to form an organo-metallic layer on sidewalls of the pillar. The organo-metallic layer may prevent solder from wetting on the sidewalls of the pillar during subsequent bonding/reflow processes. |
| US09190374B2 |
Structure of a semiconductor chip with substrate via holes and metal bumps and a fabrication method thereof
A structure of a semiconductor chip with substrate via holes and metal bumps and a fabrication method thereof. The structure comprises a substrate, at least one backside metal layer, at least one first metal layer, at least one electronic device, and at least one metal bump. The substrate has at least one substrate via hole penetrating through the substrate. The at least one first metal layer and electronic device are formed on the front side of the substrate. The at least one metal bump is formed on the at least one first metal layer. The at least one backside metal layer is formed on the backside of the substrate covering the inner surface of the substrate via hole and at least part of the backside of the substrate and connected to the first metal layer on the top of the substrate via hole. |
| US09190373B2 |
Bump structure with underbump metallization structure and integrated redistribution layer
According to one embodiment, a semiconductor substrate, a redistribution trace, and a surface layer are provided, with the surface layer provided on the redistribution trace. On the semiconductor substrate, a wire and a pad electrode are formed. The redistribution trace is formed on the semiconductor substrate. The surface layer is larger in width than the redistribution trace, and extends beyond the edge of the redistribution trace. |
| US09190372B2 |
Semiconductor memory device having pads
A semiconductor memory device includes a semiconductor circuit substrate having a chip pad forming region. A pair of data lines are formed on the semiconductor circuit substrate at one side of the chip pad region. The pair of data lines extend along a direction that the chip pad region of the semiconductor circuit substrate extends. The pair of data lines are arranged to be adjacent to each other and receive a pair of differential data signals. A power supply line is formed on the semiconductor circuit substrate at the other side of the chip pad region. The power supply line extends along the direction that the chip pad region of the semiconductor circuit substrate extends, and the power supply line receives power. |
| US09190365B2 |
Glass composition for protecting semiconductor junction, method of manufacturing semiconductor device and semiconductor device
A glass composition for protecting a semiconductor junction is made of fine glass particles prepared from a material in a molten state obtained by melting a raw material which contains at least SiO2, B2O3, Al2O3 and oxide of alkaline earth metal and substantially contains none of Pb, As, Sb, Li, Na, K and Zn, and contains no filler. |
| US09190364B2 |
Die and chip
A die according to an embodiment includes a contact pad configured to provide an electrical contact to a circuit element included in the die, a lateral edge closest to the contact pad and a cover layer including a protective structure, the protective structure including at least one elongated structure, wherein the cover layer includes an opening providing access to the contact pad to couple the contact pad electrically to an external contact, wherein the protective structure is arranged between the lateral edge and the contact pad. Using an embodiment may reduce a danger of contamination of a top side of a die during fabrication and packaging a chip. |
| US09190362B2 |
Image sensor package with trench insulator and fabrication method thereof
The invention provides a chip package and a fabrication method thereof. In one embodiment, the chip package includes: a substrate having a semiconductor device and a conductive pad thereon; an insulator ring filling a trench formed in the substrate, wherein the insulator ring surrounds an intermediate layer below the conductive pad; and a conductive layer disposed below a backside of the substrate and electrically connected to the conductive pad. |
| US09190357B2 |
Multi chip package, manufacturing method thereof, and memory system having the multi chip package
A multi-chip package is provided. The multi-chip package includes a plurality of chips including at least one bad chip and at least one good chip that are stacked and a plurality of through electrodes each penetrating the chips. A logic circuit included in the at least one bad chip is isolated from each of the plurality of through electrodes. |
| US09190352B2 |
Multi-die sensor device
A semiconductor device includes a lead frame having a flag and leads that surround the flag. The leads include a dummy lead that has first and second wire bonding areas. A first die is attached on the flag and electrically connected to the first wire bonding area. The first die and the first wire bonding area are encapsulated with a molding material and a cavity with an opening is formed above the first die. The second wire bonding area is exposed in the cavity. A second die is placed in the cavity and electrically connected to the second wire bonding area such that the second die is electrically connected to the first die by way of the dummy lead. |
| US09190350B2 |
Semiconductor device leadframe
For so called film assisted moulding (FAM) device processing techniques there is provided lead frame for a semiconductor device, comprising a base portion and a connection lead, said base portion arranged for mounting a semiconductor die, said connection lead comprising a horizontal portion for external connection and an angled portion for connection to said semiconductor die, wherein the angled portion has a positive angle with respect to the base portion. The connection lead may comprise a recessed portion. |
| US09190346B2 |
Latch-up suppression and substrate noise coupling reduction through a substrate back-tie for 3D integrated circuits
Roughly described, an integrated circuit device has a conductor extending entirely through the substrate, connected on one end to the substrate topside surface and on the other end to the substrate backside surface. In various embodiments the conductor is insulated from all RDL conductors on the backside of the substrate, and/or is insulated from all conductors and device features on any below-adjacent chip in a 3D integrated circuit structure. Methods of fabrication are also described. |
| US09190345B1 |
Semiconductor devices and methods of manufacture thereof
Semiconductor devices and methods of manufacture thereof are disclosed. In some embodiments, a semiconductor device includes a first hybrid bonded device including a first device and a second device hybrid bonded face-to-face to the first device. The first device includes a first substrate having first bonding connectors and a first bonding layer disposed on a surface thereof. A second hybrid bonded device is bonded back-to-back to the first hybrid bonded device. The second hybrid bonded device includes a third device and a fourth device hybrid bonded face-to-face to the third device. The third device includes a second substrate having second bonding connectors and a second bonding layer disposed on a surface. The second bonding connectors of the third device are coupled to the first bonding connectors of the first device, and the second bonding layer of the third device is coupled to the first bonding layer of the first device. |
| US09190342B2 |
High-power electronic devices containing metal nanoparticle-based thermal interface materials and related methods
High-power electronic components generate significant amounts of heat that must be removed in the course of normal device operations. Certain types of electronic components, such as some monolithic microwave integrated circuits and LEDs, can contain materials that are difficult to effectively bond to a heat gink in order to establish a thermal interface between the two. Device assemblies can include a heat-generating electronic component in thermal communication with a metallic heat sink via a metallic thermal interface layer. The metallic thermal interface layer is disposed between the heat-generating electronic component and the metallic heat sink. The metallic thermal interface layer is formed from a composition including a plurality of metal nanoparticles that are at least partially fused together with one another. Methods for forming a thermal interface layer include heating metal nanoparticles above their fusion temperature and subsequently cooling the liquefied metal nanoparticles to promote bonding of the electronic component. |
| US09190340B2 |
Semiconductor device and method of forming RF FEM and RF transceiver in semiconductor package
A semiconductor device has a first semiconductor die containing a low pass filter and baluns. The first semiconductor die has a high resistivity substrate. A second semiconductor die including a bandpass filter is mounted to the first semiconductor die. The second semiconductor die has a gallium arsenide substrate. A third semiconductor die including an RF switch is mounted to the first semiconductor die. A fourth semiconductor die includes an RF transceiver. The first, second, and third semiconductor die are mounted to the fourth semiconductor die. The first, second, third, and fourth semiconductor die are mounted to a substrate. An encapsulant is deposited over the first, second, third, and fourth semiconductor die and substrate. A plurality of bond wires is formed between the second semiconductor die and first semiconductor die, and between the third semiconductor die and first semiconductor die, and between the first semiconductor die and substrate. |
| US09190338B2 |
Semiconductor package having a heat slug and a spacer
A semiconductor package includes a substrate. A lower semiconductor chip is disposed above the substrate. An upper semiconductor chip is disposed on the lower semiconductor chip. A top surface of the lower semiconductor chip at an end of the lower semiconductor chip is exposed. A heat slug disposed above the upper semiconductor chip. A molding layer is disposed between the substrate and the heat slug. The molding layer is configured to seal the lower semiconductor chip and the upper semiconductor chip. An upper spacer is disposed between the lower semiconductor chip and the heat slug. The upper spacer is disposed on the exposed surface of the lower semiconductor chip. |
| US09190337B2 |
Etching method
There is provided an etching method. A temperature at a plurality of predetermined positions on an upper surface of an Si substrate is measured during the etching processing. The etching processing includes supplying an etching solution to the upper surface of the Si substrate. An exothermic reaction occurs in the etching processing. The upper surface is heated or cooled depending on the measured value. |
| US09190336B2 |
Plasma processing apparatus and plasma processing method
There is provided a plasma processing apparatus which compares a plurality of patterns detected using an interference light intensity pattern using a wavelength from at least one preset film of the plurality of film layers as a parameter and an intensity pattern using a wavelength of light from the other film as a parameter and an light intensity pattern from inside the processing chamber which is detected during processing of the film to be processed; and compares a film thickness corresponding to one of the plurality of patterns having a minimum difference obtained by the comparison and a target film thickness; and determines that the thickness of the film to be processed reaches the target film thickness. |
| US09190327B2 |
CMOS transistors and fabrication method thereof
A method is provided for forming CMOS transistors. The method includes providing a semiconductor substrate having at least one first region and at least one second region; and forming a first gate in the first region and a second gate in the second region. The method also includes forming first offset spacers made of nitrogen-contained material on side surfaces of the first gate and the second gate; and forming dummy spacers on the first offset spacers in the first region and a dummy spacer material layer covering the second gate and the semiconductor substrate in the second region. Further, the method includes forming SiGe stress layers in the semiconductor substrate at both sides of the first gate; and removing the first offset spacers, the dummy spacers and the dummy spacer material layer. Further, the method also includes forming second offset spacers on the first gate and the second gate. |
| US09190318B2 |
Method of forming an integrated crackstop
A method including forming a first dielectric layer above a conductive pad and above a metallic structure, the conductive pad and the metallic structure are each located within an interconnect level above a substrate, forming a first opening and a second opening in the first dielectric layer, the first opening is aligned with and exposes the conductive pad and the second opening is aligned with and exposes the metallic structure, and forming a metallic liner on the conductive pad, on the metallic structure, and above the first dielectric layer. The method may further include forming a second dielectric layer above the metallic liner, and forming a third dielectric layer above the second dielectric layer, the third dielectric layer is thicker than either the first dielectric layer or the second dielectric layer. |
| US09190315B2 |
Enabling package-on-package (PoP) pad surface finishes on bumpless build-up layer (BBUL) package
A bumpless build-up layer (BBUL) integrated circuit package and method of manufacturing are presented. In some embodiments, the package-on-package (PoP) pads of the BBUL integrated circuit package has a surface finish that can be palladium, nickel-palladium, nickel-gold, nickel-palladium-gold, or palladium-nickel-palladium-gold. In some embodiments, the PoP pad surface finish can be formed using either an electroless or electrolytic process. |
| US09190313B2 |
Shallow trench isolation structures
Shallow trench isolation structures are provided for use with UTBB (ultra-thin body and buried oxide) semiconductor substrates, which prevent defect mechanisms from occurring, such as the formation of electrical shorts between exposed portions of silicon layers on the sidewalls of shallow trench of a UTBB substrate, in instances when trench fill material of the shallow trench is subsequently etched away and recessed below an upper surface of the UTBB substrate. |
| US09190311B2 |
Liquid arm cleaning unit for substrate processing apparatus
Disclosed are a liquid processing apparatus and a liquid processing method that can prevent a substrate in a processing chamber from being contaminated due to contamination attached to a nozzle supporting arm that supports a nozzle. The liquid processing apparatus of the present disclosure includes: a processing chamber having a substrate holding unit configured to hold a substrate and a cup disposed around the substrate holding unit; a nozzle configured to supply a fluid to the substrate held by the substrate holding unit; and a nozzle supporting arm configured to support the nozzle. An arm cleaning unit configured to clean the nozzle supporting arm is installed in the liquid processing apparatus. |
| US09190308B2 |
Electrostatic chuck system and semiconductor fabrication device
An electrostatic chuck system comprising a chuck body 1 having a clamping face 4 for electrostatically clamping a substrate 5, an electrode portion 2 generating a clamping force on the clamping face 4, a temperature-regulating portion 3 regulating the temperature of the substrate 5 to maintain it at a predetermined level, and a controller 10 controlling the voltage applied to the electrode portion 2, wherein, prior to completion of the electrostatic clamping of the substrate 5 to the chuck body 1, a voltage waveform obtained by superimposing a first waveform, which changes in a stepwise, rectilinear, or quadratic manner between a first level and a second level having a larger absolute value than the first level, and a periodic second waveform, which may be any of a rectangular wave, a triangular wave, a saw-tooth wave, or a sine wave, is applied by the controller 10 to the electrode portion 2. |
| US09190302B2 |
System and method for controlling plasma with an adjustable coupling to ground circuit
A system and method for controlling plasma. The system includes a semiconductor chamber comprising a powered electrode, another electrode, and an adjustable coupling to ground circuit. The powered electrode is configured to receive a wafer or substrate. There is at least one grounded electrode configured to generate an electrical connection with the powered electrode. At least one of the grounded electrodes is electrically coupled to the adjustable coupling to ground circuit. The adjustable coupling to ground circuit is configured to modify the impedance of the grounded electrode. The ion energy of the plasma is controlled by the adjustable coupling to ground circuit. |
| US09190298B2 |
Film forming method and recording medium for performing the method
A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device is provided. The method includes treating a surface of an insulating film formed on a substrate by supplying a first precursor including a predetermined element and a halogen group to the substrate, and forming a thin film including the predetermined element on the treated surface of the insulating film by performing a cycle a predetermined number of times. The cycle includes supplying a second precursor including the predetermined element and the halogen group to the substrate, and supplying a third precursor to the substrate. |
| US09190290B2 |
Halogen-free gas-phase silicon etch
A method of selectively dry etching silicon from patterned heterogeneous structures is described. The method optionally includes a plasma process prior to a remote plasma etch. The plasma process may use a biased plasma to treat some crystalline silicon (e.g. polysilicon or single crystal silicon) to form amorphous silicon. Subsequently, a remote plasma is formed using a hydrogen-containing precursor to form plasma effluents. The plasma effluents are passed into the substrate processing region to etch the amorphous silicon from the patterned substrate. By implementing biased plasma processes, the normally isotropic etch may be transformed into a directional (anisotropic) etch despite the remote nature of the plasma excitation during the etch process. |
| US09190289B2 |
System, method and apparatus for plasma etch having independent control of ion generation and dissociation of process gas
A method of etching a semiconductor wafer including injecting a source gas mixture into a process chamber including injecting the source gas mixture into a multiple hollow cathode cavities in a top electrode of the process chamber and generating a plasma in each one of the hollow cathode cavities. Generating the plasma in the hollow cathode cavities includes applying a first biasing signal to the hollow cathode cavities. The generated plasma or activated species is output from corresponding outlets of each of the hollow cathode cavities into a wafer processing region in the process chamber. The wafer processing region is located between the outlets of the hollow cathode cavities and a surface to be etched. An etchant gas mixture is injected into the wafer processing region. A plasma can also be supported and/or generated in the wafer processing region. The etchant gas mixture is injected through multiple injection ports in the top electrode such that the etchant gas mixture mixes with the plasma output from the outlets of the hollow cathode cavities. The etchant gas mixture is substantially prevented from flowing into the outlets of the hollow cathode cavities by the plasma flowing from the outlets of hollow cathode cavities. Mixing the etchant gas mixture and the output from the hollow cathode cavities generates a desired chemical species in the wafer processing region and the surface to be etched can be etched. A system for generating an etching species is also describer herein. |
| US09190285B1 |
Rework and stripping of complex patterning layers using chemical mechanical polishing
A method utilizing a chemical mechanical polishing process to remove a patterned material stack comprising at least one pattern transfer layer and a template layer during a rework process or during a post pattern transfer cleaning process is provided. The pattern in the patterned material stack is formed by pattern transfer of a directed self-assembly pattern generated from microphase separation of a self-assembly material. |
| US09190282B2 |
High-K dielectric layer based semiconductor structures and fabrication process thereof
A method is disclosed for fabricating a semiconductor structure. The method includes providing a semiconductor substrate, forming a first dielectric layer on a surface of the semiconductor substrate based on a first-type oxidation, and forming a high-K dielectric layer on a surface of the first dielectric layer. The method also includes performing a first thermal annealing process to remove the first dielectric layer between the semiconductor substrate and the high-K dielectric layer such that the high-K dielectric layer is on the surface of the semiconductor substrate. Further, the method includes performing a second thermal annealing process to form a second dielectric layer on the surface of the semiconductor substrate between the semiconductor substrate and the high-K dielectric layer, based on a second-type oxidation different from the first-type oxidation, such that high-K dielectric layer is on the second dielectric layer instead of the first dielectric layer. |
| US09190281B2 |
Method of manufacturing semiconductor device
The method of manufacturing a semiconductor device in accordance with the present invention provides a metal-containing film capable of adjusting a work function. The including: (a) alternately supplying a first source containing a first metal element and a halogen element and a second source containing a second metal element different from the first metal element and at least one selected from the group consisting of a ligand of a methyl group, a ligand of an ethyl group and a ligand of a cyclopenta-based group onto a substrate in a process chamber to form a composite metal-containing film on the substrate; and (b) alternately supplying a third source containing a third metal element and a fourth source containing nitrogen onto the substrate in the process chamber to form a metal nitride film on the composite metal-containing film. |
| US09190280B2 |
Method for manufacturing laterally diffused metal oxide semiconductor device
A method for manufacturing a semiconductor device including: preparing a semiconductor substrate with a gate oxide layer on the top thereof; depositing a polycrystalline silicon layer on the top of the semiconductor substrate; depositing a protection layer overlying the top of the polycrystalline silicon layer; etching the protection layer and the polycrystalline silicon layer to form a gate body block; forming an oxide layer overlying the gate body block and the semiconductor substrate; polishing the oxide layer through Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) until the top of the gate body block; removing the protection layer on the top of the gate body block; and forming a metal silicide layer on the gate body block. |
| US09190278B2 |
Device and method for improving crystallization
The invention discloses a method and a device of improving crystallization ratio of polysilicon, which is applied to the process that the amorphous silicon layer converts into the polysilicon layer. More specifically, superposing at least two pulse laser beams into a superposed pulse laser beam. The pulse width of the superposed pulse laser beam is larger than each pulse laser beam. Next, utilizing the superposed pulse laser beam to irradiate onto the amorphous silicon layer for transforming the amorphous silicon layer into polysilicon layer. The superposed pulse laser beam irradiates onto the surface of the amorphous silicon layer. The amorphous silicon layer is transformed into the polysilicon layer. Consequently, the crystallization ratio of polysilicon is improved. |
| US09190276B2 |
Method of diffusing impurity-diffusing component and method of manufacturing solar cell
A method of diffusing an impurity-diffusing component including forming a first diffusing agent layer containing a first conductivity type impurity-diffusing component on the surface of a semiconductor substrate; calcining the first diffusing agent layer; forming a second diffusing agent layer containing a second conductivity type impurity-diffusing component on the surface of the semiconductor substrate excluding the region where the first diffusing agent layer is formed; and heating the semiconductor substrate at a temperature higher than the calcination temperature to diffuse the first and second conductivity type impurity-diffusing components to the semiconductor substrate. |
| US09190271B2 |
Thin film formation method
A thin film formation method to form an amorphous silicon film containing an impurity on a surface of an object to be processed in a process chamber that allows vacuum exhaust includes supplying a silane-based gas composed of silicon and hydrogen into the process chamber in a state that the silane-based gas is adsorbed onto the surface of the object without supplying an impurity-containing gas, supplying the impurity-containing gas into the process chamber to form the amorphous silicon film containing the impurity without supplying the silane-based gas, and performing the supplying of the silane-based gas and the supplying of the impurity-containing gas alternately and repeatedly such that the impurity reacts with the silane-based gas. |
| US09190268B2 |
Method for producing Ga-containing group III nitride semiconductor
A method for producing a Ga-containing group III nitride semiconductor having reduced threading dislocation is disclosed. A buffer layer in a polycrystal, amorphous or polycrystal/amorphous mixed state, comprising AlGaN is formed on a substrate. The substrate having the buffer layer formed thereon is heat-treated at a temperature higher than a temperature at which a single crystal of a Ga-containing group III nitride semiconductor grows on the buffer layer and at a temperature that the Ga-containing group III nitride semiconductor does not grow, to reduce crystal nucleus density of the buffer layer as compared with the density before the heat treatment. After the heat treatment, the temperature of the substrate is decreased to a temperature that the Ga-containing group III nitride semiconductor grows, the temperature is maintained, and the Ga-containing group III nitride semiconductor is grown on the buffer layer. |
| US09190267B2 |
Epitaxial silicon wafer and production method thereof
Provided is an epitaxial silicon wafer in which the warping is reduced by rendering a cross-sectional form of a silicon wafer for epitaxial growth into an adequate form as compared with the conventional one. An epitaxial silicon wafer comprising a silicon wafer for epitaxial growth and an epitaxial layer is characterized in that the epitaxial layer is formed on a silicon wafer for epitaxial growth having a cross-sectional form satisfying a relation of a given expression. |
| US09190263B2 |
Method for forming SiOCH film using organoaminosilane annealing
A method for forming a modified low-k SiOCH film on a substrate, includes: providing a low-k SiOCH film formed on a substrate by flowable CVD; exposing the low-k SiOCH film to a gas containing a Si—N bond in its molecule without applying electromagnetic energy to increase Si—O bonds and/or Si—C bonds in the film; and then curing the low-k SiOCH film. |
| US09190262B2 |
Method of manufacturing semiconductor device and apparatus for manufacturing semiconductor device
A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device in which an insulating film is filled between patterns etched into a workpiece structure is disclosed. The method includes cleaning etch residues residing between the etched patterns by a first chemical liquid; rinsing the workpiece structure cleaned by the first chemical liquid by a rinse liquid; and coating the workpiece structure rinsed by the rinse liquid with a coating liquid for formation of the insulating film. The cleaning to the coating are carried out within the same processing chamber such that a liquid constantly exists between the patterns of the workpiece structure. |
| US09190259B2 |
Discharge lamp and discharge lamp apparatus
There is provided a discharge lamp of an embodiment includes a burner having a light emitting part, and a disk-shaped flange which is capable of holding the burner so that the light emitting part is positioned at a front end side of the flange. The flange includes a resin part formed at an edge of the flange, and a metal part formed to be embedded in the resin part. |
| US09190258B2 |
Continuous operation high speed ion trap mass spectrometer
The present disclosure discusses a system and method for continuous operation of an ion trap mass spectrometer. The described system does not introduce ions into the ion trap in distinct trapping phase, rather the described system continuously injects ions into the ion trap while continuously scanning out the ions. The system and method described herein achieves a much higher duty cycle and cycle rate when compared to standard mass spectrometer devices. |
| US09190257B2 |
Ionization method, mass spectrometry method, extraction method, and purification method
The present invention has an object to achieve soft ionization more easily when a slight amount of substance is ionized under an atmosphere pressure. The present invention provides an ionization method for a substance contained in a liquid, including: supplying the liquid to a substrate from a probe and forming a liquid bridge made of the liquid containing the substance dissolved therein, between the probe and the substrate; oscillating the substrate; and generating an electric field between an electrically conductive portion of the probe in contact with the liquid and an ion extraction electrode. |
| US09190250B2 |
Radiation measurement apparatus
A radiation measurement apparatus for measuring radiation includes a first and second Geiger-Muller counter tubes and a radiation-direction calculating unit. The first Geiger-Muller counter tube seals an electrode within a circular pipe-shaped enclosing tube that extends in a straight line. The first Geiger-Muller counter tube is arranged along a first direction. The second Geiger-Muller counter tube seals an electrode within a circular pipe-shaped enclosing tube that extends in a straight line. The second Geiger-Muller counter tube is arranged in a second direction intersecting with the first direction. The radiation-direction calculating unit is configured to compare a first detection signal and a second detection signal with one another to calculate a direction of radiation to be emitted from the sample. The first detection signal is output from the electrode of the first Geiger-Muller counter tube. The second detection signal is output from the electrode of the second Geiger-Muller counter tube. |
| US09190247B2 |
Measurement of plural RF sensor devices in a pulsed RF plasma reactor
In a plasma reactor having pulsed RF plasma power sources, measurements by RF sensors of nulls attributable to pulse duty cycles are replaced by non-zero measurements synthesized from prior non-zero measurements, to prevent feedback control system instabilities. |
| US09190244B1 |
Method and apparatus for slice and view sample imaging
Methods, apparatuses, and systems for slice and view processing of samples with dual beam systems. The slice and view processing includes exposing a vertical wall of a trench formed in a sample surface; capturing a first image of the wall by interrogating the wall with an interrogating beam while the wall is at a first orientation relative to the beam; capturing a second image of the wall by interrogating the wall with the beam while the wall is at a second orientation relative to the beam, wherein first distances in the first image between a reference point and surface points on the wall are different than second distances in the second image between the reference point and the surface points; determining elevations of the surface points using the first distances and the second distances; and fitting a curve to topography of the wall using the elevations. |
| US09190242B2 |
Particle beam device having a sample holder
A particle beam device and a sample receptacle apparatus, which has a sample holder, are disclosed. The sample holder is arranged in a movable fashion along at least a first axis and along at least a second axis. Furthermore, the sample holder is arranged in a rotatable fashion about a first axis of rotation and about a second axis of rotation. A first sample holding device is arranged relative to the sample holder in a rotatable fashion about a third axis of rotation, in which the third axis of rotation and the second axis of rotation are at least in part arranged laterally offset with respect to one another. Furthermore, a control apparatus is provided, in which the first sample holding device is rotatable about the third axis of rotation into an analysis position and/or treating position using the control apparatus. |
| US09190240B2 |
Charged particle microscope apparatus and image acquisition method of charged particle microscope apparatus utilizing image correction based on estimated diffusion of charged particles
A charged particle microscope apparatus includes a radiation optical system that radiates a focused charged particle beam to an upper side of a sample provided with a pattern and scans the sample; a detection optical system that detects charged particles generated from the sample to which the charged particle beam has been radiated by the radiation optical system; and a processing unit that processes the charged particles detected by the detection optical system to obtain a charged particle image of the sample, estimates diffusion of the charged particles at any depth of the pattern of the sample, on the basis of information on a depth or a material of the pattern of the sample or radiation energy of the charged particle beam in the radiation optical system; corrects the obtained charged particle image using the estimated diffusion of the charged particles; and processes the corrected charged particle image. |
| US09190239B2 |
Plasma immersion ion milling apparatus and method
Disclosed is an apparatus and method for low-temperature plasma immersion processing of a variety of workpieces using accelerated ions, wherein low-temperature plasma is distributed around a cylindrical workpiece placed in a chamber, the workpiece is enclosed with a housing including a multi-slot extracting electrode to isolate the workpiece from plasma, and a negative potential sufficient to induce sputtering is applied to the workpiece and the electrode, so that ions from plasma are accelerated within the sheath formed between the extracting electrode and plasma, pass through the slot part of the electrode and bombard the workpiece, thus polishing the surface of the workpiece. This apparatus and method is effective for surface smoothing to ones of nm of large cylindrical substrates particularly substrates for micro or nanopattern transfer. This method includes plasma cleaning, surface activating, surface smoothing, dry etching, deposition, plasma immersion ion implantation and deposition within a single or multi chamber. |
| US09190238B2 |
Blanking device for multi charged particle beam, and multi charged particle beam writing method
A blanking device for multi-charged particle beams includes plural shift registers arranged in two dimensions, and plural data transmitters each configured to be arranged, where each of first shift register groups is aligned in the same row or column, in the plural shift registers arranged in two dimensions, the plural data transmitters each arranged for each of second shift register groups each obtained by grouping shift registers of one of the first shift register groups into one or more groups, wherein each of the second shift register groups is further grouped into third shift register groups each having shift registers serially connected, as plural subgroups, and each of the plural data transmitters is connected to shift registers configuring a part of shift registers serially connected in each of the third shift register groups such that all of the plural subgroups in a corresponding second shift register group are parallelly connected. |
| US09190237B1 |
Electrode coating for electron emission devices within cavities
Embodiments of a method for forming a field emission diode for an electrostatic discharge device include forming a first electrode, a sacrificial layer, and a second electrode. The sacrificial layer separates the first and second electrodes. The method further includes forming a cavity between the first and second electrode by removing the sacrificial layer. The cavity separates the first and second electrodes. The method further includes depositing an electron emission material on at least one of the first and second electrodes through at least one access hole after formation of the first and second electrodes. The access hole is located remotely from a location of electron emission on the first and second electrode. |
| US09190235B2 |
Manufacturability of SMD and through-hole fuses using laser process
The invention relates to a method of manufacturing a circuit protector and to a circuit protector. The method comprises the steps of providing a substrate having opposing end portions, coupling an element layer to the top surface of the substrate, and laser machining the element layer to shape the element layer into a predetermined geometry. The circuit protector comprises a substrate having opposing end portions, termination pads coupled to the top surface at opposing end portions of the substrate, a fuse element disposed across a space between the termination pads and electrically connecting the termination pads, the fuse element having a predetermined geometry; the predetermined geometry having the narrowest width of about 0.025 to about 0.050 millimeters, a cover coupling the top surface and suffusing the substrate, the fuse element and the termination pads, and end terminations in electrical contact with the termination pads at the opposing end portions. |
| US09190232B2 |
Tank-type circuit breaker
Capacitors (5a, 5b) are provided in the insulators of bushings (4a, 4b), respectively. One ends of the capacitors (5a, 5b) are connected to central conductors (3a, 3b) side, and the other ends are connected to a tank (1) side at the ground potential. When a discharge signal from the outside of the tank (1) reaches the capacitors (5a, 5b) through the central conductors (3a, 3b), the capacitors (5a, 5b) work as a filter to attenuate and prevent the signal in the frequency band of the discharge waveform from propagating to the inside of the tank (1). When an antenna (7) placed in the tank (1) receives a signal in the frequency band of the discharge waveform, a discharge detection unit (20) determines that a discharge inside the tank has been detected. |
| US09190229B2 |
Impact switch
According to one aspect of the present disclosure, a device and technique for an impact switch is disclosed. The impact switch includes a first member having a reservoir for holding a conductive fluid and a second member having a first conductive portion disconnected from a second conductive portion. The second member is coupled to the first member over the reservoir. Responsive to receiving a predetermined level of impact, the conductive fluid moves from the reservoir to an interface between the first and second members to conductively connect the first conductive portion with the second conductive portion. |
| US09190228B2 |
Operating element that can be actuated by pressure and rotation
An operating element that can be actuated by pressure and rotation, comprising an actuating rotatably mounted on a bearing block by a bearing shaft, at least one switch that can be actuated by a pressure actuation of the actuator, a sensor for detecting a rotational actuation of the actuator, a detent wheel connected to the bearing shaft, and a spring-loaded detent element which interacts with a detent contour of the detent wheel and which blocks the rotational mobility of the detent wheel upon a pressure actuation of the actuator. The detent element is a lever which can pivot about a pivot bearing and which has a detent pin that sits against the detent contour. A pressure actuation of the actuator brings a portion of the lever closer to an object thereby limiting the pivoting range of the lever. |
| US09190227B2 |
Push switch
Provided is a push/press switch design which allows for a reduced total height profile while maintaining a smooth operation with a large operation stroke by suppressing an extremely large sliding friction when a corner portion of a stem is pressed. |
| US09190224B2 |
Rotary switch with push function
A switch assembly that includes the coaxial assembly of a cylindrical core extending from a base to a distal end, an outer knob rotatable about the core, a switching means generating an electrical signal dependent on the rotations of the knob, and a guiding means for guiding the knob in its motions relative to the core. The guiding means includes an upper-guide in the vicinity of the core-end and the knob-top, and a lower-guide in the vicinity of the core-base and the knob-base. The upper-guide includes elements rolling between an upper-guide inner race integral to the core and an upper-guide outer race integral to the knob. |
| US09190223B2 |
Rotor housing of an electrical switching device and electrical switching device
A rotor housing of an electrical switching device, in particular a compact circuit breaker, is disclosed. In at least one embodiment, the rotor housing is embodied to mount a moveable contact arm bridge and includes a first and a second rotor housing element, which can be connected in a form-fit manner to one another and which can surround the contact arm bridge at least in sections when in the connected state. An electrical switching device is also disclosed, in particular a compact circuit breaker, including a moveably mounted contact arm bridge, an opening mechanism and a rotor housing of this type for mounting the moveable contact arm bridge. |
