US09065940B2

When a start button of a scanner is operated in a state where a communication connection has been established with the scanner, then image data generated by the scanner by reading a document is acquired, a run mode is set from a plurality of operating modes including a copy mode and a transfer mode, and a process corresponding to the set run mode is executed on the acquired image data. This makes it possible to realize a plurality of functions of a printer in response to a single start button of a scanner.
US09065929B2

A hearing aid compatible portable electronic audio device is configured to automatically determine whether or not the device is being used by a hearing impaired user who is wearing a hearing aid, and select a mode of operation based on this determination. The device includes a proximity sensor and a magnetic field sensor. The proximity sensor is used to detect a change in distance of the device to the user's ear. The magnetic field sensor is used to detect a change in magnetic field caused by the device moving relative to the hearing aid. The device selects between a normal audio mode of operation and a hearing aid compatible mode of operation based on both the change in detected distance and the change in detected magnetic field. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.
US09065927B2

An approach is provided for performing context based multi-modal intercom sessions. A control signal to invoke an intercom service between two or more communication devices is received. Context information associated with one or more of the communication devices is determined. An intercom mode communication session among the communication devices is established. The context information is used to customize the intercom service for one or more of the communication devices.
US09065922B2

A system and method are provided for providing notifications related to the battery level of a mobile device. Upon detecting a low battery state, a low battery update may be sent to a presence server to enable the low battery update to be provided to one or more contacts associated with the mobile device. The one or more contacts may then update their UI to reflect a change in presence status and may provided alerts upon detecting that the mobile device has been recharged.
US09065921B2

A retractable storage system for handheld electronic device has one or more storage chambers to house a retraction mechanism and/or a battery. At least one accessory station structured on the housing member of the device has an aperture for arresting, dispensing and/or charging at least one accessory item, such as a wireless earbud or e-cigarette. The retraction mechanism retrieves and dispense the stored accessory item through the accessory station.
US09065920B2

A control circuit determines a contact number as corresponds to an incoming call, accesses a contacts list to identify at least one contact identifier as corresponds to that contact number, and then makes a corresponding decision and/or takes a corresponding action regarding the display of more than one contact identifier as corresponds to the contact number and/or a numeric representation of how many contact identifiers correspond to the contact number. This can comprise simultaneously displaying at least two contact identifiers as correspond to the incoming contact number. These multiple identifiers can be displayed in a predetermined order. For example, earlier-entered contact identifiers may be presented ahead of later-entered contact identifiers. By another approach, the foregoing can comprise displaying only one of the candidate contact identifiers along with a numeric representation of how many contact identifiers correspond to the contact number.
US09065914B2

A system and method of operating an automatic speech recognition application over an Internet Protocol network is disclosed. The ASR application communicates over a packet network such as an Internet Protocol network or a wireless network. A grammar for recognizing received speech from a user over the IP network is selected from a plurality of grammars according to a user-selected application. A server receives information representing speech over the IP network, performs speech recognition using the selected grammar, and returns information based upon the recognized speech. Sub-grammars may be included within the grammar to recognize speech from sub-portions of a dialog with the user.
US09065910B2

A data processing system comprises call processing logic comprising a voice mail subsystem, or a call management subsystem configured to process voice-over-IP (VoIP) calls, or both a voice mail subsystem and a call management subsystem; service advertisement logic coupled to the call processing logic and operable to send one or more service advertisement messages by unicast to a remote peer data processing system that is also configured with compatible service advertisement logic, wherein the remote peer data processing system is located in a different LAN segment than the data processing system; and each service advertisement message comprises one or more network addresses associated with the call processing logic, and one or more data sets each comprising an identifier value, a first value that indicates that the identifier value is associated with a telephone extension, and a second value that indicates that the identifier value is associated with a voice mailbox.
US09065907B2

A history management apparatus that includes: an acquisition part that acquires a fragment data set indicating an action of a switchboard to a call, and an execution time of the action; a history generation part that generates a historical data set indicating a history of response states of an agent to one call, from a plurality of fragment data sets acquired; an image generation part that generates data of a display image indicating the history of response states of the agent to the one call, based on the historical data set; and a display control part that causes the display image to be displayed on a display unit.
US09065905B2

Methods and apparatus to provide a network-based caller identification (CID) service in a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) network are disclosed. An example method comprises receiving a session initiation protocol (SIP) communication session initiation request message comprising an early-media indicator, disabling a ringtone generator, sending a SIP ringing message containing a session descriptor in response to the early-media indicator, receiving a ringtone based on the session descriptor, and presenting the ringtone to alert a user of a requested communication session.
US09065904B1

A method and apparatus of accessing a data service in a wireless communications network is disclosed. An example may include receiving a call identifying an application accessed by a mobile station, and verifying whether the accessed application is installed on the mobile station. The example may further include transferring a notification message to the mobile station based on the accessed application.
US09065897B2

The various embodiments herein provide a system and method for blocking unauthorized outgoing calls made by an unauthorized user. The system is programmed by the user to block any attempt made to call an unauthorized number. Incase of a landline system, the system is connected to a telephone line that powers up the unit from the landline and blocks any unauthorized outgoing calls. The system is programmed to inhibit dialing any prefixes or any individual numbers. The system disconnects the phone line from the network and does not allow continuation of dialing when the prefix or the dialing number matches with the unauthorized dialing list/database.
US09065896B2

Disclosed in the invention is a method and system for sampling rate mismatch correction of transmitting and receiving terminals, which can obtain a high-precision sampling rate mismatch in real time, carry out sampling rate correction on transmitting and receiving terminal signals, and send the transmitting terminal signal and the receiving terminal signal that have the same sampling rate after corrected to an echo cancellation system to carry out echo cancellation. The present invention can improve the quality of echo cancellation, simplify the computation and reduce the cost. The method for sampling rate mismatch correction of transmitting and receiving terminals provided in the embodiments of the invention comprises: calculating a transfer function of a receiving terminal signal relative to a transmitting terminal signal at each sampling timing according to the transmitting and receiving terminal signals; obtaining a transmission time delay of the transmitting and receiving terminals at each sampling timing using the transfer function; obtaining a sampling rate mismatch of the transmitting and receiving terminals at each sampling timing by means of parameter fitting using the transmission time delay and the linear relationship between the transmission time delay and the sampling rate mismatch; and adjusting the sampling rate of the transmitting terminal signal or the receiving terminal signal at each sampling timing according to the sampling rate mismatch.
US09065893B2

A communication device is provided and includes a first major surface including a display and a mixed array. The mixed array includes at least two different types of array units and occupies an area coinciding with, in plan view as viewed perpendicular to the major surface, at least substantially the entire major surface.
US09065876B2

As part of a communication session, a wireless source device can transmit audio and video data to a wireless sink device, and the wireless sink device can transmit user input data received at the wireless sink device back to the wireless source device. In this manner, a user of the wireless sink device can control the wireless source device and control the content that is being transmitted from the wireless source device to the wireless sink device. The input data received at the wireless sink device can be a multi-touch gesture.
US09065874B2

Apparatus and methods relating to persistent network resource and virtual area associations for realtime collaboration include managing and displaying an object associated with a virtual area that supports establishment of respective presences of communicants operating respective client network nodes. Examples of the object include an object that has one or more user-modifiable property fields and an object that is associated with screen sharing functionality of the client network node.
US09065873B2

Techniques are provided for adding a participant at an end point device to an ongoing conference session. An ongoing conference session is established, where the conference session includes a communication between a plurality of endpoint devices, and a bridging device facilitates a connection between at least some of the endpoint devices engaging in the conference session. At least one communication message is provided from the bridging device to a communications manager device associated with the conference session, where the at least one communication message provides identification information associated with the bridging device and the conference session. The ongoing conference session is extended to an additional participant's endpoint device, where the additional endpoint device is connected with the ongoing conference session utilizing the bridging device and based upon the conference session information obtained from the at least one communication message.
US09065872B1

Techniques are described for sharing service management on a computing system. The computing system includes a display device and one or more processors. The processors are configured to determine, based on a context associated with an object, a plurality of weighted probabilities including a respective weighted probability for each sharing service from a plurality of sharing services, wherein the context includes at least one of a characteristic of the object and a respective characteristic of at least a portion of sharing services from the plurality of sharing services, select, based on the respective weighted probabilities, a subset of sharing services, output, for display at the display device, an indication of each sharing service from the subset of sharing services, receive an indication of a user input corresponding to a selection of one of the subset of sharing services, and transmit, using the selected sharing service, an indication of the object.
US09065869B2

A social device including capabilities for participating in a social network group via a social infrastructure. Various functions and resources of the social device are accessible by members of the social network group. Likewise, the social device may be configured to access services and other resources of the social network group. The social device may participate in the social network group through an autonomous, automated or member-triggered process. In one embodiment, the social device functions as a social gateway to communicatively couple a child node and a social network group. The social gateway may comprise a set top box or mobile communication device, and the child node may be a human user that interacts with the social gateway through a user interface. In a further embodiment, the social gateway may concurrently operate as a child device that communicates with a social network group through another social device.
US09065868B2

A method and system are provided for sharing data amongst a group of a plurality of mobile devices without requiring a database or server to centrally store the shared data. The shared data is instead stored by each group member individually while controlling the manner in which the shared data is updated. To manage such updates, the shared data is atomized such that individual databases in the shared data are separated or otherwise delineated into one or more records, each record having associated therewith, a value. To maintain a common copy of the shared data at each device, any update is sent to all group members using an intermediate message exchange service that is capable of transmitting a sent message to more than one recipient if necessary. In this way, the updates are multicast to the group. To manage the content of the shared data, each update comprises one or more changes to a current copy of a corresponding record.
US09065867B2

A system includes an analyzer module, a content request data collection module, and a domain name server. The content request data collection module is configured to receive a content request sent to a tracking address, collect content request information about the content request, and provide the content request information to the analyzer module. The domain name server is configured to receive an address request from a local domain name server for a cache server address, provide a tracking address to the local domain name server, collect address request information about the address request, and provide the address request information to the analyzer module. The analyzer module is configured to receive the address request information and the content request information, and determine properties of clients served by the local domain name server based on the address request information and the content request information.
US09065864B2

A method for execution by a network element of a communications network. The method comprises receiving from a first network entity a first communication that includes at least (i) a network-initiated message generated by a server-side portion of an application that also has a corresponding client-side portion and (ii) a first application identifier associated with the application. The method further comprises consulting a database based at least on the first application identifier in an attempt to identify a second application identifier associated with the application; and releasing to a second network entity a second communication that includes at least (i) the network-initiated message and (ii) either the second application identifier, if the attempt was successful, or the first application identifier, if the attempt was unsuccessful.
US09065859B1

Tracking data communications are received for single properties that include ambiguous event statistics. The event statistics are disambiguated by an analytics processing system by identifying account and visitor identifier pairs from account identifiers and visitor identifiers in the tracking data communications. For each account and visitor identifier pair, ambiguous event statistics are ordered by the corresponding event times and disambiguated.
US09065853B2

A method and device for reserving an online data storage space involving receiving a storage request containing a set of parameters including at least one parameter corresponding to a quality of service for storage, analyzing the set of parameters, creating, and sending to online data storage units, a reservation request corresponding to the set of parameters, receiving at least one reply to the reservation request corning from the online data storage units, selecting, among the replies received, an online storage unit as a function of all the parameters defined in the storage request, creating a reservation key enabling access to the selected storage space, sending the reservation key and the selected storage space address.
US09065846B2

A security analysis of data received on a mobile communications device includes gathering information about the data through at least two of multiple network interfaces, each of the at least two network interfaces having different protocols. Based upon the gathering, a first protocol is assigned to the data received from a first of the at least two network interfaces. A second protocol is assigned to the data received from a second of the at least two network interfaces. A common security analysis is performed on at least a part of the data received from each of the first and second network interfaces to determine whether the data received by the mobile communications device is safe or malicious.
US09065839B2

Methods, apparatus, and products for minimally buffered data transfers between nodes in a data communications network are disclosed that include: receiving, by a messaging module on an origin node, a storage identifier, a origin data type, and a target data type, the storage identifier specifying application storage containing data, the origin data type describing a data subset contained in the origin application storage, the target data type describing an arrangement of the data subset in application storage on a target node; creating, by the messaging module, origin metadata describing the origin data type; selecting, by the messaging module from the origin application storage in dependence upon the origin metadata and the storage identifier, the data subset; and transmitting, by the messaging module to the target node, the selected data subset for storing in the target application storage in dependence upon the target data type without temporarily buffering the data subset.
US09065832B2

Various exemplary embodiments relate to a method performed by an application manager for automatically establishing a network connection between components of an application within a distributed cloud, the method including: establishing application components in the distributed cloud; selecting a first application component; identifying network characteristics from the network policy file associated with the first application component; determining a network connection between the first application component and a second application component according to the network characteristics associated with the first application component; associating the network connection with the first application component; and establishing the network connection between the first and second application components.
US09065830B2

A system and method for network recording and speech analytics wherein a recording system receives media exchanged between first and second communication devices during a telephony call. The media is received by the recording system over a wide area network. The recording system bridges a media path between the first and second communication devices, and replicates media exchanged in the media path for storing the replicated media in a mass storage device. The recording system further captures metadata associated with the call, and stores the captured metadata in association with the stored media. The stored media and metadata may then be provided to a requesting device over the wide area network. The recording system may also be configured to analyze the call recording along with the associated metadata for detecting key words or phrases and/or triggering actionable events.
US09065822B2

A controller for a communications device having a memory storing data specifying user instructions; and a communications controller arranged for receiving a request of a preformed format for the data from a second device and in response to the request transmitting the data to the second device. The user instructions are arranged for use by a user on the first device to authenticate the second device with the first device.
US09065813B2

A method includes coupling an adapter device to a field instrument in an industrial control system to provide a wireless communication capability to the field instrument. The method also includes converting, by the adapter device, information from a first protocol native to the field instrument into a second protocol native to a wireless network. The method further includes transmitting the information to at least one other device over the wireless network.
US09065811B2

A method for communicating content files based on destination priority includes processing a content file to determine a plurality of destination sites to which the content file is to be transmitted, assigning priority levels to the plurality of destination sites, allocating a plurality of bandwidth portions on a communication link to the plurality of destination sites, respectively, based on the priority levels assigned to the plurality of destination sites, and transmitting the content file to the plurality of destination sites using the plurality of bandwidth portions allocated to the plurality of destination on the communication link, respectively.
US09065806B2

The present invention discloses a device and method for security information interaction. The device for security information interaction includes: an interface circuit, configured to connect the device for security information interaction to an internet terminal; an information input unit, configured to allow user to input security information; a secure encryption/decryption unit, configured to store and process the security information; an information reader, configured to read information data from an external information carrier; wherein the secure encryption/decryption unit processes the security information in connection with the information data, and complete a business function on the secure channel through the interaction with the security information processing server. The device and method for security information interaction disclosed in the present invention improves the flexibility and efficiency of the information processing system, enhances the security of the information processing system, and extending new applications of an external information carrier in an open network environment.
US09065799B2

Aspects of the disclosure provide a network interface device for use in an electronic device. The network interface device includes multiple systems and can be configured to perform multiple levels of security functions. In an example, the network interface device includes a first system and a second system. The first system includes a first interface configured to couple the first system with a host system of the electronic device, a second interface configured to couple the first system with an external electronic device, and first integrated circuits configured to monitor and filter traffic flowing between the external electronic device and the host system of the electronic device. The second system includes second integrated circuits. The network interface device also includes a communication channel between the first system and the second system. The second system is configured to send control information to and receive status information from the first system via the communication channel.
US09065793B2

A first resource is provided on a user device, the first resource including a plurality of links to other resources. At least one, but not all of the plurality of links are selected for pre-caching, and at least a portion of a second resource located by the first link is automatically cached. At least the portion of the second resource is provided in response to a designated triggering event.
US09065788B2

A method is performed at a computer server for enabling voice communication between two terminals through IM service. Upon receiving a message from a remote computer, the message including an IM identifier of a callee terminal user and a mobile device identifier of the terminal, the computer system updates an entry for the callee terminal user in a database. Upon receiving a request from a caller terminal user at a caller terminal to start voice communication with the callee terminal user, the computer server identifies the entry that includes the IM identifier of the callee terminal user and sends a voice communication request to a service control point (SCP) in a switched telephone network. The SCP then returns an IP address and a port number of the callee terminal and launches a call request against the callee terminal. The computer server establishes a voice communication channel between the two terminals.
US09065787B2

A method for supervising a chat connection between at least two terminals is provided. The method includes verification of first conditions, including a camera at each terminal is operated, video streams of each camera are live streams, and/or each video stream contains images of a live person. The connection is allowed if all of the first conditions are met and if one second condition is met. A second condition can include one first subset of the persons is identified as belonging to one defined restricted group and an identity of a second subset of the persons is determined at least on the basis of facial and/or body features and the identified second person is classified as an allowed exception. The method also includes a pre-defined reaction if any of the first conditions and/or all of the second conditions are not met.
US09065782B2

The disclosure discloses a method and apparatus for controlling information element switch. The method comprises the following steps: a switch board determines that it has received a link request information element from each ingress line card, wherein the link request information element carries the request time stamp information; the switch board performs link allocation according to each request time stamp information, wherein the link is the link connecting the switch board with each egress line card; and each ingress line card transmits a data information element according to the result of the link allocation. With the disclosure, the problems of time delay and jitter in an information element switch process are solved, the input end flow of the switch board can also be controlled, and the requirement for the egress line card cache and difficulty in data packet recombination are reduced.
US09065776B2

An addressable node unit includes connections for at least two lines via which the node unit can be addressed. The connections are connected to a circuit which evaluates an addressing signal. The node unit includes at least one power source which is supplyable with power via at least one of the lines. A switch is provided in the path between the evaluating circuit and the corresponding line connection, the switch being opened after an addressing process so that the power supply of the evaluating circuit is ensured by the at least one power source after the addressing.
US09065770B2

An impairment unit, method, and machine readable storage media for emulating network impairments. A first network interface may receive network traffic including a plurality of received packets. A classifier may determine an impairment class of each received packet based on test information contained within a payload portion of each received packet, the impairment class of each received packet being one of a plurality of impairment classes, each impairment class uniquely associated with a corresponding one of a plurality of impairment profiles. An impairment engine may impair each of the plurality of impairment classes in accordance with the corresponding impairment profile to provide impaired network traffic. A second network interface may transmit the impaired network traffic to the network.
US09065763B2