| US09190219B2 |
Dye-sensitized solar cell module and method of manufacturing the same
Disclosed is a dye-sensitized solar cell module and a method of manufacturing the same. More specifically a counter electrode has connection parts formed within the side surfaces of the transparent conductive substrates. Edges of the working electrode and the counter electrode are bonded with each other by a sealant along the outer peripheral except for at one or more portions of the edges to form an electrolyte injection port. An electrolyte is then injected through the electrolyte injection hole into a space between the working electrode and the counter electrode. The electrolyte injection hole is then sealed by a sealant. |
| US09190215B2 |
Electrolytic capacitor and method of manufacturing the same
There is provided an electrolytic capacitor which includes a capacitance portion that includes an anode and a cathode foils wound around, a separator being provided between the foils, a first conductor bar connected to the anode foil, a second conductor bar to the cathode foil, a casing that houses the capacitance portion, the first conductor bar, and the second conductor bar and is provided with an opening, a sealing material fitted to the opening, the sealing material including a first and a second holes, a first lead welded to the first conductor bar within the first hole, a second lead to the second conductor bar the second holed, a first insulating filler filled between the first hole and the first lead and filler being formed in a porous state, and a second insulating filler filled between the second hole and the second lead and being formed in a porous state. |
| US09190213B2 |
Method of manufacturing multilayer ceramic capacitor and multilayer ceramic capacitor
A rectangular or substantially rectangular parallelepiped chip including first and second end surfaces and first and second side surfaces is produced by cutting a mother block along a first direction in a portion where, of conductive layers that are adjacent to each other in a stacking direction, a first one is present and a second one is not present and cutting of the mother block along a second direction in a portion where, of the conductive layers that are adjacent to each other in the stacking direction, the second one is present and the first one is not present. A first internal electrode formed from the first conductive layer is exposed at the first end and side surfaces and not exposed at either of the second end and side surfaces. A second internal electrode formed from the second conductive layer is exposed at the second end and side surfaces and not exposed at either of the first end and side surfaces. |
| US09190206B1 |
Vertical PCB surface mount inductors and power converters
A vertical PCB inductive device is adapted to be surface mount soldered to a substrate. The inductive device may comprise a transformer having a plurality of windings or one or more discrete inductive devices. The inductive device, being amenable to volume production, may also provide cost savings by reducing the number of layers and the PCB area otherwise required by planar magnetics in a power converter. A power converter may be fashioned to be vertically oriented and surface mount soldered to a substrate such as a customer PCB. |
| US09190198B2 |
Magnetic fasteners
The described embodiments relate generally to magnetic fasteners. In particular a fastening apparatus for engaging and disengaging a fastener disposed within a device housing is described. By designing a fastener with a magnetically coded head that fastener can be both engaged and disengaged to a fastener attachment point within a device housing by a magnetic driver having a magnetically coded driving feature that corresponds to the magnetically coded fastener head. In this way a fastener can be attached at various orientations within a device housing after the device housing has been closed. |
| US09190196B2 |
Rare earth magnet and manufacturing method therefor
A rare earth magnet of the invention has a composition represented by the compositional formula RaHbFecCodBeMf, where: R is at least one rare earth element including Y; H is at least one heavy rare earth element from among Dy and Tb; M is at least one element from among Ga, Zn, Si, Al, Nb, Zr, Ni, Cu, Cr, Hf, Mo, P, C, Mg, and V; 13≦a≦20; 0≦b≦4; c=100−a−b−d−e−f; 0≦d≦30; 4≦e≦20; 0≦f≦3, and has a structure constituted by a main phase: a (RH)2(FeCo)14B phase, and a grain boundary phase: a (RH)(FeCo)4B4 phase and a RH phase, with a crystal grain size of the main phase of 10 nm to 200 nm. |
| US09190194B2 |
Semiconductor ceramic composition, method for producing the same, and PTC element
Provided is a semiconductor ceramic composition that is a lead-free semiconductor ceramic composition in which a portion of Ba in a BaTiO3-based oxide is substituted by Bi and A (in which A is at least one kind of Na, Li and K), the semiconductor ceramic composition having a region between a center portion and an outer shell portion within a crystal grain, in which when Bi concentration is measured in a radial direction within the crystal grain, the Bi concentration in the region is higher than both Bi concentration in the center portion and Bi concentration in the outer shell portion. |
| US09190193B1 |
Disposable battery safety cover
A nine volt battery includes terminals exposed on a top surface of the battery and can easily accidentally come into contact with a conductive material. A device is provided for preventing creation of a low resistance circuit by a nine volt battery includes a safety cover configured to securely adhere to at least one of two terminals of the battery, thereby preventing creation of a circuit through the battery. |
| US09190189B2 |
Aluminum nitride substrate for circuit board and production method thereof
Disclosed is an aluminum nitride substrate for a circuit board, the substrate having aluminum nitride crystal grains with an average grain size of 2 to 5 μm and a thermal conductivity of at least 170 W/m·K. The aluminum nitride substrate does not include a dendritic grain boundary phase and has a breakdown voltage of at least 30 kV/mm at 400° C. Also provided is a method for producing the aluminum nitride substrate, including the steps of heating a raw material containing an aluminum nitride powder to 1500° C. at a pressure of at most 150 Pa, then increasing and holding the temperature at 1700 to 1900° C. in a pressurized atmosphere of at least 0.4 MPa using a non-oxidizing gas, then cooling to 1600° C. at a cooling rate of at most 10° C./min. |
| US09190181B2 |
Abyssal sequestration of nuclear waste and other types of hazardous waste
A system and method of disposing nuclear waste and other hazardous waste includes means for, and the steps of, blending a waste stream, which includes either a radioactive waste or a hazardous waste (or both), with a liquid and, optionally, a solid material to produce a dense fluid and pumping the dense fluid into a tubing string of an injection boring. The dense fluid then exits a perforation in a casing of the injection boring and enters a fracture in a rock strata, where it continues to propagate downward until it reaches an immobilization point. The dense fluid may be a slurry formed by a metal and a cross-linked polymer gel or hydrated clay slurry. The metal can be one that has a melting temperature less than the temperature at the bottom of the injection boring. The solid material could also be other nuclear waste or a radionuclide. |
| US09190180B2 |
Method for preparing a powder of an alloy based on uranium and molybdenum
A method for preparing a powder of an alloy based on uranium and molybdenum in a metastable γ phase is provided, which comprises: a) putting at least one first reagent selected from uranium oxides and mixtures thereof, uranium fluorides and mixtures thereof, into contact with a second reagent consisting in molybdenum and a third reagent consisting in a reducing metal, the first, second and third reagents being in a divided form; b) reacting the reagents at a temperature≧the melting temperature of the third reagent and under an inert atmosphere, whereby this reaction leads to the formation of the alloy comprising uranium and molybdenum in the form of a powder, for which the particles are covered with a reducing metal oxide or fluoride layer; c) cooling the so formed powder at a rate at least equal to 450° C./hour; and d) removing the reducing metal oxide or fluoride layer which covers the particles of the powder of the alloy comprising uranium and molybdenum. |
| US09190179B2 |
Method of controlling solubility of additives at and near grain boundaries, and method of manufacturing sintered nuclear fuel pellet having large grain size using the same
Provided are a method of controlling the compositional gradient and solubility of doped-additives at grain boundaries during sintering of a uranium-based oxide green pellet including the additives, and a method of manufacturing a sintered nuclear fuel pellet having a large grain size using the same. The grain boundary solubility of the doped-additives is maintained at a certain level by stepwise varying of an oxygen partial pressure during isothermal sintering of a uranium-based oxide green pellet including the additives. The method of manufacturing a sintered nuclear fuel pellet having a large grain size includes preparing additive mixed uranium oxide powder, forming an additive mixed uranium oxide green pellet using the mixed powder, heating the green pellet to a sintering temperature in a gas atmosphere having a low oxygen partial pressure, and sintering while a sintering gas atmosphere is changed to stepwise increase an oxygen partial pressure at the isothermal sintering temperature. |
| US09190174B2 |
Determining soft data from a hard read
Apparatuses and methods involving the determination of soft data from hard reads are provided. One example method can include determining, using a hard read, a state of a memory cell. Soft data is determined based, at least partially, on the determined state. |
| US09190173B2 |
Generic data scrambler for memory circuit test engine
A generic data scrambler is provided for a built-in self-test (BIST) engine of a stacked memory device. The stacked memory device includes a memory stack of one or more memory layers; and a system element that is coupled with the memory stack. The system element includes a memory controller for the memory stack; a BIST circuit for testing of the memory stack; and a generic data scrambler for scrambling of data according to a data scrambling algorithm for the memory stack. The generic data scrambler includes a programmable lookup table to hold data factors for each possible outcome of the data scrambling algorithm, and the programmable lookup table is to generate a set of data factors based on addresses of data for testing of the memory stack. |
| US09190169B2 |
Shift register and flat panel display device having the same
A shift register of the present disclosure includes a plurality of stages. Each stage includes transistors belonging to a first group for activating a Q node, transistors belonging to a second group for discharging odd and even QB nodes, transistors belonging to a third group for being activated by the odd and even QB nodes and for discharging the Q node, and a sensing circuit for sensing a threshold voltage of at least one of the transistor belonging to the third group at a period when the Q node is discharged. The shift register of the present disclosure avoids the problem of erroneous operation due to lowering of device characteristics. |
| US09190167B2 |
Shift register and shift register type magnetic memory
A shift register according to an embodiment includes: a magnetic nanowire; a first control electrode group and a second control electrode group arranged with the magnetic nanowire being sandwiched therebetween, the first control electrode group including a plurality of first control electrodes arranged to be spaced apart from each other along a direction in which the magnetic nanowire extends, the second control electrode group including a plurality of second control electrodes arranged to be spaced apart from each other to correspond to the plurality of first control electrodes along the direction in which the magnetic nanowire extends, and the second control electrodes corresponding to the first control electrodes being shifted in the direction in which the magnetic nanowire extends; a first driving unit for driving the first control electrode group; and a second driving unit for driving the second control electrode group. |
| US09190165B2 |
Method and device for temperature-based data refresh in non-volatile memories
The invention relates to a method comprising measuring the temperature of at least one location of a non-volatile memory; determining if said temperature measurement indicates that the data retention time of data stored at said at least one location is reduced below a threshold; and re-writing said data to said non-volatile memory in a response to a positive determination. |
| US09190160B2 |
Memory device having variable read voltage and related methods of operation
A method of determining a read voltage of a memory device includes performing a plurality of read operations with respective different read voltages on a first group of storage regions of the memory device using a first error correction rate, wherein the plurality of read operations are performed to distinguish between a pair of adjacent logic states of memory cells in the first group of storage regions, detecting a read voltage level, among the different read voltages, at which a minimum number of erroneous bits is generated in the at least one read operation, and determining a read voltage for a second group of storage regions to which a second error correction rate is applied, based on the detected read voltage level, wherein the first error correction rate is higher than the second error correction rate. |
| US09190159B2 |
Semiconductor memory device
Each memory cell has a threshold voltage to distinguish a storage data item. A controller generates one of storage data items from one or more sets of reception data, stores the storage data item, randomizes data transmission for memory cells, instructs the cells to store the randomized data, uses read voltage candidates to read storage data from the cells, counts a distribution of voltages stored in the cells for each read voltage candidate, specifies a minimum read voltage candidate where a sum of the counting exceeds an expected number, and uses the specified candidate as a read voltage to distinguish a first storage data item corresponding to the expected number and an adjacent second storage data item. |
| US09190158B2 |
Non-volatile semiconductor memory device and reading-out method therefore
In a non-volatile semiconductor memory device outputting a data value determined according to a majority rule by reading-out data from each memory cell for an odd number of times, an odd number of latch circuits, each of which comprises a capacitor for selectively holding a voltage of each of the data read-out from the memory cell for the odd number of times in sequence, is provided. The capacitor of each latch circuit is connected in parallel after the capacitor of each latch circuit selectively holds the voltage of each of the data read-out from the memory cell for the odd number of times in sequence, and the data value is determined by the majority rule based on a composite voltage of the capacitor of each latch circuit connected in parallel. |
| US09190154B2 |
Nonvolatile semiconductor memory device
The voltage switching circuit comprises: an nMOS transistor having a gate connected to a first terminal that outputs an output voltage, a drain connected to a power-supply terminal, and a source connected to a second terminal; a first pMOS transistor having a source connected to the second terminal, a drain connected to the first terminal, and a gate provided with a first or second voltage, a source and a well thereof being short-circuited; and a switching circuit connected between a third terminal that supplies the input voltage and the first terminal and configured to turn on when the output voltage is supplied to the first terminal. A gate electrode of the first pMOS transistor is configured by semiconductor including p-type impurity. A concentration of p-type impurity in the gate electrode of the memory cell is different from that of the first pMOS transistor. |
| US09190151B2 |
Three-dimensional nonvolatile memory and related read method designed to reduce read disturbance
A nonvolatile memory device performs a read operation comprising first and second intervals. In the first interval the device applies a turn-on voltage to string selection lines and ground selection lines connected to the string selection transistors and the ground selection transistors, respectively. In the second interval, the device applies a turn-off voltage to unselected string selection lines and unselected ground selection lines while continuing to apply the turn-on voltage to a selected string selection line and a selected ground selection line. In both the first and second intervals, the device applies a first read voltage to a selected wordline connected to memory cells to be read by the read operation and applying a second read voltage to unselected wordlines among connected to memory cells not to be read by the read operation. |
| US09190148B2 |
System and method of UV programming of non-volatile semiconductor memory
A semiconductor memory storage device includes first and second doped regions of a first type disposed in a semiconductor substrate. The first and second doped regions of the first type being laterally spaced from one another. A gate dielectric extends over the semiconductor substrate between the first and second doped regions, and a floating gate is disposed on the gate dielectric. An ultraviolet (UV) light blocking material is vertically disposed above the floating gate and has a size that covers the floating gate such that the floating gate remains electrically charged after the semiconductor memory storage device is exposed to UV light. |
| US09190147B2 |
Resistance changing memory with a first driver closer than a second driver
A memory cell array comprises memory cells disposed at intersections of a plurality of first lines disposed in parallel and a plurality of second lines disposed intersecting the first lines. The memory cell includes a variable resistance element.A set operation-dedicated first driver circuit, when executing on the memory cell a set operation for switching a memory cell from a high-resistance state to a low-resistance state, supplies a voltage to the first lines. A reset operation-dedicated first driver circuit, when executing on the memory cell a reset operation for switching the memory cell from a low-resistance state to a high-resistance state, supplies a voltage to the first lines.A length of a wiring line between the set operation-dedicated first driver circuit and the memory cell array is longer compared to a length of a wiring line between the reset operation-dedicated first driver circuit and the memory cell array. |
| US09190134B2 |
Three-dimensional array of re-programmable non-volatile memory elements having vertical bit lines and a single-sided word line architecture
A three-dimensional array especially adapted for memory elements that reversibly change a level of electrical conductance in response to a voltage difference being applied across them. Memory elements are formed across a plurality of planes positioned different distances above a semiconductor substrate. A two-dimensional array of bit lines to which the memory elements of all planes are connected is oriented vertically from the substrate and through the plurality of planes. A single-sided word line architecture provides a word line exclusively for each row of memory elements instead of sharing one word line between two rows of memory elements thereby avoids linking the memory element across the array across the word lines. While the row of memory elements is also being accessed by a corresponding row of local bit lines, there is no extension of coupling between adjacent rows of local bit lines and therefore leakage currents beyond the word line. |
| US09190129B2 |
Continuous tuning of preamble release timing in a double data-rate memory device interface
Preamble release training in a double data-rate dynamic random access memory interface uses feedback from read operations to adjust the preamble release signal so that the preamble release signal continues to be activated close to the middle of the preamble. A first signal, and then a second signal, are generated in response to an initiation of a read operation. The first and second signals are characterized by a delay from the initiation of the read operation of one or more clock cycles plus a fine delay contributed by an adjustable delay circuit. The first signal is provided to a data strobe parking circuit that uses it to release or un-park the data strobe signal lines. The second signal is phase-compared with the data strobe signal associated with incoming data during the read operation. The adjustable delay circuit is adjusted in response to the result of the comparison. |
| US09190128B2 |
Semiconductor device
A semiconductor device includes a first buffer suitable for receiving and buffering data, a second buffer suitable for receiving and buffering a data strobe signal, a strobe line suitable for transferring the data strobe signal; a plurality of data transfer lines suitable for transferring data inputted at corresponding turns among data inputted in series through the first buffer, a latch signal generation block suitable for generating a plurality of latch signals which are sequentially activated, based on the data strobe signal transferred through the strobe line, a data latch block suitable for latching and aligning in parallel the data inputted in series through the first buffer, based on the latch signals, and a data transfer block suitable for transferring the data latched by the data latch block to the plurality of data transfer lines, according to a correspondence relationship determined based on an input start signal that is activated at a time when the input of data corresponding to the data input command is started. |
| US09190112B1 |
Storing write environment conditions
Described are embodiments of an invention for storing write environment conditions of a tape cartridge. A tape drive measures and stores the write environment conditions for a portion of tape as a result of receiving a write command to write data to the same portion of tape. In one embodiment, the write environment conditions are measured and stored to the tape cartridge each time a write command is received such that each portion of tape written has corresponding stored write environment conditions. The write environment conditions include temperature and relative humidity in one embodiment. The stored write environment conditions for each portion of tape written creates a historical log of the environment conditions that the tape was written within. The historical log can provide information to a manufacturer or user regarding the environmental conditions the user operates their tape drive within and provides information to assist with failure analysis. |
| US09190110B2 |
System and method for assembling a recorded composition
A system and method for assembling segments of recorded music or video from among various versions or variations of a recording, into a new version or composition, such that a first segment of a first version of a recorded work is attached to a segment of a second segment of a second version of the recorded work, to create a new version of the recorded work. |
| US09190106B2 |
Method of processing address information for a data storage device, and storage medium, modulator, demodulator, and data storage device
According to embodiments of the present invention, a storage medium is provided. The storage medium includes a dedicated servo layer including a plurality of servo tracks, wherein at least one of the plurality of servo tracks includes a modulated address information including an address information being modulated by at least one frequency associated with the at least one of the plurality of servo tracks. According to further embodiments of the present invention, a modulator for a storage medium, a demodulator for a storage medium, a data storage device and a method of processing address information for a data storage device are also provided. |
| US09190101B2 |
Archive device
In an archive device which has a disc storing case which stores a plurality of discs, a disc writing/reading unit having an ODD, and a disc conveying unit which conveys each of the discs between both, the fixing strength for a drive fixer to be incorporated to fix the ODD can be increased. The archive device includes holding members which fix surfaces of the ODD in a direction parallel to a direction in which the disc is delivered and received between the disc conveying unit and the ODD, one of the holding members integrally including a detecting member which detects a relative position of the disc storing case with respect to the ODD. The holding members for the surfaces of the ODD may be individual components, and may be integrally formed. |
| US09190100B2 |
Determining at least one of alignment and bond line thickness between an optical component and a mounting surface
A bottom surface of an optical component is bonded to a mounting surface. The bottom surface includes a first opaque feature and the mounting surface includes a second opaque feature. The first and second opaque features are hidden between the bottom surface and the mounting surface after the bonding. An infrared image is obtained through a top surface of the optical component that is opposed to the bottom surface. The infrared image includes a view of a region proximate first and second opaque features. One or more of an optical alignment and a bond line thickness between the optical component and the mounting surface is determined via the infrared image. |
| US09190095B2 |
Interlayer comprising chromium-containing alloy
An apparatus and method are provided for improving perpendicular magnetic recording media. The present invention provides media, and a method of fabricating media in a cost-effective manner, with a reduced ruthenium (Ru) content interlayer structure, while meeting media performance requirements. A perpendicular magnetic recording medium is provided comprising a non-magnetic substrate having a surface, and a layer stack situated on the substrate surface. The layer stack comprises, in overlying sequence from the substrate surface a magnetically soft underlayer; an amorphous or crystalline, non-magnetic seed layer; an interlayer structure for crystallographically orienting a layer of a perpendicular magnetic recording material situated on the underlayer; and at least one crystallographically oriented, magnetically hard, perpendicular magnetic recording layer situated on the interlayer structure. The interlayer structure is a stacked structure comprising, in overlying sequence: a chromium alloy situated on the seed layer; and an upper interlayer situated on the chromium alloy. |
| US09190094B2 |
Perpendicular recording media with grain isolation initiation layer and exchange breaking layer for signal-to-noise ratio enhancement
Aspects of the present invention relate to a perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) media stack and methods for fabricating the same. The PMR media stack has a novel grain isolation initiation layer (GIIL) and/or a novel exchange-break layer (EBL) that can improve the signal-to-noise performance of the PMR media stack. The PMR media stack includes a substrate, a soft underlayer on the substrate, an interlayer positioned on the soft underlayer, and a grain isolation initiation layer (GIIL) positioned on the interlayer, a magnetic layer positioned on the GIIL, and an exchange break layer (EBL) positioned on the magnetic layer. The GIIL and/or EBL includes a CoCrRu-oxide. |
| US09190091B2 |
Composition and method for planarized bit-patterned magnetic media
The present disclosure relates to a planarized bit-patterned magnetic medium that has a magnetic layer, including island regions and trench regions, a first carbon layer applied over the magnetic layer, and a second carbon layer applied over the first carbon layer, wherein the second carbon layer has been removed in the island regions. The first carbon layer may have a lower material removal rate when exposed to chemical-mechanical polishing than the second carbon layer. The present disclosure also relates to a method for planarizing a bit-patterned magnetic medium and a slurry composition for the chemical-mechanical polishing of carbon layers, the slurry composition including an oxidizer component, a catalyst component, a particulate component, and a reaction control component. |
| US09190087B2 |
Apparatus, systems and processes for reducing a hard disk drive's access time and concomitant power optimization
Rotational latency is reduced in a standard conventional form factor HDD system by replacing, for example—the prior art rotary arm actuator of a conventional HDD, with one or more belts and pulleys and one or more read/write heads mounted on, or otherwise associated with the belts. Multiple scaled iterations facilitate energy savings and power optimized systems, without compromise to data access performance. |
| US09190080B1 |
Method and system for providing a magnetic transducer having an improved hard bias seed layer
A method and system for providing a magnetic transducer is described. The method and system include providing an underlayer, a seed structure, and a magnetically hard layer. The underlayer has a surface. The seed structure resides on the surface and includes an amorphous layer and a seed layer. The amorphous layer wets the surface of the underlayer. The seed layer having a natural growth texture. The magnetically hard layer resides on the seed structure. The seed layer resides between the magnetically hard layer and the amorphous layer. The magnetically hard layer has a desired crystal orientation corresponding to the natural growth texture of the seed layer. |
| US09190077B2 |
Data storage tape with random access data
Arrangements relate to a data storage system. The data storage system can include a data storage tape. The data storage tape can be arranged in a concertina format. In such a format, the data storage tape can include a plurality of tape segments. Each tape segment can be separated from a neighboring tape segment by a fold. In some arrangements, the data storage tape arranged in a concertina format can be received within a housing. |
| US09190076B2 |
Data format using an efficient reverse concatenated modulation code for magnetic tape recording
In one embodiment, a tape drive system includes a write channel for writing data to a magnetic tape, the write channel utilizing a rate-(232/234) reverse concatenated modulation code. The write channel includes logic adapted for receiving a data stream comprising one or more data sets, logic adapted for separating each data set into a plurality of sub data sets, logic adapted for encoding each sub data set with a C2 encoding, logic adapted for encoding each C2-encoded sub data set with a modulation code, logic adapted for encoding each modulated sub data set with a C1 encoding, and logic adapted for simultaneously writing the encoded modulated sub data sets to data tracks of the magnetic tape. Other systems for writing data to a magnetic tape utilizing a rate-(232/234) reverse concatenated modulation code are described according to various other embodiments. |
| US09190074B1 |
Multi-level voice menu
Methods, apparatus, and computer-readable media are described herein related to a user interface (UI) that can be implemented on a head-mountable device (HMD). The UI can include a voice-navigable UI. The voice-navigable UI can include a voice navigable menu that includes one or more menu items. The voice-navigable UI can also present a first visible menu that includes at least a portion of the voice navigable menu. In response to a first utterance comprising one of the one or more menu items, the voice-navigable UI can modify the first visible menu to display one or more commands associated with the first menu item. In response to a second utterance comprising a first command, the voice-navigable UI can invoke the first command. In some embodiments, the voice-navigable UI can display a second visible menu, where the first command can be displayed above other menu items in the second visible menu. |
| US09190072B2 |
Local peak weighted-minimum mean square error (LPW-MMSE) estimation for robust speech
A system and method for noise reduction applied to a speech recognition front-end. An output of a front-end is optimized by giving, as a weight to the output for each band, a confidence index representing the remarkableness of the harmonic structure of observation speech. In a first method, when clean speech is estimated by executing MMSE estimation on a model that gives a probability distribution of noise-removed speech generated from observation speech, the posterior probability of the MMSE estimation is weighted using the confidence index as a weight. In a second method, linear interpolation is executed, for each band, between an observed value of observation speech and an estimated value of clean speech, with the confidence index serving as a weight. The first method and the second method can be combined. |
| US09190068B2 |
Signal presence detection using bi-directional communication data
A system and method for using bi-directional conversation data to improve signal presence detection are disclosed. The detector module is adapted to communicate with a signal enhancement module. The detector module collects data from a transmit direction of the connection and a receive direction of a data connection. The collected data from the transmit and the receive direction is used to classify at least one of data in the transmit direction and data in the receive direction. Responsive to the classification, the signal enhancement module enhances data in one of the transmit direction and the receive direction. Hence, data classification accuracy is improved by using data from both the transmit and receive directions. In one embodiment, the detector module applies a voice activity detection module (VAD) process to detect the presence or absence of voice data in the collected data. |
| US09190065B2 |
Systems, methods, apparatus, and computer-readable media for three-dimensional audio coding using basis function coefficients
Systems, methods, and apparatus for a unified approach to encoding different types of audio inputs are described. |
| US09190061B1 |
Visual speech detection using facial landmarks
A data processing apparatus for detecting a probability of speech based on video data is disclosed. The data processing apparatus may include at least one processor, and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium including instructions executable by the at least one processor, where execution of the instructions by the at least one processor causes the data processing apparatus to execute a visual speech detector. The visual speech detector may be configured to receive a coordinate-based signal. The coordinate-based signal may represent movement or lack of movement of at least one facial landmark of a person in a video signal. The visual speech detector may be configured to compute a probability of speech of the person based on the coordinate-based signal. |
| US09190059B2 |
Electronic device and method for controlling power using voice recognition
An electronic apparatus and a power controlling method are provided. The electronic apparatus includes: a voice input unit which receives an audio input in a stand-by mode of the electronic apparatus; a voice sensing unit which determines whether the received audio input is a user voice, and if the user voice is input, outputs a power control signal; and a power control voice recognition unit which, if the power control signal is received from the voice recognition unit, turns on and performs voice recognition regarding the input user voice. |
| US09190058B2 |
Using visual cues to disambiguate speech inputs
Embodiments related to recognizing speech inputs are disclosed. One disclosed embodiment provides a method for recognizing a speech input including receiving depth information of a physical space from a depth camera, determining an identity of a user in the physical space based on the depth information, receiving audio information from one or more microphones, and determining a speech input from the audio input. If the speech input comprises an ambiguous term, the ambiguous term in the speech input is compared to one or more of depth image data received from the depth image sensor and digital content consumption information for the user to identify an unambiguous term corresponding to the ambiguous term. After identifying the unambiguous term, an action is taken on the computing device based on the speech input and the unambiguous term. |
| US09190057B2 |
Speech model retrieval in distributed speech recognition systems
Features are disclosed for managing the use of speech recognition models and data in automated speech recognition systems. Models and data may be retrieved asynchronously and used as they are received or after an utterance is initially processed with more general or different models. Once received, the models and statistics can be cached. Statistics needed to update models and data may also be retrieved asynchronously so that it may be used to update the models and data as it becomes available. The updated models and data may be immediately used to re-process an utterance, or saved for use in processing subsequently received utterances. User interactions with the automated speech recognition system may be tracked in order to predict when a user is likely to utilize the system. Models and data may be pre-cached based on such predictions. |
| US09190056B2 |
Method and apparatus for correcting a word in speech input text
A method and apparatus for correcting a named entity word in a speech input text. The method includes recognizing a speech input signal from a user, obtaining a recognition result including named entity vocabulary mark-up information, determining a named entity word recognized incorrectly in the recognition result according to the named entity vocabulary mark-up information, displaying the named entity word recognized incorrectly, and correcting the named entity word recognized incorrectly. |
| US09190050B2 |
Discriminative training of document transcription system
A system is provided for training an acoustic model for use in speech recognition. In particular, such a system may be used to perform training based on a spoken audio stream and a non-literal transcript of the spoken audio stream. Such a system may identify text in the non-literal transcript which represents concepts having multiple spoken forms. The system may attempt to identify the actual spoken form in the audio stream which produced the corresponding text in the non-literal transcript, and thereby produce a revised transcript which more accurately represents the spoken audio stream. The revised, and more accurate, transcript may be used to train the acoustic model using discriminative training techniques, thereby producing a better acoustic model than that which would be produced using conventional techniques, which perform training based directly on the original non-literal transcript. |
| US09190047B2 |
Acoustic signal processing device and method
An acoustic signal processing device includes a frequency domain transform unit configured to transform an acoustic signal to a frequency domain signal for each channel, a filter coefficient calculation unit configured to calculate at least two sets of filter coefficients of a filter for each section having a predefined number of frames with respect to a sampled signal obtained by sampling the frequency domain signal transformed by the frequency domain transform unit for each frame such that the magnitude of a residual calculated based on a filter compensating for the difference in transfer characteristics between the channels of the acoustic signal is minimized, and an output signal calculation unit configured to calculate an output signal of a frequency domain based on the frequency domain signal transformed by the frequency domain transform unit and at least two sets of filter coefficients calculated by the filter coefficient calculation unit. |
| US09190044B2 |
Structure of soundproof cover for engine room
A structure of a soundproof cover for an engine room is mounted on a body frame at a rear side of the engine room in which an engine is mounted. The structure may include two or more piece members that are detachably coupled to each other and collectively form the soundproof cover in a panel shape. The soundproof cover is to be mounted on the body frame so that one side surface of the soundproof cover is directed toward the engine and the other side surface of the soundproof cover is directed toward an interior of a vehicle. |
| US09190037B2 |
Drum damping modification device
A sound dampening modification means for a musical drum comprising, in combination with a drumshell, a drumhead with a playing surface and a rim, and a drumhead fastening means with a bottom edge, an annular base, and a means joined integral with the annular base to mount the annular base upon the drumhead rim. The means to mount the annular base upon the drumhead rim is positioned so that it may be suspended above the playing surface and held there between the bottom edge of the drumhead fastening means and the drumhead rim. Also provided is a means to muffle drumhead sounds comprised of sound absorbing material positioned between the drumhead fastening means and the drumhead rim. |
| US09190036B2 |
Electro-mechanically assisted bass drum pedal and method of use
An apparatus and method to assist a drummer playing a bass drum. The apparatus enables a drummer to combine force applied to a foot plate, frequency applied to a foot plate, and a selected algorithm to output a mechanical force to a bass drum beater. The apparatus provides drummers the ability to produce a variety of desired rhythmic patterns, to change the intensity of the stroke, to vary the tempi so that patterns will be consistent with the music being performed, and to produce a metronomic beat (tempo) when desired. Hence, drummer fatigue is reduced, the drummer can produce more complicated and varying patterns on the fly, and the drummer has the ability to change the stroke to accent beats. |
| US09190030B2 |
Display control apparatus and display control method
A display control apparatus displays image data pieces based on an array in which the image data pieces are sorted in accordance with a specified rule. The display control apparatus extracts, with use of one image data piece from the array as a reference, image data pieces at a set interval from the image data pieces arranged in the array, and arranges and displays the extracted image data pieces that include the reference image data piece on a screen of a display unit based on an order of the array. If the reference image data piece or the interval used in the extraction of the image data pieces has been changed based on an instruction from a user, the display on the display unit is changed with use of the new reference and interval. |
| US09190028B2 |
Rotational display system
The present invention provides a system which integrates unique lighting technologies, switching systems, mounting systems, information delivery systems and power supply systems within a support such as vehicular wheel to provide an advanced, high quality visual display apparatus in various surfaces of rotation. A displayed image may be three dimensional. These technologies, and their many unique applications, provide for a novel and useful series of video display devices that are small, lightweight, efficient and can have the capability of producing a clear, bright, high definition image that is equivalent to that of a modern day TV or high quality computer monitor. |
| US09190024B2 |
Control device, display device, driving method for display device and electronic apparatus
A control device for a display device including a plurality of scanning lines, a plurality of data lines traversing the plurality of scanning lines, and a plurality of pixels disposed at positions corresponding to intersections between the plurality of scanning lines and the plurality of data lines, the control device displaying a first character inputted in a predetermined region of the display device; and thereafter, displaying a second character different from the inputted character, superposed on the first character displayed in the predetermined region. |
| US09190021B2 |
Visual feedback during remote collaboration
Visual feedback is provided to a local user of a remote collaboration system. While an image is being captured, it is recognized that content is being shared on a screen. A composite image is generated which includes a form of the image being captured and the shared content. The composite image is caused to be displayed on a remote screen. A variably semi-transparent image of at least a portion of the composite image or the image is generated and is rendered on a portion of the screen such that the variably semi-transparent image is overlaid on any of the shared content or another composite image displayed on the screen. |
| US09190017B2 |
Proportional pointer transition between multiple display devices
An approach is provided for automatically calculating and delivering proportional pointer locations during transition between multiple visual display devices (e.g., in regard to their characteristics, which may be heterogeneous, homogenous, or a mixture thereof). Specifically, the approaches described herein provide a solution for finding proportional locations of a pointer's on-screen graphic as the pointer is being transitioned/moved between multiple display devices (e.g., controlled by a single computer or controller). |
| US09190015B2 |
List searching method and portable device using the same
A method and a portable device controls output of a display unit to display information accurately and clearly regardless of a background image. Disclosed is an arrangement for calculating a difference between an arbitrary expression value of an arbitrary screen configuration element to be displayed on a given area of the background image and an actual expression value of the given area of the background image. Each expression value includes at least one of a color and lightness. The arrangement automatically selects the expression value of the screen configuration element based on the calculation result. The screen configuration element is displayed at the given area of the background image based on the selected arbitrary expression value. |
| US09190013B2 |
Image-dependent temporal slot determination for multi-state IMODs
This disclosure provides systems, methods and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for selecting a temporal modulation method according to an analysis of image data and for controlling a pixel array according to the temporal modulation method. The analysis may involve analyzing at least one of image content data or image gamut data. |
| US09190009B2 |
Data driving circuit having simulation buffer amplifier of LCD panel, LCD panel and LCD device
A data driving circuit of a liquid crystal display (LCD) panel includes a data driving chip and at least two isolation driving units. The data driving chip includes a plurality of data driving units that drive data lines of the LCD panel, and the data driving unit includes a port that limits a range of a working voltage of the data driving unit. The isolation driving unit outputs a preset reference voltage to the port of the data driving unit. |
| US09190006B2 |
Display device having a gate circuit which performs bidirectional scanning
A display device includes a plurality of pixel each including a transistor, a pixel electrode connected to the transistor, and a reference electrode disposed so as to be opposite to the pixel electrode. The display device also includes data lines connected to the corresponding pixel circuits, a plurality of gate lines connected to the corresponding pixel circuits, gate circuits each of which sequentially outputs a gate signal, which is in a high voltage level during two or more horizontal periods in a first order or in a second order that is reverse to the first order, and a gate signal control circuit that controls each of the gate circuits and scans the gate lines. The gate signal control circuit controls each of the gate circuits to start to output the gate signals so as not to overlap periods when the gate signals are output to the adjacent gate lines. |
| US09190003B2 |
Display apparatus and method of manufacturing the same
A display apparatus includes a plurality of first gate lines extended in a first direction and disposed on a substrate on which a plurality of pixels is disposed, a plurality of second gate line extended in a second direction to cross the first gate lines, a plurality of data lines disposed substantially parallel to the first gate lines, and a first insulating layer disposed between the first gate lines and the second gate lines and provided with a plurality of via holes to expose a portion of a corresponding first gate line of the first gate lines. Each of the first gate lines makes contact with a corresponding second gate line of the second gate lines through a corresponding via hole of the via holes. |
| US09189993B2 |
Organic electroluminescent display device
The present invention overcomes image defects such as the brightness inclination or smears by reducing the line resistance of a power source bus line which supplies electricity to organic EL elements. A plurality of pixels which are arranged in a matrix array is connected to power source lines, and the plurality of power source lines are connected to a power source bus line. Both ends of the power source bus line are connected to a power source part via a FPC. By supplying electricity to both ends of the power source bus line from the power source part, the line resistance of the power source bus line can be reduced. |
| US09189990B2 |
Organic light emitting diode display
An organic light emitting diode display according to the present invention includes a substrate and a plurality of pixels formed on the substrate. One pixel includes: a scan line formed on the substrate and transmitting a scan signal; a data line and a driving voltage line crossing the scan line and transmitting a data signal and a driving voltage, respectively; a switching thin film transistor connected to the scan line and the data line; a driving thin film transistor connected to a switching drain electrode of the switching thin film transistor; and an organic light emitting diode connected to a driving drain electrode of the driving thin film transistor. The plurality of pixels includes a separation pixel at which the driving voltage line is separated and a connection pixel at which the driving voltage line is connected. |
| US09189982B1 |
System for installing film containing a message on a vehicle
A system for applying a film having a smooth message over an irregular area of a vehicle in an accelerated manner, without heat, unnecessary tools, or extra training. This system can provide improved static resistance for the vehicle and cathodic protection while creating a surface of the smooth message to adhere. |
| US09189976B2 |
Navigation system with multi-layer road capability mechanism and method of operation thereof
A method of operation of a navigation system includes: detecting a current location for locating a vehicle; determining a road type as multi-layered at the current location for identifying a multi-layer road structure; calculating a first average speed outside an intersection location; calculating a second average speed at the intersection location; determining a difference speed between the first average speed and the second average speed; and determining a road layer location from the difference speed for locating the current location along the multi-layer road structure for displaying on a device. |
| US09189975B2 |
World map for demonstrating properties of azimuthal equidistant hemispheric projection
A spherical body map having one hemisphere centered on any given point of the body and another hemisphere centered on its antipodal point is provided in the Azimuthal Equidistant Hemispheric projection. Both hemispheres are placed side by side so to show a great circle line passing through the center and antipodal points straight. This map can show correct directions and distances from the center point to any other points on the body with realistic and recognizable shapes, even for remote continents. It can also demonstrate three important properties of this projection: directions from points along a great circle to a center point do not show the exact opposite of directions from the center point to the points; distances between any two points, not only from the center point, along a great circle line are correct; and the map is convertible from flat to three-dimensional forms. |
| US09189972B2 |
Visualizing the mood of a group of individuals
Techniques are described for visualizing the mood of a group of individuals. In one example, a graphical display is divided into regions representing different emotions. Input indicative of an emotion is received from individuals located in an area of interest. As the input is received, a set of indicators is output in each of the regions of the graphical display. Each indicator represents a different one of the individuals who is experiencing the emotion associated with the region in which the indicator is displayed and is displayed with a color assigned to the emotion. The indicators are animated to move over time toward a center of the graphical display and are removed upon reaching the center of the graphical display. In this way, the graphical display depicts a current mood for the group and indicates a rate of change of each of the different emotions. |
| US09189971B2 |
Jury selection system
A jury selection system for efficient jury selection using a jury board demarcated with a grid that mimics a jury seating arrangement. The jury selection system further comprises a primary tag to record a juror's information to be placed in the demarcated space on the board that corresponds with the juror's actual seat number. The primary tag has a primary tag indicator to indicate that the tag is a primary tag. A supplemental tag is provided if more information is recorded to be placed on top of the primary tag. The supplemental tag has a cut out to align with the primary tag indicator so that the primary tag can be identified when the supplemental tag is placed on top of the primary tag. Peremptory tags may be used to keep track of peremptory challenges. |
| US09189969B1 |
System and method for controlling an advancing reading slot of a reading aid at variable velocities
A system and computerized method is provided that controls a reading slot to provide aid to a user in reading a passage. The computerized method includes generating a mask having an opaque portion and a reading slot. The opaque portion covers a plurality of lines having characters that are visible through the slot. The plurality of lines includes at least a first line and a second line. The method includes advancing the slot at a midline velocity in relation to the first line of the passage, and increasing the velocity of the slot in accordance with a digital transition velocity profile when the slot enters a transition zone of the passage. |
| US09189965B2 |
Enhancing posted content in discussion forums
Methods and arrangements for enhancing content in discussion forums. Access to an online discussion is provided. A posting by an author participating in the discussion is accepted, and a recommendation is automatically produced for the author for amending the posting to increase the likelihood of response to the posting by other individuals participating in the discussion. |
| US09189959B2 |
Navigation system providing a super detail mode of operation to assist user's driving
A method, system and computer program product for providing route guidance to a driver of a vehicle. Based on the current location of the vehicle, the navigation system determines a route to travel from the current location of the vehicle to a destination provided by the driver. The navigation system obtains information (e.g., past driving history of other drivers on the route) which is used to assess whether a super detail mode of operation (provides additional details than traditional GPS-based navigation systems thereby lessening the likelihood that the driver will get lost) should be enacted by the navigation system. The super detail mode of operation may be triggered by the navigation system based on a road condition (e.g., missed turn ratio of route exceeds a threshold) that warrants the super detail mode of operation where such a condition is determined to have occurred using the obtained information discussed above. |
| US09189954B2 |
Alternate user interfaces for multi tuner radio device
A method, device, system, and media are directed to controlling a multi-tuner radio. A voice command may be received and/or filtered. An operation of the radio may be modified based on the voice command. A gesture input may be received through a gesture pad. Another operation of the multi-tuner radio may be modified based on the received gesture input. A fingerprint may be recognized with a gesture pad. A user may be authenticated based on the recognized fingerprint. The operation or the other operation may be personalized based on the fingerprint. User training may be provided for the gesture input. |
| US09189951B2 |
Portable device emergency beacon
In one embodiment, an apparatus can include: (i) a location receiver configured to receive position signals, and to derive location information therefrom; (ii) one or more recognition modules configured to receive usage-related inputs, and to provide a pattern therefrom; and (iii) a processor configured to receive the pattern, and to provide the location information and an emergency indication. For example, particular embodiments can advantageously provide an emergency beacon using voice or other usage-related inputs to a cellular telephone. |
| US09189950B2 |
Hygiene monitoring system
The present invention relates to a system suitable for monitoring the contamination potential associated with one or more mobile objects within an environment containing one or more fixed or mobile sources of contamination or cleansing. The system comprises a plurality of signal indicator devices connected to the or each source, each indicator device emitting a signal. The system further comprises a monitoring device connected to the or each object, the monitoring device being operable to: detect signals of the type emitted by an indicator device; infer the occurrence of contact between an object and a source from a detected signal; determine a level of contamination risk from the inferred contact; and output a status signal indicative thereof. |
| US09189946B2 |
Smart hazard detector providing follow up communications to detection events
Ambient amount of a hazardous condition may be monitored. A mode may be set to a state indicative of the hazardous condition being present in the ambient environment. It may then be determined that the amount of the hazard in the ambient environment has dropped below an alarm criterion. A time period may then be tracked during which the amount of the hazardous condition present in the ambient environment of the hazard detector has remained below the alarm criterion. It may be determined that the time period has reached at least a threshold duration, during such time period the amount of the hazardous condition present in the ambient environment of the hazard detector having remained below the alarm criterion. An indication of the hazardous condition easing may be output in response to the time period being at least the threshold duration. |
| US09189945B2 |
Visual indicator and adjustment of media and gaming attributes based on battery statistics
Systems and methods may provide for identifying an amount of time associated with a user based activity with respect to a battery powered device, and determining a battery drain rate of the battery powered device. An indicator of whether the user based activity can be completed in the amount of time may be generated based on the battery drain rate. |
| US09189943B1 |
Child safety seat alarm
The present invention provides an alarm to prevent guardians from forgetting a child inside a car seat carrier within a vehicle. |
| US09189939B2 |
Evacuation system
A method includes receiving, at a node located in a structure, an indication of an evacuation condition. The structure includes a plurality of nodes in communication with one another. The method also includes sending, by the node, a message to one or more additional nodes. The message informs the one or more additional nodes that the node is going to determine an evacuation route in response to the indication of the evacuation condition such that the one or more additional nodes do not determine the evacuation route. The method also includes determining, by the node, the evacuation route based at least in part on the indication of the evacuation condition and at least in part on a layout of the structure. The method further includes providing, by the node, the evacuation route to the one or more additional nodes. |
| US09189934B2 |
Security monitoring with programmable mapping
An integrated security arrangement is implemented in a variety of embodiments. In one such embodiment an integrated security arrangement includes a plurality of intrusion sensors that sense an intrusion in a target area, a motion sensor, and an image-capture device that is responsive to the motion sensor. When the image-capture device is enabled it captures images of the target area in response to movement in the target area as indicated by the motion sensor. The integrated security arrangement also includes a mapping database that contains data used to associate one or more of the plurality of intrusion sensors with the image-capture device. A user configures the mapping database to select at least one of the intrusion sensors for enabling the image-capture device. The integrated security arrangement further includes a control unit that enables the image-capture device in response to the selected intrusion sensor as configured in the mapping database. |
| US09189929B2 |
Supplemental alert generation device
A battery-powered supplemental alert generator is disclosed that is adapted to be mounted in close proximity to, such as within 3 or 4 feet of, a conventional smoke, heat and/or fire detector/alert device. The supplemental alert generator operates in a relatively low power mode while listening for the nearby detector/alert device to generate a standard audible alert signal. Upon detecting that a monitored sound level has reached a particular threshold, the supplemental alert generator enters into a higher power analysis mode in which it analyzes the detected signal to assess whether it is an audible alert signal. If an audible alert signal is detected, the supplemental alert generator generates one or more supplemental alert signals, such as a 520 Hz audible square wave signal. The supplemental alert generator may be used to retrofit a house, hotel, or other building to comply with new standards or to otherwise increase the effectiveness of the existing detection/alert system. |
| US09189924B2 |
Gaming system and method for providing a bonus event triggered by a continuous communal game
A communal game is displayed by a gaming system. A plurality of gaming devices each enable a player to wager on plays of a primary game and determine an eligibility status. The communal game repeatedly generates at least one communal game symbol from a plurality of communal game symbols regardless of whether any player is wagering on plays of a primary game. The communal game triggers a bonus event based on the generated symbols. Any eligible gaming devices may participate in the bonus event. For each eligible gaming device, the gaming system applies at least one symbol or gaming element from the communal game to the primary game of the eligible gaming device. Each eligible gaming device provides an award based on any winning symbol combinations generated by application of the communal game symbol or gaming element. |
| US09189922B2 |
Game machine and control method thereof
In the game machine which adopts an accumulation-type progressive jackpot with a jackpot payout increasing according to a game play of a player and increases the jackpot payout by a predetermined unit according to a predetermined number of game plays by the player, the game machine includes a monitor which displays a game screen. The game machine counts the jackpot payout increasing according to the game play of the player by each player as a separate increment, manages a fraction with the separate increment smaller than the predetermined unit in association with the player and controls the display device so as to display the fraction. |
| US09189918B1 |
Camera for player authentication and monitoring of wagering game tables
An apparatus includes a wagering game table having a sensory area configured to recognize a touch of a wagering game player and to create player touch data in response to the touch of the player. The wagering game table includes an input device configured to receive identification data that provides identification of the wagering game player. The apparatus includes a camera configured to capture an image during a time of the touch of the wagering game player at the sensory area of the wagering game table. The image comprising an image of at least part of the sensory area of the wagering game table and an image of at least part of the player. The apparatus includes an authentication module configured to define an association of the identification of the wagering game player with the at least one image of the at least part of the player. |
| US09189917B2 |
Dynamic skinning of wagering games
Dynamic skinning can be propagated between a base game and a portal game. A base game and a portal game can be unidirectionally or bidirectionally “hooked” into each other to utilize perceivable elements of the other. For instance, a first set of dynamic perceivable elements are defined for a base game and a second set of dynamic perceivable elements are defined for a portal game. These sets of dynamic perceivable elements can change based on various conditions. The base game can rely on the second game (or code or configurations associated with the second game) for dynamic skinning that varies with the portal game while the portal game can rely on the base game (or code or configurations associated with the base game) for dynamic skinning that varies with the base game. Furthermore, a perceivable element can traverse a base game and a portal game. |
| US09189915B2 |
Gaming system, a sound controller, and a method of gaming
A method of gaming comprising: outputting a plurality of different game accompanying sounds individually during at least part of play of one or more games; and outputting two or more sounds together in response to at least one game event occurring. |
| US09189908B2 |
Hand-held projectile dispenser
A projectile dispenser apparatus used as a novelty device to aim and rapidly dispense multiple pieces of materials such as currency at a target under the exclusive actuation and control of the user. |
| US09189906B2 |
Coin transport mechanism
A coin transport mechanism comprising: a first coin rotor including at least one coin receptacle for receiving a coin; a second coin rotor including at least one coin receptacle, the second coin rotor disposed proximal to the first coin rotor; wherein the first coin rotor is noncoplanar with the second coin rotor and includes a gated coin aperture, and wherein the second coin rotor is adapted to transport coins from a coin hopper to the first coin rotor. |
| US09189902B2 |
Encoded picture identification
An identification device includes a computer readable code. The computer readable code includes data relating to one or more pictures of a person and identity data for the person. The computer readable code is readable by a device reader, and the device reader is configured to interpret the computer readable code and to display the picture of the person using the computer readable code data relating to the picture of the person. |
| US09189895B2 |
Motor vehicle operating data collection and analysis
A method and apparatus for collecting and evaluating powered vehicle operation utilizing on-board diagnostic components and location determining components or systems. The invention creates one or more databases whereby identifiable behavior or evaluative characteristics can be analyzed or categorized. The evaluation can include predicting likely future events. The database can be correlated or evaluated with other databases for a wide variety of uses. |
| US09189894B2 |
Flexible combination sensor module for a vehicle
A combination sensor module for a vehicle, having at least two sensor submodules which are situated in the combination sensor module and able to be connected to the electronics system of the vehicle, wherein the at least two sensor submodules are able to be operated independently of each other. |
| US09189893B2 |
Image processing device, image processing method, and recording medium
To generate an image that enables effective suppression of the occurrence of binocular rivalry and that facilitates stereoscopic vision. A left-eye image feature point extraction unit (13b) and a right-eye image feature point extraction unit (13d) extract feature points from a left-eye image and a right-eye image, respectively. A number-of-non-corresponding-points calculation unit (13g) calculates, in a case where the feature points in one image among the left-eye image and the right-eye image, which are extracted by a left-eye image feature point extraction unit (13b) and a right-eye image feature point extraction unit (13d), are shifted a certain distance in the horizontal direction, the number of feature points in the one image that do not correspond to the feature points in the other image, for each shift distance. A disparity value adjustment unit (13h) adjusts a disparity value between the left-eye image and the right-eye image in accordance with the number calculated for each shift distance. |
| US09189892B2 |
Systems and methods for activities solver development in augmented reality applications
Systems and methods for generating an augmented reality interface for generics activities are disclosed. The systems and methods may be directed to creating an augmented reality display for an activity performed on a surface. Given an image of the activity, an activity solver library and associated configuration information for the activity may be selected. The surface of the activity from the image may be rectified, forming a rectified image, from which activity state information may be extracted using the configuration information. The activity state information may be provided to the activity solver library to generate solution information, and elements indicating the solution information may be rendered in a perspective of the original image. By providing the configuration information associated with an activity solver library, an augmented reality interface can be generated for an activity by capturing an image of the activity. |
| US09189888B1 |
Point cloud modeling based on user-provided seed
In one embodiment, a semi-automated technique is used to reconstruct a vector-based model from a point cloud that represents a physical subject. At least a portion of the point cloud is displayed. A selection of a seed of points that correspond to a particular physical feature of the physical subject is received from a user. The selection is received with a flashlight virtual tool having a field of view. An automatic detection of a geometric primitive is performed based on the seed of points. The automatic detection uses an iterative algorithm that detects an initial geometric primitive based on the seed of points, uses the initial geometric primitive to determine an expanded set of points, and detects a refined geometric primitive based on the expanded set of points. A vector-based model is produced using the detected geometric primitive. |
| US09189887B2 |
Information processing apparatus and information processing method
An information processing apparatus that calculates a similarity between a plurality of pieces of content stored in a content storage unit, stores content information including information of the similarity obtained by the similarity calculation, generates a virtual three-dimensional display screen for content selection on the basis of stored content information, and allows selection of a piece of content from the virtual three-dimensional display screen. |
| US09189881B2 |
Graphics processing
In a graphics processing system that includes one or more programmable shading stages, the shader compiler receives a shader program to be compiled (step 40), identifies any run time constant expressions in the shader program (step 41), and removes such expressions from the original shader program, and substitutes them in the original main shader program with appropriate load instructions pointing to where the output results from a pilot shader program will be stored (step 42). The shader compiler then creates a separate pilot shader program for the identified run-time constant expressions (step 43). The pilot shader program is then executed on the graphics processing pipeline (step 44), before the modified main shader program (step 45). |
| US09189880B2 |
Rendering and displaying a three-dimensional object representation
A touch screen controller is configured for use in an electronic system. The electronic system comprises: the touch screen controller, a host processing system physically distinct from the touch screen controller, a display screen, and a proximity sensor element. The touch screen controller comprises proximity sensor control circuitry, a rendering module, and display refresh circuitry. The proximity sensor control circuitry is configured to operate the proximity sensor element to sense input objects in a sensing region of the electronic system. The rendering module is configured to render three-dimensional object representations for display on the display screen. The display refresh circuitry is configured to update the display screen with an image received from and processed by the host processing system and with the three-dimensional object representation rendered by the rendering module. |
| US09189879B2 |
Emotive engine and method for generating a simulated emotion for an information system
Information about a device may be emotively conveyed to a user of the device. Input indicative of an operating state of the device may be received. The input may be transformed into data representing a simulated emotional state. Data representing an avatar that expresses the simulated emotional state may be generated and displayed. A query from the user regarding the simulated emotional state expressed by the avatar may be received. The query may be responded to. |
| US09189878B2 |
Display controller, display control method, and recording medium that stores program
A display controller 1 displays each of a sequence of a plurality of card images 81 to 87 to move in a first direction, and to move back and forth in a second direction, in accordance with scroll operation type. The display controller 1 determines a superposition order of displaying each of the sequence of the plurality of card images 81 to 87 in accordance with displacement of a display position of each of the sequence of the plurality of card images 81 to 87 in the second direction, and displays each of the sequence of the plurality of card images to be superposed in the order, on a display unit 17. |
| US09189877B2 |
Pixel analysis and image transformation device and method
Provided is an image processing device including a corresponding pixel computation unit configured to, with respect to image data containing an image data area and an ignored area, replace a pixel in the ignored area having influence on a spatial analysis process with a pixel having no influence on the spatial analysis process. |
| US09189875B2 |
Advanced import/export panel notifications using a presentation application
A presentation application is provided that displays import notifications when a slide show presentation is opened by a user and displays export notifications when a slide show presentation is exported by the user. When the user directs the presentation application to open a slide show presentation, the presentation application may determine whether one or more unsupported or unidentifiable features or objects are present in the slide show presentation. The presentation application may display a listing in a window of the presentation application for each such error. The warnings displayed in the list may be selectable, and selecting a warning may cause the presentation to display more information regarding the warning. The presentation application may include similar features when the user requests that the presentation application export a slide show presentation. |
| US09189874B2 |
Graphical display with integrated recent period zoom and historical period context data
A system and method are provided for displaying a data series. In one embodiment, a graphical interface is provided including at least one axis that is divided into a plurality of axis regions. Preferably, each axis region uses a different linear scale, and the plurality of axis regions forms a continuous non-linear scale. The graphical interface also displays the data series in relation to the plurality of axis regions, and the data series is plotted in relation to each axis region based on a scale resolution corresponding to each respective axis region. |
| US09189871B2 |
Image reconstruction from limited or incomplete data
A system and method are provided for reconstructing images from limited or incomplete data, such as few view data or limited angle data or truncated data generated from divergent beams. The method and apparatus may iteratively constrain the variation of an estimated image in order to reconstruct the image. To reconstruct an image, a first estimated image may be generated. Estimated data may be generated from the first estimated image, and compared with the actual data. The comparison of the estimated data with the actual data may include determining a difference between the estimated and actual data. The comparison may then be used to generate a new estimated image. For example, the first estimated image may be combined with an image generated from the difference data to generate a new estimated image. To generate the image for the next iteration, the variation of the new estimated image may be constrained. |
| US09189869B2 |
Apparatus and method for encoding/decoding images for intra-prediction
A method of decoding an image includes the steps of restoring a residual value by performing inverse quantization and inverse transform on the residual value by entropy decoding a received bit stream, generating a prediction unit by performing intra prediction selectively using one of a plurality of prediction modes on a prediction unit split by conducting at least one of asymmetric partitioning and geometrical partitioning, and restoring an image by adding the residual value to the prediction unit. It may be possible to enhance encoding efficiency of high-resolution images having a resolution of HD or higher by performing intra prediction on the asymmetric partitioning and/or geometrical partitioning. |
| US09189867B2 |
Adaptive image processing apparatus and method based in image pyramid
An adaptive image processing apparatus includes a first matching unit selecting representative candidate images from among a plurality of images included in an image pyramid and calculating a first matching score between each of the representative candidate images and a target model; a second matching unit selecting one scale level from among scale levels of the representative candidate images based on the first matching score and calculating a second matching score between each of images having scale levels included in a dense scale level range with respect to the selected scale level and the target model; a representative scale level selecting unit selecting at least one of the scale levels included in the dense scale level range as a representative scale level based on the second matching scores; and an image processing unit performing image processing based on an image having the selected representative scale level. |
| US09189862B2 |
Outline approximation for point cloud of building
A method, apparatus, system, and computer program product provide the ability to model a polyline boundary from point cloud data. Point cloud data is obtained and boundary cells are extracted. Potential boundary points are filtered from the boundary cells. Line segments are extracted from the potential boundary points and refined. A regularized polygon is obtained by intersecting the refined line segments. |
| US09189861B2 |
Image processing device, image processing method, program, and recording medium
An image processing device has an affinity calculating unit that handles each pixel in an image or each region including a plurality of pixels joined together, as a unit component, and determines a first affinity between each of the unit components and one of the unit components which is located in a periphery region of the image, a foreground region identifying unit that identifies, as a foreground region, a region made up of one or more of the unit components whose first affinities calculated by the affinity calculating unit are lower than a preset threshold, and a saliency measure output unit that determines a second affinity between each of the unit components in the image and the foreground region identified by the foreground region identifying unit, and outputs the second affinity as a saliency measure for each unit component. |
| US09189859B2 |
3D image generation
A system generating a 3D depth profile of an object, including: a moveable video camera to continually capture 2D image data of the object as the camera moves, to capture plural 2D image frames each including plural pixels; a processor configured to: receive the 2D image data; determine position of the camera when each frame is captured; calculate depth of part of an object shown in a pixel in a first frame with respect to a reference, by identifying the part in at least one further frame and calculating the depth using camera positions of the first image and at least one further image; and determine depth profile of the object, for plural parts of the object shown in the pixels. A display displays the depth profile and indicates in real time, as data is gathered, the parts of the object for which the depth profile has been calculated. |
| US09189857B2 |
Apparatus and method for reconstructing three dimensional faces based on multiple cameras
Disclosed herein are an apparatus and method for reconstructing a three-dimensional (3D) face based on multiple cameras. The apparatus includes a multi-image analysis unit, a texture image separation unit, a reconstruction image automatic synchronization unit, a 3D appearance reconstruction unit, and a texture processing unit. The multi-image analysis unit determines the resolution information of images received from a plurality of cameras, and determines whether the images have been synchronized with each other. The texture image separation unit separates a texture processing image by comparing the resolutions of the received images. The reconstruction image automatic synchronization unit synchronizes images that are determined to be asynchronous images by the multi-image analysis unit. The 3D appearance reconstruction unit computes the 3D coordinate values of the synchronized images, and reconstructs a 3D appearance image. The texture processing unit reconstructs a 3D image by mapping the texture processing image to the 3D appearance image. |