Disclosed herein are various systems and methods that may improve the transmission of data over low-bandwidth communication channels in an electric power delivery system. Devices communicating across a low-bandwidth communication channel may implement several approaches, according to various embodiments disclosed herein, to reduce the data transmitted across the low-bandwidth communication channel and to prioritize the transmission of time-sensitive and/or more important information with respect to other data. Various embodiments disclosed herein may inspect packets to be transmitted across a low-bandwidth communication channel in order to identify high priority data. High priority data may be time-sensitive information, and accordingly, transmission of such data may be prioritized over other data in order to reduce transmission latency of the higher priority data.
US09065758B2

A ring network protection method is disclosed. When a fault occurs in a ring network, a first node selects a protection tunnel according to a fault condition of a pre-established protection tunnel. Services are switched to the selected protection tunnel. A protection switching request is sent on the selected protection tunnel and another end node is informed of the selected protection tunnel to switch the services to the selected protection tunnel.
US09065754B2

The invention concerns a method of notifying control information to a congestion control mechanism in charge of controlling data segments sending rate of a server towards a client. The control information includes loss events where a loss event corresponds to one or more data segments lost. The method comprises a step of receiving data segments into a reception buffer at the client, a step of detecting loss events from the received data segments and a step of notifying the congestion control mechanism with a number of loss events that is dependent on the number of detected loss events and a measure of criticality related to the reception of the data segments by the client. The measure of criticality can be derived from the filling level of the reception buffer, the reception of data segments being in a critical state when the reception buffer is experiencing overflow or underflow conditions.
US09065743B2

The disclosed technology, in one embodiment, involves a method that improves the execution speed of graph algorithms that are commonly used by network service providers for network analysis and/or design. The disclosed technology can be used to provide significant efficiency improvements when applied to networks that are separated into several isolated fragments (“fragmented networks”) due to severe damage that may be caused by either natural disaster (such as hurricanes or earthquakes), or planned adversary attacks. In one embodiment of the disclosed technology, a graph algorithm, that is used to determine a characteristic of the network, is not applied directly to the whole network/graph. Instead, the graph algorithm is applied to isolated network/graph fragments that are identified, for example, by using a fragment discovery algorithm. The graph algorithm is then applied to one or more relevant fragments. The results may be combined to obtain a network wide result.
US09065739B2

An approach is provided for supporting end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) control. A QoS profile identifier is generated that maps to a QoS parameter. The identifier is transmitted over the radio communication system to an end station, wherein the end station determines the QoS parameter based on the received identifier. The approach also provides an alert mechanism in which the end station transmits an alert message upon detecting a deviation from the QoS parameter.
US09065731B2

A method and computing device for maintaining the stability of the upstream channel quality measurements in an upstream channel bonded system. The method configures a cable modem, that communicates using bonded channels, to periodically exchange ranging messages on the bonded channels, where a bonded channel ranging interval determines a period for the exchange. The method also monitors a signal quality metric for a monitored channel of the bonded channels by periodically retrieving a quality measurement for the monitored channel, a period between each retrieval determined by a channel quality monitoring interval. The method sends an invite ranging message to the cable modem before retrieval of the quality measurement for the monitored channel, and retrieves the quality measurement for the monitored channel. The method bases the signal quality metric for the monitored channel on the quality measurement.
US09065719B2

A method, an apparatus and a communication unit for generating precoding feedback information in a multiple frequency radio transmission system are disclosed. A rank for precoding matrices, wherein the rank is constant over the multiple frequencies, is selected and a plurality of precoding matrices having the selected rank are selected. A different precoding matrix is selected for each frequency subset of the multiple frequencies.
US09065710B1

Disclosed are various embodiments that are directed towards distinguishing between various types of interference in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) wireless communication system. According to some embodiments, the system receives a set of symbols encoded in a predetermined subcarrier activation pattern according to an OFDM protocol. The system may determine a plurality of time averaged interference values, each time averaged interference value corresponding to a respective subcarrier index expressed in the set of symbols. Then, the system may separate frequency-based interference from time-based interference according to the plurality of time averaged interference values.
US09065707B2

Described herein is an optical phase modulator (20) including a liquid crystal element (22), disposed between a pair of opposing electrodes (24) and (26). The electrodes (24, 26) are electrically driven for supplying an electric potential V across the liquid crystal element (22) to drive the liquid crystals within element (22) in a predetermined configuration. Electrode (26) includes a grid of individually drivable pixel regions (28), at least some of which include a sub-wavelength grating structure that provides an anisotropic refractive index profile in orthogonal lateral dimensions, thereby creating an effective material form birefringence. Light incident through liquid crystal element (22) and onto electrode (26) is reflected and experiences a relative phase difference of 180° between its constituent orthogonal polarization components, thereby rotating each polarization component into the orthogonal orientation upon reflection.
US09065701B2

The present disclosure discloses a method and network device for an enhanced serialization mechanism. Specifically, the disclosed system receives a plurality of packets from a plurality of transport layer flows corresponding to a security association. Also, the system designates one processor of a plurality of processors to be associated with the security association. Moreover, the system assigns a sequence number to each packet, and transmits the plurality of packets from the plurality of transport layer flows such that packets within the same transport layer flow are transmitted in order of their sequence numbers. However, at least two packets from two different transport layer flows may be transmitted out of incremental order of their sequence number.
US09065699B2

The present disclosure is directed to methods and systems for providing a distributed radio communications network. Each of a first gateway and a second gateway may separately receive modulated signals comprising at least a portion of data from a first node of a plurality of geographically-dispersed nodes. The modulated signals may be wirelessly transmitted as radio frequency (RF) signals from the first node, the data gathered or generated by the first node at a first location. A server may receive the modulated signals from the first gateway and the second gateway. As configured by software-defined radio (SDR) software, the server may perform processing of the separately received modulated signals to recover the data. The processing may include demodulation of the modulated signals.
US09065681B2

A park request is received from a first computing system. The park request is a request to park a conversation between a user of the first computing system and a user of a second computing system. The park request conforms to a protocol that supports parking and unparking of conversations having a first modality and conversations having a second modality. Furthermore, an unpark request is received from a third computing system. The unpark request is a request to unpark the conversation. Referral information is sent to the third computing system. The referral information enables the third computing system to establish a communication session to carry the conversation.
US09065674B2

Methods, systems, apparatuses, and computer-readable media for controlling components connected to and/or otherwise associated with a data bus are presented. According to one or more aspects of the disclosure, a plurality of processing devices having data bus management capability and at least one data bus associated with the plurality of processing devices may be identified. Subsequently, an inter-processor communication (IPC) layer for communication between the plurality of processing devices and the at least one data bus may be established over a messaging layer utilized by the at least one data bus. At least one component associated with the at least one data bus may then be controlled via the IPC layer using at least one of the plurality of processing devices.
US09065667B2

The integration of data and video conference data allows presentations to be given more effectively and people to write down things which are hard to deliver using speech alone, for example mathematical formulae. Often when giving a presentation though it can be advantageous to be able to interact not only with a person verbally but also on a written level, for example a user may wish to draw on slides being used in a presentation to illustrate a point. At present only one user can transmit this type of data to the participants at any one time and only to participants having an H.239 compatible endpoint. The presentation invention enables multiple users to interact using written rather than spoken means without having to pass permission to transmit written data from one participant to another.
US09065666B2

A system and method of multi-media conferencing between Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) telephony devices and Wide Area Network (WAN) devices is provided. The method includes initiating a multi-media conferencing session with WAN devices by at least one telephony control point (TCP) in an UPnP telephony based home network via a session request. The session request includes session information, media capabilities of a telephony client device (TC) associated with the at least one TCP, a list of WAN devices or a conference group identifier associated with one or more WAN devices, and a subject of the multi-media conferencing session. The method further includes establishing the multi-media conferencing session between the TC and the WAN devices by a telephony server (TS) in the UPnP telephony based home network based on the session request.
US09065664B2

Providing an announcement for a multiparty communication session involves establishing a communication session between at least two endpoints. A request to add an added endpoint to the communication session is received. A procedure to provide an announcement to the endpoints of the communication session is initiated. The announcement is played in response to determining a status of a media path of the added endpoint, and is provided from a rendering of a participant identifier associated with the added endpoint.
US09065651B2

A base station (103) assigns a set of mobile stations (101) to a group wherein the group will share a set of radio resources (770). A shared control channel information element (501) is sent to the group of mobile stations (101) and provides a bitmap having fields for group ordering (511), resource allocations (530), continuation resources (540) for HARQ, and an ordering pattern (513). If a mobile station requires retransmission it will access the resources indicated by the continuation resources field (54) in order to receive data. The HARQ blocks may be assigned to a mobile station based upon an index (601) which may correspond to the mobile station vocoder rate. Further, HARQ subgroups may be defined to associate subgroups of mobile stations with specific HARQ transmission opportunities on the super-frame and allocated by a rotating bitmap.
US09065643B2

A method is disclosed. The method includes generating an obfuscated portion using a dynamic cryptogram unique to a transaction, where the dynamic cryptogram is determined using a uniquely derived key. The method also includes replacing a middle portion of the account identifier with the obfuscated portion to form an obfuscated account identifier.
US09065636B2

An improved method for data encryption has been developed. The method includes storing data, multiple prime numbers and random numbers within an electronic memory storage device. Next, calculating a public number using the multiple prime numbers and providing a public number to a recipient apparatus that has knowledge of the multiple prime numbers. The method then encrypts the stored data with a randomly generated key and deletes the randomly generated key after use. Next, the method calculates a common shared secret between the sender and recipient using the prime numbers, a recipient public number and the second random number. The sender and recipient calculate parameters using a key equation based on the randomly generated key and random numbers and a common shared secret. Finally, the recipient calculates the randomly generated key for decryption using the common shared secret, one of the prime numbers, the parameters and the simultaneous equations for decryption of the data.
US09065635B2

There is provided an information processing apparatus including an encrypted-ID generation section which encrypts a unique ID to generate an encrypted ID, the unique ID being set as an ID unique to the information processing apparatus, a communication section which sends the encrypted ID as ID information to be sent to another apparatus, an individualization code holding section which holds, in advance, an individualization code capable of being generated by decrypting the ID information in the other apparatus, and an access key generation section which generates an access key used for authentication with the other apparatus based on the individualization code held by the individualization code holding section.
US09065633B2

A controller receives first or second equipment identifier from a first wireless communication apparatus, by using one wireless communication circuit of the third and fourth wireless communication circuit. When the one wireless communication circuit is the fourth wireless communication circuit, the controller sets an encryption key information for wireless communications with the first wireless communication apparatus, to encryption key information including an equipment identifier that does not coincide with a received equipment identifier among the received plurality of encryption key information, and controls the third wireless communication circuit to transmit and receive encrypted transmission data to and from the first wireless communication apparatus by using key data included in set encryption key information.
US09065632B2

A method for authenticating a message by a wireless device is described. The wireless device obtains the input message. The wireless device generates a keystream. The wireless device computes a message authentication code using the keystream and a universal hash function. The universal hash function is computed using carryless multiplication.
US09065631B2

An integrated cryptographic apparatus providing confidentiality and integrity includes an integrated cryptographic module including confidentiality and integrity. Further, the integrated cryptographic apparatus includes a hash function unit for detecting whether a message is modified by using the integrated cryptographic module. Furthermore, the integrated cryptographic apparatus includes a block cipher unit for constructing a data encryption algorithm by using the integrated cryptographic module.
US09065630B1

Systems and methods are provided for detecting a received synchronization signal. The method includes receiving, at a receiver, a signal from a transmitter, where one or more portions of the received signal include the received synchronization signal. The method includes processing the one or more portions of the received signal to obtain a differential signal, and processing the differential signal and a plurality of candidate differential synchronization signals to obtain a plurality of cross-correlation signals. Each candidate differential synchronization signal is associated with one cross-correlation signal. The method includes selecting, based at least in part on the plurality of cross-correlation signals, one of the candidate differential synchronization signals, and detecting the received synchronization signal based at least in part on (i) the one or more portions of the received signal, and (ii) a frequency offset value obtained from the cross-correlation signal associated with the selected candidate differential synchronization signal.
US09065624B2

According to the disclosure of the present description, a method in which a base station determines a cooperative terminal is provided. The method comprises: a step of receiving status information from one or more terminals from among terminals that can cooperate with the base station in cooperative transmission; a step of determining, on the basis of the status information and upon receipt of a cooperative communication request from one terminal from among the cooperative terminals, a terminal which will cooperate with a terminal that has requested a cooperation; and a step of notifying the cooperative terminal of the terminal that has requested a cooperation.
US09065614B2

A multi-carrier cellular wireless network (400) employs base stations (404) that transmit two different groups of pilot subcarriers: (1) cell-specific pilot subcarriers, which are used by a receiver to extract information unique to each individual cell (402), and (2) common pilots subcarriers, which are designed to possess a set of characteristics common to all the base stations (404) of the system. The design criteria and transmission formats of the cell-specific and common pilot subcarriers are specified to enable a receiver to perform different system functions. The methods and processes can be extended to other systems, such as those with multiple antennas in an individual sector and those where some subcarriers bear common network/system information.
US09065603B2

An amount of total overhead allocated by a wireless system for transmitting channel state information by a plurality of mobile stations serviced by the wireless system can be controlled by allocating a reporting interval, reporting size and subset of subcarriers to each of the mobile stations for use by the mobile stations in reporting channel state information on the subcarriers included in the subset allocated to the respective mobile stations. At least one of the reporting interval, reporting size and subset of subcarriers allocated to one or more of the mobile stations is modified as a function of the number of mobile stations reporting channel state information so that the total overhead allocated for transmitting the channel state information on all of the subcarriers remains generally constant regardless of the number of mobile stations reporting channel state information.
US09065593B2

Methods and apparatus for reducing security vulnerabilities in a client/server speech recognition system including one or more client computers and one or more server computers connected via a network. Decryption of sensitive information, such as medical dictation information, is performed on designated servers to limit the attack surface of unencrypted data. Management of encryption and decryption keys to restrict the storage and/or use of decryption keys on the server side of the client/server speech recognition system, while maintaining encrypted data on the server side is also described.
US09065591B2

A novel terrestrial wireless communications technique for terrestrial portable terminals including hand-held mobile devices and fixed wireless instruments, utilizing a spoke-and-hub communications system, having a plurality of individual hubs and/or base-stations all in communications with the portable terminals. The portable terminals and the hubs are assigned to use incompatible polarity formats in terms of circularly polarity (CP) and linearly polarity (LP). In forward links, a signal processed by the LP ground telecommunications hubs is radiated through multiple antennas with various LP polarities to an individual CP user simultaneously. The multiple paths are organized via assignments of a plurality of polarities, frequency slots, and directions by wavefront multiplexing/demultiplexing techniques such that the same communications assets including frequency spectrum may be re-used by other users. The same polarity diversity methods can be extended to peer-to-peer communications.
US09065588B1

An optical network unit includes a central office interface configured to connect to a central office local loop and customer premises and provide a central office source service. A switch and a switch device is connected to the switch and has at least one service port to provide a local source service. A relay switch is connected to the at least one service port and the central office interface. A processor is connected to the switch and relay switch and configured to receive a command message and in response switch into either the central office interface and provide the central office source service or switch into the service port and provide the local source service.
US09065587B2

An optical data system and method are disclosed. The system can be an integrated optical data transmission system that includes an array of lasers that are modulated by a plurality of modulation signals to provide a plurality of sets of optical data signals. Each of the optical data signals in each of the plurality of sets can have a distinct wavelength. The system can also include a wavelength division multiplexing system to combine each of the plurality of sets of optical data signals to generate a plurality of multi-channel optical data signals that are transmitted via a respective plurality of optical transmission media.
US09065584B2

Methods and apparatuses are provided that include adaptively configuring a rise-over-thermal (RoT) threshold at a base station to improve communications with one or more devices while mitigating interference to one or more other base stations. A potential device pathloss to the macrocell can be computed based on a measured pathloss thereto applied with a coverage area of the low power base station to emulate a worst-case device, one or more received measurement reports, and/or the like. The RoT threshold can be computed based at least in part on the pathloss and/or a maximum interference level at the macrocell. In addition, the RoT threshold can be adapted based on a reverse link attenuation level.
US09065569B2

A method and a wireless communication device including a housing, at least one user interface element to receive a user input, a transmitter to transmit a wireless communication signal; and a processor in the housing. The processor being enabled to detect a first signal; switch, in response to detecting the first signal, the transmitter from a first transmission mode to a second transmission mode, at least one of a transmit power and a transmit frequency associated with the second transmission mode being selectively set by a user via the user interface element; receive a second signal, the second signal including an indication of a value selected by the user; and set, in response to receiving the second signal, the at least one of transmit power and transmit frequency associated with the second transmission mode to the value selected by the user.
US09065559B2

A system for testing and calibrating communications equipment or modules. A processor is configured to perform a test or calibration procedure on a communications unit under test (UUT) in response to commands entered by an operator. Test and measurement instruments arranged to be responsive to the computer include a power supply for activating selected portions of signal paths in the UUT, one or more signal generators, and one or more instruments for measuring output signals produced by the UUT in response to the test signals. The UUT has switches and terminals for inputting test signals from and returning output signals to the instruments, and an adapter is connected between the processor and the UUT. When performing a calibration procedure, the adapter operates the switches and connects the terminals on the UUT to the test and measurement instruments under the control of the processor.
US09065549B2

A correlation calculating method of correlating a received code signal obtained by demodulating a received signal, which is a signal obtained by receiving a positioning satellite signal, with a replica code signal is provided which includes: correlating values of the replica code signal in a chip period with values of the received code signal at first to n-th arrival times obtained by varying an arrival time of the chip period by 1/n chip (where n is an integer equal to or greater than 2); and acquiring a correlation calculation result at a 1/n chip interval by synthesizing the correlation calculation results.
US09065548B2

A method of communicating a data chirp signal from a transmitter to a receiver, the data chirp signal including a sequence of symbols, each symbol encoding a first symbol value and a second symbol value such that the data chirp signal includes a first symbol value sequence and a second symbol value sequence, the first and second symbol values being encoded via different properties of the symbol, the first symbol value sequence being selected from values in a primary predetermined sequence and a secondary predetermined sequence, the method including: selecting consecutive values of the first symbol value sequence from values in consecutive sequence positions of the primary predetermined sequence and the secondary predetermined sequence; encoding first data in the chirp signal via the selected first symbol value sequence; encoding second data in the chirp signal via the second symbol value sequence; and transmitting the data chirp signal to the receiver.
US09065543B2