| US09189855B2 |
Three dimensional close interactions
Described herein is a method for detecting, identifying and tracking hand, hand parts, and fingers on the hand (500) of a user within depth images of a three-dimensional scene. Arms of a user are detected, identified, segmented from the background of the depth images, and tracked with respect to time. Hands of the user are identified and tracked and the location and orientation of its parts, including the palm and the fingers (510, 520, 530, 540, 550) are determined and tracked in order to produce output information enabling gesture interactions. |
| US09189848B2 |
Medical image processing apparatus, medical image processing method and x-ray imaging apparatus
According to one embodiment, a medical image processing apparatus includes an X-ray image obtaining unit, a marker detection unit, a contrast image generation unit and a display image generation unit. The X-ray image obtaining unit obtains X-ray contrast image data and X-ray fluoroscopic image data. The marker detection unit detects positions of a marker from the X-ray contrast image data, or the X-ray contrast image data and the X-ray fluoroscopic image data. The marker is attached to a device. The contrast image generation unit generates X-ray contrast image data for a combination with a movement correction making the positions of the marker be positions which can be regarded as a same position. The display image generation unit generates X-ray image data for a display by combining the X-ray contrast image data for the combination with the X-ray fluoroscopic image data. |
| US09189839B1 |
Automatically generating panorama tours
In one aspect, a request to generate an automated tour based on a set of panoramic images is received. Each particular panoramic image is associated with geographic location information and linking information linking the particular panoramic image with one or more other panoramic images in the set. A starting panoramic image and a second panoramic image are determined based at least in part on the starting panoramic image and the linking information associated with the starting and second panoramic images. A first transition between the starting panoramic image and the second panoramic image is also determined based at least in part on the linking information for these panoramic images. Additional panoramic images as well as a second transition for between the additional panoramic images are also determined. The determined panoramic images and transitions are added to the tour according to an order of the tour. |
| US09189836B2 |
Image processing device, image processing method, and projector
A measurement pattern having a predetermined shape and L-shaped black areas are superimposed and output to a liquid crystal panel, and a pattern is detected from a taken pattern image. Lines are detected based on an image of a screen frame in the pattern image, and coordinate conversion factors for conversion of camera coordinates in the taken image into panel coordinates are calculated based on panel coordinate values of the pattern and camera coordinate values of the pattern detected from the pattern image. Then, apexes of the screen frame in the panel coordinates are obtained based on the lines and the conversion coordinate factors detected with respect to each corner, correction values are calculated, and trapezoidal distortion correction is performed. |
| US09189834B2 |
Adaptive denoising with internal and external patches
In techniques for adaptive denoising with internal and external patches, example image patches taken from example images are grouped into partitions of similar patches, and a partition center patch is determined for each of the partitions. An image denoising technique is applied to image patches of a noisy image to generate modified image patches, and a closest partition center patch to each of the modified image patches is determined. The image patches of the noisy image are then classified as either a common patch or a complex patch of the noisy image, where an image patch is classified based on a distance between the corresponding modified image patch and the closest partition center patch. A denoising operator can be applied to an image patch based on the classification, such as applying respective denoising operators to denoise the image patches that are classified as the common patches of the noisy image. |
| US09189831B2 |
Image processing method and apparatus using local brightness gain to enhance image quality
An image processing apparatus is provided. The image processing apparatus includes a local brightness adjustment circuit and an image enhancement circuit. The local brightness adjustment circuit is arranged to obtain a local brightness gain relation between an input image before a local brightness adjustment and the input image after the local brightness adjustment. The image enhancement circuit is coupled to the local brightness adjustment circuit, and is arranged to perform at least one of a noise reduction and an edge enhancement upon an image to be processed according to the local brightness gain relation to generate an output image. |
| US09189830B2 |
Image defogging method and system
Image defogging method and system. The method includes: acquiring minimum intensity values corresponding to pixels in a foggy image, and selecting the largest values of intensity values of R, G, and B channels of pixels in an area, covered by a brightest area of a predetermined size in a local minimum intensity image, in the foggy image as component values of R, G, and B channels of an atmosphere light value; acquiring a transformation image of the foggy image with atmosphere light value of the foggy image; acquiring a transmission map of the foggy image by edge-preserving filtering the transformation image; and acquiring intensity values of R, G, and B channels of pixels in a defogged image using transmission map and atmosphere light value of the foggy image and intensity values of R, G, and B channels of pixels in the foggy image. |
| US09189827B2 |
Video codes for encoding/decoding streaming data
System for conveying a stream of information. The system includes an encoding device employing a spatio-temporal coding scheme that omits light, including codes embedded therein that are invisible to a user. A receiver that might be a cell phone camera receives light from the encoding device and computer apparatus is programmed with software to decode the received light to generate the stream of information. The encoding device is preferably a video display. |
| US09189826B1 |
Multi-channel audio video fingerprinting
Implementations are provided herein relating to audiovisual matching. Audio and video channel data is merged to create a single multi-channel fingerprint used to match media content. Audio channel data is used to generate audio fingerprints. Video channel data is used to generate a video fingerprints. Multi-channel fingerprints can then be generated based on the audio channel fingerprints and video channel fingerprints. In this sense, entropy can be increased while the multi-channel fingerprint can be less resistant to noise. |
| US09189825B2 |
Electronic device and method for displaying stereoscopic image
An electronic device is disclosed. The electronic device can comprise a display and a controller. The display can display stereoscopic images. The controller can scale the stereoscopic image while moving the stereoscopic image along a virtual axis. At this time, the controller can change the scale factor of the scaled stereoscopic image in proportion to the depth in the direction of the virtual axis. |
| US09189819B2 |
Personalizing an application with content from a social networking system
A third-party application running on a client device sends a request for a user's profile information to a local social networking application running on the client device. The local social networking application sends to the request to the social networking system, receives the requested information from the social networking systems, and provides the requested information to the third-party application. The third-party application uses at least a portion of the requested information to personalize its content for the user. In this way, the third-party application has a simple mechanism for incorporating personalized content for the user based on social information, without requiring the third-party application itself to maintain or even have access to the user's social information. |
| US09189818B2 |
Association of comments with screen locations during media content playback
Methods, systems, and devices are described for associating comments with playback of media content. In these methods, systems, and devices, a selection of a screen location during the playback of the media content may be received from a user at an input device. A comment associated with the media content may also be received. The comment may be associated with the selected screen location at the input device. A data store may store the association of the selected screen location with the comment. A playback device may receive the comment and the associated screen location from a data store, monitor the playback of the media content to identify a point during the playback of the media content that is associated with the comment, and display an indication that the comment is associated with the screen location at the point during the playback that is associated with the comment. |
| US09189817B2 |
Managing location labels in a social network
Systems, methods, apparatus and software have been discovered for use by individual users to monitor the geographic location of other people or assets with some relationship to the user. Once some manner of location information is determined, users have the ability to describe that location in various ways and control how that information is shared with other users. |
| US09189814B2 |
Method of providing remote financial service using remote video banking machine
The present invention relates to a method of providing a remote financial service using a remote video banking machine, and more particularly, to a method of providing a remote financial service using a remote video banking machine that has a document processing module and a video consultation supporting module integrally incorporated into a banking machine, so as to perform a financial transaction, wherein respective procedures for a financial transaction of a customer is guided through a screen of a display, and at the same time, if necessary, remote video face-to-face consultation with an officer is supported, and various certificate documents related to the financial transaction can be directly submitted from a remote position through the document processing module during the financial transaction, so that the customer can remotely and easily perform complicated financial transactions, such as deposit and withdrawal as well as a new account opening or a loan, through an informal branch provided with the remote video banking machine without separately visiting a bank branch. |
| US09189806B2 |
Streaming playback and dynamic ad insertion
There is provided a system and method for dynamically generated client side streaming playlists. There is provided a method comprising receiving a request to stream a video asset for playback, retrieving, from a network, a video asset playlist corresponding to the video asset and an ad campaign playlist, generating a consolidated video playlist including the video asset playlist and the ad campaign playlist, and processing the consolidated video playlist using a media playback framework to stream a plurality of video files from the network for decoding and output to a display. Discontinuity tags within the video asset playlist may be utilized as insertion points for portions of the ad campaign playlist. The consolidated video playlist may be accessed through a local HTTP web server, advantageously allowing the use of commonly installed media playback framework models such as QuickTime X to trigger adaptive bitrate support through HTTP Live Streaming. |
| US09189804B2 |
Systems and methods for list ranking and ads placement using interaction features
Systems and methods for placing ads in a block on a webpage are disclosed. Generally, two ranking models are trained using a first and second ads data set. The first model predicts a first click probability for each ad in the first ads data and rank the ads based on the eCPM. The second model is trained using the second ads data set comprising a subset of the first ads data set and interaction features related to ad position in the block. The second model predicts a second click probability for each ad in the second ads data set. An overall expected revenue for each arrangement of ads in the second ads data set is then calculated. The computer system selects the arrangement with maximum computed overall expected revenue and places the ads in the block on the webpage according to the selected arrangement. |
| US09189802B2 |
Method for contents recommendation
A method for music recommendation is provided using collaborative filtering methods while still managing to produce novel yet relevant items and by utilizing the long-tailed distribution of listening behavior of users, in which their playlists are biased towards a few songs while the rest of the songs, those in the long tail, have relatively low play counts. Also a link analysis method is applied to users with links between them to create an increasingly fine-grained approach in calculating weights for the recommended items. Results show that the method manages to include novel recommendations that are still relevant, and shows the potential for a new way of generating novel recommendations. |
| US09189801B2 |
System and method for rewarding application installs
In a system and method for monitoring application installations, a reference to download an application is transmitted to a client device. Communication between the client device and an application server providing the application downloadable by the client device is facilitated. Execution of the application by the client device is detected, and a determination of the installation history of the application on the client device is performed. Reward data is associated with the client device for a first installation of the application on the client device. |
| US09189799B2 |
Method and apparatus for determining an effect of characteristics of a message on interaction with the message
Method and apparatus are provided for determining an effect of characteristics of a first message on interaction with the first message over an electronically meditated forum. The first message may be posted to the electronically mediated forum to provide a first posted message. The first posted message includes characteristics. The electronically mediated forum may be monitored to detect at least one instance of interaction with the first posted message. Interaction data may be extracted. Interaction data may include data describing at least one interaction the first posted message. The interaction data may be analyzed to determine the effect of the characteristics of the first posted message on the interaction(s) with the first posted message to provide determined effect data. |
| US09189796B2 |
Methods and apparatus to collect broadband market data
Example methods and apparatus to collect broadband market data are disclosed. A disclosed example method includes selecting a panelist household, the panelist household subscribing to at least one broadband service delivered via a modem, and identifying an Internet protocol (IP) address assigned to the modem by an Internet service provider (ISP). The example method also includes retrieving a range of IP addresses associated with the ISP, selecting a random subset of IP addresses from the range of IP addresses, and testing each of the IP addresses from the random subset to determine an activity status of each IP address. |
| US09189795B2 |
Selecting content items for display in a content stream
A method for selecting content items, comprising: receiving, using one or more processing devices, a request for content items for display in a content stream; retrieving, using the one or more processing devices, in response to the request, a condition for targeting a content item for display in the content stream; detecting, using the one or more processing devices, that the condition is satisfied; adjusting, using the one or more processing devices, the bid price in accordance with the condition; executing, using the one or more processing devices, an auction, based on the bid price adjusted and other bid prices for other content items in the auction; and selecting, using the one or more processing devices, based on the auction, the content items for display in the content stream. |
| US09189794B2 |
Method and apparatus for maximizing brand exposure in a minimal mobile display
The delivery of targeted advertisements (ads) to wireless mobile handheld display devices (MHDDs) with client specific advertisement and dynamic content for response and feedback is becoming important in advertising. As the return for ads on MHDDs becomes higher, there is a push to show larger, complex, and more interactive ads on small displays. This has created a need to maximize the area available for ad viewing. The need also exists for increasing the engagement time of the ads. An embodiment of the invention establishes such capability by providing a rolled up ad display where the banner area is used to present a continuously rolling, rolled up ad, which is displayed on the screen at the ad spots by unrolling. Furthermore, the use of transparent hot-spots on the ad allows the whole display screen of the MHDD to be used for presentation of such large and complex ads. |
| US09189787B1 |
Method and apparatus for conducting e-commence and m-commence
Techniques for funding an electronic purse (e-purse) are disclosed. According to one aspect of the invention, a mechanism is provided to enable a portable device to conduct transactions over an open network with a payment server without compromising security. In one embodiment, a device is loaded with an e-purse manager. The e-purse manager is configured to manage various transactions and functions as a mechanism to access an e-purse therein. The e-purse is funded by interactions among the e-purse manager, a payment server and a financial institution (its server) that maintains an account therefor. |
| US09189786B2 |
Systems and methods for operating transaction terminals
Methods, systems and apparatus are provided including a proximity payment device reader which includes a reader control program. A first process is executed upon receipt of an activation signal indicating the initiation of a transaction involving a proximity payment device with the reader, the first process causing at least a first signal to be transmitted to a second process, the second process causing the transmission of at least a second signal to the proximity payment device through a transceiver. In some embodiments, the processes may be executed to compare application data received from the payment device to data stored in a transaction log to determine if the proximity payment device was involved in an interrupted transaction. If the proximity payment device was involved in an interrupted transaction a signal is transmitted to the proximity payment device to attempt to retry the interrupted transaction. |
| US09189784B2 |
Self-authenticating peer to peer transaction
A system and method of transaction processing is provided. The system includes a central server, which, after receiving transaction and recipient information from an initiator, sends a verification code to the initiator. The server also sends instructions for the initiator to send the code to a recipient via an outside communication channel. The server receives the verification code from the recipient, and verifies the transaction. In this manner, security may be maintained. |
| US09189780B1 |
Apparatus and system for imaging currency bills and financial documents and methods for using the same
A first prompt is displayed to insert a deposit slip that includes declared information. The deposit slip is received, transported at a first speed, and imaged. A total declared cash-in amount and a total declared check amount are extracted from image data associated with the deposit slip. The total declared cash-in amount is determined to be a non-zero number. A second prompt is displayed to insert currency bills. The currency bills are received, transported at a second speed, and imaged. Deposit information is generated from image data associated with each of the currency bills. The deposit information at least includes a calculated total cash deposit amount. The deposit information is compared with the declared information to determine if the deposit transaction is balanced. |
| US09189779B2 |
Billing support in a media exchange network
A system providing billing support for the exchange of media is disclosed. An embodiment of the present invention may provide for the authorization of and billing for the delivery of media from a media server to local storage for consumption on a television display. The media may be audio, still pictures, video, or data. Other embodiments may provide for the authorization of and billing for the transfer of media from a media peripheral to a media server for media backup or distribution. A media peripheral may be, for example, a digital camera, digital camcorder, personal computer (PC), personal digital assistant (PDA), multi-media gateway, and MP3 player. An embodiment may support pre-payment, payment at time of use, and post-use billing for the media exchange. In an embodiment of the present invention, the storing or accessing of media may be performed without identifying the user to the media server. |
| US09189778B1 |
Switch server system interoperable with mobile devices providing secure communications
Methods and systems for conducting a secure transaction over a network using one or more gateway servers. The methods include receiving a request from a consumer, sending the request to a merchant, and receiving, from the merchant, a payment order associated with the request. The payment order is received via a merchant programmable user interface. The methods also include confirming the payment order to transform the payment order to a confirmed payment order, sending the confirmed payment order to a user, and receiving, from the user, a payment authorization associated with the confirmed payment order, and the payment authorization being received via a consumer programmable user interface. The payment authorization from the user includes a secure, encrypted, Internet Protocol (IP) message using encryption hashed with public and private key management. The methods also include performing a transaction in accordance with the payment authorization. |
| US09189775B2 |
Message distribution and viewing rules in a network
A system, method and computer-readable medium for displaying a message over a network are disclosed. A distribution indicator is associated with a defined distribution rule for displaying messages over the network. A message includes the distribution indicator in the message. The message is displayed over the network according to the distribution rule indicated by the distribution indicator included in the message. |
| US09189773B2 |
Email client display transitions between portrait and landscape in a smartpad device
Methods and devices for selectively presenting a user interface for an email application are provided. More particularly, a change in the operating mode of a multiple virtual display smartpad device from a multiple virtual display operating mode to a single virtual display operating mode, or from a single virtual display operating mode to a multiple virtual display operating mode, can be determined. Moreover, a change in the operating mode can effect a change in a presentation of a user interface associated with an email application. More particularly, a presentation of a user interface can be retained, where the number of virtual displays of the device in view of the user is changed, provided a user interface for the email application remains in view of the user after the change in operating mode. |
| US09189772B2 |
Control and verification of permissions
A verification method includes configuring a reference system, running on a computer, to have the same set of executables and customizations as an e-business system to be verified. The reference system is configured with one or more roles that have permissions to execute all transactions in a scope of a planned verification. One or more business processes that are implemented in the e-business system and are in the scope of the planned verification are mapped and are executed using the reference system. Reference data is created by merging records from logs of the permission checks with respect to at least one role in the scope of the verification. Permission settings for roles in the e-business system are compared with corresponding permission values in the reference data. Based on comparing the permission settings, an indication is displayed to a user of whether the permission settings match the corresponding permission values. |
| US09189769B2 |
Real-time inventory re-supply system
A system and method for managing the contents of a medical storage container that has a required inventory of medical articles. A Faraday cage enclosure is used to isolate, scan, and inventory a tray or other container of medical articles each of which has an RFID tag. The enclosure having a size smaller than the size needed for a resonant frequency at the RFID frequency of operation. A robust electromagnetic field is nevertheless developed in the enclosure and a program compares the scanned present inventory of the tray to the required inventory database and indicates any differences. Expired and recalled articles are identified. |
| US09189768B2 |
Method and apparatus for providing fulfillment services
Method and apparatus for providing inventory fulfillment services to customers who have small quantities of heterogeneous items to sell. A self-service registration interface for generating lists of items to sell via the inventory fulfillment service is provided. The inventory fulfillment service may provide pricing suggestions to the customer. The inventory fulfillment service may determine whether a listed item satisfies one or more listing rules. Shipping information for a list of items may be automatically generated and provided to the customer. The customer may ship the items in one shipment to a specified facility. The customer is the seller of record for all items listed. The customer may not be charged for services until an item is sold. A listing period may be specified for which listed items will be carried. If an item does not sell within the period, option(s) for disposal of the item may be provided. |
| US09189765B2 |
System and method for managing a resource
Systems and methods for managing a resource are disclosed. Resource may include vendors, suppliers, partners and the like. The systems allow users to conduct a weighted analysis of various resources and compare multiple resources on the same scale. Moreover, the systems are configured to grade various resources based on their strategic value to a business. This analysis and the resulting strategic value may be based on qualitative data provided by users and quantitative data captured from the business relationship between the business and the resource. |
| US09189763B2 |
Expedited process execution using probabilities
Embodiments relate to determining a process outcome based on a computed probability and altering the path of a process instance based on an expediting rule. An aspect includes executing, by a processing device, a process instance in a process diagram, which includes a plurality of process steps. A condition associated with a first process step is identified. An outcome for the first process step is then determined based on a computed probability. Accordingly, the first process step is bypassed and the process instance is branched to a second process step based on an expediting rule. The expediting rule includes the condition and a branching action according to a selected outcome. |
| US09189757B2 |
Monitoring and maintaining balance of factory quality attributes within a software factory environment
A System to Maintain Balance of Factory Quality Attributes with Software Factory Operating Environment provides the means to determine if a deliverable will meet the needs of a client's project. The process includes the identification and measurement of different parameters of a software factory, including specified architectural features, and compares these parameters with the factory's strategic artifacts and client's critical project needs to qualify attributes within the software factory environment. This process provides a means to monitor and maintain an optimal balance of desirable quality attributes. Thus, quality attributes are analyzed before design time and before delivery of a software product, such that an analysis can be performed before any considerable amount of time and efforts have been spent on a project. |
| US09189753B2 |
Multiplatform management system and method for mobile devices
Systems and methods for managing multiple wireless devices are disclosed. An exemplary system includes multiple domains each having a particular type of wireless device management system and respective (application programming interface) APIs. API call modules corresponding to each domain enable accessing of the APIs exposed by each of the respective domains. A management console enables compiling of a consolidated list of devices and users from each of the device management systems into a single view. An exemplary method includes querying multiple domains to obtain user information, compiling a consolidated list of users, displaying the consolidated list in a user interface, selecting a user from the consolidated list, and submitting a command to either all or a specific domain for the selected user. |
| US09189752B2 |
Interpolating isotonic regression for binary classification of spam, explicit material or malware using interpolation based on a Delaunay triangulation
Described is a machine learning system for binary classifications. The system improves interpolation schemes used in isotonic regressions by providing a continuous function that also is monotonic. The system outputs a probability estimating function on a signal space that is both monotonic and varies continuously with the input signals. More specifically, described is an interpolation function that is continuous and piecewise linear on Delaunay simplices. Accordingly, the resulting probability estimation function may more accurately match actual probabilities especially when training data is sparse. |
| US09189749B2 |
Knowledge discovery agent system
A system and method for processing information in unstructured or structured form, comprising a computer running in a distributed network with one or more data agents. Associations of natural language artifacts may be learned from natural language artifacts in unstructured data sources, and semantic and syntactic relationships may be learned in structured data sources, using grouping based on a criteria of shared features that are dynamically determined without the use of a priori classifications, by employing conditional probability constraints. |
| US09189748B2 |
Information extraction system, method, and program
A system, method and program are provided. For example, a method includes acquiring sentence sets, respectively matching a positive or negative example solution request pattern which represents a positive or negative example of a sentence including a problem evoking expression, the negative example being an opposite request to the positive example, from a corpus respectively as a positive and negative example solution request sentence sets, extracting, respectively, the problem evoking expression from a sentence in the positive example solution request sentence set, and a sentence in the negative example solution request sentence set. The method further includes comparing, for each problem evoking expression, constituent elements of sentences included in the positive and negative example solution request sentence sets, and specifying respective constituent elements characterizing the positive or negative example solution request sentence set respectively as positive or negative example identification information. |
| US09189746B2 |
Machine-learning based classification of user accounts based on email addresses and other account information
A trust level of an account is determined at least partly based on a degree of the memorability of an email address associated with the account. Additional features such as those based on the domain of the email address and those from the additional information such as name, phone number, and address associated with the account may also be used to determine the trust level of the account. A machine learning process may be used to learn a classification model based on one or more features that distinguish a malicious account from a benign account from training data. The classification model is used to determine a trust level of the account, and/or if the account is malicious or benign, and may be continuously improved by incrementally adapting or improving the model with new accounts. |
| US09189742B2 |
Adaptive virtual intelligent agent
Embodiments of an adaptive virtual intelligent agent (“AVIA”) service are disclosed. It may include the functions of a human administrative assistant for an enterprise including customer support, customer relationship management, and fielding incoming caller inquiries. It also has multi-modal applications for the home through interaction with AVIA implemented in the home. It may engage in free-form natural language dialogs. During a dialog, embodiments maintain the context and meaning of the ongoing dialog and provides information and services as needed by the domain of the application. Over time, the service automatically extends its knowledge of the domain (as represented in the Knowledge Tree Graphs) through interaction with external resources. Embodiments can intelligently understand and converse with users using free-form speech without pre-programmed deterministic sequences of questions and answers, can dynamically determine what it needs to know to converse meaningfully with users, and knows how to obtain information it needs. |
| US09189740B1 |
Recommendation rationalization
In some embodiments, techniques for rationalizing a recommendation include determining a recommended item for a user using a first recommendation engine, wherein the first recommendation engine receives as an input first behavioral data associated with a user, and generates an identifier corresponding to a recommended item; creating a rationalization for the recommended item using a first rationalization engine, separate from the recommendation engine, wherein the first rationalization engine receives as inputs the recommended item and second behavioral data associated with the user, and generates a rationalization, wherein the rationalization includes a constructed rationalization of why the recommended item is recommended for the user, and wherein the creation of the rationalization is not based on an actual reason the first recommendation engine determined the recommended item; associating the rationalization for the recommended item with the recommended item; and providing the recommended item and associated rationalization. |
| US09189739B2 |
Methods and systems for circadian physiology predictions
Systems and methods are provided for predicting a circadian state of an individual. The methods comprise: providing a model representative of the response of the circadian state to light stimulus, the model comprising at least one model variable representative of a probability distribution function (PDF) of a phase offset of the circadian state of the individual; and using the model to estimate an updated PDF of the phase offset, wherein using the model to estimate the updated PDF of the phase offset comprises performing a Bayesian estimation process commencing with an initial PDF of the phase offset and iterating toward the updated PDF of the phase offset. |
| US09189733B2 |
Systems and methods for vector scalability of evolutionary algorithms
Systems and methods are provided to enable vector scalability in evolutionary algorithms to enable execution of optimization problems having a relatively large number of variables. A subset of the total number of variables of a chromosome data structure may be considered relative to a baseline known solution for the purpose of evaluating one or more objective functions of the evolutionary algorithm. |
| US09189729B2 |
Scalable neural hardware for the noisy-OR model of Bayesian networks
Embodiments of the invention relate to a scalable neural hardware for the noisy-OR model of Bayesian networks. One embodiment comprises a neural core circuit including a pseudo-random number generator for generating random numbers. The neural core circuit further comprises a plurality of incoming electronic axons, a plurality of neural modules, and a plurality of electronic synapses interconnecting the axons to the neural modules. Each synapse interconnects an axon with a neural module. Each neural module receives incoming spikes from interconnected axons. Each neural module represents a noisy-OR gate. Each neural module spikes probabilistically based on at least one random number generated by the pseudo-random number generator unit. |
| US09189728B2 |
Method for the authentication of dosage forms
The present invention relates to a method for the authentication of dosage forms such as tablets, in particular pharmaceutical tablets, by reading, i.e. detecting, code structure from the tablet, reading additional information from the package or on an information sheet, and then comparing the readings to verify authenticity. The code structure may be randomized on a plurality of tablets disposed in identifiable locations in a shared package such that the detected code structures define a unique digital signature for the package of tablets. |
| US09189725B2 |
Activation and indication of an RF field on a device including a chip
A device includes a main antenna suitable for capturing and transmitting an RF signal, at least one chip containing information and configured to transmit the information via the main antenna in response to an excitation of an external RF signal, and a mechanism for activating and deactivating the main antenna. The device further includes a detection circuit for detecting the presence of the external RF signal, and an indicator circuit, which is connected to the detection circuit so as to indicate the presence. |
| US09189721B2 |
Data backup using color space encoded image
Embodiments of the present disclosure can include systems, methods, and non-transitory computer program products for using color space encoded images to publish an entire book including text and images onto a single piece of paper, or onto few pieces of paper. In certain aspects, the present systems and methods allow users to perform data backup using color space encoded images. In other aspects, the present systems and methods allow users to self-publish desired content significantly cheaper by encoding the desired content using color space encoded images. In certain aspects, publishers or booksellers can include traditional books in combination with digital or electronic books distributed using color space encoded images. In other aspects, the present systems and methods allow users or administrators to compress and/or copy massive documents using color space encoded images. |
| US09189719B2 |
Encoded information reading terminal including multiple encoded information reading devices
An encoded information reading (EIR) terminal can comprise a microprocessor, a memory, a communication interface, and a plurality of EIR devices. Each EIR device can be configured to output a decoded message responsive to reading decodable indicia. The EIR terminal can be configured to transmit via the communication interface to an external computer at least one decoded message corresponding to the decodable indicia read by an EIR device. The EIR terminal can be further configured to supplement the decoded message by a source identifier string identifying the EIR device. |
| US09189718B2 |
Power supply control method for radio-frequency identification reader in mobile terminal
A power control method for an RFID reader in a mobile terminal includes the steps of: checking a driving mode of a display in a standby mode where no power is supplied to the RFID reader; if the driving mode of the display is a sleep mode, maintaining the RFID reader in the standby mode, and if the driving mode of the display is an operation mode, checking an RFID menu interface; and if the RFID menu interface has no RFID automatic detection function settled therein, maintaining the RFID reader in the standby mode, and if the RFID menu interface has an RFID automatic detection function settled therein, supplying power to the RFID reader so that the RFID reader is switched to a read mode. |
| US09189714B2 |
Apparatus and method for enlarging object included in image data, and storage medium therefor
An image processing apparatus includes a first determination unit configured to determine whether a pixel included in image data belongs to an edge, a second determination unit configured to determine whether a pixel included in the image data is achromatic, and a processing unit configured to perform process for forming a pixel only with an achromatic color material on a pixel determined as belonging to an edge and being achromatic. In a case where the pixel has been determined as belonging to an edge and being achromatic, the processing unit determines whether the process is to be performed on a pixel adjacent to the pixel which has been determined as belonging to an edge and being achromatic, and, in a case where it has been determined that the process is to be performed, performs the process on the adjacent pixel. |
| US09189713B2 |
Letter printing system
A letter printing system includes: a data processing unit for receiving an instruction to print document data containing letter data of a plurality of letters, generating print data and outputting the print data to a printing unit; and the printing unit for performing, for each letter, printing on a paper sheet for envelope and a paper sheet for enclosure according to the print data and outputting the paper sheets in the order of printing, wherein the data processing unit determines a letter boundary of each letter in the document data and sequentially outputs print data of each letter to the printing unit, and the printing unit adjusts the order of pieces of page data forming the print data of each letter according to a predetermined order of output of the paper sheet for envelope and the paper sheet for enclosure for performing inserting and sealing operation, and performs printing. |
| US09189712B1 |
Method and system for overprinting a first digital image over a pre-printed second image
A method of adaptive overprinting of a first digital image over a pre-printed second image comprising at least one feature, the method comprising: capturing an image of a substrate pre-printed with said second image and with at least one registration mark; automatically computing: one or more offsets from intended pre-determined properties of the at least one registration mark; and one or more compensation adjustment values to be applied to properties of the at least one feature, based on said one or more computed offsets; applying said computed one or more compensation adjustment values to said first digital image to create a corrected digital image; and printing said corrected digital image over said second image. |
| US09189711B2 |
Method for aligning imaging systems
A method for aligning plurality of imaging systems for capturing images of a receiver medium. An illumination system is used to illuminate the receiver medium with an illumination pattern. First and second imaging systems are used to capture images of the receiver medium, each including at least a portion of the illumination pattern. The first and second images are analyzed to determine a relative position of the illumination pattern in the first and second images. Imaging system alignment parameters for use in aligning images captured with the first and second imaging systems are determined responsive to the determined relative position. |
| US09189710B2 |
Recorded matter producing apparatus
The disclosure discloses a recorded matter producing apparatus comprising a data acquisition portion and an end adjusting portion. A printing head performs printing on a medium to be recorded and produce recorded matter where desired print based on print data is formed. The data acquisition portion acquires unit print data for periodically performing print formation per data print area and total length data. The data print area comprises a predetermined unit length. The total length data indicates a total length of a recorded matter print area on which a unit image corresponding to the unit print data is periodically printed. The end adjusting portion makes adjustments so as to match an end position both of the recorded matter print area and the data print area where the unit image is formed in a last sequence, by either print data mode adjustment or total length data adjustment. |
| US09189708B2 |
Pruning and label selection in hidden markov model-based OCR
Systems and techniques are provided for pruning a node from a possible nodes list for Hidden Markov Model with label transition node pruning. The node may be a label transition node. A frame may be at a predicted segmentation point in decoding input with the Hidden Markov Model. The node may be scored at the frame. The node may be pruned from the possible nodes list for the frame when score for the node is greater than the sum of a best score among nodes on the possible nodes list for the frame and a beam threshold minus a penalty term. A possible nodes list may be generated for a subsequent frame using label selection. A second node may be pruned from the possible nodes list for the subsequent frame with early pruning. |
| US09189707B2 |
Classifying and annotating images based on user context
Annotating and classifying an image based on a user context includes determining a location data of an object captured in an image, determining an attribute data of the object, obtaining sensor data from sensors that are associated with the location data based on the attribute data, determining a recommended user context from one or more predefined user contexts based on a comparison of the location data, the attribute data, and the sensor data with location data, attribute data, and sensor data of one or more images associated with the one or more predefined user contexts, determining a recommended class of the captured image based on the recommended user context, selecting one or more annotation data from the location data, the attribute data, and the sensor data based on the recommended class or the recommended user context, and annotating the image with the one or more annotation data. |
| US09189706B1 |
Apparatus and method for detecting motion
The present invention relates to a motion detecting apparatus and method which is capable of correctly detecting a moving object by determining a motion variation on a pixel basis through comparison between frames. The motion detecting apparatus can correctly detect a region of a moving object by determining whether pixels of the input image correspond to an object, garbage or background on a pixel-basis and can prevent a detected object from missing from an overlapping region occurring in object detection through the existing frame-based comparison, which can result in high accuracy of detection of the moving object. |
| US09189704B2 |
Kernel with iterative computation
Provided are examples of a detecting engine for determining in which pixels in a hyperspectral scene are materials of interest or targets present. A collection of spectral references, typically five to a few hundred, is used in look a through a million or more pixels per scene to identify detections. An example of the detecting engine identifies detections by calculating a kernel vector for each spectral reference in the collection. This calculation is quicker than the conventional Matched Filter kernel calculation which computes a kernel for each scene pixel. Another example of the detecting engine selects pixels with high detection filter scores and calculates coherence scores for these pixels. This calculation is more efficient than the conventional Adaptive Cosine/Coherence Estimator calculation that calculates a score for each scene pixel, most of which do not provide a detection. |
| US09189701B2 |
Object detection apparatus, object detection method, storage medium, and integrated circuit
An object detection apparatus, a program, and an integrated circuit enable the contour of an object to be detected in an appropriate manner in an image including an object and its background with almost no contrast between them in a predetermined direction of the image. A vertical direction edge extraction filter in a filtering unit extracts, from an input image, a contour component in a first direction (e.g., vertical direction) of the image. A horizontal direction continuity detection unit in the filtering unit detects, in a second direction (e.g., horizontal direction) perpendicular to the first direction, the continuity of the contour component extracted by the vertical direction edge extraction filter. An object area detection unit detects (estimates) the contour of the object in the image based on the continuity of the contour component in the second direction (e.g., horizontal direction) detected by the horizontal direction continuity detection unit. |
| US09189698B2 |
Autogenerating video from text
A method of converting user-selected printed text to a synthesized image sequence is provided. The method includes capturing a first image of printed text and generating a model information associated with the text. |
| US09189691B2 |
Three-dimensional object detection device and three-dimensional object detection method
A three-dimensional object detection device has an image capturing unit, a three-dimensional object detection unit, a host vehicle speed detection unit, a light source detection unit and a controller. The image capturing unit captures images rearward of a vehicle. The three-dimensional object detection unit detects a presence of a three-dimensional object in a detection area, based on the captured images. The host vehicle speed detection unit detects a vehicle traveling speed. The light source detection unit detects a headlight light source of a headlight of another vehicle. The controller compares the traveling speeds of the object and the vehicle upon not detecting the headlight light source, and suppresses detection of the object upon determining one of the object traveling speed being equal to or less than the vehicle traveling speed, and a difference between the object and vehicle traveling speeds being less than a predetermined value. |
| US09189685B2 |
Object detection device
An object detection device includes an acquisition unit configured to acquire information indicating a temperature distribution, a storage unit configured to store background information indicating a temperature distribution when no target object exists, a detection unit configured to detect existence or absence of a target object, and an update unit configured to repeatedly update the background information. The update unit performs, with respect to a non-detection region, a first background updating process for the update of the background information based on the acquired information and performs, with respect to a detection region, a second background updating process for the update of the background information using a correction value. |
| US09189684B2 |
Biometric authentication device, biometric authentication method, and non-transitory computer-readable recording medium
A biometric authentication device includes: a storage unit configured to store a three-dimensional shape of a posture of a body of a user; a three-dimensional shape calculation unit configured to calculate a three-dimensional shape of a body from biometric information of the user detected by a biometric sensor; a posture calculation unit configured to calculate a posture of the body from the biometric information detected by the biometric sensor; a synthesis unit configured to synthesize a three-dimensional shape from the three-dimensional shape stored in the storage unit in accordance with the posture calculated by the posture calculation unit; and a comparison unit configured to compare the three-dimensional shape calculated by the three-dimensional shape calculation unit with the three-dimensional shape synthesized by the synthesis unit. |
| US09189683B2 |
Target image detection device, controlling method of the same, control program and recording medium recorded with program, and electronic apparatus equipped with target image detection device
A target image detection device for detecting a target image from an original image has an acquiring section for acquiring the original image, a determining section for determining a detection condition different from a detection condition of a previous time of a plurality of detection conditions for detecting the target image, a detecting section for detecting the target image with the detection condition determined by the determining section with respect to the original image acquired by the acquiring section, and an output section for outputting a detection result detected by the detecting section. |
| US09189682B2 |
Systems and methods for sending digital images
Facial recognition algorithms may identify the faces of one or more people in a digital image. Multiple types of communication may be available for the different people in the digital image. A user interface may be presented indicating recognized faces along with the available forms of communication for the corresponding person. An indication of the total number of people available to be communicated with using each form of communication may be presented. The user may have the option to choose one or more forms of communication, causing the digital image to be sent to the recipients using the selected forms of communication. An individual may have provided information for facial recognition of the individual to a service. Based on the information, the service may recognize that the individual is in an uploaded picture and send the digital image to the user account of the individual. |
| US09189679B2 |
Age estimation method and sex determination method
Disclosed are novel techniques for high-precision sex determination and age estimation using facial images. The disclosed age estimation method includes: a step in which facial image data of a subject is acquired; a step in which spatial frequency intensities are calculated from the acquired facial image data; and a step in which the estimated age of the subject is calculated by applying the calculated spatial frequency intensities obtained from the facial image data. |
| US09189675B2 |
Adaptive fingerprint scanning
Embodiments of the present invention provide an adaptive and intelligent fingerprint scanning device and approach. Specifically, embodiments of the present invention utilize DC resistive image scanning to reduce overall scanning time and energy consumption (e.g., by identifying a targeted scanning area). In a typical embodiment, a scanning device will be provided that includes a scanning area comprised of a set (e.g., at least one) of imaging pixel electrodes (e.g., arranged adjacent to one another in a grid-like or other fashion). As a user presses his/her finger against the scanning area, a first portion of the finger will contact a first electrode while a second portion of the finger will contact a second electrode. When this occurs, a voltage source of the device will apply an initial voltage across the first and second finger portions. A meter of the device will take an electrical measurement (e.g., resistance and/or charged skin voltage) across the two finger portions. Based on the electrical measurement, a location of the finger on the device will be identified, and the fingerprint will be scanned accordingly. Thus, the entire scanning surface need not be scanned, only the portions thereof where the finger was detected. |
| US09189674B2 |
2D barcode scanner
A 2D barcode scanner (1) comprises a housing (2) having a reading window (3) and a digital camera (4) arranged in the housing (2) for detecting the area of the reading window (3) either directly or via a deflecting mirror arrangement (8, 9). At least one external light source (5) is provided for illuminating an area in front of the reading window (3) in the housing (2), at the side of the reading window (3) that is facing away from the digital camera (4). At least one external light source (5) is provided with an optical adapter (7) by which the light therefrom is distributed, such that the reflection paths are not illuminated at the inside of the reading window (3) back into the camera (4), or are illuminated with a very low intensity. This avoids or significantly reduces the intensity of the light reflections that arise on the inside of the reading window (3) and are superimposed on the barcode that is to be read as very bright spots in the image of the digital camera (4). |
| US09189672B2 |
Information reading apparatus, commodity sales information processing apparatus, and pasted object
According to one embodiment, a commodity has information code located on the commodity. A pasted object is pasted on a commodity. The pasted object comprises an image and additional information displayed on the pasted object. The image may include a direction presenting portion. The direction presenting portion can be an extended portion that extends in the direction of the information code. The additional information can indicate a content of a service to be provided to a customer purchasing the commodity. The additional information can be read by a device and a user. |
| US09189670B2 |
System and method for capturing and detecting symbology features and parameters
This invention provides a system and method for capturing, detecting and extracting features of an ID, such as a 1D barcode, that employs an efficient processing system based upon a CPU-controlled vision system on a chip (VSoC) architecture, which illustratively provides a linear array processor (LAP) constructed with a single instruction multiple data (SIMD) architecture in which each pixel of the rows of the pixel array are directed to individual processors in a similarly wide array. The pixel data are processed in a front end (FE) process that performs rough finding and tracking of regions of interest (ROIs) that potentially contain ID-like features. The ROI-finding process occurs in two parts so as to optimize the efficiency of the LAP in neighborhood operations—a row-processing step that occurs during image pixel readout from the pixel array and an image-processing step that occurs typically after readout occurs. The relative motion of the ID-containing ROI with respect to the pixel array is tracked and predicted. An optional back end (BE) process employs the predicted ROI to perform feature-extraction after image capture. The feature extraction derives candidate ID features that are verified by a verification step that confirms the ID, creates a refined ROI, angle of orientation and feature set. These are transmitted to a decoding processor or other device. |
| US09189665B2 |
Anti-collision coupling for contactless cards
Contactless cards and a corresponding anti-collision coupling method are provided, where the method includes requesting that the cards transmit their unique identifiers that each include a fixed number of bytes, receiving the unique identifiers simultaneously as byte-wise positive pulses, counting the received positive pulses, and determining that more than one card responded if the number of received positive pulses exceeds the fixed number of bytes; and where the contactless cards each include a unique identifier having a number of bytes, a receiver for receiving an anti-collision command indicative of a desired identifier byte, a comparator in signal communication with the receiver for comparing the desired identifier byte with a corresponding byte of the unique identifier, and a transmitter responsive to the comparator for transmitting the unique identifier as byte-wise positive pulses if the desired identifier byte matches the corresponding byte of the unique identifier. |
| US09189655B2 |
Avionics gateway interface, systems and methods
Systems and methods are provided for FAA-certified avionics devices to safely interface with non-certified mobile telecommunications devices before, during, and after flight. Data transmitted to the certified devices do not affect functionality of the certified device unless and until a user acknowledges and/or confirms the data on the certified device. Thus, the integrity of the certified device is maintained. |
| US09189654B2 |
On-chip structure for security application
A set of physical unclonable function (PUF) cells is configured with a set of capacitive devices in an integrated circuit (IC). A subset of PUF cells includes a corresponding subset of capacitive devices that have failed during fabrication. A charging current sufficient to charge an operational capacitive device in a PUF cell is sent to the set of PUF cells. A determination is made whether an output voltage of a PUF cell exceeds a threshold. When the output voltage exceeding the threshold, a logic value of 1 is produced at a position in a bit-string. The determination and the producing is repeated for each PUF cell in the set to output a bit-string, which includes 1s and 0s in random positions. The bit-string is used in a security application as a random stable value owing to a random pattern of 1s and 0s present in the bit-string. |
| US09189653B2 |
Software-based trusted platform module
A “Firmware-Based TPM” or “fTPM” ensures that secure code execution is isolated to prevent a wide variety of potential security breaches. Unlike a conventional hardware based Trusted Platform Module (TPM), isolation is achieved without the use of dedicated security processor hardware or silicon. In general, the fTPM is first instantiated in a pre-OS boot environment by reading the fTPM from system firmware or firmware accessible memory or storage and placed into read-only protected memory of the device. Once instantiated, the fTPM enables execution isolation for ensuring secure code execution. More specifically, the fTPM is placed into protected read-only memory to enable the device to use hardware such as the ARM® architecture's TrustZone™ extensions and security primitives (or similar processor architectures), and thus the devices based on such architectures, to provide secure execution isolation within a “firmware-based TPM” without requiring hardware modifications to existing devices. |
| US09189652B1 |
Consumption history privacy
An audience selection system for the selection of an entity, based on an entity's consumption history without requiring the storage of a content descriptor for identifying content previously accessed by the entity. By directly and/or indirectly observing the usage of words used to locate content through a search engine over time for a population, a list of depersonalized keywords can be discovered, creating the ability to characterize content based on depersonalized keywords. A protected consumption history can be recorded for an entity using depersonalized keywords instead of recording a content descriptor for identifying the content. Depersonalized keywords do not uniquely identify content. Associating depersonalized keywords with an entity does not mean that the entity has used those depersonalized keywords; it only means that the entity has accessed content which has been accessed in the past by other entities in a population using the depersonalized keywords. |
| US09189649B2 |
Security model for workflows aggregating third party secure services
A method, system and computer program product for security model for workflows aggregating third party secure services. In one embodiment, a workflow model described in a workflow language is provided and configured to declare security requirements of a composite application integrating protected data from two or more external network resources. The method also incorporates providing an authentication service executing on at least one secure server computer. The authentication service is configured to conduct user authentication and authorization to access the protected data at the external network resources on behalf of the composite application executing on at least one host server computer according to the workflow language. |
| US09189647B2 |
Encrypted database system, linking method, and medium
This encrypted database system is constituted by the connection of client terminal, which encrypts and outputs a first table having row a and row b data that has been input and a second table having row c data by means of a secret key stored in advance and sends a partial connection command that connects the row b and row c as a key for data in which the value for row a is greater than or equal to p and less than q in this table to the outside with a range search key generated from the secret key, and an encrypted database server, which receives and records the encrypted first and second tables, extracts data for each in which the values for row a from the encrypted first and second tables are greater than or equal to p and less than q using the range search key, and connects and returns row b and row c for this extracted data as a key. |
| US09189643B2 |
Client based resource isolation with domains
A method may comprise determining, in an operating system instance, that an access control is being attempted to control an object by a user from a first client of a plurality of clients. Domain and client identifiers associated with the user may be determined. Any domain identifiers from a set and any client identifiers from a set may be accessed that may be associated with the object, where the domain identifiers may uniquely identify one or more domains and the client identifiers may uniquely identify one or more clients. One or more domain and client isolation rules may be evaluated to determine whether access control is permitted on the object based on whether a domain identifier is associated with both the object and the user and whether a client identifier is associated with both the object and the client. A permit or deny indication may be returned based on whether or not access control is permitted on the object. |
| US09189637B2 |
Systems, methods, and computer medium to securely transfer business transactional data between physically isolated networks having different levels of network protection utilizing barcode technology
Embodiments of computer-implemented methods, systems, and non-transitory computer-readable medium having one or more computer programs stored therein are provided to transfer contents of transactional data between two or more networks configured to have different levels of network protection. Generated data barcodes can be decoded to produce contents of transactional data to be transmitted between two or more networks configured to have different levels of network security protection, and decoded contents of the transactional data can then be securely communicated back to the sender for comparison by generating validation barcodes to be decoded by the sender. Generated verification barcodes can then be decoded to produce verification data. Verification data can confirm success of the transmission of contents of transactional data encoded in the data barcodes. Decoded contents of transactional data can then be stored responsive to an indication of successful transmission. |
| US09189634B2 |
System and method for information risk management
The present invention provides a system and method for evaluating risk associated with information access requests. The information access requests are collected, assigned a risk level according to user defined policies, a total risk is calculated and presented to user. The user can select a high risk event for further analysis. The system will break down the event into basic elements, so the user can ascertain the risk. The system allows a user to customize a report and the customized report can be saved as a template for future use. |
| US09189630B1 |
Systems and methods for active operating system kernel protection
Systems and methods for intercepting computing device system calls for a computing device including a kernel having a system call table. A hypervisor is executed on the computing device, the hypervisor configured to control at least one of the computing device processor registers. At least one modified kernel structure is created, the modified kernel structure including a modified system call table. A memory address of an original system call handler is determined, the original system call handler configured to receive kernel operation commands. A size of a loaded image of the original system call handler is determined. A copy of the original system call handler as a second system call handler is created, and the second system call handler intercepts a computing device system call. |
| US09189628B2 |
Data driven system for responding to security vulnerability
A data-driven system for fast response to security vulnerability, in one example embodiment, comprises a request detector, a content type evaluator, and a presentation module. A request detector may be configured to detect a request to display content. A content type evaluator may be configured to determine a type of the requested content. A presentation module may be configured to selectively display the requested content based on the determined type of the requested content. The content type evaluator and the presentation module may utilize a data file that stores information related to potential vulnerabilities associated with a content viewing application. Example data file may be an XML file. |
| US09189624B2 |
Adaptive observation of behavioral features on a heterogeneous platform
Methods, devices and systems for monitoring behaviors of a mobile computing device include observing in a non-master processing core a portion of a mobile device behavior that is relevant to the non-master processing core, generating a behavior signature that describes the observed portion of the mobile device behavior, and sending the generated behavior signature to a master processing core. The master processing core combines two or more behavior signatures received from the non-master processing cores to generate a global behavior vector, which may be used by an analyzer module to determine whether a distributed software application is not benign. |
| US09189620B2 |
Protecting a software component using a transition point wrapper
Embodiments of apparatuses, articles, methods, and systems for protecting software components using transition point wrappers are generally described herein. In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a first component, a wrapper component, and a management module. The wrapper component is to transform a transition point between the first component and a second component. The management module is to control access to the first component through the transformed transition point. Other embodiments may be described and claimed. |
| US09189619B2 |
Runtime based application security and regulatory compliance in cloud environment
A mechanism is provided in a data processing system for runtime based application security. The application runtime environment executing within a virtual machine on the data processing system receives notification of a change in execution environment for the virtual machine. Responsive to determining the virtual machine is being migrated to a virtualized environment based on the notification of a change in execution environment, the application runtime environment dynamically modifies execution of an application in the application runtime environment, wherein the application comprises a set of application modules. |
| US09189618B2 |
Secure password generation
A secure password generation method and system is provided. The method includes enabling by a processor of a computing system, password translation software. The computer processor generates and stores the random translation key. A first password is received and a second associated password is generated. The computer processor associates the second password with a secure application. The computer processor stores the random translation key within an external memory device and disables a connection between the computing system and the external memory device. |
| US09189609B1 |
Securing virtual machines with virtual volumes
Embodiments provide virtual volumes to virtual machines based on configuration information to secure the virtual machines. Each virtual volume, without a file system, represents a portion of a storage array and is associated with at least one of the virtual machines. A host computing device attaches the virtual volume to the virtual machine based on the configuration information. Security software executing on the virtual machine accesses security information (e.g., encryption keys, etc.) stored in the virtual volume to provide security to the virtual machine (e.g., during bootup). In some embodiments, the virtual volume is attached and detached from the virtual machine as a universal serial bus (USB) device via an application programming interface to the storage array. |
| US09189608B2 |
Permission management method for applications, electronic device thereof, and computer readable medium
A permission management method for an electronic device capable of installing at least one application is illustrated. The electronic device comprises a plurality of accessible operational functions. The method prepares a management table for recording corresponding operational functions that the application needs to access while performing the application, and a permission management program for controlling the management table. The permission management program may be performed to change the permission state of each operational function corresponding to the installed application. When the application installed in the device is performed and one of the operational functions is requested, the records in the management table are referred to determine whether the application is allowed to access the requested operational function. |
| US09189607B1 |
Mobile phone controls preprocessor
A method of policy management and control on a mobile phone. The method comprises receiving a user interface change request by a launcher application executing on the mobile phone, requesting permissions from an interface control application programming interface (API) by the launcher application, receiving a response from the interface control application programming interface by the launcher application, where the response indicates if the user interface change is permitted, and enforcing the received permission by the launcher application, where enforcing the received permission comprises executing the user interface change request when the user interface change is permitted, and where enforcing the received permissions comprises not executing the user interface change request and presenting a message to a user of the mobile phone when the user interface change is restricted. |
| US09189604B2 |
Gas activated changes to light absorption and emission characteristics for security articles
Disclosed are security articles and methods and systems for authenticating security articles using a plurality of stimuli. According to one embodiment, an illustrative security feature includes an encoded feature wherein differential activation of phosphorescent or fluorescent materials creates a machine readable code through the simultaneous presence of a source of electromagnetic radiation and a specific gas environment. A detector detects a differential spectral emission across the security feature that results from the change in gas environment. The spectral emission may be compared to an expected emissive signature to determine authenticity of the security article. |
| US09189600B2 |
Method and system for determining treatments by modifying patient-specific geometrical models
Systems and methods are disclosed for evaluating cardiovascular treatment options for a patient. One method includes creating a three-dimensional model representing a portion of the patient's heart based on patient-specific data regarding a geometry of the patient's heart or vasculature; and for a plurality of treatment options for the patient's heart or vasculature, modifying at least one of the three-dimensional model and a reduced order model based on the three-dimensional model. The method also includes determining, for each of the plurality of treatment options, a value of a blood flow characteristic, by solving at least one of the modified three-dimensional model and the modified reduced order model; and identifying one of the plurality of treatment options that solves a function of at least one of: the determined blood flow characteristics of the patient's heart or vasculature, and one or more costs of each of the plurality of treatment options. |
| US09189597B2 |
Technical medical device having a touchscreen and method
A medical device is configured such that operator inputs are more convenient and more reliable via a touchscreen display. The medical device includes a touchscreen having two redundant finger-position sensors. At least one of the sensors has additional piezoelectric elements, which can modify at least partial areas of the touchscreen such that the sensors are differentiated from their surrounding areas by an elevation, a recess, a vibration or a change in the surface roughness sensed. A control unit differentiates intentional and unintentional operating entries, and in the event of failure of the visual display device of the touchscreen display ensures at least a restricted operability of the touchscreen display. |
| US09189596B2 |
Measuring cognitive load
This invention concerns a method for measuring cognitive load of a person in performing a task. In other aspects the invention can be expressed as a computer and as software that are used to perform the method. The computer (50) has an interface having a plural number of unimodal input (20, 30 to 40) and output devices, and a cognitive load analyzer (50). The analyzer comprises a receiver to receive input data signal streams (25, 35 and 45) from respective devices (20, 30 and 40). A classifier (56 to 59), (66 to 69) and (76 to 79) is also provided to identify predetermined “meta-interaction patterns” from the streams (25, 35 and 45), and to weight the identified predetermined “meta-interaction patterns” to produce respective weighted outputs. A combiner (80) to fuse the outputs to produce a measure indicating the person's cognitive load. |
| US09189594B2 |
Method and systems for processing polymeric sequence data and related information
Methods and systems for organizing, representing and processing polymeric sequence information, including biopolymeric sequence information such as DNA sequence information and related information are disclosed herein. Polymeric sequence and associated information may be represented using a plurality of data units, each of which includes one or more headers and a payload containing a representation of a segment of the polymeric sequence. Each header may include or be linked to a portion of the associated information. |
| US09189592B2 |
Tester apparatus for obtaining forming limit diagram
A tester apparatus capable of obtaining a forming limit diagram pertaining to a sample having a high degree of precision includes a fixing jig and a mobile jig installed at an upper side of the fixing jig so as to enable a vertical movement. The mobile jig may be configured to fix the sample in cooperation with the fixing jig, and a driving apparatus disposed at a lower side of the fixing jig may be configured to drive the vertical movement of the mobile jig. An interlocking apparatus provided in between the mobile jig and the driving apparatus may be configured to deliver a driving force of the driving apparatus to the mobile jig. |
| US09189587B2 |
Chip level critical point analysis with manufacturer specific data
A method and computer program are provided for analyzing a set of layers within an integrated circuit design to determine a set of critical points for each layer within the set of layers. The critical points are based at least in part on manufacturer specific process parameters. The method includes assigning a critical point value to each of the critical points within each set of critical points, analyzing a path through the integrated circuit design across multiple integrated circuit design layers, and determining a sum of critical point values of each critical point along the path. |
| US09189583B2 |
Look-up based buffer tree synthesis
Systems and techniques are described for performing buffer tree synthesis. Some embodiments create a lookup table based on information contained in a cell library. The lookup table is then used during buffer tree synthesis. |
| US09189580B1 |
Analysis of stress impact on transistor performance
Roughly described, a method for approximating stress-induced mobility enhancement in a channel region in an integrated circuit layout, including approximating the stress at each of a plurality of sample points in the channel, converting the stress approximation at each of the sample points to a respective mobility enhancement value, and averaging the mobility enhancement values at all the sample points. The method enables integrated circuit stress analysis that takes into account stresses contributed by multiple stress generation mechanisms, stresses having vector components other than along the length of the channel, and stress contributions (including mitigations) due to the presence of other structures in the neighborhood of the channel region under study, other than the nearest STI interfaces. The method also enables stress analysis of large layout regions and even full-chip layouts, without incurring the computation costs of a full TCAD simulation. |
| US09189573B2 |
Methods and systems to synthesize terrain elevations under overpasses
Systems, methods and computer storage apparatuses for synthesizing terrain elevations under overpasses are described herein. An embodiment includes identifying one or more spans across an overpass in an overpasses model, where the overpasses model includes information for one or more overpasses and respective locations and widths of the spans. The embodiment associates one or more terrain elevation values with the one or more identified spans, where the terrain elevation values can be included in an elevation model corresponding to the overpasses model. The embodiment further includes interpolating terrain elevation values for one or more points across the identified spans and updating the elevation model with the interpolated terrain elevation values. |
| US09189572B2 |
Simulation device, simulation system, method of simulation and program
A simulation system (101) includes an X-ray CT device (11) that obtains a tomographic image of a porous sample, and a simulation device (14) that simulates a mercury intrusion method by processing a laminated tomographic image of the sample. The simulation device (14) includes a modeling means which processes the laminated tomographic image of the sample, and which models an internal structure of the sample, a minimum-diameter obtaining means that obtains a minimum entrance diameter when mercury enters in a pore of the sample at a predetermined pressure based on a surface energy of the sample and a pressure, and a means that simulates a liquid entering in the interior of the pore from one surface of the sample based on a diameter of the pore of the modeled sample and the minimum entrance diameter. |
| US09189570B2 |
Method for designing the layout of turbines in a windfarm