A power line carrier transmission apparatus according to an aspect of the present invention is a power line carrier transmission apparatus that transmits a transmission symbol via a transmission path. The transmission apparatus includes a frequency/time interleave unit that interleaves the transmission symbol, an OFDM modulation unit that OFDM-modulates the interleaved transmission symbol, a time-domain repeated transmission unit that repeatedly transmits the transmission symbol, which is modulated by the OFDM modulation unit, M times (M is an integer larger than 1) in a time domain.
US09065536B2

A method and an apparatus for reducing electromagnetic waves in a mobile device are provided. According to the method, in a mobile device having the first and second modules with different functions, the apparatus operates the first module at the first operating frequency. If there is a request for operating the second module while the first module is operated, the apparatus changes the first operating frequency to a second operating frequency which is different from the first operating frequency, and operates the first module at the second operating frequency. The apparatus reduces a total magnitude of electromagnetic waves caused by a simultaneous operation of two or more modules, thereby enhancing the quality of the mobile device and minimizing any undesirable impact upon the human body.
US09065535B2

The present disclosure is directed to adaptive antenna selection. In general, devices consistent with the present disclosure may be configured to adapt their antenna configuration to sensed device conditions. In one embodiment, an example device may comprise a communication module, a plurality of antennas, at least one sensor and an antenna selection module. The communication module may be configured to send and receive information via at least wireless communication. The plurality of antennas may be configured to conduct the wireless communication, while the sensors may be configured to sense device conditions. The antenna selection module may be configured to cause at least one antenna in the plurality of antennas to be coupled to the communication module based on the device conditions.
US09065530B2

A method and system for estimating a path difference between two paths followed by a target signal transmitted by a spacecraft or aircraft to a first receiving antenna and a second receiving antenna of a receiving base, respectively. A useful-phase difference is measured between signals corresponding to the target signal received on the first receiving antenna and second receiving antenna. The path difference is estimated on the basis of the measurements of the useful-phase difference. A calibration signal is transmitted to the receiving base and a calibration phase difference between signals corresponding to the calibration signal received on the first receiving antenna and second receiving antenna is measured. Variations are compensated in the measurements of the calibration-phase difference relative to the measurements of the useful-phase difference.
US09065529B2

A method for characterizing a transmitting antenna of a satellite in orbit comprising a payload comprising signal amplification means, includes: configuring the said amplification means to generate thermal noise at the input of the transmitting antenna; acquiring, by means of a ground station, the signal transmitted by the transmitting antenna on the downlink of the satellite over a predetermined time period; during the said predetermined time period, controlling the said satellite in orbit in order to impart on it an angular bias of predetermined variation and recording this variation; correlating the measurement of the signal transmitted on the downlink and the variation of angular bias of the satellite in order to derive therefrom the gain variations of the transmitting antenna as a function of the angular bias of the satellite.
US09065520B2

The invention relates to transmission from a base station to a receiver, the base station comprising first radiating means arranged for transmitting according to an antenna pattern with respect to the receiver and further comprising second radiating means arranged for transmitting according to the same antenna pattern as the first radiating means with respect to the receiver, the transmissions of the first and second radiating means being time shifted by a determined duration.
US09065517B2

A system and a method for applying a blind tuning process to M antennas coupled via N beamformers to a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) receiving system having N channels, wherein M>N, are provided herein. The method includes the following steps: Periodically measuring channel fading rate at a baseband level to determine the number of antennas L out of K antennas connected to each one of the beamformers, to be combined at each one of the N beamformers; assigning the antennas to the subset L according to some criteria such as best quality indicator; repeatedly applying a tuning process to L antennas in each one of the N beamformers.
US09065516B2

Good transmission characteristics are achieved in the presence of fading with a transmitter that employs a trellis coder followed by a block coder. Correspondingly, the receiver comprises a Viterbi decoder followed by a block decoder. Advantageously, the block coder and decoder employ time-space diversity coding which, illustratively, employs two transmitter antennas and one receiver antenna.
US09065512B2

The present invention relates to a method for communicating in a network, the network comprising at least a first cell and a second cell including respectively a first primary station having a first antenna array dedicated to the first cell and a second primary station having a second antenna array dedicated to the second cell, for communicating with a plurality of secondary stations, the method comprising the step of (a) providing with a co-operative beamforming transmission from the first and second primary stations to at least one first secondary station, wherein step (a) includes (a1) the first secondary station signaling at least one channel matrix to at least one of the first and second primary stations, and (a2) the first and second primary stations applying a precoding matrix across both the first antenna array and the second antenna array, and wherein the precoding matrix comprises a first vector for the first cell and a second vector for the second cell, the precoding matrix being based on the at least one channel matrix.
US09065506B2

A low pass filter connected between an individual port of a switch device and a high-frequency switch module attenuates the second harmonic and the third harmonic of a transmission signal input to a first transmission signal input terminal. Further, the inductances/capacitances of inductors and capacitors defining the low pass filter are set such that the phase of a harmonic signal generated by a power amplifier is different by 180° from the phase of a harmonic signal produced as a result of the low pass filter shifting the phase of a harmonic signal generated due to distortion in a switch device, in an end portion on the first transmission signal input terminal side.
US09065504B2

A radio transmitter front end for use in a radio frequency (RF) transceiver includes at least one amplifier stage operable to generate a transmit signal in response to an upconverted signal. A feedback generator is operable to generate a transmit feedback signal in response to the transmit signal. A control signal generator is operable to generate at least one filter control signal in response to the transmit feedback signal. A notch filter is operable to filter out of band noise while passing in-band frequencies to the at least one amplifier stage, under control of the at least one filter control signal.
US09065500B2

A wireless communication system non-collaborative, multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) space division multiple access (SDMA) system determines subscriber station combining and weighting vectors that yield a high average signal-to-interference plus noise ratio (SINR). Each subscriber station independently transmits information to a base station that allows the base station to determine a weight vector wi for each subscriber station using the determined combining vector of the subscriber station. The ith combining vector corresponds to a right singular vector corresponding to a maximum singular value of a channel matrix between a base station and the ith subscriber station. Each subscriber station transmits signals using a weight vector vi, which corresponds to a left singular vector corresponding to a maximum singular value of a channel matrix between the ith subscriber station and the base station. The base station uses the weight vector wi to determine the signal transmitted by the ith subscriber station.
US09065485B1

An interleaver and method for interleaving are provided, where initialization values are pre-calculated and stored in memory. In one implementation, the method of interleaving includes: calculating in advance an initial value of at least one parameter for use by logic circuitry to initialize interleaving operation; storing the initial value of the at least one parameter as a stored initial value of the at least one parameter; and using the stored initial value of the at least one parameter with the logic circuitry to generate interleaved order positions for the set of data items. In one implementation, the interleaver includes: logic circuitry for generating interleaved order positions for the set of data items and memory coupled to the logic circuitry for holding an initial value of at least one parameter for use by the logic circuitry to initialize interleaving operation.
US09065484B2

A method for low density parity code decoding according to one embodiment includes sequentially processing groups of variable node (vnode) values associated with a codeword using a plurality of vnode logic modules and outputting updated vnode values; storing the vnode values and updated vnode values in a vnode memory; sequentially processing groups of cnode values using a plurality of check node (cnode) logic modules and outputting updated vnode values; storing the (mode values and updated (mode values in a mode memory; and checking the codeword using the updated vnode values and the updated mode values.
US09065482B1

Approaches are disclosed for encoding N symbols of a sequence in parallel using an R parity symbol encoding algorithm. A first symbol matrix is added to a first parity matrix over a finite field to produce a first intermediate matrix. The first intermediate matrix is multiplied by at least a first coefficient matrix and a second coefficient matrix over the finite field to produce a second intermediate matrix. A second symbol matrix is multiplied by at least the second coefficient matrix to produce a third intermediate matrix. The second and third intermediate matrices are added to produce a revised parity matrix.
US09065480B1

A digital-to-analog converter apparatus includes a digital-to-analog converter, a resistor-capacitor circuit, a quantizer and a controller. The resistor-capacitor circuit includes an operational amplifier, a first capacitor, a second capacitor, a first resistor, a second resistor, a first switch and a second switch. The digital-to-analog converter may generate a plurality of currents. The quantizer may generate a plurality of offset values. The controller may control coupling of the plurality of currents to the operational amplifier.
US09065479B2

In an example, a multistring DAC is described and includes at least two DAC stages. Each DAC stage includes a string of impedance elements and a switching network. In one configuration, the multi-string DAC is configured to use the voltage change at terminals of a first string separately to the voltage drop across a first switching network that couples the first and second strings to provide an analog output in response to a digital input to the DAC.
US09065475B2

A Sin-Cos sensor arrangement comprises a Sin-Cos sensor operably coupled to signal processing logic via a hardware interface. The hardware interface is arranged to provide the signal processing logic with analog sine and cosine waveforms indicative of fine position data and binary counterparts of the analog sine and cosine waveforms (Phase_A and Phase_B) indicative of rough position data. The signal processing logic is arranged to determine a position and speed of the Sin-Cos sensor by compensating for inaccuracies between analog sine and cosine waveforms and their binary counterparts. In this manner, a fully software-based solution provides a fast, efficient and high accuracy position and speed estimation based on the processing of the analog sine and cosine signals and the digital representation thereof of the Sin-Cos sensor.
US09065470B2

Described is an analog to digital converter (ADC) which comprises: a sigma-delta modulator to receive an analog signal, the sigma-delta modulator operable to perform chopping to cancel common-mode noise; and one or more counters coupled to the sigma-delta modulator to generate a digital code representative of the analog signal.
US09065464B2

Methods and apparatuses are described for versatile phase adjustment schemes comprising multi-layered clock skew correction with variable range and resolution to improve performance for a variety of ADC architectures, including TI-ADCs. Multi-stage phase alignment corrects misalignment in multiple stages at start-up and continuously or periodically during operation to reduce static sources of misalignment caused by design and fabrication and dynamic sources of misalignment caused by operational variations (e.g., voltage, temperature). Multi-path phase alignment corrects misalignment in the data path (e.g., analog path) and the clock path (e.g., digital path, analog path, CMOS path, CML path, or any combination thereof) for distributed alignment. Multi-lane phase alignment corrects misalignment in multiple time-interleaved signal lanes. Multi-resolution phase alignment corrects misalignment at three or more levels of resolution (e.g., coarse, fine and ultra-fine). Multi-type phase alignment corrects misalignment using different techniques (e.g., controlled current, resistance, capacitance) in a suitable path.
US09065453B2

A signal distribution network has segments that each have a buffer circuit, a transmission line coupled to the buffer circuit, an inductor coupled to the buffer circuit through the transmission line, and a variable capacitance circuit coupled to the inductor and coupled to the buffer circuit through the transmission line. A capacitance of the variable capacitance circuit is set to determine a phase and an amplitude of a signal transmitted through the transmission line. A signal distribution network can include a phase detector, a loop filter circuit, and a resonant delay circuit. The phase detector compares a phase of a first periodic signal to a phase of a second periodic signal. The resonant delay circuit has a variable impedance circuit having an impedance that varies based on changes in an output signal of the loop filter circuit.
US09065448B2

There is provided a capacitive switch including a drive circuit, a detection circuit, a reference circuit and an identification unit. The drive circuit inputs identical drive signals to the detection circuit and the reference circuit. The detection circuit detects a touch according to a capacitance variation. The detection circuit outputs a first signal when the touch is not detected and outputs a second signal when the touch is detected. The reference circuit is a replica of the detection circuit and configured to output the first signal. The identification unit identifies a phase shift between the second signal of the detection circuit and the first signal of the reference circuit.
US09065436B2

A circuit can compensate for intra pair skew or mode conversion in a channel by applying a second or corrective mode conversion effect that counters the channel's mode conversion. The circuit can process the common mode signal with a frequency dependent filter prior to injection back into the differential mode. The circuit can implement the reverse mode conversion with passive circuits using integrated resistors and metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) switches. In certain embodiments, such actions can proceed effectively without necessarily consuming active power.
US09065433B2

A capacitor charging circuit has input, output and control nodes, first and second series connected primary FETs, and first and second leakage current reduction FETs. All of the FETs have their gates coupled to the control node. The first primary FET is coupled between the input and output nodes, and the second primary FET is coupled between the output node and a leakage current reduction node. The first leakage current reduction FET is coupled between a supply line and the leakage current reduction node, and the second leakage current reduction FET is coupled between the leakage current reduction node and ground. When a control signal at the control node is low, the first primary FET and the first leakage current reduction FET are conductive, and the second primary FET and the second leakage current reduction FET are non-conductive, which eliminates sub-threshold leakage current flowing through the second primary FET.
US09065432B2

A device that processes a signal delivered by a radiation detector includes a circuit that delivers a voltage pulse whose amplitude is proportional to a charge detected by the radiation detector. The device also includes an analog to digital converter to digitize the voltage pulse at a given sampling frequency and delivers a corresponding digital signal to a processing circuit. The processing circuit reads the digital signal, computes a temporal variation rate of the digital signal and captures the digital signal when the temporal variation reaches a threshold.
US09065416B2

A method for controlling a volume of an infotainment unit of a vehicle having an engine having a stop/start capability during operation of the vehicle includes the steps of obtaining information pertaining to a condition of the engine, and controlling the volume based at least in part upon the condition.
US09065414B2

Systems and methods of controlling output volume in mobile devices may include an apparatus having logic to detect a limited power delivery condition of a battery of a mobile platform. The logic may also transmit a hardware alert to an audio controller of the mobile platform in response to the limited power delivery condition, wherein the hardware alert is to instruct the audio controller to conduct a speaker volume reduction to an audible level. In one example, the logic enables the use of one or more high power speakers such as stereo integrated hands free speakers in the mobile device.
US09065409B2

Method and arrangement in an audio handling entity, for damping of dominant frequencies in a time segment of an audio signal. A time segment of an audio signal is obtained, and an estimate of the spectral density or “spectrum” of the time segment is derived. An approximation of the estimate is derived by smoothing the estimate, and a frequency mask is derived by inverting the approximation. Frequencies comprised in the audio time segment are then damped based on the frequency mask. The method and arrangement involves no multi-band filtering or selection of attack and release times.
US09065406B2

A continuous variable gain amplifier includes an attenuator network, a boost network, a first amplifying network, and a second amplifying network, where the attenuator network generates first differential output signals according to an input signal and sends the first differential output signals to the first amplifying network and the second amplifying network; the first amplifying network and the second amplifying network receive one output of the first differential output signals each, and generate a first final output signal and a second final output signal respectively according to an externally input control voltage; and the boost network receives the first final output signal and the second final output signal, generates second differential output signals, and sends a first output and a second output of the second differential output signals to the first amplifying network and the second amplifying network, respectively.
US09065405B2

In one implementation, a power amplifier may include a gain device to receive an input signal and to output an amplified signal, and a compensation device coupled to the gain device to compensate for a change in a capacitance of the gain device occurring due to a change in the input signal. The power amplifier may be formed using a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process.
US09065403B2

A running-linked sound generation unit includes an order sound data generation unit, a random sound data generation unit, and a synthesis unit. The order sound data generation unit generates order sound data by changing the tone of basic order sound data according to a motor rotation speed of a vehicle. The random sound data generation unit generates random sound data by changing the volume of basic random sound data according to a motor rotation speed and an accelerator command value of a vehicle, without changing the tone of the basic random sound data. The synthesis unit generates synthetic sound data by combining synthesized order sound data and random sound data.
US09065402B2

The subject matter discloses a method of amplifying a signal, the method comprising receiving a command to start transmission, gradually increasing a value of an enable signal used to amplify the transmission and intermittently transmitting the value of the enable signal to an enable transistor used to allow amplifying a transmitted signal.
US09065395B2

A speaker control system includes a speaker; an audio amplifier electrically connected to the speaker and used for driving the speaker, the audio amplifier having a shutdown pin and a reference voltage input pin; a switch circuit, a first end of the switch circuit being electrically connected to the shutdown pin and a second end of the switch circuit being connected to the reference voltage input pin; and a processor electrically connected to the shutdown pin and the first end, when the processor outputs a first voltage signal, the audio amplifier being enabled and the reference voltage input pin being kept at a reference voltage, when the processor outputs a second voltage signal, the audio amplifier being disabled and the switch circuit switching the reference voltage input pin from the reference voltage to a low voltage level.
US09065393B2

The present invention allows amplification with low distortion and high efficiency.A power amplifier of the present invention comprises signal conversion means which generates a digital signal and an analog signal from an input signal that is an amplification target based on a signal generation parameter, a switching amplifier which amplifies the digital signal, a linear amplifier which amplifies the analog signal, and DC level detection means which detect a DC level of at least one of the signal amplified by the linear amplifier and the amplified signal and output a detection result to the signal conversion means, wherein the signal conversion means adjust the signal generation parameter so that the DC level inputted by the DC level detection means is virtually equal to zero.
US09065382B2

Disclosed are circuits and methods for increasing an output frequency of an inductance-capacitance (LC) oscillator. In some embodiments, the LC oscillator can be implemented as a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) having differential outputs. When the VCO is implemented on a die, wirebond connections from the outputs to a ground results in an effective inductance that impacts a maximum frequency associated with the VCO. An electrical connection such as a wirebond between the differential outputs yields a reduction in the effective inductance thereby increasing the maximum frequency. In some embodiments, the wirebond between the differential outputs can be configured so that its contribution to mutual inductance is reduced or substantially nil.
US09065380B2

A method for calculating a motor constant of a permanent magnet type synchronous motor according to the present invention includes: a voltage applying step of applying a voltage obtained by compositing a DC component and an AC component to a permanent magnet type synchronous motor while varying a frequency of the AC component; a current detecting step of detecting a motor current flowing according to the applied voltage; a phase difference calculating step of calculating a difference in phase between the AC component of the applied voltage and an AC component of the motor current; and a motor constant calculating step of calculating a motor constant of the permanent magnet type synchronous motor. In addition, in the motor constant calculating step, the motor constant is calculated based on the applied voltage and the motor current when the difference in phase becomes nearly 45 degrees.
US09065370B2

Provided is a wind power generation apparatus to which general purpose inverters are applicable. An inverter in a constant-voltage mode is used. While a wind power generator is generating electricity, switching circuits are turned on and off at a controlled duty cycles to intermittently short-circuit an armature winding, boosting the voltage and controlling the rotational speed of a windmill rotating blade, with the result that the voltage applied to the inverter is made constant. At the activation, in order to prevent an excessive voltage from being generated while an inverter is changing from the stand-by state to the activated state, ON/OFF control of a switching circuit is performed to switch between the output voltage of a rectifier and the voltage generated at a resistor, with the result that the voltage is controlled and maintained at an appropriate value.
US09065369B2