A method and system for designing a layout of turbines on a grid is provided. The method comprises receiving wind data for each possible location of placement of a turbine on said grid; calculating an energy yield for a given layout of turbines on said grid as a nonlinear objective function, said function constrained by said wind data; implementing a bounding heuristic, said bounding heuristic comparing said calculated energy yield for said given layout of turbines to a current lower bound, and if said calculated energy yield is greater than the current lower bound, replacing the current lower bound with the calculated energy yield; and repeating the above steps for different layouts of turbines on the grid. |
| US09189569B2 |
Non-transitory computer readable medium, medical record search apparatus, and medical record search method
A non-transitory computer readable medium stores a program causing a computer to execute a process. The process includes searching a document memory, the document memory storing electronic documents of medical records of patients in association with document types of the electronic documents, for electronic documents associated with a patient specified by a user from among the patients; referring to group definition information that defines document groups and grouping the electronic documents obtained in the searching so as to create the document groups; and generating data of a search result display screen in which an icon associated with a corresponding one of the document groups created as a result of the grouping is arranged at a position of a schema, the position corresponding to a site of a human body associated with the document group. |
| US09189568B2 |
Method and system to display and search in a language independent manner
A method to facilitate a language independent search includes displaying a search attribute, including an attribute name and a selection of attribute values, to a user and receiving from the user a search attribute value selection corresponding to the attribute name. Then, the attribute name and attribute value selection are translated into language independent symbols, such as numbers. The numbers are used in a search of a sellers item listings table to select item listings with attribute values that match the search attribute values selected by the user. |
| US09189555B2 |
Displaying customized list of links to content using client-side processing
A system for providing a customized list of links to content, the customized list of links provided to a user. The system receives a collection of unfiltered links to content, the collection of unfiltered links received from a server. The system hides the collection of unfiltered links from the user. The system receives parameters for customizing the collection of unfiltered links. The parameters are received from the user. The system selectively presents a customized list of links to content to the user, wherein selectively presenting the customized list of links to content comprises presenting a subset of the collection of unfiltered links in accordance with the received parameters. |
| US09189554B1 |
Providing images of named resources in response to a search query
Systems, computer program products, apparatus, and methods are described that perform operations including receiving a search query that includes a name, receiving multiple resources that have been identified by a search engine as best satisfying the search query, wherein the identified multiple resources include a resource including a plurality of images. The operations include identifying an image of the plurality of images displaying a face of the person. The image is identified based on a description associated with the image. The description is based at least in part on one or more resources included in the search results. The operations further include providing the identified image with the search results. The search results are provided as a plurality of links. Each link identifies a corresponding resource of the identified plurality of resources. |
| US09189546B2 |
Semantic client, semantic information management server, method of generating semantic information, method of searching semantic information, and computer program recording medium for performing the methods
A semantic client, a semantic information management server, a method of generating semantic information, a method of searching semantic information, and a computer program recording medium for performing the methods, the semantic client including: an identification (ID) generator to generate an ID of a target content; and a descriptor generator to generate a descriptor that defines correlations between the target content and one or more other contents. Furthermore, the semantic information management server includes: a semantic information database (DB) to store a descriptor including information about an ID of contents and correlations among the contents and other contents related to the contents; and an agent to search semantic information of the related contents with reference to the semantic information DB. Therefore, since contents have their own IDs, a user can easily search the contents. |
| US09189538B2 |
System for estimating a distribution of message content categories in source data
A method of computerized content analysis that gives “approximately unbiased and statistically consistent estimates” of a distribution of elements of structured, unstructured, and partially structured source data among a set of categories. In one embodiment, this is done by analyzing a distribution of small set of individually-classified elements in a plurality of categories and then using the information determined from the analysis to extrapolate a distribution in a larger population set. This extrapolation is performed without constraining the distribution of the unlabeled elements to be equal to the distribution of labeled elements, nor constraining a content distribution of content of elements in the labeled set (e.g., a distribution of words used by elements in the labeled set) to be equal to a content distribution of elements in the unlabeled set. Not being constrained in these ways allows the estimation techniques described herein to provide distinct advantages over conventional aggregation techniques. |
| US09189535B2 |
Compensating for unbalanced hierarchies when generating OLAP queries from report specifications
Systems, methods and articles of manufacture are disclosed for generating an online analytical processing (OLAP) query against a cube. The cube may have dimensions, each dimension having a hierarchy of members. A report specification may be received against a hierarchy of the cube. An OLAP query may be generated from the report specification. The OLAP query may include projected members not having any descendant at the detail level of the hierarchy, thus producing more accurate results. |
| US09189529B2 |
Queue monitoring and visualization
A method includes receiving information provided by a data processing application during execution of the data processing application. The information is indicative of at least one of a source of data for the data processing application and a destination of data from the data processing application. The method includes dynamically analyzing the information during execution of the data processing application to identify a queue in communication with the data processing application; and dynamically analyzing the information during execution of the data processing application to identify a relationship between the data processing application and the queue, including at least one of identifying that the queue is the source of data for the data processing application and identifying that the queue is the destination of data from the data processing application. |
| US09189526B1 |
Freshness based ranking
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for ranking search results. One of the methods includes receiving a search result obtained in response to a query, wherein the search result identifies a resource and has an associated score S. A determination is made that users prefer newer resources over older resources for the query and that the resource is a new resource. A new score S′ is associated with the resource in place of S, based on the determination that users prefer newer resources over older resources for the query and that the resource is a new resource. |
| US09189525B2 |
Methods and systems for generating automated tags for video files
Techniques for generating automated tags for a video file are described. The method includes receiving one or more manually generated tags associated with a video file, based at least in part on the one or more manually entered tags, determining a preliminary category for the video file, and based on the preliminary category, generating a targeted transcript of the video file, wherein the targeted transcript includes a plurality of words. The method further includes generating an ontology of the plurality of words based on the targeted transcript, ranking the plurality of words in the ontology based on a plurality of scoring factors, and based on the ranking of the plurality of words, generating one or more automated tags associated with the video file. |
| US09189520B2 |
Methods and systems for one dimensional heterogeneous histograms
A method and system to generate cardinality estimates for at least one query execution plan for a query using a histogram, the cardinality estimation being constrained by a q-error that is a factor by which the estimate deviates, at most, from a true value of the cardinality and a threshold value which the cardinality does not exceed; use the cardinality estimation to determine an optimal query plan for executing the query; and produce an output of the optimal query plan. |
| US09189519B2 |
Executing database queries using multiple processors
A system and a method are disclosed for efficiently executing database queries using a computing device that includes a central processing unit (CPU) and a processing unit based on single instruction multiple thread (SIMT) architecture, for example, a GPU. A query engine determines a target processing unit to execute a database query based on factors including the type and amount of data processed by the query, the complexity of the query, and the current load on the processing units. An intermediate executable representation generator generates an intermediate executable representation for executing a query on a database virtual machine. If the query engine determines that the database query should be executed on an SIMT based processing unit, a native code generator generates native code from the intermediate executable representation. The native code is optimized for execution using a particular processing unit. |
| US09189518B2 |
Gathering index statistics using sampling
An approach is provided in which a sample point system allocates sample point identifiers to a root node included an index tree that includes multiple leaf nodes. The sample point system distributes the sample point identifiers to the root node's child nodes, and recursively traverses through the index tree's hierarchical index levels and distributes the sample point identifiers from the child nodes to a subset of the index tree's leaf nodes. In turn, the sample point system collects sample data from the subset of the plurality of leaf nodes corresponding to the distributed sample point identifiers. |
| US09189517B2 |
Integrating search with application analysis
Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to searching. In aspects, a software package may be received and transformed into searchable data. Static and dynamic analysis may be performed on code and data included in the software package. A data structure is created that may index the code, metadata, indexable resources, and analysis artifacts associated with the software package. The data structure may be used to satisfy queries and the transformed data and analysis artifacts may be made available for viewing. |
| US09189516B2 |
Using distinguishing properties to classify messages
A system and method are disclosed for classifying a message. The method includes receiving the message, identifying in the message a distinguishing property; generating a signature using the distinguishing property; and comparing the signature to a database of signatures generated by previously classified messages. |
| US09189514B1 |
Optimized fact checking method and system
An optimized fact checking system analyzes and determines the factual accuracy of information and/or characterizes the information by comparing the information with source information. The optimized fact checking system automatically monitors information, processes the information, fact checks the information in an optimized manner and/or provides a status of the information. In some embodiments, the optimized fact checking system generates, aggregates, and/or summarizes content. |
| US09189506B2 |
Database index management
Managing database indexes includes creating a main index and creating at least one service index that is configured for recording a change to a node to be updated in the main index. Managing database indexes also includes detecting whether an operation that involves the main index and is performed on the database appears in the database, and maintaining the main index using at least one service index in response to the operation that involves the main index and is performed on the database, appearing in the database. The maintaining is performed based on changes to a node to be updated in the main index that are recorded in the at least one service node. |
| US09189505B2 |
System of and method for entity representation splitting without the need for human interaction
Disclosed is a system for, and method of, determining whether records and entity representations should be delinked. The system and method need no human interaction in order to calculate parameters and utilizing formulas used for the delinking decisions. |
| US09189501B2 |
Semantic model of everything recorded with UR-URL combination identity-identifier-addressing-indexing method, means, and apparatus
A computer program product embodied on a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, comprising non-transitory computer executable program code configured to perform the steps of: receiving a representation of an unlabeled event; labeling the unlabeled event according to a unitary relative event ontology; and storing the labeled event in the computer readable storage medium. The unitary relative event ontology can comprise an information description vector comprising a plurality of ontological primitives, and the plurality of ontological primitives can comprise a point description element, a reference-body description element, an observer description element, a position description element, a scene description element, and a specification description element. |
| US09189498B1 |
Low-overhead image search result generation
A device may be configured to identify a plurality of images that are similar to a query image; generate a plurality of sets of rankings of the identified images based on a plurality of image attributes; compare the generated plurality of sets of rankings of the identified images to a reference set of rankings of images; select, based on the comparing, a particular set of rankings; and rank a plurality of images that are associated with another query image, based on an attribute associated with the selected particular set of rankings. |
| US09189494B2 |
Object file system
An object based file system for storing and accessing objects is disclosed. The file system may be implemented as a method in hardware, firmware, software, or a combination thereof. The method may include receiving from an application program an object write request. A selected storage node on which to store the object may be selected, including identifying a least busy storage node and/or a least full storage node. The object and the object write request may be sent to the selected storage node. A write success message may be received from the selected storage node. The successful writing of the object may be reported to the application program. |
| US09189493B2 |
Object file system
An object based file system for storing and accessing objects is disclosed. The file system may be implemented as a method in hardware, firmware, software, or a combination thereof. The method may include receiving from an application program an object write request. A selected storage node on which to store the object may be selected, including identifying a least busy storage node and/or a least full storage node. The object and the object write request may be sent to the selected storage node. A write success message may be received from the selected storage node. The successful writing of the object may be reported to the application program. |
| US09189487B2 |
Method for recording transaction log, and database engine
A method for recording a transaction log, and a database engine, and pertains to the field of database technologies. The method includes receiving an structured query language (SQL) request; modifying, according to the SQL request, a data page corresponding to the SQL request; generating a corresponding transaction log for the modifying; partitioning the transaction log to obtain a plurality of log segments; and writing the plurality of log segments into a plurality of log buffers, and writing the log segments in the plurality of log buffers into a log file in parallel. According to the present invention, not only lock granularities of the log buffers of the transaction log are reduced, but also a speed at which a log file is written into a magnetic disk is greatly increased, thereby improving performance of a database system and enhancing user experience. |
| US09189486B2 |
Autonomic generation of document structure in a content management system
A content management system (CMS) autonomically generates structure for a document when a synchronization rule references structure that does not exist in the document. A dynamic structure policy specifies at least one criterion that determines if and how the structure is autonomically generated. By autonomically generating structure in a document, a CMS administrator or CMS user (such as the author) is relieved of the manual task of generating the structure before the synchronization rule can be successfully processed. Once dynamically generated, the added structure may be auto-populated with dummy data or with default data specified in the autonomic structure policy. |
| US09189482B2 |
Similar document search
Described herein are methods for finding substantially similar/different sources (files and documents), and estimating similarity or difference between given sources. Similarity and difference may be found across a variety of formats. Sources may be in one or more languages such that similarity and difference may be found across any number and types of languages. A variety of characteristics may be used to arrive at an overall measure of similarity or difference including determining or identifying syntactic roles, semantic roles and semantic classes in reference to sources. |
| US09189472B2 |
System and method for inputting text into small screen devices
An embodiment is directed to an interface for a small screen device, such as a watch, that enables a user to enter text on the small screen device by touching in the vicinity of characters, rather than aiming for a particular button or the exact location of a character. Embodiments further enable the design of interfaces without the use of buttons for controlling the entry of text on the small screen device. |
| US09189470B2 |
Generation of explanatory summaries
A method for generating summaries of text is described. The method includes the step of extracting features from text of text lists from summaries. The explanatoriness of the text is then evaluated, wherein evaluating the explanatoriness of text includes evaluating the features of the text, including at least the step of evaluating the discriminativeness of the features of the text by comparing the text to a first text data set, wherein the first text data set is derived from a topic label. The evaluated text is then ranked based on the explanatoriness evaluation. |
| US09189466B2 |
Cross document communication
Techniques for allowing cross-document communication are provided. In one approach, a child document of a parent document communicates with another child document of the parent document. A child document may correspond to a frame element within the parent document. The communication may occur directly or indirectly through the parent document. In another approach, an ancestor document communicates with a descendant document that is two or more degrees of separation away from the ancestor document. The communication may occur directly or indirectly through one or more intermediate documents. In both approaches, one document may send out one or more discovery messages that request identities of sibling documents, descendant documents, or ancestor documents. |
| US09189463B2 |
System and method for converting content
Provided is a content converting method and system. The content converting method and system may extract web content elements from collected web contents, may extract domain elements from a web page including the web contents, may match the extracted elements with broadcast content elements and thus, may enable the web contents to be played in a broadcast receiving apparatus. |
| US09189460B2 |
Method and devices for generating two-dimensional visual objects
For generating one or more two-dimensional visual objects, an initial visual representation is determined and shown in a display area of a communication terminal. A data representation of the visual objects is transmitted from the communication terminal to a remote processing center. The communication terminal receives from the processing center an enhanced visual representation of the visual objects, and replaces in the display area the initial representation with the enhanced representation. Retrieving an enhanced representation from the processing center, makes it possible to display visual objects in the communication terminal in representations which are not supported by the communication terminal, e.g. graphical objects can be rendered according to enhanced algorithms and/or characters can be rendered in enhanced fonts not supported in the communication terminal. |
| US09189453B2 |
Method and device for verifying the consistency of the sideslip probes of an aircraft
The invention pertains to a method for verifying the consistency of the values (β1,β2,β3) given by the sideslip probes (1,2,3) of an aircraft and to a device implementing this method. This method is noteworthy in that it consists in consolidating the values of two sideslip probes by using the value of the incidence α. |
| US09189451B1 |
Detecting orbital debris
A network device determines an exposure time associated with an image sensor coupled to a spacecraft for capturing an image of a target object orbiting the Earth. The network device computes a maximum relative angular velocity associated with the target object based on the exposure time and a dimension of a pixel of the image sensor. The network device identifies a first pointing direction of the image sensor for initiating a search for the target object. The network device generates a first angular velocity probability distribution map for the target object and divides the first angular velocity probability distribution map into a first set of angular velocity regions (AVRs). The network device selects a first AVR from the first set of AVRs for scanning by the image sensor and generates a search schedule that includes a first entry for informing the spacecraft to scan the first AVR. |
| US09189448B2 |
Routing image data across on-chip networks
A network of switches may be adapted to route image data to one or more processor cores based on tags associated with data samples, where each tag includes at least one reference-space coordinate value. When image data is received by the network, the image data may be spatially transformed to a reference space, e.g., the physical space that is represented by the image data, to generate the data samples and each data sample may be tagged with a corresponding reference space coordinate value and routed through the network to one or more of the processors according to the tag. |
| US09189440B2 |
Data interleaving module
The present disclosure includes apparatuses and methods related to a data interleaving module. A number of methods can include interleaving data received from a bus among modules according to a selected one of a plurality of data densities per memory cell supported by an apparatus and transferring the interleaved data from the modules to a register. |
| US09189437B2 |
Analog data generating and processing device having a multi-use automatic processor
An interface device (10) provides fast data communication between a host device with input/output interfaces and a data transmit/receive device, wherein the interface device (10) comprises a processor means (13), a memory means (14), a first connecting device (12) for interfacing the host device with the interface device, and a second connecting device (15) for interfacing the interface device (10) with the data transmit/receive device. The interface device (10) is configured by the processor means (13) and the memory means (14) in such a way that, when receiving an inquiry from the host device via the first connecting device (12) as to the type of a device attached to the host device, regardless of the type of the data transmit/receive device, the interface device sends a signal to the host device via the first connecting device (12) which signals to the host device that it is communicating with an input/output device. |
| US09189431B2 |
Method of monitoring the status of a peripheral device, and a computer and network system
A network system enables monitoring the status of peripheral devices from computers without concentrating a load on the network. A specific device driver that runs on a specific computer connected to the network has an initialization command transmission unit that sends a first initialization command to the specific printer when a process command is sent to a specific printer, and an operating status monitoring unit that, after initialization based on the first initialization command is completed, monitors the operating status of the specific printer until the printer power turns off. Because the specific computer does not initialize and does not monitor the operating status of the specific printer until the computer sends a process command, concentrating a load on the network is avoided when the network system starts up. |
| US09189429B2 |
Cooperation of device and display
An apparatus includes at least one processor and at least one memory including computer program code. The at least one memory and the computer program code are configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to obtain a list of suitable external display devices, wherein the external display devices are on the list in a priority order. The obtaining is carried out in priority order, and couple, in priority order, to at least one of the external display devices on the list for showing content. |
| US09189427B2 |
System and method for policy-based data archiving triggered by user activity
A system and method for providing cost-effective policy-based data archiving triggered by end-user activity. When an end-user makes a request to store data, the storage device communicates with a storage policy rules software engine. The storage policy rules software engine compares the user activity to a set of previously established rules and then invokes a translation software engine to translate the intended actions into instructions specific for a particular data archiving product in order for that application to archive data as intended. |
| US09189424B2 |
External cache operation based on clean castout messages
A processor transmits clean castout messages indicating that a cache line is not dirty and is no longer being stored by a lowest level cache of the processor. An external cache receives the clean castout messages and manages cache lines based in part on the clean castout messages. |
| US09189422B2 |
Method to throttle rate of data caching for improved I/O performance
A cache device for the caching of data and specifically for the identification of stale data or a thrashing event within the cache device is described. Further a cache device for the prioritization of cached data in the cache device during a thrashing event as well as stale cached data in the cache device are described. Methods associated with the use of the caching device for the caching of data and for the identification of data in a thrashing event or the identification of stale cached data are also described. |
| US09189420B2 |
Wear-leveling method, storage device, and information system
Embodiments of the present invention provide a wear-leveling method, a storage device, and an information system, where a storage region is divided into a plurality of storage sub-regions of the same size. The method includes: recording the accumulated number of write operations of each storage sub-region; and when the accumulated number of write operations of any one storage sub-region of the plurality of storage sub-regions reaches a predetermined remapping rate, mapping a logical address of the storage sub-region to a remapping physical address. With the wear-leveling method, the storage device, and the information system in the embodiments of the present invention, a logical address of a local data block on which too many write operations are performed may be evenly mapped to an overall physical storage region, thereby avoiding that local data is too hot and prolonging a service life of a storage medium. |
| US09189416B2 |
Methods, systems and products for hashing using twisted tabulation
Methods, systems, and products describe a robust solution for the dictionary problem of data structures. A hash function based on tabulation is twisted to utilize an additional xoring operation and a shift. This twisted tabulation offers strong robustness guarantees over a set of queries in both linear probing and chaining. |
| US09189413B2 |
Read-copy update implementation for non-cache-coherent systems
A technique for implementing read-copy update in a shared-memory computing system having two or more processors operatively coupled to a shared memory and to associated incoherent caches that cache copies of data stored in the memory. According to example embodiments disclosed herein, cacheline information for data that has been rendered obsolete due to a data update being performed by one of the processors is recorded. The recorded cacheline information is communicated to one or more of the other processors. The one or more other processors use the communicated cacheline information to flush the obsolete data from all incoherent caches that may be caching such data. |
| US09189411B2 |
Logging in secure enclaves
Embodiments of an invention for logging in secure enclaves are disclosed. In one embodiment, a processor includes an instruction unit and an execution unit. The instruction unit is to receive an instruction having an associated enclave page cache address. The execution unit is to execute the instruction without causing a virtual machine exit, wherein execution of the instruction includes logging the instruction and the associated enclave page cache address. |
| US09189408B1 |
System and method of offline annotation of future accesses for improving performance of backup storage system
A system and method of offline annotation of future access are disclosed. According to one embodiment, a request is received at a storage system to read a portion of a file stored in the storage system. In response to the request, chunks of the file are cached in a cache memory of the storage system. In response to a request for cache space reclamation, the system then determines future request to the file based in part on a next access auxiliary table (NAAT) associated with the file, which was created prior to receiving the request to read and stored in a persistent storage location of the storage system. Based on the determination, the system evicts from the cache memory at least one chunk of a read unit (RU) whose next access is a furthest among the cached chunks. |
| US09189407B2 |
Pre-fetching in a storage system
A storage system, a non-transitory computer readable medium and a method of pre-fetching. The method may include determining, by a pre-fetch module of the storage system, to fetch a certain data portion from a data storage device of the storage system to a cache memory of the storage system; wherein the certain data portion belongs to a certain statistical segment that belongs to at least one logical volume; determining, by a pre-fetch module of the storage system, to pre-fetch at least one additional data portion to the cache memory based upon input/output (I/O) activity statistics associated with the certain statistical segment; wherein the I/O activity statistics comprises timing information related to I/O activities; fetching the certain data portion; and pre-fetching the at least one additional data portion if it is determined to pre-fetch the at least one additional data portions. |
| US09189405B2 |
Placement of data in shards on a storage device
A method, system and computer program product for placing data in shards on a storage device may include determining placement of a data set in one of a plurality of shards on the storage device. Each one of the shards may include a different at least one performance feature. Each different at least one performance feature may correspond to a different at least one predetermined characteristic associated with a particular set of data. The data set is cached in the one of the plurality of shards on the storage device that includes the at least one performance feature corresponding to the at least one predetermined characteristic associated with the data set being cached. |
| US09189403B2 |
Selective cache-to-cache lateral castouts
A data processing system includes first and second processing units and a system memory. The first processing unit has first upper and first lower level caches, and the second processing unit has second upper and lower level caches. In response to a data request, a victim cache line to be castout from the first lower level cache is selected, and the first lower level cache selects between performing a lateral castout (LCO) of the victim cache line to the second lower level cache and a castout of the victim cache line to the system memory based upon a confidence indicator associated with the victim cache line. In response to selecting an LCO, the first processing unit issues an LCO command on the interconnect fabric and removes the victim cache line from the first lower level cache, and the second lower level cache holds the victim cache line. |
| US09189400B2 |
Hybrid active memory processor system
In general, the present invention relates to data cache processing. Specifically, the present invention relates to a system that provides reconfigurable dynamic cache which varies the operation strategy of cache memory based on the demand from the applications originating from different external general processor cores, along with functions of a virtualized hybrid core system. The system includes receiving a data request, selecting an operational mode based on the data request and a predefined selection algorithm, and processing the data request based on the selected operational mode. The present invention is further configured to enable processing core and memory utilization by external systems through virtualization. |
| US09189392B1 |
Opportunistic defragmentation during garbage collection
The present invention is directed to systems and methods for opportunistically defragmenting a data storage device during garbage collection. During garbage collection, valid data is identified and cached in a buffer assigned to the garbage collection process. When the buffer has been filled or reached a threshold, the valid data in the buffer is then coalesced and rewritten back to the data storage medium. In addition, a translation table is reduced by updating its entries to indicate the new locations of the coalesced valid data. |
| US09189388B2 |
Information processing apparatus
An information processing apparatus including a NAND type flash memory; circuitry configured to control writing/reading of data to/from the NAND type flash memory; and an interface configured to connect the information processing apparatus to a host apparatus. The circuitry is configured to determine whether to erase data stored in a specific area within the NAND type flash memory by overwriting the data based on whether an overwrite command is received from the host apparatus via the interface; and erase a physical block including the specific area when it is determined to erase the data by removing electric charges in the NAND type flash memory in the physical block including the specific area. |
| US09189386B2 |
Dynamically allocating number of bits per cell for memory locations of a non-volatile memory
Systems and methods are provided for dynamically allocating a number of bits per cell to memory locations of a non-volatile memory (“NVM”) device. In some embodiments, a host may determine whether to store data in the NVM device using SLC programming or MLC programming operations. The host may allocate an erased block as an SLC block or MLC block based on this determination regardless of whether the erased block was previously used as an SLC block, MLC block, or both. In some embodiments, to dynamically allocate a memory location as SLC or MLC, the host may provide an address vector to the NVM package, where the address vector may specify the memory location and the number of bits per cell to use for that memory location. |
| US09189384B2 |
Memory system and memory managing method thereof
A memory managing method is provided for a memory system, including a nonvolatile memory device and a memory controller controlling the nonvolatile memory device. The memory managing method includes determining whether a program-erase number of a memory block in the nonvolatile memory device reaches a first reference value; managing a life of the memory block according to a first memory managing method when the program-erase number of the memory block is determined to be less than the first reference value; and managing the life of the memory block according to a second memory managing method different from the first memory managing method when the program-erase number of the memory block is determined to be greater than the first reference value. |
| US09189381B2 |
Managing CPU resources for high availability micro-partitions
A primary processing unit entitlement is determined for a logical partition. A smaller secondary processing unit entitlement is also determined. A partition manager allocates primary processing units to the logical partition from a primary shared processor pool, and the logical partition is activated. The secondary processing units are reserved for the logical partition from a secondary shared processor pool, and the logical partition can be relocated to the secondary shared processor pool in response to a condition such as a hardware failure. The logical partition can continue to process its workload with the fewer processor resources, and can be restored to the primary processing unit entitlement. |
| US09189377B1 |
Automation testing using descriptive maps
Apparatus and methods for automation testing of a user interface (“UI”) using descriptive UI Maps are provided. A UI Map may list related UI controls, properties and functionality of the UI controls. A Data Sheet may provide test parameters used for each control in a particular test step. An Instructions Sheet may specify an automation test scenario to be applied. The Instruction Sheet may include a reference to the test parameters of the Data Sheet. Use of descriptive UI maps may provide a modular framework. Each UI Map may describe a group of functionally or logically linked controls on a UI page. As a result of description details being provided in the UI map, standard code may be written once to interpret and make use of those details. Typically no additional coding is required to automate test scenarios related to control groups associated with the UI. |
| US09189374B2 |
Automatic test system for distributed comprehensive service and method thereof
An automatic test system and method for a distributed comprehensive service are disclosed. The system has a client (101), a scheduling server (102) and testing subsystems (103) which are in a distributed deployment and used to test tested systems (104) that are also in a distributed deployment. The scheduling server (102) receives and analyzes test tasks sent from the client (101), schedules test items according to the logical relationship and distributes them to the corresponding testing subsystems (103). The test subsystems (103) analyze and execute the test items to test the tested systems (104), collect test item execution reports and send the execution reports to the scheduling server (102). The scheduling server (102) generates a test task report and sends to the client (101) for examination. The system supports complicated multi-service test scenarios and multi-test task execution. |
| US09189373B2 |
Automated top down process to minimize test configurations for multi-feature products
Systems and methods of conducting interoperability assessments provide for generating a feature interoperability matrix based on feature data and interoperability data, wherein the feature data defines a plurality of features of a product and the interoperability data indicates levels of interoperability of the plurality of features. A validation set can be generated based on the feature interoperability matrix, wherein the validation set includes a plurality of feature combinations. A subfeature interoperability matrix can be used to convert the validation set into a test plan for the product, wherein the test plan minimizes test configurations for the product. |
| US09189371B2 |
Dynamic load testing
A system includes sending of requests to a computing system based on a first number of users associated with a load test, evaluation of one or more characteristics of the computing system while sending the requests, determination to modify the first number of users to a second number of users based on the one or more evaluated characteristics, and sending of requests to the computing system based on the second number of users. |
| US09189370B2 |
Smart terminal fuzzing apparatus and method using multi-node structure
The present invention relates to a smart terminal fuzzing apparatus and method using a multi-node structure. The smart terminal fuzzing apparatus includes a fuzzing command management unit for managing fuzzing instructions corresponding to performance of fuzzing. An algorithm management unit creates fuzzing commands based on the fuzzing instructions, and distributes the fuzzing commands to a plurality of fuzzing nodes connected to a fuzzing client depending on a distribution algorithm. A fuzzing client management unit performs control such that fuzzing is performed by the plurality of fuzzing nodes in compliance with the fuzzing commands through the fuzzing client. A log management unit receives results of performance of fuzzing from the plurality of fuzzing nodes and manages the fuzzing results. |
| US09189369B1 |
Systems, methods and computer program products for an automated test framework
A first input, a first function and a corresponding first output type of a first test of programming code are stored. The first output type results from execution of the first function with the first input for the first test of programming code. It is determined whether a second input type for a second test of programming code matches the first output type stored in the data source. If the second input type matches the first output type, the first function is executed with the first input so that the second test is performed using an output of the first function as the second input. |
| US09189368B2 |
System and method for testing a user application using a computing apparatus and a media playback apparatus
The present invention relates to a system and method for testing a user application using a computing apparatus and a media playback apparatus. According to the present invention, the media playback apparatus tests the user application which is generated by executing a developer application in a computing apparatus, wherein the computing apparatus is connected to the media playback apparatus through a network. Thus, applications stored in a plurality of computing apparatuses can be tested using a single media playback apparatus. |
| US09189367B2 |
Methods and systems for debugging bytecode in an on-demand service environment
Described herein are means for debugging byte code in an on-demand service environment system including a system for simulating execution debug in a multi-tenant database environment. Such means may include: receiving a request at a web-server of the system, determining one or more trace preferences are active for the request, sending the request to a logging framework communicatively interfaced to the multi-tenant database implementation, processing the request via the logging framework, and capturing at least a portion of the execution data emitted responsive to execution of the plurality of events for use in simulating execution debug of the events. Other related embodiments are additionally described. |
| US09189363B2 |
System, method, and computer program product for monitoring an execution flow of a function
A system, method, and computer program product are provided for monitoring an execution flow of a function. In use, data associated with a function is identified within a call stack. Additionally, a call stack frame is determined from freed memory in the call stack. Further, an execution flow of the function is monitored, utilizing the call stack frame from the freed memory. |
| US09189362B2 |
Method for measuring the performance of a target server housing a dynamic monitoring tool
A method for measuring the performance of at least one target server housing a dynamic monitoring tool which can be controlled by scripts, the dynamic monitoring tool having predefined probes for acquiring the data relating to the behavior of an operating system and applications of the target server, the method including, from a remote management server, the following steps: a dynamic monitoring tool within the target server is accessed via a communication network, at least one script to be executed by the dynamic monitoring tool is remotely transmitted, and at predetermined times, the target server is automatically accessed so as to retrieve the performance data resulting from the execution of the script by the dynamic monitoring tool. |
| US09189360B2 |
Processor that records tracing data in non contiguous system memory slices
A method is described that involves referring to first information from a directory table in system memory. The first information includes location information and size information of a first slice of system memory where first tracing data is to be stored. The method also includes tracking the amount of tracing data stored in the first slice of system memory and comparing the amount against the size information. The method also includes, before the first slice of system memory is filled, referring to second information from the directory table in system memory, where, the second information includes location information and size information of a second slice of system memory where second tracing data is to be stored. The first slice is not contiguous with the second slice of system memory. |
| US09189359B2 |
Computer product, control apparatus, and control method
A computer-readable recording medium stores a control program causing a processor of a first terminal to execute a process that includes detecting that a remaining battery level of the first terminal has become less than or equal to a first threshold while a task is under execution by the first terminal; suspending execution of the task upon detecting that the remaining battery level of the first terminal has become less than or equal to the first threshold; transmitting identification information of the task to a second terminal upon detecting that the remaining battery level of the first terminal has become less than or equal to the first threshold; receiving from the second terminal and after transmitting the identification information of the task, information related to a potential of executing the task; and transmitting to the second terminal, information corresponding to the information related to the potential of executing the task. |
| US09189358B2 |
Apparatus and method for verifying operating system of host device in portable terminal
An apparatus and method for determining an Operation System (OS) of a host device connected through USB in a portable terminal. The apparatus includes a connection port for receiving a descriptor request from the host device, an analysis unit for analyzing the received descriptor request and providing the analyzed result, an OS determining unit for determining the OS of the host device using information received from the analysis unit, and a controller that controls the analysis unit and the OS determining unit to analyze the descriptor request of the host device and determine the OS of the host device. |
| US09189355B1 |
Method and system for processing a service request
A method for processing a service request, including receiving, from a client application, the service request which includes a header which includes transmission metadata and a client trace ID. An internal trace ID is appended to the service request and a request trace log including the client trace ID, the internal trace ID, and a time stamp corresponding to receiving the service request is generated. The method further includes selecting a cloud server including functionality to process the service request. The cloud server determines a dedicated computing cluster of a plurality of distributed cloud computing clusters to handle the service request and sends the service request to the dedicated computing cluster. Finally, the method includes recording, in the request trace log, an interaction of the dedicated computing cluster with the service request. |
| US09189353B2 |
Voltage testing device and voltage testing method for CPU
The disclosure provides a voltage testing device and a method. A voltage testing device includes a PCB, a computer, and a detecting chip. The PCB includes a CPU socket, a signal producing chip, and a voltage regulator. The computer sets predetermined data. The detecting chip is inserted in the CPU socket. The detecting chip includes a reading module, a converting module, a sending module, and a control module. The signal producing chip sends a start-up signal to the control module. The converting module converts the predetermined data to SVID data. The sending module sends the SVID data to the voltage regulator. The voltage regulator sends a CPU voltage to the CPU socket. The voltage value testing device calculates a value of the CPU voltage to determine if the value of the CPU voltage associates with a voltage corresponding to the predetermined data. |
| US09189351B2 |
Method of obtaining instruction for triggering function
A method of obtaining a function triggering instruction is provided. The method is adapted to a computer system using a unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI). In the present method, a variable in a read-only memory (ROM) of a basic input/output system (BIOS) is accessed during power-on self test (POST) of the computer system, wherein the variable has a first element, a second element, and a third element. Whether values of the first element and the second element respectively match a variable name and a globally unique identifier (GUID) corresponding to an instruction is determined. If the values of the first element and the second element respectively match the variable name and the GUID corresponding to the instruction, a function triggered by the instruction is executed according to the value of the third element. |
| US09189345B1 |
Method to perform instant restore of physical machines
A method of performing data restore includes connecting, using a boot capable network communication interface, to a backup server over a data network, the backup server having stored thereon a block based backup data volume; accessing the block based backup data volume via the data network as a remotely readable storage resource; and using operating system data read from the block based backup data volume to perform a network boot operation. |
| US09189344B2 |
Storage management system and storage management method with backup policy
An embodiment of this invention is a storage management system including a processor and a storage device to manage a storage system having one or more copy functions. The processor locates data designated to determine a backup method. The storage device stores copy function management information on the one or more copy functions of the storage system. The processor refers to the copy function management information to ascertain the unit of copy operation of each of the one or more copy functions. The processor determines a candidate for a copy function of the storage system to be used to back up the designated data depending on the data configuration in a volume holding the designated data and the unit of copy operation of the candidate for the copy function. |
| US09189343B2 |
Frequent data set captures for volume forensics
Techniques, including systems and methods, take frequent captures of data sets for the purpose of forensic analysis. The data set captures are taken at the block level in various embodiments. Data set captures are used to instantiate forensic storage volumes that are attached to computing instances. The computing instances can access data in the forensic storage volumes at a state corresponding to a specified capture time. A user can select different capture times to re-instantiate the forensic storage volume to see how the forensic storage volume changed between captures. |
| US09189342B1 |
Generic process for determining child to parent inheritance for fast provisioned or linked clone virtual machines
A method for backing up virtual machine (VM) data is described, and includes, in response to a request to back up a first VM of a first storage system, determining a disk layout of a VM disk associated with the first VM, the disk layout having nodes in a hierarchical structure, each node corresponding to a VM. The method includes traversing the disk layout to derive a first storage location of a first VM configuration data of the first VM and a second storage location of a second VM configuration data associated with a second VM that is a parent VM to the first VM, identifying a first VM snapshot from the first configuration data and a second VM snapshot from the second configuration data, determining a list of changed blocks representing data blocks that are different between the first and second VM snapshots, and backing up the changed blocks. |
| US09189341B1 |
Method and apparatus for multi-copy replication using a multi-splitter
Conventional methods of multi-site replication require a data protection appliance (DPA) to split IOs arriving at a volume from a host to a plurality of replica volumes. However, in example embodiments of the present invention, a splitter in the data path may split the IOs to a plurality of replica volumes. In order to create multiple, independent copies of a volume, the splitter will expose the volume to the production site DPA as a plurality of volume instances. Each volume instance may be part of a separate consistency group to be replicated to separate replication sites. Thus, the DPA may attach the splitter to several consistency groups and thus create multiple replicas at one or more replication sites of the same volume. |
| US09189340B2 |
Secure recovery apparatus and method
A system and method is disclosed for recovering a boot image from a secure location. Hardware instructions initiate a sequence of boot cycles to launch a computer operating system on a computer-enabled device. During the boot cycles, multiple levels of boot code are verified and a determination is made whether each level is usable by the device. If a level of boot code is determined to be unusable, a secure copy of the boot code is loaded from a secure read-only location to repair the unusable code to launch the computer operating system. |
| US09189339B1 |
Replication of a virtual distributed volume with virtual machine granualarity
In one aspect, a method includes intercepting an I/O sent by a virtual machine at a first site, sending the I/O to a first data protection appliance (DPA) at the first site, sending I/O metadata to a first service layer at the first site, sending I/O data down the I/O stack after receiving acknowledgement that the I/O metadata arrived at the first service layer, intercepting the I/O at the first service layer, sending the I/O metadata from the first service layer to a second service layer at a second site and sending I/O data to the second service layer at the second site by ensuring that I/O metadata mirroring between the first site and the second site is completed before I/O data mirroring occurs between the first site and the second site. |
| US09189331B2 |
Programmable address-based write-through cache control
This invention is a cache system with a memory attribute register having plural entries. Each entry stores a write-through or a write-back indication for a corresponding memory address range. On a write to cached data the cache the cache consults the memory attribute register for the corresponding address range. Writes to addresses in regions marked as write-through always update all levels of the memory hierarchy. Writes to addresses in regions marked as write-back update only the first cache level that can service the write. The memory attribute register is preferably a memory mapped control register writable by the central processing unit. |
| US09189318B2 |
Path-sensitive analysis framework for bug checking
A method for performing path-sensitive data-flow analysis for use in error checking functions includes identifying at least a first instruction and a second instruction in a control flow graph of a function. The identified first instruction and second instruction are connected by at least a first control flow path and a second control flow path. The method further includes defining a path condition between the first instruction and the second instruction as a complex disjunction including a first conjunction of predicates for the first control flow path and a second conjunction of predicates for the second control flow path. The method further includes converting the path condition into conjunctive normal form to obtain a converted path condition that includes a disjunction of atomic constraints, generating a simplified path condition by simplifying the disjunction of atomic constraints in the converted path condition to a value, analyzing the function using the simplified path condition to detect an error, and presenting the error. |
| US09189313B2 |
Memory system having NAND-type flash memory and memory controller with shift read controller and threshold voltage comparison module
According to one embodiment, a memory system includes a NAND-type flash memory and a memory controller. A comparison module of the memory controller compares a first threshold voltage distribution of a first memory area with a second threshold voltage distribution of the first memory area acquired earlier than the first threshold voltage distribution, if an error is detected in data read from the first memory area. An error factor determination module of the memory controller determines a cause of the error based on the comparison result, and inhibits a data move operation of moving data of the first memory area to the second memory area based on the determination result. |
| US09189311B2 |
Rebuilding a storage array
The present invention discloses a method and apparatus for rebuilding a storage array. The method comprises: replacing, in response to a failing storage device occurs in the storage array, the failing storage device with a first spare storage device; performing component rebuild by using other storage devices in the storage array than the first spare storage device, so as to restore within the first spare storage device data in the failing storage device; performing, in parallel with the component rebuild, smart rebuild by using a second spare storage device, so as to copy data in the failing storage device to the second spare storage device; replacing the first spare storage device with the second spare storage device in the storage array upon completion of the smart rebuild. |
| US09189305B2 |
Durable subscriptions in publish/subscribe messaging
Durable subscriptions in publish/subscribe messaging are provided. A durable subscription is received for a subscribing application. The durable subscription includes a parameter defining persistence for which a subscription is to be durable. It is detected whether the subscribing application is disconnected. In response to detecting that the subscribing application is disconnected, a filter is applies to messages to determine whether a message meets a defined persistence requirement. Only persistent messages are retained for delivery once the subscribing application is reconnected. |
| US09189302B2 |
Technique for monitoring activity within an integrated circuit
A technique to monitor events within a computer system or integrated circuit. In one embodiment, a software-accessible event monitoring storage and hardware-specific monitoring logic are selectable and their corresponding outputs may be monitored by accessing a counter to count events corresponding to each of software-accessible storage and hardware-specific monitoring logic. |
| US09189299B2 |
Framework for system communication for handling data
Techniques for making internal data from a source application available through an application programming interface (“API”). Embodiments may analyze a source application to determine a storage location and a first storage format of internal data, wherein the source application does not provide an API through which the internal data is accessible. Embodiments may then extract the internal data from the storage location, and convert the extracted data from the first storage format to a common storage format. Embodiments may then provide an API to make the converted data available. |
| US09189297B2 |
Managing shared memory
Systems, methods, and computer-readable and executable instructions are provided for managing shared memory. A method for managing shared memory can include statically assigning a first number of locks to the shared memory during compile-time and dynamically assigning a second number of locks to the shared memory during runtime. |
| US09189294B2 |
Environment preserving cloud migration and management
A system and method of operation is disclosed describing migration, management, and operation of applications and servers from customer data centers to cloud computing platforms without modification to existing environments or user access procedures. A cloud isolation layer operates as a virtual layer on the cloud platform, enabling server operation in a virtual environment that appears the same as the prior local environment. A cloud software image and a local cloud gateway act to redirect existing addressing from the local environment to the cloud implementation through secure network and data paths. A local management application provides a control interface and maps and manages the local environment and utilized cloud resources. |
| US09189293B2 |
Computer, virtualization mechanism, and scheduling method
Computer including a plurality of physical CPUs, a plurality of virtual computers which execute predetermined processing and to which one of the plurality of physical CPUs is assigned, and a virtual computer control component able to cause the plurality of physical CPUs to execute overhead processing required by plurality of virtual computers. Virtual computer control component configured to: (A) upon causing the physical CPU, in which processing of the virtual computer is in a running state, to execute overhead processing, measure a run time used by the physical CPU to manage a cumulative run time, for each of the physical CPUs; and (B) upon causing the overhead processing to be executed subsequent to the (A), select a physical CPU in which the cumulative run time is smallest as the physical CPU to execute the overhead processing. |
| US09189291B2 |
Sharing a kernel of an operating system among logical partitions
Sharing a kernel of an operating system among logical partitions, including installing in a partition manager a kernel of a type used by a plurality of logical partitions; installing in the partition manager generic data structures specifying computer resources assigned to each of the plurality of logical partitions; and providing, by the kernel to the logical partitions, kernel services in dependence upon the generic data structures. |
| US09189283B2 |
Task launching on hardware resource for client
A system includes a client management component, a monitor component, and a hardware resource component, each of which is implemented in hardware. The client management component chooses a selected client from one or more clients for which a given task is to be fulfilled by a selected hardware resource of one or more hardware resources. The monitor component receives the given task and an identifier of the selected client from the client management component and monitors completion of the given task for the selected client by the selected hardware resource. The hardware resource management receives the given task from the monitor component, chooses the selected hardware resource that is to fulfill the given task, and launches the given task on the selected hardware resource. |
| US09189282B2 |
Thread-to-core mapping based on thread deadline, thread demand, and hardware characteristics data collected by a performance counter
Techniques for thread mapping in multi-core processors are disclosed. An example computing system is disclosed having a multi-core processor with a plurality of processor cores. A performance counter may be configured to collect data relating to the performance of the multi-core processor. A core controller may be configured to map threads of execution to the processor cores based at least in part on the data collected by the performance counter. |
| US09189281B2 |
Apparatus, system and method for providing fairness in task servicing
A storage system that is configured to fairly service requests from different host systems particularly in congested situations. To balance the processing of tasks between different clients, the system sorts tasks received from different clients into task lists. In particular, the system sorts the incoming tasks based on the ITL (Initiator, Target, LU) nexus information associated with each task. In some instances, a new task list is created for each ITL nexus. The sorting of tasks may provide for a more even distribution of tasks and thus a more fair processing of tasks. More specifically, because tasks from each list are processed in round-robin fashion, tasks arriving from even the slowest clients are given a substantially equal chance of being processed as the tasks arriving from the faster clients. |
| US09189276B2 |
Background collective operation management in a parallel computer
Background collective operation management in a parallel computer, the parallel computer including one or more compute nodes operatively coupled for data communications over one or more data communications networks, including: determining, by a management availability module, whether a compute node in the parallel computer is available to perform a background collective operation management task; responsive to determining that the compute node is available to perform the background collective operation management task, determining, by the management availability module, whether the compute node has access to sufficient resources to perform the background collective operation management task; and responsive to determining that the compute node has access to sufficient resources to perform the background collective operation management task, initiating, by the management availability module, execution of the background collective operation management task. |
| US09189271B2 |
Operation transfer from an origin virtual machine to a destination virtual machine while continue the execution of the operation on the origin virtual machine
Technologies and implementations for transferring operation from an origin virtual machine to a destination virtual machine while the origin virtual machine continues to execute an origin executable are generally disclosed. |
| US09189263B1 |
Object synchronization in shared object space
A shared object space in a computer system provides synchronized access to data objects accessible to a plurality of concurrently running applications in the computer system. The shared object space is allocated a portion of memory of the computer system and concurrently running applications are able to connect to the shared object space. The shared object space restricts simultaneous access to data objects by the concurrently running applications by associating locks with the data objects. |
| US09189261B2 |
Saving, transferring and recreating GPU context information across heterogeneous GPUs during hot migration of a virtual machine
A system and method are disclosed for recreating graphics processing unit (GPU) state information associated with a migrated virtual machine (VM). A VM running on a first VM host coupled to a first graphics device, comprising a first GPU, is migrated to a second VM host coupled to a second graphics device, in turn comprising a second GPU. A context module coupled to the first GPU reads its GPU state information in its native GPU state representation format and then converts the GPU state information into an intermediary GPU state representation format. The GPU state information is conveyed in the intermediary GPU state representation format to the second VM host, where it is received by a context module coupled to the second GPU. The context module converts the GPU state information related to the first GPU from the intermediary GPU state representation format to the native GPU state representation format of the second GPU. Once converted, the GPU state information of the first GPU is restored to the second GPU in its native GPU state representation format. |
| US09189254B2 |
Translating text to, merging, and optimizing graphical user interface tasks
A system and method that enables a plurality of lay users to collaborate on automating computer tasks is disclosed. In one embodiment, the system automatically performs these tasks, rather than just documenting how to perform them. The system allows a database of solutions to be built for every important computer task. A key characteristic of this system is that users contribute to this database by simply performing the task. The system records the graphical user interface (GUI) actions as the user performs the task. It aggregates GUI traces from multiple users into a canonical sequence of GUI actions parameterized by user-environment that will successfully accomplish the task on a variety of different configurations. A classifier is used to predict which steps are likely to be misinterpreted and requests human intervention to properly perform them. This process can be done iteratively until the translation is believed to be correct. |
| US09189246B2 |
Method and apparatus to support separate operating systems in partitions of a processing system
A processing system with multiple processing units may support separate operating systems (OSs) in separate partitions. During an initialization process, a preboot manager in the processing system may copy software to a sequestered area of memory in the processing system. The preboot manager may also configure the processing system to hide the sequestered area of memory from a first partition of the processing system. Also, the preboot manager may use a first processing unit in the processing system to boot an OS on the first partition, and the preboot manager may transmit a boot trigger from the first processing unit to a second processing unit in the processing system. The boot trigger may cause the second processing unit to use the software in the sequestered area of memory to boot a second partition of the processing system. Other embodiments are described and claimed. |
| US09189245B2 |
Motherboard in a server
A server comprises a first motherboard module. The first motherboard module comprises a first motherboard, a first CPU, at least one first memory module, a chipset, input/output units, a BIOS unit and a first QPI connector. The first CPU is disposed on the first motherboard. The first memory module electrically couples with the first CPU. The chipset electrically couples with the first CPU. The input/output units electrically couple with the chipset. The BIOS unit electrically couples with the chipset. The first QPI connector electrically couples with the first CPU through a QPI bus. The first QPI connector is connected to a second motherboard module. |
| US09189244B2 |
Methods and systems for managing data service specifications
Development of network-based computing resources can be enhanced through the use of methods and systems that allow for controlled editing of specification data used in an automated build process in a user-friendly way. Particularly, one or more software tools can be used to allow editing of application programming interfaces (API) specification data such as Web Application Description Language (WADL) or Web Service Description Language (WSDL) and/or to allow editing of elements used to generate software development kit (SDK) documentation relied upon by an automatic build system. For example, a first interface may be configured for editing parameter values and parameter types related to functionality of the API while a second interface may restrict use to editing descriptive aspects of the API such as the SDK. |
| US09189243B2 |
Efficient rollback and retry of conflicted speculative threads with hardware support
A method for rolling back speculative threads in symmetric-multiprocessing (SMP) environments is disclosed. In one embodiment, such a method includes detecting an aborted thread at runtime and determining whether the aborted thread is an oldest aborted thread. In the event the aborted thread is the oldest aborted thread, the method sets a high-priority request for allocation to an absolute thread number associated with the oldest aborted thread. The method further detects that the high-priority request is set and, in response, clears the high-priority request and sets an allocation token to the absolute thread number associated with the oldest aborted thread, thereby allowing the oldest aborted thread to retry a work unit associated with the absolute thread number. A corresponding apparatus and computer program product are also disclosed. |
| US09189241B2 |
Method and apparatus for scheduling the issue of instructions in a multithreaded microprocessor
A method is provided for dynamically determining which instructions from a plurality of available instructions to issue in each clock cycle in a multithreaded processor capable of issuing a plurality of instructions in each clock cycle. The method includes the steps of: determining a highest priority instruction from the plurality of available instructions; determining the compatibility of the highest priority instruction with each of the remaining available instructions; and issuing the highest priority instruction together with other instructions compatible with the highest priority instruction in the same clock cycle. The highest priority instruction cannot be a speculative instruction. The effect of this method is that speculative instructions are only ever issued together with at least one non-speculative instruction. |
| US09189240B2 |
Split-word memory
Method, process, and apparatus to efficiently store, read, and/or process syllables of word data. A portion of a data word, which includes multiple syllables, may be read by a computer processor. The processor may read a first syllable of the data word from a first memory. The processor may read a second syllable of the data word from a second portion of memory. The second syllable may include bits which are less critical than the bits of the first syllable. The second memory may be distinct from the first memory based on one or more physical attributes. |
| US09189238B2 |
Bitstream buffer manipulation with a SIMD merge instruction
Method, apparatus, and program means for performing bitstream buffer manipulation with a SIMD merge instruction. The method of one embodiment comprises determining whether any unprocessed data bits for a partial variable length symbol exist in a first data block is made. A shift merge operation is performed to merge the unprocessed data bits from the first data block with a second data block. A merged data block is formed. A merged variable length symbol comprised of the unprocessed data bits and a plurality of data bits from the second data block is extracted from the merged data block. |
| US09189233B2 |
Systems, apparatuses, and methods for a hardware and software system to automatically decompose a program to multiple parallel threads
Systems, apparatuses, and methods for a hardware and software system to automatically decompose a program into multiple parallel threads are described. For example, a method according to one embodiment comprises: analyzing a single-threaded region of executing program code, the analysis including identifying dependencies within the single-threaded region; determining portions of the single-threaded region of executing program code which may be executed in parallel based on the analysis; assigning the portions to two or more parallel execution tracks; and executing the portions in parallel across the assigned execution tracks. |
| US09189232B2 |
RISC processor and its register flag bit processing method
The present invention discloses a RISC processor and a method of processing flag bits of a register in the RISC processor. Said RISC processor comprises a physical register stack, an operating component connected to the physical register stack and an decoder connected to the operating component; the physical register stack comprises an emulation flag register for emulating to realize flag bits of a flag register in a CISC processor; the operating component comprises a flag read-write module for reading and writing the values of the flag bits of the emulation flag register. The operating component further comprises an operating controller for performing an operation control according to the values of the flag bits of the emulation flag register when the RISC processor is in the working mode of X86 virtual machine during an operation process. |
| US09189229B2 |
Self-diagnosing processes using quick response codes
Method for diagnosing consistency of a software cluster utilizing a machine parsable code includes a deployment manager configured to function as a master node of the software cluster, a plurality of nodes connected to the deployment manager, and an electronic device or devices registered with the deployment manager. The deployment manager can be configured to generate a master quick response code and each of the plurality of nodes can be configured to generate a node quick response code. The electronic device(s) may be associated with a system administrator and may also be installed with application software. Embodiments may allow the system administrator to encode, manage and analyze diagnostic information of the nodes in the software cluster utilizing the master quick response code and the node quick response code in an efficient manner. |
| US09189221B2 |
Consistent operating system servicing for distributed nodes
Methods, systems, and computer-readable media for deploying an updated image to nodes propagated throughout a distributed computing platform are provided. Upon receiving an indication to install a patch to an operating system residing on the nodes, an existing image of the operating system is accessed at a staging service. The staging service generates the updated image by applying the patch to the existing image. The process of applying the patch includes mounting the existing image of the operating system to a virtual machine, copying the patch to the mounted existing image, setting a command within the existing image that executes upon activating the virtual machine, and activating the virtual machine, thereby executing the command. This directs the patch to be installed. The updated image is pushed to the nodes. The nodes are configured to utilize the updated image as the operating system without performing an individual installation of the patch. |
| US09189219B2 |
Deciding whether to install a first application within one of a plurality of candidate environments
A mechanism is provided for deciding whether to install a first application within one of a plurality of candidate environments. An environment comprising one or more other applications. The first application and a candidate environment are analyzed to determine whether there is the potential for the first application to interact in an unintended manner with an application in the candidate environment. If there is no such potential, then the environment is identified as a suitable environment into which to install the first application. An unintended interaction is when a rule would be broken by an interaction between the first application and an application in the candidate environment. |
| US09189216B2 |
Power consumption design-optimization of a communication device software program
A calculation unit performs statistical analysis of functions used in a software program under development. From the result of this statistical analysis, the calculation unit calculates indicators of possibility that executing a plurality of functions in combination improves power consumption, relative to the case of executing these functions separately, thus producing a table that associates combinations of functions with such indicators. The produced table is stored in a storage unit. A searching unit searches source code of the software program under development to find a source code portion that includes one of the combinations of functions in the stored table. A displaying unit displays the found source code portion in a manner distinguishable from other portions of the source code. |
| US09189215B1 |
Convergence analysis of program variables
System and method for convergence analysis. One or more state variables of a first program may be determined based on dependencies of variables in a first program. A second program corresponding to the first program is created based on the state variables and their dependencies, and executed multiple times. Each execution may include recording values of the state variables, determining an execution count, comparing the values to corresponding values from previous executions of the second program, and terminating the executing in response to the values matching corresponding values from at least one previous execution of the second program. A convergence property for the first program is determined based on the execution count, and indicating a number of executions of the first program required to generate all possible values of the one or more variables. The convergence property is stored, and may be useable to optimize the first program. |
| US09189208B2 |
Inline display and preview of related information for elements in a document
Disclosed herein is a system and method for optimizing a developer's ability to find and navigate relevant documents, relationships, and other information related to an identifier in the code they are developing. An inline viewport is presented to the user in response to the user selecting an identifier in the code whereby the user is able to see relevant information related to the identifier in a spatially consistent location with the code they are investigating. Further, the developer has the ability to make changes to the code in the viewport without leaving the current editor. |