A motor driving device comprises an inverter, a first arithmetic section, a driving command generating section and a PWM signal generating section. The first arithmetic section calculates a rotational speed and a magnetic pole electrical angle of a motor rotor based on information about a motor phase voltage and information about a motor phase current. The first arithmetic section includes a counter electromotive voltage arithmetic section, a converting section, a second arithmetic section, a third arithmetic section, and a fourth arithmetic section. The first arithmetic section outputs a sum of the magnetic pole phase error and the integrated value as the magnetic pole electrical angle.
US09065364B2

An object is to provide a specific achievement means for achieving reliable failure determination in a control system in a motor control device.The motor control device includes motor drive means for supplying a motor current to a motor; motor current detection means for detecting the motor current; and a controller to which a motor current detection value from the motor current detection means is input, and which outputs a drive signal to the motor drive means, in which the controller includes voltage control means for controlling a voltage applied to the motor; power supply voltage detection means; means for limiting the maximum value (%) of a drive duty ratio in a PWM circuit to a smaller value, upon determining power supply voltage drop; and failure determination means for determining a failure in a case of an abnormal motor current value.
US09065354B2

An inverter for converting an input direct current (DC) waveform from a DC source to an output alternating current (AC) waveform for delivery to an AC grid includes an input converter, an output converter, an input controller, and an output controller. The input controller is configured to control the operation of the input converter, and the output controller is configured to control the operation of the output controller. The input and output controllers are electrically isolated from each other and may be incapable of direct communications between each other. In some embodiments, the input and output controllers may communicate with each other via the input and output converters.
US09065348B2

An isolated switching mode power supply, having: a transformer having a primary winding, a secondary winding and a third winding; a current limit comparator configured to provide a current limit signal based on the current sense signal and the peak current signal; a logic circuit configured to provide a logic control signal based on the frequency control signal and the current limit signal; a startup control circuit configured to generate a startup control signal based on the current sense signal; a load detecting circuit configured to provide a load detecting signal based on the second feedback signal and the switching signal; and a selector configured to provide the logic control signal or the startup control signal based on the load detecting signal.
US09065345B2

A transformerless inverter that serves to feed electricity from a DC current source into an AC power grid, has an inverter bridge and a DC/DC converter connected upstream of the inverter bridge. The DC/DC converter converts an input DC voltage that is present between two input lines of the inverter into a DC link voltage present between two input lines of the inverter bridge. The inverter bridge converts the DC link voltage present at the input lines thereof into an output AC voltage. The DC/DC converter includes at least one resonant circuit that has a resonance inductance and a resonance capacitance and is connected on its input side via at least two clocked switches to one of the two input lines of the inverter or an intermediate potential line carrying a potential in between. The input lines of the inverter and the input lines of the inverter bridge are galvanically isolated from one another by a capacitive method. The resonant circuit may be undivided and is connected alternately to the two input lines of the inverter bridge.
US09065325B2

A control circuit for controlling one or more power switches of a power converter includes a voltage control loop and a current control loop. The control circuit is configured to generate a current reference for the current control loop using the voltage control loop and an AC reference signal. The control circuit is configured to operate in at least a first mode in which a parameter of the voltage control loop is sampled only at every other zero crossing of the AC reference signal and the sampled parameter is used to generate the current reference for the current control loop. The power converter may be an AC-DC converter or a DC-AC converter (i.e., inverter). Alternatively, the voltage control loop may be sampled at every zero crossing of the AC reference signal, and/or more frequently during transient load conditions.
US09065324B2

An electronic device includes a first circuit, and a delay circuit electrically connected to the first circuit. The delay circuit includes a resistor, a capacitor, and a process, voltage or temperature (PVT) compensation circuit electrically connected to the capacitor.
US09065322B2

An inverter device including a plurality of switching elements that convert electric power between DC power and AC power, a base plate that includes a surface on which the switching elements are placed, AC terminals through which AC power is input and output to and from an external device and which are electrically connected to the switching elements, and a capacitor that smoothes DC power. The AC terminals are disposed to protrude from the base plate perpendicular to the surface in a first reference direction. The capacitor is disposed in a rectangular area so that long sides of the rectangle are parallel to the first reference direction in plan view, and is set adjacent to a base disposition area, in which the base plate and the AC terminals are disposed in a second reference direction that is a direction perpendicular to the first reference direction.
US09065321B2

Isolated Dynamic-Current (“Dyna-C”) converters are converters that convert incoming 3-phase AC or DC power to a mix of DC and AC power via an isolation link. In various embodiments, the isolation link is a high-frequency isolation transformer. Isolated Dyna-C converters may provide a high-frequency galvanic isolation and are able to convert three-phase AC power to three-phase AC power, or three-phase AC power to DC and vice versa. The topology is minimal and the costs are low. Isolated Dyna-C converters provide fast current responses and keep the losses low by using a simplified two-stage conversion and providing a magnetizing current that is dynamically controllable and tailored to the load. An isolated Dyna-C converter may synthesize currents at its input or output ports with an arbitrary phase that is relative to the grid or load voltages, thereby enabling a full independent control over the active and reactive power at its ports.
US09065318B2

A method of manufacturing a rotor core includes a first process of punching out punched holes 22, 23 forming outlines of keys 13, 14 in a thin metal strip 18, the holes 22, 23 including inside areas 25 located inside a shaft hole 12 and outside areas 26 continuous from the areas 25 and located outside the hole 12; a second process of punching out the hole 12 including recesses 35, 36 to avoid the keys 13, 14 and communicating with the holes 22, 23; and a third process of punching out an outline of a core sheet 11 having the hole 12 and laminating the sheets 11. Thereby, a shaft hole having keys is formed precisely, a thickness deviation of core sheets is eliminated, and a rotor core having homogeneous magnetism is provided.
US09065314B2

A rotor (10) of a buried magnet-type electric motor, wherein the magnetic poles thereof are each constituted by two rows of magnets (M1, M2) of the same pole, wherein a core portion (12) between magnet slots of the same pole is arranged between the magnet slots (31, 32) in which the two rows of magnets are arranged, and wherein, of the edges constituting said magnet slots, the portions connecting the edges (31a, 32a) on the inner side in the radial direction to the outer edges of the core portion between the magnet slots of the same pole, have curved portions (41, 42) that connect a curve of a small curvature to a curve of a large curvature starting from the edges on the inner side in the radial direction and heading toward the outer edges of the core portion between the magnet slots of the same pole.
US09065313B2

A centrifugal heat dissipation device and a motor using same are disclosed. The centrifugal heat dissipation device includes a main body having a shaft hole, a heat-absorption zone and a heat-transfer zone. The heat-transfer zone has a radially outer side connected to the heat-absorption zone and a radially inner side connected to the shaft hole. The shaft hole axially extends through the main body for receiving a shaft of a motor therein. A centrifugal force generated by the rotating shaft and accordingly, the heat dissipation device enables enhanced vapor-liquid circulation of a working fluid in the heat dissipation device, so that heat generated by the operating motor is absorbed by the centrifugal heat dissipation device and transferred to the shaft for guiding out of the motor, allowing the motor to have largely upgraded heat dissipation performance.
US09065306B2

The invention offers a superconducting coil, which is an oxide superconducting coil 10 that has the shape of a saddle formed by winding an oxide superconducting wire 11 in the shape of a racetrack and that has a curved portion 10b and a linear portion 10a connected to the curved portion 10b. At least in the central portion of the linear portion 10a, an upper end 10d is positioned at the inner-circumference side in comparison with a lower end 10e. Having the foregoing configuration, the superconducting coil formed of an oxide super-conducting wire can suppress the reduction in its electrical property caused by the lines of magnetic flux when used in a rotating machine such as a motor. The invention also offers a superconducting-coil assembly formed by using the foregoing superconducting coils and a rotating machine incorporating the foregoing superconducting coil (superconducting-coil assembly).
US09065305B2

A system, in one embodiment, may include a welding generator having a rotor and a stator, an engine coupled to the generator wherein the rotor comprises a mass configured to provide a substantial amount of inertia to smooth operation of the engine. A system, in another embodiment, may include an engine and an electromechanical device coupled to the engine, wherein the electromechanical device comprises a rotor having a mass effective to absorb energy from the engine during firing portions and return energy to the engine during non-firing portions of a cycle of the engine. A method is provided for removing a flywheel that substantially provides inertia to an engine of a welding system and providing inertia to smooth operation of the engine without or independent of the flywheel. Another method is provided that includes substantially providing inertia to an engine via a rotor of a generator.
US09065302B2

A wireless power feeding system includes a power feeding device and a power receiving device. The power feeding device includes a first resonance coil connected to a high-frequency power source through a first matching circuit, and a first control circuit connected to the first matching circuit and a first transmitter-receiver circuit. The power receiving device includes a second resonance coil configured to be in magnetic resonance with the first resonance coil, and a second control circuit connected to a load, a second matching circuit, and a second transmitter-receiver circuit.
US09065299B2

A power electronic converter for use in high voltage direct current power transmission and reactive power compensation comprises a plurality of switching elements interconnecting in use a DC network and one or more AC networks, the plurality of switching elements being controllable in use to facilitate power conversion between the AC and DC networks, wherein in use, the plurality of switching elements are controllable to form one or more short circuits within the power electronic converter so as to define one or more primary current flow paths, the or each primary current flow path including a respective one of the AC networks and the power electronic converter and bypassing the DC network.
US09065298B2

The configurations of photovoltaic system and methods thereof are provided. The proposed photovoltaic system includes a PI-INC MPPT controller using a variable-frequency constant-duty (VFCD) control and guided by an Ipv-Vpv curve and a Ppv-Vpv curve.
US09065296B2

A battery system including: a battery, which includes at least one battery cell; a division circuit configured to receive a first voltage of the battery, generate a second voltage from the first voltage, and output the second voltage; an isolation circuit coupled between the battery and the division circuit, the isolation circuit being configured to electrically isolate the battery from the division circuit according to a control signal; and a battery management system coupled to the division circuit. The battery management system includes an isolation circuit control unit configured to generate the control signal; and a measuring unit configured to measure the second voltage.
US09065288B2

A current compensation module, a charging apparatus, and a charging apparatus controlling method are disclosed. The current compensation module is used for controlling an outputted charging current in order to charge a battery module. The current compensation module includes a transition unit, a proportional controlling unit, and an integral controlling unit. The transition unit allows an internal signal of the current compensation module increasing from a first voltage. When the internal signal attains to a second voltage, the proportional controlling unit will output a proportional controlling signal to adjust the charging current. When the charging current attains to a rated output current, the integral controlling unit incorporates with the proportional controlling unit to output a proportional-integral controlling signal in order to control and adjust the charging current for the battery module, and to suppress the output overshoot current of the charging apparatus.
US09065279B2

A charging time estimation device includes a cell temperature information acquisition unit, a cell capacity information acquisition unit, a current value information acquisition unit, a deterioration state information acquisition unit, a basic estimated value calculation unit, and a charging-required time calculation unit. The charging-required time calculation unit performs correction on a basic estimated value of a constant current charging time and a basic estimated value of a constant voltage charging time by using current value information and deterioration state information, and calculates, as a charging-required time, the sum of the basic estimated value of the constant current charging time after the correction and the basic estimated value of the constant voltage charging time after the correction.
US09065277B1

Methods and systems supply uninterrupted power to a load using a backup battery module. A driver circuit connects the load and the backup battery module such that the operational range of the load voltage is narrower than the operational range of the battery voltage. Different charging and discharging paths of the driver circuit may be used to limit the DC bus voltage to values lower than the battery voltage. The proposed systems and methods can increase power efficiency and decrease the cost of power supply and conversion operations.
US09065274B2

A connection apparatus circuit includes an isolation transformer, an impedance matching network, a high-voltage capacitor and a first high-voltage surge protector. The isolation transformer has a first coil and a second coil, wherein the first coil has a first terminal, a second terminal and a center tap. The impedance matching network is coupled between the center tap and a relay terminal. The high-voltage capacitor is coupled between the relay terminal and a ground terminal. The first high-voltage surge protector is coupled between the relay terminal and the ground terminal. When a high-voltage surge exceeds a default value between the first terminal or the second terminal and the ground terminal, the first high-voltage surge protector is conducted to clamp current on the impedance matching network.
US09065266B2

Various systems and methods are provided for minimizing an inrush current to a load after a voltage sag in a power voltage. In one embodiment, a method is provided comprising the steps of applying a power voltage to a load, and detecting a sag in the power voltage during steady-state operation of the load. The method includes the steps of adding an impedance to the load upon detection of the sag in the power voltage, and removing the impedance from the load when the power voltage has reached a predefined point in the power voltage cycle after the power voltage has returned to a nominal voltage.
US09065258B2

A switch according to the invention comprises a enclosure that is solid insulated and includes an electric power source side bushing portion, an electric load side bushing portion, and an accommodation body portion having air filled therein; a main circuit switch installed, for each pole, and having a vacuum interrupter that switches an electric power circuit by receiving a switching driving force from a common actuator; and an earth switch installed including a first fixed contactor to be earthed; a second fixed contactor electrically connected to the electric power source side connection conductor; and a movable blade connected to the common actuator, and movable to a first position for contacting the first fixed contactor and to a second position for contacting the second fixed contactor, by the switching driving force from the common actuator.
US09065253B2

Strain modulated nanostructures for optoelectronic devices and associated systems and methods are disclosed. A semiconductor laser in accordance with one embodiment of the disclosure, for example, comprises an active region having a nanowire structure formed from a semiconductor material. The nanowire structure of the semiconductor material has a bandgap that is indirect in a first strain state. The laser further includes a straining unit coupled to the active region. The straining unit is configured to modulate the nanowire structure such that the nanowire structure reaches a second strain state in which the bandgap becomes direct or substantially direct and, in operation, emits photons upon electron-hole recombination.
US09065243B2

The phase sensitive amplifier according to the present invention is a phase sensitive amplifier that uses the optical mixing using a nonlinear optical effect to amplify the signal light. The phase sensitive amplifier according to the present invention includes: the first second-order nonlinear optical element; and the second second-order nonlinear optical element. The first second-order nonlinear optical element causes the fundamental wave light to generate second harmonic light used as pump light and separates only the second harmonic light. The second second-order nonlinear optical element includes a multiplexer to multiplex the signal light with the second harmonic light and spectrally separates only the amplified signal light. The multiplexed signal light and second harmonic light are used subjected to parametric amplification.
US09065238B2

A water-cooled heat-sink for a diode-laser bar includes a copper-cooling-unit having an integral mount thereon for the diode-laser bar. The copper-cooling-unit is attached to a steel base-unit. The base-unit and the cooling-unit are cooperatively configured such that at least one cooling-channel is formed in the cooling-unit by the attachment of the base-unit to the cooling-unit. The cooling-channel is positioned to cool the mount when cooling-water flows through the cooling-channel.
US09065233B2

A wire crimping section (11) of a terminal (10) comprises a base section (13) upon which a conductor (1) of a wire (W) is arranged; and a pair of caulking sections (14) that is formed in extension from the base section (13), and that is caulked so as to crimp the conductor (1). A friction-agitation connection section (20), which is formed by making the conductor (1), the base section (13), and the pair of caulking sections (14) into a state of integrated plastic flow, is provided on the wire crimping section (11).
US09065223B2

The present disclosure relates to a telecommunications jack including a housing having a port for receiving a plug. The jack also includes a plurality of contact springs adapted to make electrical contact with the plug when the plug is inserted into the port of the housing, and a plurality of wire termination contacts for terminating wires to the jack. The jack further includes a circuit board that electrically connects the contact springs to the wire termination contacts. The circuit board includes a multi-zone crosstalk compensation arrangement for reducing crosstalk at the jack.
US09065220B2

An electrical connector (100) includes an insulative housing (1) with a plurality of contacts (11) received therein, a plurality of soldering members (12) connect the contacts (11) and protrude beyond the bottom of the insulative housing (1), and a position member (2) surrounds the insulative housing (1) and moves downwardly relative to the insulative housing (1), the insulative housing (1) includes an upper block (1010) and a lower block (1021) protruded outwardly, the position member (2) includes a body portion (20) and a soldering portion (21), the upper block (1010) locates under the body portion (20) and the lower block (1021) locates on the upper side of the body portion (20), when the soldering members (12) and the soldering portion (21) are put in a same plane, there is a space between the body portion (20) and the lower block (1021).
US09065219B2

A connector has a shell and a detection terminal. The shell is formed with a spring portion, which has a front end of a fixed end and extends rearwards. The spring portion includes a pressed portion and a contact portion. The pressed portion is pressed by a mating connector upon insertion of the mating connector into the connector along a front-rear direction. The contact portion is movable in a predetermined direction perpendicular to the front-rear direction. The shell and the detection terminal distinct and separated from the shell form a detection switch. A state of the detection switch is changed due to the movement of the contact portion in the predetermined direction when the pressed portion is pressed by the mating connector, so that the insertion of the mating connector is detected.
US09065218B2

A contact adapter for making contact in a force-optimized manner between an electrical load and a printed circuit board includes an electrically conductive contact element and an electrically non-conductive support structure. The electrically conductive contact element is configured to make an electrical contact between the printed circuit board and the electrical load. The support structure has a first supporting surface, which is configured to bear against a carrier plate of the printed circuit board. In this case, the contact element is integrated into the support structure in such a way that a first force exerted on the contact element by the electrical load is transferable to the carrier plate of the printed circuit board via the first supporting surface.
US09065208B2

A method for removing an electronic module from a base where the module includes a latch extractor assembly and a stiff shift member with latch arms outside the module body and follower arms inside the module body. An extractor engages the follower arms to move the shift member laterally and move the latch arms out of engagement with the base to free the module for removal from the base.
US09065206B2

A Sub-D connector has a base sheet, to which a plug connector is fastened, and positioning journals for positioning on a printed circuit board and lateral fastening openings for receiving fastening screws or fastening pins, wherein the base sheet comprises lateral tabs which are bent twice essentially at a right angle and surround a plug connector housing at the edges. In the state where the tabs are bent twice, the fastening openings on the front and rear side of the connector are covered by the tabs and the positioning journals are arranged on the part of the tabs which is bent once.
US09065202B2