| US09189202B2 |
Generate random numbers using metastability resolution time
A mechanism is provided for a circuit for generation of a random output. A bistable circuit has two stable states as an output and a clock signal as an input. The bistable circuit includes a first logic circuit and a second logic circuit cross-coupled connected together, which transition into a metastable state before resolving to the two stable states. The second logic circuit resolves to a stable state at a resolution time. A digitization circuit is configured to generate random bits corresponding to a variance of the resolution time of the second logic circuit resolving from the metastable state to the stable state for cycles of the clock signal. The resolution time randomly varies according to noise. An actual value of the stable state is eliminated as factor in generating the random bits. |
| US09189193B2 |
Mobile terminal and controlling method thereof for editing second gallery image using editing information used for printing first gallery image
A mobile terminal and controlling method thereof are disclosed. The present invention includes a user interface unit configured to receive a user input and a user action, a controller configured to generate a first gallery including a first image saved in the mobile terminal included in a first application and generate a second gallery in response to the user input or the user action by linking the first application to a second application based on printing information on the image, the controller controlling an image printing by controlling a connection to a printable device, an output unit configured to output a second image of the generated second gallery, and a transmitting unit configured to transmit a signal including the outputted second image and a request for printing the second image to the connected printable device. |
| US09189190B2 |
Print system, printing method, and non-transitory computer-readable recording medium stored with print program
A print system including a first printing apparatus subjected to color setting using a color sample, a second printing apparatus not subjected to color setting using a color sample, and a server computer generating a printing setting. The printing setting is used to cause the first printing apparatus to execute printing of a number of copies assigned to the first printing apparatus and proxy printing of a page that includes an object that requires strict color accuracy and is included in a number of copies assigned to the second printing apparatus, cause the second printing apparatus to execute printing of the number of copies assigned to the second printing apparatus except for the printing of the page, and merging the proxy printed page into the paper printed in the second printing apparatus. |
| US09189187B2 |
Service providing system and service providing method for providing a service to a service usage device connected via a network
A service providing system includes an information processing device and provides a service to a service usage device connected via a network. The service providing system includes a storage unit for storing management information, in which service identification information, user identification information, and service usage device identification information are associated; an authentication unit for performing authentication, by using authentication information of the user or the device acquired from the service usage device; a service specification unit for specifying the service associated with the authentication information, based on the authenticated authentication information and the management information; and an execution unit configured to execute a process according to a usage request to use the service, when the usage request specified by the service specification unit is acquired, and to execute control of output, based on contents of an output request from the service usage device instructed by the user. |
| US09189185B2 |
Data management system, data management method, and data management apparatus
A data management system, which is implemented by one or more information processing apparatuses, includes a program storage unit that stores an operation management program, a generating unit that embeds the operation management program in first data and thereby generates second data including the operation management program. When an operation is performed on the second data at an external apparatus, the operation management program sends operation information indicating the operation from the external apparatus to the data management system. |
| US09189181B2 |
Information processing apparatus, method, and computer program product comparing number of color conversions considering object attributes
An information processing apparatus calculates a number of times of color conversion performed for an object included in an original document data as a first number of color conversions as the; generates tag bits including attribute information for each pixel of raster data and calculates a number of pixels that are included in the raster data and that have an object attribute indicated by the tag bits as a second number of color conversions; compares, when generating new raster data with color adjustment performed for the original document data, the first number of color conversions with the second number of color conversions; performs color conversion either for the original document data when the first number of color conversions is smaller than the second number, or for the generated new raster data when the second number of color conversions is smaller than the first number. |
| US09189174B2 |
Nonvolatile memory device and method of operating the same
Provided are a nonvolatile memory device and a method for operating the nonvolatile memory device. The method for operating the nonvolatile memory device includes generating a first program voltage, applying the generated first program voltage to a first word line to which a first memory cell is connected for performing a first program operation on the first memory cell, determining whether a number of pulses of a pumping clock signal for generating the first program voltage is greater than or equal to a predetermined critical value n (where n is a natural number), and stopping the performing of the first program operation on the first memory cell when the number of pulses of the pumping clock signal is determined to be greater than or equal to the predetermined critical value n. |
| US09189169B2 |
Common contiguous memory region optimized virtual machine migration within a workgroup
Embodiments of the invention relate to scanning, by a first processor in a work group, a memory associated with the first processor for data. The first processor updates a first data structure to include at least a portion of the data based on the scanning. The first processor transmits a representation of the first data structure to one or more peer processors of the first processor included in the work group using a dedicated link. The first processor receives a representation of a second data structure associated with at least one of the one or more peer processors of the first processor. The first processor updates the first data structure based on the received representation of the second data structure. |
| US09189167B2 |
Shared library in a data storage system
The library server according to certain aspects can manage the use of tape drives according to the data requirements of different storage operation cells. The library server according to certain aspects can also facilitate automatic management of tape media in a tape library by allocating the tapes and slots to different cells. For instance, the library server can manage the positioning and placement of the tapes into appropriate slots within the tape library. |
| US09189166B2 |
Multi-host SATA controller
Described herein is a system having a multi-host SATA controller (102) configured to provide communication and control between two or more independent host processors (104) and a single SATA device (108). In one implementation, the multi-host SATA controller (102) includes the device switching layer (206), the device control layer (208), the link layer (210), and the physical layer (212). The device switching layer (206) allows the host processors (104) to issue commands concurrently rather than in sequential order. For this, the device switching layer (206) has independent set of host device registers (214) corresponding to each of the host processors (104). The device switching layer (206) also has independent DMA engines (216) to perform a command pre-fetching from respective host system memories (105). Further, a command switch engine (220) may arbitrate commands in case both the host processors (104) wish to access the SATA device (108) simultaneously. |
| US09189158B2 |
Methods, devices and systems for entering textual representations of words into a computing device by processing user physical and verbal interactions with the computing device
Example embodiments relate to processing user interactions with a computing device, comprising receiving a user-initiated action performed on a character button, the character button representing a character, determining whether the user-initiated action is performed in a normal or abnormal operating manner. When a normal operating manner is determined, displaying the character on a graphical display. When an abnormal operating manner is determined: identifying a previously entered character preceding the character, activating a microphone and receiving, by the microphone, a spoken word, searching a subset of a database for a textual form of the received spoken word, the subset based on one or more of the character and the previously entered character, and displaying a correct textual form of the spoken word on a graphical display by amending one or more of the character and the previously entered character when one or more of the character and the previously entered character is inconsistent with the textual form of the spoken word found in the searching. |
| US09189150B2 |
Information processing device, information processing method, and computer-readable medium that determine an area of a display screen to which an input operation belongs
An information processing device includes an input operation function identification unit configured to identify an input operation and a function performed on a display screen including at least two areas; an area determination unit configured to determine an area among the at least two areas of the display screen to which the input operation belongs; a function process unit configured to execute a process of the function corresponding to the input operation, with respect to the area determined by the area determination unit; and a display output unit configured to display, on the display screen, a result obtained by the process executed by the function process unit. |
| US09189147B2 |
Ink lag compensation techniques
Ink lag compensation techniques are described. In implementations, an input is recognized by a computing device as an ink stroke to be rendered on a display device of the computing device. An extension is predicted, by the computing device, to be applied to the ink stroke that is likely to be subsequently input in conjunction with the ink stroke. The ink stroke and the extension are output for concurrent display on the display device of the computing device. |
| US09189144B2 |
Multi-touch gesture-based interface for network design and management
Methods, computing devices, and computer-readable media are provided for interpreting gestures and triggering actions on a graph when the gestures are detected. The triggered actions may include the addition or deletion of nodes, connections between nodes, or connections between node ports; the expansion or collapse of a set of nodes; or the copying of nodes. The input may describe an action of selecting, dragging, holding, flicking, shaking, pinching, unpinching, or spinning a graphical object such as a node or a connection. Gesture interpretation logic determines whether the input matches a stored or known gesture. If the input matches a gesture, then the gesture interpretation logic may perform an action mapped to the gesture instead of or in addition to the normal action that would otherwise be caused by each individual input. |
| US09189139B2 |
Likelihood-based personalized navigation system and method
A system may be configured to provide a user interface on a mobile device for a social network having a plurality of functions. The system may include a display, configured to display a representation of each of a subset of the plurality of functions, wherein each function of the subset is implementable upon selection of a representation corresponding to the function by a user and a processor, configured to dynamically generate the subset of the plurality of functions based, at least in part, on a likelihood for each of the functions that the user will select a corresponding representation. The display may be configured to display the subset as dynamically generated. |
| US09189136B2 |
Information processing apparatus and information processing method
An information processing apparatus, comprising: a storage unit that records predetermined information about a first user and a second user registered by the first user; a data control unit that generates a video signal that displays objects corresponding to the first user and the second user in a two-dimensional display screen at a distance calculated based on the predetermined information; and a display control unit that displays the video signal in the two-dimensional display screen. |
| US09189135B2 |
Three-dimensional GUI object stores in automation test tools
A method for storing graphical user interface (GUI) object properties includes: storing GUI object properties for each GUI object for a starting version of an application in an object map; associating the stored GUI object properties for each GUI object with a starting version identifier; determining that at least one of the GUI objects is changed; in response to determining that the at least one GUI object is changed, storing modifications of the GUI object properties for the at least one GUI object in the object map; and associating the modifications of the GUI object properties for the at least one GUI object with a new version identifier of the application. Over time, the object map contains multiple variants of the GUI objects. An automation test tool may use this object map to intelligently select appropriate GUI object version for recognition at script run time. |
| US09189133B2 |
Method and apparatus for dynamically resizing windows
The present invention provides a method for resizing windows and an apparatus for resizing windows. The method, in one embodiment, involves selecting a seam bordering a window, building a list of windows, and resizing more than one window in response to a single seam movement by a user. The apparatus, in one embodiment, is a computer readable medium comprising a computer program for resizing windows. |
| US09189131B2 |
Context menus
Provided is a method of displaying a context menu. A triggering event related to selection of an object on a computing device is recognized. A direction observed during the selection of the object is recognized. A context menu based on the direction observed during the selection of the object is displayed. |
| US09189127B2 |
Apparatus and method of user-based mobile terminal display control using grip sensor
User-based control over the operation of a mobile terminal is provided in response to detecting a user's touched position on one or more grip sensors in the mobile terminal. At least one icon set by the user to be displayed in response to detection of at least a predetermined amount of pressure on an actuated grip sensor is displayed depending on the detected touch position. |
| US09189126B2 |
Virtual world teleportation
The present invention is directed to teleporting avatars between disparate virtual worlds. A system is disclosed that includes a facility for creating a persona profile for an avatar in a first virtual world when the avatar wants to be teleported out of the first virtual world; a facility for transferring persona profiles to and from a disparate virtual world; and a facility for instantiating an inbound avatar based on a received persona profile. Persona profiles may include, e.g., rendering information, trait information, and inventory information. |
| US09189118B2 |
Linear system coefficient estimation method, integrated circuit employing same, touch panel system, and electronic apparatus
A noise removing section (101) is provided which removes noise superimposed on each of N linear sum signals of target coefficients by filtering the N linear sum signals. An estimating section (105) estimates values of the M target coefficients by calculating an inner product of (i) signals which vary in accordance with the N linear sum signals from each of which the noise has been removed and (ii) N M-dimensional vectors. |
| US09189114B2 |
Face detection with transcapacitive sensing
A processing system configured to detect large objects includes a sensor module with sensor circuitry coupled to transmitter electrodes and receiver electrodes, and configured to transmit transmitter signals with the transmitter electrode and receive resulting signals with the receiver electrodes, the resulting signals including effects corresponding to transmitter signals. The processing system further includes a determination module configured to determine a transition condition is present using a capacitive image, based on the resulting signals, having capacitive pixel values, and operate in large object mode based on the transition condition being present. |
| US09189113B2 |
Capacitive touch panel sensor synchronized with display driving operation and touch panel display device having the same
A capacitive touch panel sensor includes a plurality of driving-lines in a first direction, a plurality of sensing-lines in a second direction, a scan signal generator configured to generate a scan signal corresponding to at least one scan pulse, and to output the scan signal to the driving-lines, and a capacitance detector configured to receive a capacitance sensing signal output from the sensing-lines, and to detect a touched location based on the capacitance sensing signal, wherein the scan signal generator is configured to output the scan signal during first noise avoidance time periods, each first noise avoidance time period being in a respective horizontal time period of a display driving operation, and wherein the capacitance detector is configured to receive the capacitance sensing signal during the first noise avoidance time periods. |
| US09189105B2 |
Touch sensor
Disclosed herein is a touch sensor, including: a window; a transparent substrate having a first electrode part formed on one surface thereof; and a first adhesive layer allowing the window and one surface of the transparent substrate to adhere to each other, wherein a first protrusion part is formed on an edge of one surface of the transparent substrate. |
| US09189104B2 |
Electronic apparatus
A control unit causes a first display and a first vibration when a finger has continued to exist in a first X-Y region of a touch panel and a first Z region for a prescribed time. When the finger being in a second X-Y region of the touch panel enters a second Z region from the first Z region, the control unit activates a prescribed function and causes a second display and a second vibration. When the finger being in the second X-Y region enters the second Z region before the finger continues to exist in the first Z region for the prescribed time, the control unit causes only a third display and a third vibration without activating the prescribed function. |
| US09189101B2 |
Mobile terminal and control method thereof
The present invention relates a mobile terminal capable of controlling contents displayed on a display unit, and a control method thereof. A mobile terminal according to one exemplary embodiment includes a terminal body, a transparent display unit having first and second transparent substrates both configured to sense touch inputs, a sensing unit to sense at least one of motion and rotation of the terminal body, and a controller to determine whether or not the sensed at least one of the motion and the rotation of the terminal body meets a preset condition information when an event is generated while a content is output on the first transparent substrate, and decide whether or not to display information relating to the generated event on the second transparent substrate based on the determination result. |
| US09189100B2 |
Touch screen panel with integrated touch and data drivers
A touch screen panel is disclosed. The touch screen panel includes a pixel unit, a touch sensing unit, and a data driver configured to provide data voltages to the pixel unit and to provide driving signals to the touch sensing unit. |
| US09189097B2 |
Display device with integrated in-cell touch screen and method of driving the same
Discussed is a display device with integrated touch screen including a panel including a plurality of electrodes; a data driver for converting RGB data inputted from a timing controller into a data voltage, and supplying the data voltage to data lines; a gate driver for sequentially supplying a gate signal to gate lines so as to apply the data voltage to pixels of the panel during a high logic period of a horizontal sync signal; and a touch IC for supplying the touch scan signal to the plurality of electrodes every low logic period of the horizontal sync signal, wherein the touch IC applies the touch scan signal, at least once, to each of the electrodes during one frame. |
| US09189091B2 |
Assignment of control of peripherals of a computing device
Techniques for enabling software-assisted assignment of control of peripherals (e.g., assigning ownership of or assigning access to the peripherals) by a computing device. In accordance with techniques described herein, assignment of control of peripherals is aided by input from software facilities that instruct a peripheral management facility regarding assignment of peripherals. Software facilities may instruct the peripheral management facility in different ways. In some cases, a software facility may instruct the peripheral management facility how to assign control of a peripheral in a particular way, while in other cases a software facility may instruct the peripheral management facility how to assign control of a group of peripherals. In other cases, a software facility may not instruct a peripheral management facility how to assign control of peripherals, but may identify one or more groups of peripherals for which control should be assigned as a group. |
| US09189088B2 |
Electronic device and touch operating method thereof
An electronic device and a touch operating method thereof are provided. The electronic device includes a touch screen, a storage unit and at least one processing unit, and the touch operating method includes following steps. A touch object above the touch screen is detected by using the touch screen, and a distance between the touch object and the touch screen is estimated. A relative angle of a pointing direction of the touch object with respect to a normal direction of the touch screen is detected. According to the distance and the relative angle, a function is performed on an object displayed by the touch screen. |
| US09189082B2 |
Enhanced handheld screen-sensing pointer
Enhanced handheld screen-sensing pointing, in which a handheld device captures a camera image of one or more fiducials rendered by a display device, and a position or an angle of the one or more fiducials in the captured camera image is determined. A position on the display device that the handheld device is aimed towards is determined based at least on the determined position or angle of the one or more fiducials in the camera image, and an application is controlled based on the determined position on the display device. |
| US09189079B2 |
Method, system, and graphical user interface for providing word recommendations
One aspect of the invention involves a method that includes: in a first area of the touch screen, displaying a current character string being input by a user with the keyboard; in a second area of the touch screen, displaying the current character string or a portion thereof and a suggested replacement for the current character string; replacing the current character string in the first area with the suggested replacement if the user activates a delimiter key on the keyboard; replacing the current character string in the first area with the suggested replacement if the user performs a first gesture on the suggested replacement displayed in the second area; and keeping the current character string in the first area if the user performs a second gesture on the current character string or the portion thereof displayed in the second area. |
| US09189078B2 |
Enhancing keycap legend visibility with optical components
Techniques and apparatus to provide improved visibility to user input devices, such as keys, are disclosed. In low light conditions, key legends can be difficult to distinguish. For example, often keys have legends on them to visually distinguish them from one another, but in low light conditions it can be difficult for users to visually identify the different keys. The legends can be textual and/or graphic. Hence, according to one embodiment, light from a nearby (e.g., attached) display device can be used to provide illumination to the user input devices (e.g., keys). The user input devices can be configured to include reflective optical components to enhance reflection of light and thereby improve visibility of the keys or the legends thereon. |
| US09189074B2 |
Optical sensor system
An optical sensor system is disclosed. The optical sensor system comprises a panel and a sensing unit. The panel comprises a plurality of transparent areas. The sensing unit locates at one side of the panel and the sensing unit senses a plurality of first light signals reflected by an object and senses a plurality second light signals of an ambient light. The reflected first light signals and the second light signals pass through one of the plurality of transparent areas of the panel. The sensing unit further comprises a light sensor and a plurality of gesture sensors. The light sensor locates at the center of the sensing unit, and the light sensor senses the second light signals. The plurality of gesture sensors surrounds the light sensor, and the gesture sensors senses the reflected first light signals and then produce gesture signals corresponding to motions of the object. |
| US09189068B2 |
Apparatus and a method for gesture recognition
The present invention relates to a method for gesture recognition and an apparatus for gesture recognition carrying out the method. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method for gesture recognition recognizing a finger gesture by using depth information and an apparatus for gesture recognition carrying out the method. |
| US09189066B2 |
Touch panel and electronic device including the same
A touch panel and an electronic device having the same are provided. The touch panel includes a first substrate; a second substrate that is spaced apart from the first substrate by a gap, the second substrate including a touch surface; an array of driving electrode pairs that is arranged on the first substrate and the second substrate, and induces an electrical field locally between the first substrate and the second substrate when a driving voltage is applied thereto; and electro-rheological fluid that is filled in the gap between the first substrate and the second substrate, a viscosity of the electro-rheological fluid changing depending on the electrical field induced by the driving electrode pairs. An operating force or a return force is adjusted by controlling an application or release of the driving voltage. |
| US09189061B2 |
Apparatus and method for processing split view in portable device
An apparatus and a method for processing a split view in a portable device. The method of processing a split view in a portable device, includes: displaying a plurality of applications as a split view corresponding to split display regions of a display unit; displaying an input panel on a display region of an application of the plurality of applications that did not call for the input panel when the input panel is called; and processing data input through the input panel by an application calling the input panel. |
| US09189060B2 |
Method of controlling information processing apparatus and information processing apparatus
A method of controlling an information processing apparatus causes contents in a first terminal to be shared with a second terminal. The method includes receiving sharing information for sharing the content from the second terminal, sending, by a processor, an acquisition request of the contents to the first terminal on a basis of the sharing information, acquiring the contents from the first terminal after the sending an acquisition request, and transmitting acquisition completion notification to the second terminal after the acquiring the contents. |
| US09189057B2 |
Adaptive real-time power and performance optimization of multi-core processors
An apparatus, method, and program product for optimizing core performance and power in a multi-core processor. The apparatus includes a multi-core processor coupled to a clock source providing a clock frequency to one or more cores, an independent power supply coupled to each core for providing a supply voltage to each core and a Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) circuit coupled to each core for dynamically adjusting the clock frequency provided to each core. The apparatus further includes a controller coupled to each core and being configured to collect performance data and power consumption data measured for each core and to adjust, using the PLL circuit, a supply voltage provided to a core, such that, the operational core frequency of the core is greater than a specification core frequency preset for the core and, such that, core performance and power consumption is optimized. |
| US09189056B2 |
Mixed cell type battery module and uses thereof
Various embodiments are generally directed to operation of a computing device powered with first and second sets of energy storage cells, the cells of the first set structurally optimized for higher density storage of electric power, and the cells of the second set structurally optimized for providing electric power at a high electric current level. A battery module includes a casing, a first cell disposed within the casing to store electric energy with a high density, and a second cell disposed within the casing to provide electric energy stored therein with a high current level. Other embodiments are described and claimed herein. |
| US09189055B2 |
Method for performing power consumption management, and associated apparatus
A method and an apparatus for performing power consumption management are provided, where the method is applied to an electronic device. The method includes: obtaining current information corresponding to an application from a database, the current information being of at least one current on at least one current path between a battery and at least one portion of the electronic device; and performing battery drain prediction corresponding to the application according to the current information. The method may further include: performing sampling operations to generate a plurality of samples of the current, and more particularly, utilizing an ADC to perform analog-to-digital conversion on a voltage difference corresponding to the current to generate the plurality of samples. The voltage difference can be obtained by probing two terminals of a resistor or a Hall component. |
| US09189054B2 |
Electronic apparatus that controls switching to energy-saving mode
Provided is an electronic apparatus including: a network interface configured to receive data via a network; a communication processing unit configured to notify of a network communication type and a network communication amount of the received data; and an operation mode control unit configured to switch an operation mode from a normal mode to an energy-saving mode when a network communication does not occur in the network interface before a waiting time based on the network communication amount for each network communication type notified of from the communication processing unit has elapsed. |
| US09189053B2 |
Performance based power management of a memory and a data storage system using the memory
Power control circuitry for a data processor supplies a memory array with a supply voltage corresponding to a memory performance level. The performance levels include a full performance level and a power-saving performance level. Voltage sensing circuitry senses a voltage level of the memory array and outputs a power status signal. The power status signal is used to determine when the memory array is awake and can be accessed. |
| US09189049B2 |
Power management in a device
Implementations of power management in a device are described. The device includes a power driver configured to manage power supply to one or more components in system-on-chip (SOC) hardware. The device further includes power subsystems configured as drivers for controlling the components of the SOC hardware and a user interface configured to receive a selected power mode as an input and identify profiles of one or more applications being executed in the device. Based on the selected power mode, the power driver directs the power subsystems to change a mode of operation of at least one component determined from the profiles of the one or more applications being executed. |
| US09189047B2 |
Organizing databases for energy efficiency
Embodiments of the invention provide techniques for optimizing database queries for energy efficiency. In general, a query optimizer is configured to compare energy requirements of query plans, and to select a query plan requiring minimal energy to execute. In one embodiment, the query optimizer may also compare time performance of the query plans, and may select a query plan by matching to a user preference for a relative priority between energy requirements and time performance. |
| US09189044B2 |
Motion sensing apparatus and mobile terminal
A motion sensing apparatus provided. The apparatus includes a sensing module and a processing module, wherein the sensing module includes at least two outputs, the processing module includes at least two signal ports, each signal port of the processing module is connected with one of the outputs of the sensing module respectively, and the sensing module outputs sensing signals from different outputs according to sensed different motions, and the processing module performs corresponding processes according to the sensing signals received from different signal ports. The apparatus simplifies a hardware circuit to some extent, saves the cost, and reduces the consumption of electric energy. |
| US09189041B2 |
Method and apparatus for controlling terminal power
The present invention provides a method and an apparatus for controlling terminal power. The method includes the following steps of: determining whether a power control level set in the terminal is reached or not when controlling the terminal power; if yes, then adjusting a power of the power control level based on a calibration parameter configured in the terminal within a rated output power range corresponding to the power control level; wherein the calibration parameter is 1 dBm; controlling an output power of the terminal according to the adjusted power. The present invention can further perform an accurate terminal power control for reducing power consumption, conserving resources, and increasing system capacity based on a compatibility with conventional power control. |
| US09189038B2 |
Cooling fan suspension vibration filter
An information handling system cooling fan has a vibration filter that tunes out predetermined fan vibration frequencies to reduce fan vibration transfer from the cooling fan to an information handling system chassis in a targeted frequency range. For example, a leaf spring and damper are biased between the cooling fan and a fan bay support so that stiffness of the spring attenuates selected vibration frequency ranges of the cooling fan bay subsystem, such as frequency ranges where the vibrations have the greatest amplitude or frequency ranges where the vibrations tend to damage other components of the information handling system. |
| US09189034B2 |
Electronic device
An electronic device includes a casing to accommodate a display panel having front and back surfaces, a portion of the display surface being an effective display area; an antenna, disposed in back of a closed area of the effective display area, oriented to exhibit a directivity from the back of the effective display area toward the front surface, and to perform near field communication with an external terminal in a non-contact manner when the external terminal is close to the display panel; a scanner, disposed in the back of the effective display area, having a digitizer scanning film for accepting an input of a digitizer pen, to detect a position of the digitizer pen on the front surface of the display panel; and a shielding plate disposed in back of the scanner and the antenna such that the antenna is disposed between the digitizer scanning film and the shielding plate. |
| US09189029B2 |
Information processing unit
An information processing unit of the present invention includes a display panel capable of displaying a video image; and a casing having a rear face panel that covers at least a back side of the display panel, the back side being opposite to a display face of the display panel. In the information processing unit, the rear face panel has an opposed face opposed to the display panel, and the opposed face includes a wall-thinned portion having a small thickness, and a wall-thickened portion that is a part of the wall-thinned portion having a thickness increased in a direction toward the display panel, and the wall-thickened portion is formed continuously from one side to an opposite side of the opposed face, the one side and the opposite side forming a perimeter of the opposed face and being opposite to each other. |
| US09189027B2 |
Foldable display device
A foldable display device is disclosed. In one aspect, the foldable display device includes a display panel and a window panel provided on a front surface of the display panel. The window panel includes a flexible area and a rigid area provided adjacent to at least one side of the flexible area. The elastic modulus of the flexible area of the window panel is lower than that that of the rigid area. |
| US09189026B2 |
Waterproof structure
A waterproof structure including a housing, a display element assembled to the housing, and a sealing member is provided. The housing has a frame and an opening located on a plane. A portion of the display element is exposed out of the opening. The sealing member disposed between the housing and the display element has a first portion extending toward the opening from the frame and parallel to the plane and a second portion squeezed by the housing and the display element. A first end of the second portion next to the opening leans against the housing, and a second end of the second portion far away from the opening leans against the display element. A gap along a direction between the first portion and the display element is equal to or greater than deformation of the second portion along the direction, wherein the direction is orthogonal to the plane. |
| US09189024B2 |
Dock for portable electronic devices
This document generally describes docking stations for portable computing devices with one or more of a variety of features, such as a near horizontal tray into which a portable computing device can be placed (e.g., a tray with an angle between 5-25 degrees from horizontal), embedded microphones and/or speakers, and/or input jacks for external microphones and/or speakers. |
| US09189021B2 |
Wearable food nutrition feedback system
A see-through, head mounted display and sensing devices cooperating to provide feedback on food items detected in the device field of view. Feedback can include warnings based on personal wearer needs, general nutrition information, food consumption tracking and social interactions. The system includes one or more processing devices in communication with display and the sensors which identify food items proximate to the apparatus, determine feedback information relevant to a wearer of the apparatus; and render feedback information in the display. |
| US09189019B2 |
Support component for an apparatus
A support component for an apparatus is described. In at least some implementations, a support component is attached to an apparatus (e.g., a computing device) via a hinge mechanism. The support component can serve as a “kickstand” that can be positioned via the hinge mechanism to support the apparatus in a variety of orientations relative to an adjacent surface. In at least some embodiments, a support component includes hinge mounts via which the support component is attached to hinges of an associated apparatus. The support component and associated hinge mounts, for instance, can be manufactured separately and/or via different manufacturing processes, and attached during a production process. |
| US09189018B2 |
Windows position control for phone applications
Methods and devices for selectively presenting a user interface for a phone application are provided. More particularly, a change in the display mode of a multiple screen device can be determined. More particularly, a presentation of a user interface for an in-process call of a phone application can be retained after the device is rotated or opened. However, the user interface may move from a first screen to a second screen (or vice versa) in response to receiving the device open signal. The user interface provides detail information about a phone call that is currently in-process. |