A connector assembly includes a connecting body and a protecting cover mounted to the connecting body. The connecting body includes a first limiting portion and a second limiting portion. The connecting body is configured to accommodate multiple connecting lines. A first limiting hole and a first limiting slot are defined in the first limiting portion. A second limiting hole and a second limiting slot are defined in the second limiting portion. The protecting cover includes two flanges and two limiting brackets. An accommodating space is defined in the protecting cover. The flanges resist against the first limiting portion and the second limiting portion. The limiting brackets are locked in the first limiting hole and the second limiting hole. The flanges are received in the first limiting slot and the second limiting slot. The number of connecting lines extend to an outside of the protecting cover from the accommodating space.
US09065199B2

Entrance restricting portions (30, 31, 32) project in a receptacle (100) and are arranged in a width direction at each of opposite sides of a plurality of tabs (20, 21) in a height direction. Drop-in spaces (3A-3E) are formed at an inner side of the entrance restricting portions (30, 31) and (32) adjacently arranged at the substantially opposite sides of the tabs (20, 21). When a spherical surface of a spherical body (201) inserted into the receptacle (10) contacts the front ends of a plurality of entrance restricting portions (30, 31, 32), a top (202) on a central axis of the spherical body (201) is offset from the tabs (20, 21).
US09065193B2

A variable plug of a connector has a modular construction and includes a base module with cable connection and plug contacts. Depending on the desired total number of contacts of the plug, one or more add-on modules having additional plug contacts can be mechanically and electrically connected with the base module.
US09065188B2

The invention relates to an electrical connection having at least one plug contact element (10) and a connection wire (1) which is connected to the plug contact element (10), wherein the connection between the at least one plug contact element (10) and the connection wire (1) is established by means of at least one force-fitting connection (12, 13) which is in the form, in particular, of a crimped connection. According to the invention, provision is made for the force-fitting connection (13) to additionally be provided with a cohesive connection (15) or a soldered connection.
US09065186B2

The present invention relates to a novel microwave coaxial connector that allows for a board-to-board connection over a very short distance, typically less than or equal to 2 mm, with relatively high tolerances in relative value terms but low tolerances in absolute value terms, typically equal to 0.2 mm, and at the same time ensuring a good electrical contact between all the tracks of the printed circuits to be connected.
US09065171B2

A method and apparatus comprising a planar member and a number of support members. The planar member may be configured to be attached to an airframe of an aircraft. The number of support members may be configured to connect the number of antennas to the planar member.
US09065159B2

A method is generally described which includes altering temperature. The method includes providing a housing having an external surface and an internal surface. The method also includes coupling at least one component within the housing. At least one component is configured to generate electrical energy in combination with other components, chemicals, or materials residing within the housing. Further, the method includes forming a plurality of microchannels coupled to at least one of the internal surface of the housing or at least one internal components. Further still, the method includes providing a thermal sink coupled to the microchannels. The thermal sink is configured to transfer heat energy to or from the microchannels. Yet further still, the method includes flowing a fluid through the microchannels and the thermal sink.
US09065153B2

An electrode plate, an electrode assembly and a manufacturing method of the electrode plate to prevent an internal electrical short occurring between electrode plates by forming a ceramic layer wrapping a current collector plate and an active material layer. The electrode plate includes a current collector plate having a first face and a second face opposite to the first face, an active material layer formed on at least one of the first face and the second face of the current collector plate, and a ceramic layer wrapping the current collector plate and the active material layer.
US09065150B2

The present invention provides a stable electrolyte material that provides high safety, exhibits favorable ionic conductivity not only at room temperature but also in the low temperature range at or below room temperature, has excellent reduction resistance, and can be suitably used as a material of a lithium ion cell. The electrolyte material includes, as essential components, a specific polymer having an ether bond in a side chain thereof, and a specific electrolyte salt.
US09065148B2

A negative electrode active material for a lithium ion secondary battery contains a lithium titanium complex oxide having a composition expressed as Li4Ti5-xMnxO12 (where 0
US09065146B2

The invention relates to a nonaqueous electrolyte which comprises a nonaqueous organic solvent and a lithium salt dissolved therein, wherein the nonaqueous organic solvent contains at least one compound selected from the group consisting of acid anhydrides and carbonic esters having an unsaturated bond, and at least one compound selected from the group consisting of sulfonic compounds and fluorine-containing aromatic compounds having 9 carbon atoms or less; and a lithium secondary battery employing the same.
US09065118B1

A thin, flexible, porous polymer composite film useful as a separator for a molten-salt thermal battery having a lower temperature electrolyte melt formulation 150-250° C. typical of molten alkyl nitrate/nitrite comprises 5-50 weight percent of electrically non-conductive ceramic comprising a thermoplastic in the range of 50-95 weight percent. The high-surface-area ceramic is comprised of MgO (preferred), Al2O3, AlSiO2, BN, AlN, or a mixture of two or more of the foregoing; and providing a porous network having a porosity of not less than 30 percent by volume. Likewise, the electrodes can be manufactured with polymer-bonded particulates of porous ceramic such as MgO. Cells for thermal batteries are fabricated in the uncharged state, e.g., Carbon/lithiated metal oxide. Additionally, a polymer-based thermal battery construction can free design from the rigid stacked-pellet battery design. Alternatively, a porous ceramic composite film of MgO coated non-conductive ceramic fibers may be used as a separator.
US09065109B2

The invention relates to a method for preparing a composite material comprising a polymeric matrix and a filler consisting in ion exchange inorganic particles, comprising a step for synthesis in situ of said particles within the polymeric matrix.
US09065104B2

The invention relates to a process for manufacturing at least one elementary electrochemical cell comprising a first and a second electrode between which an electrolyte is intercalated, said first and second electrodes and said electrolyte being in the form of layers, which process is characterized in that it comprises: a) producing at least one structure comprising a layer of a powder of a first electrode material and a layer of a powder of a second electrode material between which a layer of a powder of an electrolyte material is intercalated; and b) simultaneously sintering all the powder layers by an electric field sintering. Applications: manufacture of energy- or hydrogen-producing electrochemical systems, in particular solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) or high temperature electrolysers cells (HTEs).
US09065096B2

A fuel cell stack includes a plurality of unit cells, bypass resistors, and connective resistors. The unit cells are connected in series and/or in parallel. The connected resistors are disposed between the unit cells connected in series and disconnected by heat due to resistance at a small current value in comparison to an current collector. The bypass resistors are connected in parallel to the unit cells or the unit cells connected in parallel.
US09065090B2

A membrane electrode assembly (15) formed by a solid electrolyte membrane (16) and electrode catalyst layers (17, 18) is interposed between a pair of frames (13, 14). Gas diffusion layers (19, 20) are laminated onto the surface of the electrode catalyst layers (17, 18). A first gas passage forming member (21) is laminated onto the surface of the gas diffusion layer (19) while a second gas passage forming member (22) is laminated onto the surface of the gas diffusion layer (20). Separators (23, 24) contact surfaces of the frame (13, 14) and the first and second gas passage forming member (21, 22). A plurality of first and second straight grooves (21c, 21d) are formed on the first gas passage forming member (21), such that the widths (w1, w2) differ from each other, and cross-sectional areas of the paths for the first and second gas passages (T1, T2) differ from each other.
US09065075B1

An organic light emitting display (OLED) device includes: an insulating substrate; a first electrode on the insulating substrate; a second electrode on the first electrode; a light-emitting layer between the first electrode and the second electrode; a hole common layer between the first electrode and the light-emitting layer; an electron common layer between the second electrode and the light-emitting layer; and a scattering layer on the insulating substrate and having a non-planar surface, wherein the scattering layer includes at least one of benzene, naphthalene, anthracene, tetracene, pentacene, amine, benzidine, biphenyl, carbazole, pyridine, bipyridine, imidazole, phenanthroline, phenylborane, pyrimidine, or triazine, and the base material of the scattering layer includes a substituent including at least one of a benzoyl group, a carboxyl group, an aminophenoxyl group, a tricabonate group, or a styryl group.
US09065062B2

Organic devices comprising an organic layer, wherein the organic layer is non-electroluminescent and comprises a cross-linked metal complex. The cross-linked metal complex may be formed by cross-linking a cross-linkable iridium complex, which comprises a set of ligands coordinated to a central iridium atom. One or more of the ligands have attached thereon, one or more polymerizable groups that are able to polymerize with other molecules to form intermolecular covalent bonds. In some cases, the organic layer may also comprise a dopant. Also provided are a method of making an organic light-emitting device, an iridium complex, and an organic-light emitting device using certain iridium complexes.
US09065052B2

Discussed is an organic light emitting display device. The organic light emitting display device includes a substrate in which red, green, and blue pixel areas are defined, a first electrode and a first hole transporting layer that are formed on the substrate, first to third emission common layers formed in each of the pixel areas on the first hole transporting layer, and an electron transporting layer and a second electrode that are formed on the third emission common layer. Accordingly, color mixture is prevented, limitations due to a defective mask are overcome, a process is simplified, and the manufacturing cost is saved.
US09065050B2

Methods for forming lead zirconate titanate (PZT) nanoparticles are provided. The PZT nanoparticles are formed from a precursor solution, comprising a source of lead, a source of titanium, a source of zirconium, and a mineralizer, that undergoes a hydro thermal process. The size and morphology of the PZT nanoparticles are controlled, in part, by the heating schedule used during the hydro thermal process.
US09065043B1

A tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) read sensor having a tabbed AFM layer and an extended pinned layer and methods for making the same are provided. The TMR read sensor has an AFM layer recessed from the air bearing surface, providing a reduced shield-to-shield distance.
US09065040B2

A method of fabricating a resistive random access memory (ReRAM) cell may include forming a set of nanolaminate structures over an electrode, such that each structure includes at least one first element oxide layer and at least one second element oxide layer. The overall set is operable as a resistive switching layer in a ReRAM cell. In this set, an average atomic ratio of the first element to the second element is different in at least two nanolaminate structures. This ratio may be less in nanolaminate structures that are closer to electrodes than in the middle nanolaminate structures. Alternatively, this ratio may increase from one end of the set to another. The first element may be less electronegative than the second elements. The first element may be hafnium, while the second element may be one of zirconium, aluminum, titanium, tantalum, or silicon.
US09065039B2

Provided is a magnetic tunneling junction device including a fixed magnetic structure; a free magnetic structure; and a tunnel barrier between the fixed magnetic structure and the free magnetic structure, at least one of the fixed magnetic structure and the free magnetic structure including a perpendicular magnetization preserving layer, a magnetic layer between the perpendicular magnetization preserving layer and the tunnel barrier, and a perpendicular magnetization inducing layer between the perpendicular magnetization preserving layer and the magnetic layer.
US09065023B2

The present invention provides a light emitting device, which includes a light emitting diode (LED) chip, a wavelength conversion plate including a fluorescent substance and disposed on a light output surface side of the LED chip, and a sub heat radiation path formed to radiate heat of the wavelength conversion plate. The sub heat radiation path includes a transparent heat-conductive film provided on a surface of the wavelength conversion plate, a heat radiator provided in the vicinity of the LED chip, and a thermal connection member that thermally connects the transparent heat-conductive film to the heat radiator.
US09065022B2

The present invention relates to a light emitting apparatus comprising at least one light emitting device and a support mechanism. The light emitting device includes a transparent substrate which light can pass through; at least one LED chip emitting light omni-directionally is disposed on one surface of the substrate, and the light emitted by the LED chip will penetrate into the substrate and at least partially emerge from another surface of the substrate. The support mechanism is coupled to the light emitting device; a first angle is formed between the substrate and the support mechanism. According to the present invention, the light emitting apparatus using LED chips can provide sufficient lighting intensity and uniform lighting performance.
US09065021B2

A space between a lower substrate and an upper substrate including an organic EL light-emitting layer which includes a display region for displaying an image is filled by a dam material which is applied to enclose an exterior edge of the display region and a filling material which is dripped into the interior side of the dam material. The dam material is an epoxy resin with a comparatively high viscosity before hardening and the filling material is an epoxy resin with a comparatively low viscosity before hardening. A substrate concave part is formed between the display region on a surface of the lower substrate and a coating region of the dam material.
US09065019B2

A light emitting device according to the embodiment includes a light emitting structure including a first conductive semiconductor layer, an active layer disposed under the first conductive semiconductor layer, and a second conductive semiconductor layer disposed under the active layer. A first electrode is disposed under the light emitting structure and is electrically connected to the first conductive semiconductor layer, and a second electrode is disposed under the light emitting structure and is electrically connected to the second conductive semiconductor layer. A first contact portion is disposed through the light emitting structure and includes a first region electrically connected to the first electrode and a second region making contact with a top surface of the first conductive semiconductor layer.
US09065013B2

The present disclosure relates to an energy recovery system for a vehicle. The vehicle includes a plurality of heat sources generating waste heat. The energy recovery system includes at least one thermoelectric module interfaced with each of the plurality of heat sources. Further, the waste heat provides a high temperature heat source for each of the thermoelectric modules. A low temperature heat source is interfaced with each of the thermoelectric modules. A temperature difference between the high temperature heat source and low temperature heat source produces a thermoelectric power. A controller is configured to monitor the thermoelectric power generated by each of the thermoelectric modules. The controller is further configured to optimize a utilization of the thermoelectric power generated by each of the thermoelectric modules.
US09065006B2

A device, method and process of fabricating an interdigitated multicell thermo-photo-voltaic component that is particularly efficient for generating electrical energy from photons in the red and near-infrared spectrum received from a heat source in the near field. Where the absorbing region is germanium, the device is capable of generating electrical energy by absorbing photon energy in the greater than 0.67 electron volt range corresponding to radiation in the infrared and near-infrared spectrum. Use of germanium semiconductor material provides a good match for converting energy from a low temperature heat source. The side that is opposite the photon receiving side of the device includes metal interconnections and dielectric material which provide an excellent back surface reflector for recycling below band photons back to the emitter. Multiple cells may be fabricated and interconnected as a monolithic large scale array for improved performance.
US09064993B2

A photoelectric conversion device includes a light-absorbing layer including a compound semiconductor capable of photoelectric conversion, the compound semiconductor containing a group Ib element including Cu, a group IIIb element and a group VIb element; and a semiconductor layer on one surface-side of the light-absorbing layer, the semiconductor layer having a plane orientation different from that of the light-absorbing layer, the semiconductor layer containing a group Ib element including Cu, at least one element selected from Cd, Zn and In, and a group VIb element. The photoelectric conversion device includes a region in which Cu content decreases from the light-absorbing layer to the semiconductor layer across a junction interface.
US09064984B2

Several embodiments for semiconductor devices and methods for forming semiconductor devices are disclosed herein. One embodiment is directed to a method for manufacturing a microelectronic imager having a die including an image sensor, an integrated circuit electrically coupled to the image sensor, and electrical connectors electrically coupled to the integrated circuit. The method can comprise covering the electrical connectors with a radiation blocking layer and forming apertures aligned with the electrical connectors through a layer of photo-resist on the radiation blocking layer. The radiation blocking layer is not photoreactive such that it cannot be patterned using radiation. The method further includes etching openings in the radiation blocking layer through the apertures of the photo-resist layer.
US09064982B2

A method of fabricating a bolometer infrared sensor includes depositing a first sacrificial layer on a surface of a substrate over a sensor region, and forming an absorber structure for the infrared sensor on top of the first sacrificial layer. A second sacrificial layer is deposited on top of the absorber structure. An encapsulating thin film is then deposited on top of the second sacrificial layer. Vent holes are formed in the encapsulating thin film. The first and the second sacrificial layers are removed below the encapsulating thin film to release the absorber structure and form a cavity above the sensing region that extends down to the substrate in which the absorber structure is located via the vent holes. The vent holes are then closed in a vacuum environment to seal the absorber structure within the cavity.
US09064981B2

A device and method to protect an APD or SiPM optical receiver against photodetector voltage supply variation is presented. A differential trans-impedance amplifier includes one input connected to the photodetector and the other input connected to a high voltage supply variation sensing device. The sensing element includes a circuit replicating the impedance of the photodetector.
US09064969B2

According to an embodiment, in a method of fabricating a nonvolatile semiconductor memory device, second trenches penetrating the first and second conductive layers above the first trenches are formed to reach the stack, and a second insulating layer is formed on the second trenches and the first insulating layer so as to fill the second trenches. A part of the second insulating layer in a first region extending in a direction orthogonal to a direction that the first and second semiconductor pillars extend in a plane parallel to the back gate layer is removed while a part of the second insulating layer in a second region adjacent to the first region is left. The first sacrificial layer is selectively removed, and the first conductive layers and second conductive layers exposed in the first and second trenches are silicidized.
US09064968B2

Provided is a non-volatile memory device having a zigzag body wiring. First word lines and second word lines are disposed on a substrate, arranged periodically and extended along a first direction. First inter-poly dielectric films are disposed on the substrate and respectively beneath the first word lines. Second inter-poly dielectric films are disposed on the substrate and respectively beneath the second word lines, wherein the first inter-poly dielectric films are thinner than the second inter-poly dielectric films. A floating gate is disposed between the substrate and each of the first and second inter-poly dielectric films. A tunnel oxide film is disposed between the substrate and each of the floating gates. Bit lines are disposed above the first and second word lines and extended along a second direction different from the first direction.
US09064967B2

The semiconductor element includes an oxide semiconductor layer on an insulating surface; a source electrode layer and a drain electrode layer over the oxide semiconductor layer; a gate insulating layer over the oxide semiconductor layer, the source electrode layer, and the drain electrode layer; and a gate electrode layer over the gate insulating layer. The source electrode layer and the drain electrode layer have sidewalls which are in contact with a top surface of the oxide semiconductor layer.
US09064965B2

This application discloses ZnO film transistor-based immunosensors (ZnO-bioTFT), 2T biosensor arrays formed from two integrated ZnO-bioTFTs, 1T1R-based nonvolatile memory (NVM) arrays formed from ZnO-bioTFT (T) integrated with ZnO-based resistive switches (R), as well as integrated bioTFT (IBTFT) sensor systems formed from 2T biosensor arrays and 1T1R NVM arrays. Through biofunctionalization, these biosensors can perform immunosensing with high sensitivity and selectivity, and therefore have a wide range of applications, for example, in detecting target biomolecules or small molecules, and potential application in cancer diagnosis and treatment.
US09064961B2

Integrated circuits and methods for fabricating integrated circuits are provided. In one example, a method for fabricating an integrated circuit includes forming a cavity in a semiconductor region laterally adjacent to a gate electrode structure. An EPI strain-inducing fill is deposited into the cavity. The EPI strain-inducing fill includes a main SiGe layer and a Si cap that overlies the main SiGe layer. The EPI strain-inducing fill is doped with boron and has a first peak boron content in an upper portion of the EPI strain-inducing fill of about 2.5 times or greater than an average boron content in an intermediate portion of the main SiGe layer.
US09064956B2

A semiconductor device includes junction regions formed in upper portions of both sidewalls of a trench formed in a semiconductor substrate, a first gate electrode buried in the trench and having a stepped upper surface, and a second gate electrode formed on the first gate electrode to overlap a junction region.
US09064949B2

An electronic device can include a semiconductor layer, and a trench extending into the semiconductor layer and having a tapered shape. In an embodiment, the trench includes a wider portion and a narrower portion. The electronic device can include a doped semiconductor region that extends to a narrower portion of the trench and has a dopant concentration greater than a dopant concentration of the semiconductor layer. In another embodiment, the electronic device can include a conductive structure within a relatively narrower portion of the trench, and a conductive electrode within a relatively wider portion of the trench. In another embodiment, a process of forming the electronic device can include forming a sacrificial plug and may allow insulating layers of different thicknesses to be formed within the trench.
US09064942B2

A method of fabricating an electronic device includes the following steps. At least one first set and at least one second set of nanowires and pads are etched in an SOI layer of an SOI wafer. A first gate stack is formed that surrounds at least a portion of each of the first set of nanowires that serves as a channel region of a capacitor device. A second gate stack is formed that surrounds at least a portion of each of the second set of nanowires that serves as a channel region of a FET device. Source and drain regions of the FET device are selectively doped. A first silicide is formed on the source and drain regions of the capacitor device that extends at least to an edge of the first gate stack. A second silicide is formed on the source and drain regions of the FET device.
US09064940B2

A semiconductor substrate having a through-silicon via with an air gap interposed between the through-silicon via and the semiconductor substrate is provided. An opening is formed partially through the semiconductor substrate. The opening is first lined with a first liner and then the opening is filled with a conductive material. A backside of the semiconductor substrate is thinned to expose the first liner, which is subsequently removed and a second liner formed with a low-k or extra low-k dielectric is formed in its place.
US09064931B2

The present invention provides a semiconductor structure including at least a contact plug. The structure includes a substrate, a transistor, a first ILD layer, a second ILD layer and a first contact plug. The transistor is disposed on the substrate and includes a gate and a source/drain region. The first ILD layer is disposed on the transistor and levels with a top surface of the gate. The second ILD layer is disposed on the first ILD layer. The first contact plug is disposed in the first ILD layer and the second ILD layer and includes a first trench portion and a first via portion, wherein a boundary of the first trench portion and a first via portion is higher than the top surface of the gate. The present invention further provides a method of making the same.
US09064929B2

There is disclosed a method for manufacturing an SOI wafer comprising: a step of implanting at least one of a hydrogen ion and a rare gas ion into a donor wafer to form an ion implanted layer; a step of bonding an ion implanted surface of the donor wafer to a handle wafer; a step of delaminating the donor wafer at the ion implanted layer to reduce a film thickness of the donor wafer, thereby providing an SOI layer; and a step of etching the SOI layer to reduce a thickness of the SOI layer, wherein the etching step includes: a stage of performing rough etching as wet etching; a stage of measuring a film thickness distribution of the SOI layer after the rough etching; and a stage of performing precise etching as dry etching based on the measured film thickness distribution of the SOI layer. There can be provided A method for manufacturing an SOI wafer having high film thickness uniformity of an SOI layer with excellent productivity.
US09064926B2

There is provided a technique for improving the flatness at the surface of members embedded in a plurality of recesses without resulting in an increase in the time required for the manufacturing processes. According to this technique, the dummy patterns can be placed up to the area near the boundary BL between the element forming region DA and dummy region FA by placing the first dummy pattern DP1 of relatively wider area and the second dummy pattern DP2 of relatively small area in the dummy region FA. Thereby, the flatness of the surface of the silicon oxide film embedded within the isolation groove can be improved over the entire part of the dummy region FA. Moreover, an increase of the mask data can be controlled when the first dummy patterns DP1 occupy a relatively wide region among the dummy region FA.
US09064925B2

A power semiconductor device is disclosed with layers of different conductivity types between an emitter electrode on an emitter side and a collector electrode on a collector side. The device can include a drift layer, a first base layer in direct electrical contact to the emitter electrode, a first source region embedded into the first base layer which contacts the emitter electrode and has a higher doping concentration than the drift layer, a first gate electrode in a same plane and lateral to the first base layer, a second base layer in the same plane and lateral to the first base layer, a second gate electrode on top of the emitter side, and a second source region electrically insulated from the second base layer, the second source region and the drift layer by a second insulating layer.
US09064923B2

A bipolar semiconductor component includes a semiconductor body having first and second substantially parallel main surfaces and at least one load pn junction, a first metallization on the first surface, a second metallization on the second surface, and a current path running in the semiconductor body from the first metallization to the second metallization only through n-doped zones, including between first and second p-doped zones which are in contact with the first metallization and spaced apart from one another by an n-doped channel zone through which the current path runs. A space charge region forms in the semiconductor body between the first and second p-doped zones to fully deplete the n-doped channel zone between the first and second p-doped zones and therefore prevent current flow between the first and second metallizations along the current path when a positive voltage is applied between the second metallization and the first metallization.
US09064921B2

An inactive gas introducing facility includes an introducing device for introducing inactive gas to the inside of a container stored in a storage section of a storage shelf with discharging gas present inside the container to the inside of a storage space partitioned from the outside and a controller for controlling operation of the introducing device. In a normal stop mode, the controller controls the operation of the introducing device to stop feeding of inactive gas to the container in response to detection of an opened state of an inspection door. And, in a stop nullification mode, the controller controls the operation of the introducing device to continue feeding of inactive gas to the container even in response to detection of the opened state of the inspection door.
US09064919B2

An industrial robot including a first arm which has a first arm portion, and a second arm portion supported by the first arm portion. The industrial robot also includes a second arm which has a third arm portion and a fourth arm portion supported by the third arm portion. The first arm and the second arm can be expanded/retracted independently. A turning center of the first arm portion and a turning center of the third arm portion are placed coaxially. The first arm and the second arm are constructed so as to be almost line-symmetric with respect to an imaginary line under the condition that the first arm and the second arm are retracted. The first arm portion, the third arm portion, the second arm portion, and the fourth arm portion are placed in this order in a vertical direction.
US09064909B2

A showerhead electrode for a plasma processing apparatus includes an interface gel between facing surfaces of an electrode plate and a backing plate. The interface gel maintains thermal conductivity during lateral displacements generated during temperature cycling due to mismatch in coefficients of thermal expansion. The interface gel comprises, for example, a silicone based composite filled with aluminum oxide microspheres. The interface gel can conform to irregularly shaped features and maximize surface contact area between mating surfaces. The interface gel can be pre-applied to a consumable upper electrode.
US09064904B2

A MOS P-N junction Schottky diode device includes a substrate having a first conductivity type, a field oxide structure defining a trench structure, a gate structure formed in the trench structure and a doped region having a second conductivity type adjacent to the gate structure in the substrate. An ohmic contact and a Schottky contact are formed at different sides of the gate structure. The method for manufacturing such diode device includes several ion-implanting steps to form several doped sub-regions with different implantation depths to constitute the doped regions. The formed MOS P-N junction Schottky diode device has low forward voltage drop, low reverse leakage current, fast reverse recovery time and high reverse voltage tolerance.
US09064900B2

The present disclosure provides for semiconductor device structures and methods for forming semiconductor device structures, wherein a field-inducing structure is provided lower than an active portion of a fin along a height dimension of that fin, the height dimension extending in parallel to a normal direction of a semiconductor substrate surface in which the fin is formed. The field-inducing structure hereby implements a permanent field effect below the active portion. The active portion of the fin is to be understood as a portion of the fin covered by a gate dielectric.
US09064898B2

In a transistor including an oxide semiconductor film, a metal oxide film for preventing electrification which is in contact with the oxide semiconductor film and covers a source electrode and a drain electrode is formed. Then, oxygen is introduced (added) to the oxide semiconductor film through the metal oxide film and heat treatment is performed. Through these steps of oxygen introduction and heat treatment, impurities such as hydrogen, moisture, a hydroxyl group, or hydride are intentionally removed from the oxide semiconductor film, so that the oxide semiconductor film is highly purified. Further, by providing the metal oxide film, generation of a parasitic channel on a back channel side of the oxide semiconductor film can be prevented in the transistor.
US09064891B2

When forming spacer structures enclosing a gate electrode structure of a transistor, a common problem is given by the thickness variation of the spacer structure obtained as a result of a first deposition process performed in a first chamber and a second, subsequent process performed in a second chamber. The present disclosure provides a method for forming spacers of a well-defined thickness. The method relies on a single deposition step performed by means of an atomic layer deposition. The deposition is performed in two stages performed at different temperatures.
US09064889B2

To improve performance of a semiconductor device. Over a semiconductor substrate, a gate electrode is formed via a first insulating film for a gate insulating film, and a second insulating film extends from over a side wall of the gate electrode to over the semiconductor substrate. Over the semiconductor substrate in a part exposed from the second insulating film, a semiconductor layer, which is an epitaxial layer for source/drain, is formed. The second insulating film has a part extending over the side wall of the gate electrode and a part extending over the semiconductor substrate, and a part of the semiconductor layer lies over the second insulating film in the part extending over the semiconductor substrate.
US09064884B2

An object is to provide a semiconductor device having a novel structure with a high degree of integration. A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor layer having a channel formation region, a source electrode and a drain electrode electrically connected to the channel formation region, a gate electrode overlapping with the channel formation region, and a gate insulating layer between the channel formation region and the gate electrode. A portion of a side surface of the semiconductor layer having the channel formation region and a portion of a side surface of the source electrode or the drain electrode are substantially aligned with each other when seen from a planar direction.
US09064881B2

A die has a first surface, a second surface opposite the first surface, and sidewalls includes a first portion and a second portion, wherein the first portion is closer to the first surface than the second portion. A fillet contacts the first portion of sidewalls of the die and encircles the die. A work piece is bonded to the die through solder bumps, with the second surface facing the work piece. A first underfill is filled a gap between the die and the work piece, wherein the first underfill contacts the fillet, and wherein the first underfill and the fillet are formed of different materials.
US09064875B2

Embodiments relate to a method for making a semiconductor structure, the method comprising: forming a seed layer in direct contact with a dielectric material; forming a masking layer over the seed layer; patterning the masking layer to expose the seed layer; forming a fill layer over the exposed seed layer; and causing the seed layer to react with the dielectric layer to form a barrier layer between the fill layer and the dielectric layer.
US09064872B2

Techniques are disclosed that enable improved shorting margin between unlanded conductive interconnect features and neighboring conductive features. In some embodiments, an etch may be applied to an insulator layer having one or more conductive features therein, such that the insulator layer is recessed below the top of the conductive features and the edges of the conductive features are rounded or otherwise softened. A conformal etch stop layer may then be deposited over the conductive features and the insulator material. A second insulator layer may be deposited above the conformal etch stop layer, and an interconnect feature may pass through the second insulator layer and the conformal etch stop layer to connect with the rounded portion of one of the conductive features. In some embodiments, the interconnect feature is an unlanded via and the unlanded portion of the via may or may not penetrate through the conformal barrier layer.
US09064868B2

One illustrative device disclosed herein includes a transistor comprising a gate electrode and a drain region formed in a semiconducting substrate, an isolation structure formed in the substrate, wherein the isolation structure is laterally positioned between the gate electrode and the drain region, and a Faraday shield that is positioned laterally between the gate electrode and the drain region and above the isolation structure, wherein the Faraday shield has a long axis that is oriented substantially vertically relative to an upper surface of the substrate.
US09064866B2

A metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) structure having a high dielectric constant gate insulator layer containing gold (Au) nano-particles is presented with methods for forming the layer with high step coverage of underlying topography, high surface smoothness, and uniform thickness. The transistor may form part of a logic device, a memory device, a persistent memory device, a capacitor, as well as other devices and systems. The insulator layer may be formed using atomic layer deposition (ALD) to reduce the overall device thermal exposure. The insulator layer may be formed of a metal oxide, a metal oxycarbide, a semiconductor oxide, or semiconductor oxide oxycarbide, and the gold nano-particles in insulator layer increase the work function of the insulator layer and affect the tunneling current and the threshold voltage of the transistor.
US09064862B2

Dual-layered structural semiconductor chips are provided. The semiconductor chip includes a first semiconductor chip and a second semiconductor chip bonded to the first semiconductor chip. The first semiconductor chip includes a first substrate having a first bottom surface. The second semiconductor chip includes a second substrate having a second bottom surface. The first bottom surface directly contacts the second bottom surface. The related packages and the related methods are also provided.
US09064856B1

In the Flip-Chip type LED component built therein with a Zener chip: a Flip-Chip LED chip and a Flip-Chip Zener straddle respectively over and beneath two electrode pins, wherein the Flip-Chip Zener is covered with insulating material to form a base and the Flip-Chip LED chip is covered with a transparent package to thereby form an integral Flip-Chip LED component, hence not only the Flip-Chip LED component can be protected in use, but also can largely simplify the production process and reduce the cost of production.
US09064854B2

A semiconductor device includes a first conductive layer, a first intermediate structure over the first conductive layer, a second intermediate structure over the first intermediate structure, and a second conductive layer over the second intermediate structure. The first intermediate structure includes a metal silicide layer and a nitrogen containing metal layer. The second intermediate structure includes at least a nitrogen containing metal silicide layer.
US09064849B2

The present invention discloses a semiconductor device. In one embodiment, the semiconductor device comprises a substrate, a diffusion stop layer formed on the substrate, an SOI layer formed on the diffusion stop layer, an MOSFET transistor formed on the SOI layer, and a TSV formed in a manner of penetrating through the substrate, the diffusion stop layer, the SOI layer, and a layer where the MOSFET transistor is located; and an interconnect structure connecting the MOSFET transistor and the TSV.
US09064848B2

Antireflective residues during pattern transfer and consequential short circuiting are eliminated by employing an underlying sacrificial layer to ensure complete removal of the antireflective layer. Embodiments include forming a hard mask layer over a conductive layer, e.g., a silicon substrate, forming the sacrificial layer over the hard mask layer, forming an optical dispersive layer over the sacrificial layer, forming a silicon anti-reflective coating layer over the optical dispersive layer, forming a photoresist layer over the silicon anti-reflective coating layer, where the photoresist layer defines a pattern, etching to transfer the pattern to the hard mask layer, and stripping at least the optical dispersive layer and the sacrificial layer.
US09064846B2

A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor element, a base plate having an upper surface on which the semiconductor element is mounted, a cooling fin disposed on a lower surface of the base plate, a jacket disposed in a sealing manner on the lower surface of the base plate, the jacket surrounding the cooling fin, and a header partition wall formed separately from the jacket and fixed to the jacket on the lower side of the cooling fin in the jacket, the header partition wall forming a header and a flow path for causing a refrigerant flow to the cooling fin.
US09064843B2

A semiconductor device includes a substrate, and a gate electrode formed on the substrate on a gate insulation film. The semiconductor device also includes a source diffusion layer and a drain diffusion layer which are formed on the substrate where the gate electrode is sandwiched between the source diffusion layer and the drain diffusion layer, one or more source contacts formed on the source diffusion layer; and one or more drain contacts formed on the drain diffusion layer. At least one of the source contacts and the drain contacts includes a first contact region having a first size and a second contact region having a second size larger than the first size on the same source diffusion layer or on the same drain diffusion layer.
US09064841B2

A metal-oxide-metal capacitor comprises a first electrode, a second electrode, a plurality of first fingers and a plurality of second fingers. Each first finger and its corresponding second finger are in parallel and separated by a low k dielectric material. A via-hole region is employed to enclose the metal-oxide-metal capacitor so as to remove the moisture stored in the low k dielectric material.
US09064840B2

An insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) includes a first conductivity type substrate and a second conductivity type drift layer on the substrate. The second conductivity type is opposite the first conductivity type. The IGBT further includes a current suppressing layer on the drift layer. The current suppressing layer has the second conductivity type and has a doping concentration that is larger than a doping concentration of the drift layer. A first conductivity type well region is in the current suppressing layer. The well region has a junction depth that is less than a thickness of the current suppressing layer, and the current suppressing layer extends laterally beneath the well region. A second conductivity type emitter region is in the well region.
US09064818B2

A semiconductor device includes an insulating circuit substrate mounted with at least one semiconductor element; a resin case having a bottom surface portion attached with the insulating circuit substrate and a side surface portion enclosing a periphery of the bottom surface portion; a lead molded integrally with the resin case and provided on a periphery of the insulating circuit substrate to be positioned on a surface of the bottom surface portion inside the resin case, the lead partially extending from inside the resin case to outside the resin case; and a sealing resin filled inside the resin case. A depressed portion is formed on two sides of the lead along a peripheral edge of the bottom surface portion inside the resin case.
US09064806B1

A chemical mechanical polishing pad is provided having a polishing layer; and a window incorporated into the polishing layer; wherein the polishing layer comprises a reaction product of ingredients, including: a polishing layer prepolymer and a polishing layer curative system; wherein the polishing layer curative system includes a polishing layer amine initiated polyol curative, a polishing layer high molecular weight polyol curative and a polishing layer difunctional curative; and, wherein the window comprises a reaction product of ingredients, including: a window prepolymer and a window curative system; wherein the window curative system includes a window difunctional curative, a window amine initiated polyol curative and a window high molecular weight polyol curative; and, wherein the polishing layer exhibits a density of ≧0.6 g/cm3; a Shore D hardness of 5 to 40; an elongation to break of 100 to 450%; and, a cut rate of 25 to 150 μm/hr.
US09064795B2

Techniques for processing a substrate are disclosed. In one exemplary embodiment, the technique may be realized as a method for processing a substrate, the method comprising: ionizing first material and second material in an ion source chamber of an ion source, the first material being boron (B) containing material, the second material being one of phosphorous (P) containing material and arsenic (As) containing material; generating first ions containing B and second ions containing one of P and As; and extracting the first and second ions from the ion source chamber and directing the first and second ions toward the substrate.
US09064794B2

An integrated circuit includes a substrate including isolation regions, a first conductive line formed in the substrate between isolation regions, and a vertical diode formed in the substrate. The integrated circuit includes a contact coupled to the vertical diode and a memory element coupled to the contact. The first conductive line provides a portion of the vertical diode.
US09064792B2

A memory includes a semiconductor substrate. Magnetic tunnel junction elements are provided above the semiconductor substrate. Each of the magnetic tunnel junction elements stores data by a change in a resistance state, and the data is rewritable by a current. Cell transistors are provided on the semiconductor substrate. Each of the cell transistors is in a conductive state when the current is applied to the corresponding magnetic tunnel junction element. Gate electrodes are included in the respective cell transistors. Each of the gate electrodes controls the conductive state of the corresponding cell transistor. In active areas, the cell transistors are provided, and the active areas extend in an extending direction of intersecting the gate electrodes at an angle of (90-atan(⅓)) degrees.
US09064786B2

Various embodiments include dual three-dimensional (3D) resistor structures and methods of forming such structures. In some embodiments, a dual 3D resistor structure includes: a dielectric layer having a first set of trenches extending in a first direction through the dielectric layer; and a second set of trenches overlayed on the first set of trenches, the second set of trenches extending in a second direction through the dielectric layer, the second set of trenches and the first set of trenches forming at least one dual 3D trench; and a resistor material overlying the dielectric layer and at least partially filling the at least one dual 3D trench along the first direction and the second direction.
US09064784B1

A packaged IC having laser vias and methods for making the same. The packaged IC includes a die having bond pads thereon, wire bonds contacting the bond pads, and a substrate configured to electrically connect the wire bonds and external package connectors. The substrate includes mechanical vias through the substrate layers and laser vias in an uppermost substrate layer. Each laser via is closer to the die than the mechanical vias that do not overlap or are not covered by the die. The method includes routing traces on uppermost and lowermost layers, the traces electrically connecting wire bonds and external package connectors, forming mechanical vias through all layers of the substrate, forming laser vias in the uppermost substrate layer, and electrically connecting each wire bond to one trace on the uppermost substrate layer.
US09064782B2

A droplet discharge head includes: a vibrating plate on which first and second terminals are formed; a reservoir forming substrate bonded to the vibrating plate and including a first inclined surface as a side surface on which a first wiring electrically connected to the first terminal is formed and that is inclined to a plate surface; and a wiring substrate bonded to the vibrating plate and including a second inclined surface as a side surface on which a second wiring electrically connected to the second terminal is formed and that is inclined to a plate surface along the first inclined surface.
US09064775B2

The invention provides semiconductor materials including a gallium nitride material layer formed on a silicon substrate and methods to form the semiconductor materials. The semiconductor materials include a transition layer formed between the silicon substrate and the gallium nitride material layer. The transition layer is compositionally-graded to lower stresses in the gallium nitride material layer which can result from differences in thermal expansion rates between the gallium nitride material and the substrate. The lowering of stresses in the gallium nitride material layer reduces the tendency of cracks to form. Thus, the invention enables the production of semiconductor materials including gallium nitride material layers having few or no cracks. The semiconductor materials may be used in a number of microelectronic and optical applications.
US09064769B2

An image sensor architecture for an active pixel sensor array are separated and arranged vertically in at least two different layers in a hybrid chip structure. The top layer includes the photodiode and amplifier circuitry for each pixel. A bottom includes the pixel circuit components and any digital circuitry required for signal processing. By forming the top layer in a process optimized for forming low-noise pixels, the pixel performance can be greatly improved. In addition, since the digital circuitry is now separated from the imaging circuitry, it can be formed using a process which has been optimized for circuit speed and manufacturing cost. By combining the two layers into a stacked structure, the top layer (and any intermediate layer(s)) acts to optically shield the lower layer, thereby allowing charge to be stored and shielded without the need for a mechanical shutter.
US09064765B2

An apparatus for, and a method of, electro-optically reading a target by image capture, employ a scan engine in a handheld housing having a tilted handle. A single tilted printed circuit board (PCB) in the handle has front and rear surfaces that respectively face toward and away from the target during reading. An optical assembly having a pair of fold mirrors is mounted on the rear surface, for receiving return light from the target through an aperture in the PCB along the horizontal, and for directing the return light along an internal folded optical path. An imaging lens assembly is mounted between the fold mirrors and has an imaging axis that extends generally parallel to the PCB. The imaging lens assembly projects the return light onto a solid-state, two-dimensional, image sensor to enable the return light to be detected over a field of view, and to generate an electrical signal indicative of the detected return light.
US09064763B2

The present invention relates to a solid-state imaging element which is able to provide the solid-state imaging element having a polarizing element having a simple configuration and structure based on a wire grid polarizer technique, a solid-state imaging device, an imaging apparatus, and a method of manufacturing a polarizing element. The solid-state imaging device includes a plurality of solid-state imaging elements 41 each including a photoelectric conversion element 61 and a polarizing element 70 formed on the light incident side of the photoelectric conversion element 61. The solid-state imaging device includes two or more kinds of polarizing elements 70 having different polarization orientations. Each polarizing element has a stacked structure in which a stripe-shaped reflecting layer 71, an insulating layer 72 formed on the reflecting layer 71, and a light absorption layer 73 made up of a plurality of segments 73′ formed on the insulating layer 72 in a separated state are stacked in that order from the photoelectric conversion element side.
US09064756B2

A thin film transistor array panel includes: a substrate including a display area and a drive region in which a driving chip for transmitting a driving signal to the pixels is located; a gate line in the display area; a storage electrode line; a gate driving pad coupled to the driving chip; a gate insulating layer; a first semiconductor layer on the gate insulating layer and overlapped with a gate electrode protruding from the gate line; a second semiconductor layer formed on the gate insulating layer and overlapped with a sustain electrode protruding from the storage electrode line; a data line crossing the gate line in an insulated manner and a drain electrode separated from the data line; and a pixel electrode coupled to the drain electrode, and the drain electrode comprises a drain bar facing the source electrode, and a drain extender overlapped with the second semiconductor layer.
US09064752B2

An array substrate includes: a trench having a depth from a surface of a substrate; a gate line, a gate electrode and a data pattern filling the respective trenches, wherein the data pattern is between the adjacent gate lines; a gate insulating layer on the gate line, the gate electrode and the data pattern, substantially flat over the substrate, and including contact holes that expose both ends of the data pattern, respectively; a data connection portion on the gate insulating layer and contacting the adjacent data patterns through the contact holes; a source electrode extending from the data connection portion, and a drain electrode spaced apart from the source electrode; a passivation layer on the source and drain electrodes and including a drain contact hole exposing the drain electrode; and a pixel electrode on the passivation layer and contacting the drain electrode through the drain contact hole.
US09064744B2

The specification and drawings present a new method, ASIC and computer/software related product (e.g., a computer readable memory) are presented for realizing conformal doping in embedded deep trench applications in the ASIC. A common SOI substrate with intrinsic or low dopant concentration is used for manufacturing such ASICs comprising a logic area having MOSFETs utilizing, for example, ultra thin body and box technology and an eDRAM area having deep trench capacitors with the conformal doping.
US09064743B2

Fabrication methods are disclosed that facilitate the production of electronic structures that are both flexible and stretchable to conform to non-planar (e.g. curved) surfaces without suffering functional damage due to excessive strain. Electronic structures including CMOS devices are provided that can be stretched or squeezed within acceptable limits without failing or breaking. The methods disclosed herein further facilitate the production of flexible, stretchable electronic structures having multiple levels of intra-chip connectors. Such connectors are formed through deposition and photolithographic patterning (back end of the line processing) and can be released following transfer of the electronic structures to flexible substrates.
US09064738B2

Methods of forming a power semiconductor device having an edge termination are provided in which the power semiconductor device that has a drift region of a first conductivity type is formed on a substrate. A junction termination extension is formed on the substrate adjacent the power semiconductor device, the junction termination extension including a plurality of junction termination zones that are doped with dopants having a second conductivity type. The junction termination zones have different effective doping concentrations. A dopant activation process is performed to activate at least some of the dopants in the junction termination zones. An electrical characteristic of the power semiconductor device is measured. Then, the junction termination extension is etched in order to reduce the effective doping concentration within the junction termination extension.
US09064734B2

A semiconductor device includes a substrate including an active region and a field region, first gate structures disposed on the active region, first air gaps disposed between the first gate structures, second gate structures disposed on the field region, second air gaps disposed between the second gate structures, and an interlayer insulating layer disposed on the first gate structures, the first air gaps, the second gate structures, and the second air gaps. A lowermost level of the second air gaps is lower than a lowermost level of the first gate structures.
US09064729B2

A method is provided for fabricating a junction-less transistor. The method includes providing a semiconductor substrate having a dielectric layer; and forming a semiconductor layer including a first heavily doped layer formed on the dielectric layer, a lightly doped layer formed on the first heavily doped layer and a second heavily doped layer formed on the lightly doped layer. The method also includes etching the semiconductor layer and the dielectric layer to form trenches to expose side surfaces of a portion of the semiconductor layer and a portion of the dielectric layer; and removing the portion of the dielectric layer between the adjacent trenches to form a chamber. Further, the method includes forming a gate structure around the portion of the semiconductor layer between the adjacent trenches; and forming a source region and a drain region in the semiconductor layer at both sides of the gate structure.
US09064709B2

III-N high voltage MOS capacitors and System on Chip (SoC) solutions integrating at least one III-N MOS capacitor capable of high breakdown voltages (BV) to implement high voltage and/or high power circuits. Breakdown voltages over 4V may be achieved avoiding any need to series couple capacitors in an RFIC and/or PMIC. In embodiments, depletion mode III-N capacitors including a GaN layer in which a two dimensional electron gas (2DEG) is formed at threshold voltages below 0V are monolithically integrated with group IV transistor architectures, such as planar and non-planar silicon CMOS transistor technologies. In embodiments, silicon substrates are etched to provide a (111) epitaxial growth surface over which a GaN layer and III-N barrier layer are formed. In embodiments, a high-K dielectric layer is deposited, and capacitor terminal contacts are made to the 2DEG and over the dielectric layer.
US09064699B2

Methods of forming semiconductor patterns including reduced dislocation defects and devices formed using such methods are provided. The methods may include forming an oxide layer on a substrate and forming a recess in the oxide layer and the substrate. The methods may further include forming an epitaxially grown semiconductor pattern in the recess that contacts a sidewall of the substrate at an interface between the oxide layer and the substrate and defines an upper surface of a void in the recess in the substrate.
US09064697B2

A trap rich layer for an integrated circuit chip is formed by chemical etching and/or laser texturing of a surface of a semiconductor layer. In some embodiments, a trap rich layer is formed by a technique selected from the group of techniques consisting of laser texturing, chemical etch, irradiation, nanocavity formation, porous Si-etch, semi-insulating polysilicon, thermal stress relief and mechanical texturing. Additionally, combinations of two or more of these techniques may be used to form a trap rich layer.
US09064696B2

Provided is an apparatus for manufacturing a compound semiconductor, which forms a compound semiconductor layer using a metal-organic chemical vapor deposition method. The apparatus is characterized in that: the apparatus is provided with a reaction container, a holder, which is disposed in the reaction container and has placed thereon a subject, on which the layer is to be formed, the subject having facing up the subject surface where the layer is to be formed, and a raw material supply port, through which the raw material gas of the compound semiconductor is supplied to the inside of the reaction container from the outside; the holder is in contact with the lower surface of the subject, the contact being inside of the outer circumferential portion of the subject to the center of the upper surface of the holder; and that the holder has a supporting portion, which supports the subject such that a predetermined interval is maintained between the upper surface of the holder and the lower surface of the subject. In the manufacture of the compound semiconductor using the MOCVD method, temperature distribution on the substrate surface to be deposited with a compound semiconductor crystal, and deviation of in-plane averaged light emission wavelength from a target value are suppressed using the apparatus.
US09064693B2

Deposition of thin film dielectrics, and in particular for chemical vapor deposition of nano-layer structures comprising multiple layers of dielectrics, such as, silicon dioxide, silicon nitride, silicon oxynitride, and/or other silicon compatible dielectrics includes post-deposition surface treatment of deposited layers with a metal or semiconductor source gas, e.g., a silicon source gas. Deposition of silicon containing dielectrics comprises silane-based chemistry for deposition of doped or undoped dielectric layers, and surface treatment of deposited dielectric layers with silane. Surface treatment provides dielectric layers with improved layer-to-layer uniformity and lateral continuity, and substantially atomically flat dielectric layers suitable for multilayer structures for electroluminescent light emitting structures, e.g., active layers containing rare earth containing luminescent centers. Doped or undoped dielectric thin films or nano-layer dielectric structures may also be provided for other semiconductor devices.
US09064690B2

A Cu wiring forming method forms Cu wiring in a recess of a predetermined pattern including a trench formed in an insulating film on a substrate surface. The method includes: forming a barrier film at least on a surface of the recess; forming a Cu film by PVD to fill the recess with the Cu film; forming an additional layer on the Cu film; polishing an entire surface by CMP to form the Cu wiring in the recess; forming a metal cap including a manganese oxide film on an entire surface including the insulating film and the Cu wiring of the substrate after performing the CMP polishing; and forming a dielectric cap on the metal cap.
US09064687B2

Substrate carrier can have drainage area leading the liquid away from the substrates, so that liquid droplet can be channeled away from the substrate area. The drainage area can include tilted lines and surfaces toward the ground away from the substrates. The carrier can further have drainage area leading the liquid to an end of the carrier, which then can be channeled to the ground without being free fall to the ground.
US09064685B2

A method of forming a semiconductive substrate material for an electronic device including forming a plurality of semiconductive layers on a substrate during a continuous growth process in a reaction chamber, wherein during the continuous growth process, a release layer is formed between a base layer and an epitaxial layer by altering at least one growth process parameter during the continuous growth process. The method also including separating the plurality of semiconductive layers from the substrate.
US09064673B2

A workpiece carrier comprises a first plate having a first outer diameter, a first inner diameter, and a first recess extending a first distance from the first inner diameter toward the first outer diameter. The workpiece carrier further comprises a second plate having a second outer diameter, a second inner diameter, and a second recess extending a second distance from the second inner diameter toward the second outer diameter. A plurality of mating features associated with the first plate and second plate are configured to selectively fix a position of a first workpiece between the first plate and second plate within the first recess and second recess.
US09064671B2

Various embodiments of the present invention relate to a plasma electron source apparatus. The apparatus comprises a cathode discharge chamber in which a plasma is generated, an exit hole provided in said cathode discharge chamber from which electrons from the plasma are extracted by an accelerating field provided between said cathode discharge chamber and an anode, at least one plasma confinement device, and a switching mechanism for switching the at least one plasma confinement device between a first value allowing for electron extraction from the plasma and a second value prohibiting electron extraction from the plasma. Associated methods are also provided.
US09064670B2

An electron emission device includes a cathode electrode; a mesh-shaped gate electrode spaced apart from the cathode electrode; a plurality of gate spacers between the cathode electrode and the gate electrode; and a plurality of electron emission sources between the cathode electrode and the gate electrode, and alternating with the plurality of gate spacers.
US09064668B2

Getter materials are described. The getter materials have non-evaporable getter alloys in their powder form having high gas sorption efficiency, particularly for hydrogen, carbon oxide and nitrogen, which after having lost their functionality in consequence of the exposure to reactive gases at a first temperature, can then be reactivated through a thermal treatment at a temperature between 400° C. and 600° C. The alloy powders have as compositional elements titanium and silicon and at least one additional metallic element selected among vanadium, iron and aluminum and have an atomic percentage composition of the elements which can vary within the following ranges: 1. Titanium from 60 to 85 atomic percentage; 2. Silicon from 1 to 20 atomic percentage; and 3. The sum of vanadium, iron and aluminum from 10 to 30 atomic percentage.
US09064665B2

An electromagnetic relay is provided with an armature which is pulled by an electromagnet and a card which transmits operation of the armature to the moving electrode plate. The armature includes an engagement part which engages with the card. The card includes a pedestal part which extends from the card body, a deforming part which extends from the card body and can elastically deform, and a tab which sticks out toward the pedestal part. The deforming part has a first part which extends from the card body and a second part which extends bent from the first part. The engagement part is sandwiched between the pedestal part and the second part. The ends in the width direction of the surface which the tab contacts when the engagement part is pushed between the pedestal part and the tab are formed with inclined parts.
US09064664B2

Provided is a contact device in which all of three movable contacts can be securely brought into contact with fixed contacts. The contact device includes a fixed terminal 37 that has a fixed contact 35, a movable terminal 28 that moves toward and away from the fixed terminal 37 and has three movable contacts 31a, 31b, and 31c that are brought into contact with the fixed contact 35, and a pressing spring 33 that presses the movable terminal 28 and brings the movable contacts 31a, 31b, and 31c into contact with the fixed contacts 35 at a predetermined pressing force. The point of application of the pressing spring 33 is located in a triangle formed by internal tangents of the three movable contacts.
US09064663B2

An operation input device system and method are provided. The operation input device includes a touch pad having an operation plate on a surface of which an operation surface is formed. The touch pad is configured to sense an object in contact with or in proximity to the operation surface to receive input corresponding to a position of the sensed object. A hole portion provided to penetrate through the operation plate and a protrusion member inserted into the hole portion. The operation input device also includes a drive mechanism provided on a back surface side of the operation plate and configured to cause an advancing/retracting operation of the protrusion member along a direction intersecting the operation surface between a first state in which a distal end portion of the protrusion member is above the operation surface and a second state in which the distal end portion is not above the operation surface.
US09064661B2

An example system for determining the actuation duration of a relay can include a relay, a current-sensing device, and a controller. The relay can have an actuation coil, and armature, and a first and second contact. The current-sensing device can measure a current through the actuation coil. The controller can actuate the relay. The controller can also receive from the current-sensing device a plurality of measurement values for the current through the actuation coil. The controller can determine an actuation duration based on a local minimum value for the plurality of measurement values. The actuation duration can correspond to a duration of a movement of an armature of the relay from the first contact of the relay to the second contact of the relay. An actuation delay of the relay can be calculated based on the zero-crossing time of an input voltage value and the actuation duration.
US09064660B2

A remote controlled interactive power switch includes a first coil for controlling a switch contact to be closed by suction, a self-locked device for locking the switch contact to keep conducting state by mechanical self-locking, a second coil for controlling the self-locked device to be disengaged and a power supply control circuit. The power supply control circuit is connected with an interactive control module which includes a remote controlled interactive connecting unit, an interactive monitoring unit, a switch-on signal producing unit and a turn-off signal producing unit. The present invention can simplify the complex control circuit and thoroughly resolve the technical requirements of the power switch with high make-break capacity. Additionally, the present invention produces consumption only when starting the on-off switch, and after starting and under normal operation, the pulse magnetic energy coil keeps an inactivity state, no consumption, no heat and no noise.
US09064658B2

A switching apparatus for an electrical switching device is disclosed, in particular an electrical circuit breaker, for safeguarding at least two poles. A tripping element is included for each pole, supported moveably between a rest position and a tripping position. A common switching frame, movable between a pre-tension position and a switching position, is actively connected for force transmission to frame sections of the at least two tripping elements for the movement of the switching frame into the switching position upon movement of the tripping element into the tripping position. At least one spring element is embodied to apply force to the frame sections of the at least two tripping elements in the direction of the rest position of the at least two tripping elements.
US09064657B2

A switching unit for an electrical switching device, in particular for an electrical power circuit breaker, is disclosed and includes a breaker mechanism with an operating lever and a switching mechanism which can be actuated by the operating lever. In at least one embodiment, at least one breaker assembly board is included, onto which the breaker mechanism is fixed. The at least one breaker assembly board includes at least one positioning lug which is designed for positioning the switching unit in a housing of the electrical switching device.
US09064651B2

A keyswitch includes a casing, a key cap and a support device rotatably disposed between the key cap and the casing. One of the casing and the key cap has a first magnetic area and the support device has a second magnetic area corresponding to the first magnetic area. When the key cap is not pressed, a magnetic attraction force between the first and second magnetic areas keeps the key cap at a non-pressed position. When the key cap is pressed by an external force such that the second magnetic area moves away from the first magnetic area, the key cap moves from the non-pressed position toward the pressed position. When the external force is removed, the second magnetic area moves toward the first magnetic area due to the magnetic attraction force such that the key cap moves from the pressed position toward the non-pressed position.
US09064635B2

A dielectric ceramic material comprises a primary component of barium titanate (BaTiO3) and at least one additive component. The additive component has a mole percentage from 1% to 50% and is selected from the group consisting of lithium tantalite [lithium tantalate (LiTaO3)], barium cerate (BaCeO3), sodium metaniobate [sodium niobate (NaNbO3)] and the combinations thereof.
US09064633B2

A method for preparing a spiro quaternary ammonium system and electrolytes containing spiro quaternary ammonium cations, comprising a synthesizing step wherein a spiro ammonium system is formed in a medium that can serve as both the reaction solvent and as an electrolyte solvent. A one-solution method of making a non-aqueous electrolyte composition that comprises at least one of a spiro quaternary ammonium compound of the following formula:
US09064630B2

An integrated rotary transformer and resolver and a motor including an integrated rotary transformer and resolver is provided. The integrated rotary transformer and resolver may include, but is not limited to, a stator having an outer surface and a plurality of slots disposed along the outer surface, a plurality of sensing coils, the plurality of sensing coils disposed in at least some of the plurality of slots, a rotor having a surface varying from a first predetermined thickness to a second predetermined thickness, and a controller electrically coupled to the plurality of sensing coils and configured to determine a position of the rotor based upon a voltage induced in each of the coils due to a relative thickness of the rotor opposed to the respective sensing coil.
US09064617B2

The electrically conductive rubber composition contains a rubber component including an SBR, an epichlorohydrin rubber and a CR, and the proportion of the SBR is 40 to 80 parts by mass based on 100 parts by mass of the rubber component. The rubber composition further contains 1.0 to 1.5 parts by mass of a sulfur crosslinking agent, 0.2 to 0.6 parts by mass of a thiourea accelerating agent, 0.1 to 0.5 parts by mass of a thiuram accelerating agent, and 1.0 to 2.0 parts by mass of a thiazole accelerating agent based on 100 parts by mass of the rubber component.
US09064616B2

A conductive paste includes a conductive powder containing at least one of copper and nickel as a main component, a glass frit, and an organic vehicle, wherein the glass frit is a tellurium-based glass frit that essentially does not contain any lead component and contains tellurium as a network former in an amount of 35 to 70 mol % in terms of oxide, the tellurium-based glass frit containing silver as an essential component. The above conductive paste can provide favorable characteristics and favorably be used in the formation of light-receiving surface electrodes of a solar cell element even when the conductive paste includes one or more of copper and nickel as its conductive component.
US09064615B2

The main object of the present invention is to provide a sulfide solid electrolyte material with less hydrogen sulfide generation amount. The present invention solves the above-mentioned problem by providing a sulfide solid electrolyte material obtained by using a raw material composition containing Li2S and sulfide of an element of the fourteenth family or the fifteenth family, characterized by not substantially containing cross-linking sulfur and Li2S.
US09064613B2

An electrical conductor has a metal substrate. A seal layer is provided exterior of the metal substrate. A nickel layer is provided exterior of the seal layer. The seal layer is a non-nickel based metal. Optionally, the seal layer may be tin based. Optionally, the seal layer may create intermetallic interface layers with the nickel layer and the metal substrate. Optionally, the electrical conductor may constitute a contact configured for mating with at least one of a printed circuit board or another mating contact.
US09064606B2

A memory and a method of storing data in a memory are provided. The memory comprises a memory block comprising data bits and additional bits. The memory includes logic which, when receiving a first command, writes data into the data bits of the memory block, wherein the data is masked according to a first input. The logic, in response to a second command, writes data into the data bits of the memory block and writes a second input into the additional bits of the memory block.
US09064604B2

Among other things, techniques and systems are provided for devising a schedule for performing read/write operations on a memory cell. A control signal is provided to timing logic. Using one or more properties of the control signal, such as a voltage property, the timing logic is configured to adjust a time window during which at least one of a read operation or a write operation is performed within a cycle. In this way, the timing logic affects a dynamic switch between an early-read operation, a late-read operation, an early-write operation, a late-write operation, a read-then-write operation, and a write-then-read operation between cycles. In some embodiments, the memory cell for which the schedule is devised is an SRAM cell, such as a six-transistor SRAM cell.
US09064602B2

A method, system and memory controller are provided for implementing memory devices with sub-bank architecture in a computer system. An array is divided into sub-blocks having odd bit lines and even bit lines. The sub-blocks are alternated with rows of sense amplifiers; wherein a particular row of sense amplifiers connects only to odd bit lines and a next row of sense amplifiers connects only to even bit lines. More than one word line for a sub-block is allowed to be active at the same time, where a first active word line will select memory cells connected to even bit lines and a second active word line will select memory cells connected to odd bit lines.
US09064578B2

Chunks of memory cells in a memory array are enabled to be accessed and then one or more of the chunks are disabled from being accessed. In one such apparatus, an array includes chunks of memory cells and a chunk selector circuit coupled to each chunk to enable the memory cells in the respective chunk to be accessed.
US09064577B2

Some embodiments include apparatuses and methods having a memory cell string including memory cells located in different levels of the apparatus and a data line coupled to the memory cell string. The memory cell string includes a pillar body associated with the memory cells. At least one of such apparatus can include a module configured to store information in a memory cell among memory cells and/or to determine a value of information stored in a memory cell among memory cells. The module can also be configured to apply a voltage having a positive value to the data line and/or a source to control a potential of the body.
US09064576B2

Apparatuses and methods for transposing select gates, such as in a computing system and/or memory device, are provided. One example apparatus can include a group of memory cells and select gates electrically coupled to the group of memory cells. The select gates are arranged such that a pair of select gates are adjacent to each other along a first portion of each of the pair of select gates and are non-adjacent along a second portion of each of the pair of select gates.
US09064573B2

A writing method of a variable resistance non-volatile memory element comprises determining, in a first determination step, whether or not a resistance state of the variable resistance non-volatile memory element does not switch to a first resistance state and remains in a second resistance state, when a pulse of a second voltage is applied to the variable resistance non-volatile memory element; and when it is determined that the resistance state of the variable resistance non-volatile memory element does not switch to the first resistance state and remains in the second resistance state in the first determination step, applying, in a recovery step, at least once to the variable-resistance non-volatile memory element a recovery voltage pulse set composed of two pulses which are a first recovery voltage pulse which has the same polarity as that of the first voltage and a second recovery voltage pulse which has the same polarity as that of the second voltage, has a greater amplitude than the second voltage, and is applied subsequently to the first recovery voltage pulse.
US09064554B2

A data input/output circuit includes a precharge voltage supply unit configured to supply a precharge voltage driven by a first internal voltage in a standby state, and supply the precharge voltage driven by a second internal voltage when an active operation is performed; and a precharge unit configured to receive the precharge voltage, precharge a first input/output line and a first inverted input/output line to a level of the first internal voltage in the standby state, and precharge the first input/output line and the first inverted input/output line by the second internal voltage when the active operation is performed.
US09064548B2

A non-volatile register includes register logic connected with first and second ends of a memory element. The register logic is positioned below the memory element. The memory element may be a two-terminal memory element configured to store data as a plurality of conductivity profiles that can be non-destructively determined by applying a read voltage across the two terminals. New data can be written to the two-terminal memory element by applying a write voltage of a predetermined magnitude and/or polarity across the two terminals. The two-terminal memory element retains stored data in the absence of power. A reference element including a structure that is identical or substantially identical to the two-terminal memory element may be used to generate a reference signal for comparisons during read operations.
US09064539B1

The present inventions are related to systems and methods for data processing, and more particularly to systems and methods for synchronizing operations in a data storage system.
US09064538B2

A method, a system, and a computer program product code for generating a series of still images from an input video file are provided. The series of still images may include, but are not limited to, a comic strip and a storyboard. The method includes extracting audio and visual frames from the video file. Thereafter, basic units of the video file are identified. The basic units are exposition (beginning), conflict (middle), and resolution (end). Thereafter, key frames are extracted from the basic units based on at least one of audio frames, visual frames, and a combination of the visual frames and the audio frames. Then, the extracted key frames are manipulated to output a series of still images. Subsequently, narration in the form of audio or text is attached to the still images to generate at least one of comic strips and storyboards.
US09064535B2

Access point pictures designated as randomly accessible positions are I pictures or P pictures. Information indicating the decoding sequence (I1, P1, B1, B2, B3, B4, P2, . . . ) of pictures functioning as access points and attribute information (picture_type) indicating whether a picture functions as an access point or is necessary for decoding of the access point following a given access point are recorded on the video information recording medium. Random access is possible even if the GOP interval is lengthened.
US09064529B2

A spindle motor includes a recording disk and a clamper. A cylindrical portion includes a first screw portion positioned in an outer circumferential portion of the cylindrical portion. The clamper includes an annular raised portion configured to be fitted in a through hole of the recording disk. An inner circumferential portion of the clamper includes a second screw portion configured to be screwed to the first screw portion. At least a portion of the second screw portion is positioned in an inner circumferential portion of the annular raised portion. Each of the first screw portion and the second screw portion includes at least one of a screw groove and a screw thread. An axial position of at least a portion of the second screw portion overlaps with an axial position of the recording disk.
US09064524B2

A playback apparatus adapted to play back a content includes a first input unit via which to input a first content to be played back from a first apparatus, a second input unit via which to input a second content to be played back, and a storage unit adapted to store a specified playback start time. If time measured by a clock unit indicates that a predetermined time before the specified playback start time has been reached, a control unit controls a requesting unit to request the first apparatus to input the first content to be played back. If it is determined that the inputting of the first content from the first apparatus is not successfully completed by the specified playback start time, the control unit controls the playback operation so as to play back the second content input via the second content input unit.
US09064512B2

In certain embodiments, an apparatus includes a magnetoresistive (MR) sensor having a first and second electrode positioned at a first side of the MR sensor and a third electrode positioned at a second side of the MR sensor opposite the first side. In certain embodiments, an apparatus includes first and second electrodes coupled to an MR sensor and positioned at a first side of the MR sensor. The first and second electrodes are spaced apart from each other and are positioned over an area of the MR sensor that has a positive or negative asymmetry.
US09064510B1

According to one embodiment, a suspension assembly includes a support plate including a distal end portion, a trace member attached to the support plate, an elastic supporting member made from a distal end portion of the trace member and configured to support a head, and an actuation element expandable/contractible in the longitudinal direction of the trace member, at least a part of a bottom of which is adhered to a seating surface formed from a cover insulating layer of the trace member.
US09064506B2

According to one embodiment, an information recording and reproducing apparatus including, a focus control module, an objective lens control module, a calculation module, and a tracking control module. If, detection the recording marks line, to focus a laser light of a second wavelength to the recording layer through an objective lens and to operation a recording layer tracking control using a tracking error signal taken out from a second reflected light and a laser light of a first wavelength to a track groove through the objective lens and to operation a guide layer tracking control to control the objective lens using a tracking error signal taken out from a first reflected light.
US09064493B2

In some embodiments, the recognition results produced by a speech processing system (which may include a top recognition result and one or more alternative recognition results) based on an analysis of a speech input, are evaluated for indications of potential significant errors. In some embodiments, the recognition results may be evaluated to determine whether a meaning of any of the alternative recognition results differs from a meaning of the top recognition result in a manner that is significant for the domain. In some embodiments, one or more of the recognition results may be evaluated to determine whether the result(s) include one or more words or phrases that, when included in a result, would change a meaning of the result in a manner that would be significant for the domain.
US09064480B2

An electronic device and a method for playing a plurality of audio objects is provided. The method includes displaying the plurality of audio objects on a display, each audio object being displayed at a location having a horizontal component and a vertical component, wherein the location of each audio object is changeable by a user.
US09064471B2

A display device for a vehicle includes a liquid crystal panel, a light source, and a controller. The liquid crystal panel includes a particular display pixel and a normal display pixel. The controller controls the ratio of the gradation value of the normal display pixel to a set gradation value of the normal display pixel as a gradation ratio of the normal display pixel. At the same time, it controls the ratio of the gradation value of the particular display pixel to a set gradation value of the particular display pixel as a gradation ratio of the particular display pixel. Further, the controller sets first and second modes as a control mode, the first mode in which the light source emits light, and the second mode in which the light source emits light with brightness lower than in the first mode. In the first mode, the controller sets the gradation ratio of the normal display pixel and the gradation ratio of the particular display pixel at a particular time to a maximum ratio. In the second mode, the controller executes a gradation processing to make the gradation ratio of the particular display pixel at a particular time higher than the gradation ratio of the normal display pixel.
US09064469B2

In a first subframe period, light sources of a first region and a third region emit lights at the same time; light sources of a second region and a fourth region emit no light at the same time, in which light emission of different colors is performed in the first region and the third region. In a second subframe period, light sources of the second region and the fourth region emit lights at the same time; light sources of the first region and the third region emit no light at the same time, in which light emission of different colors is performed in the second region and the fourth region. The first region and the third region are separated from each other with the second region interposed therebetween; and the second region and the fourth region are separated from each other with the third region interposed therebetween.
US09064459B2

A display apparatus and a brightness adjusting method thereof are provided. The display apparatus includes a panel unit which displays an image signal, a backlight unit which provides a light to the panel unit to visualize the image signal, a luminance value regulator which calculates representative values to be applied for adjusting a brightness of a plurality of partial areas of the backlight unit corresponding to the input image signal, a contrast enhancer which compensates for a brightness of the image signal compromised by the representative value through a contrast enhancement, and a pixel value compensator which compensates for pixel values of the image signal compensated using the contrast enhancement. Accordingly, the contrast ratio of the entire image can be enhanced by compensating for the brightness loss of the image signal caused from the brightness adjustment of the luminous element, and the image quality can be more finely improved.
US09064454B2

A display device and a method of driving the same, in which the display device includes: a light-emitting element; a first capacitor connected between first and second contact points; a driving transistor that has a control terminal connected to the second contact point, an input terminal connected to a driving voltage, and an output terminal connected to the light-emitting element; a first switching transistor connected between a data voltage or a sustain voltage and the first contact point; a second switching transistor connected between the second contact point and the output terminal of the driving transistor; and a third switching transistor connected between a reference current source and the output terminal of the driving transistor.
US09064451B2

Systems, methods, and devices are provided in which photodetectors disposed throughout a display are used to control the display brightness. The photodetectors are to be used for ambient light sensing, proximity sensing, or to compensate for aging OLEDs. In some embodiments, photodiodes are fabricated with OLEDs during the TFT fabrication process. In some embodiments, the photodetectors may be disposed throughout the display in zones containing OLEDs. The photodetectors are used to control the display brightness and color for the OLEDs in areas around each photodetector based on ambient light, aging, and/or nearby objects. A controller makes driving strength adjustments to the OLEDs in each zone independent of other zones. Photodetectors disposed throughout the display may improve proximity sensing and provide additional functionality to the device.
US09064443B2

A projection apparatus includes a light source with light emitting devices of a plurality of colors, a drive unit configured to drive the light emitting devices of the plurality of colors so as to orderly emit single-color light and mixed-color light, an input unit configured to input an image signal, a projection unit configured to form and emit an optical image corresponding to an image signal input by the input unit, using the single-color light and the mixed-color light, and a control unit configured to emit the mixed-color light in a part of a light emission period of the mixed-color light and switch off the light emitting devices during a rest of the part of the light emission period, based on the image signal input by the input unit.
US09064437B2

Memory-based semaphore are described that are useful for synchronizing operations between different processing engines. In one example, operations include executing a context at a producer engine, the executing including updating a memory register, and sending a signal from the producer engine to a consumer engine that the memory register has been updated, the signal including a Context ID to identify a context to be executed by the consumer engine to update the register.
US09064420B2

An augmented reality driver system, device, and method safely guide a vehicle driver to yield to pedestrians. A vehicle navigator determines a turn lane based upon proximity to a vehicle. A target sensor detects a pedestrian entering the turn lane and to determine a crosswalk path across the turn lane. An augmented reality controller three dimensionally maps a forward view including the pedestrian, and spatially overlays an augmented reality display on the volumetric heads up display for a driver of the vehicle by projecting a yielding indication adjacent to the crosswalk path.
US09064419B2

A driver condition determination device determines whether a driver of a host vehicle has degraded consciousness. A main component for distribution of an accelerating operation condition with respect to proximity when tailgating a preceding vehicle is analyzed (S16), all data is origin-shifted (S18), and the accelerating operation condition of the driver when the driver has consciousness is created as a normal traveling model (S20). The likelihood of the accelerating operation condition, a likelihood average, a likelihood variance, and a likelihood threshold value are calculated (S22 to S26), and it is determined whether the likelihood of a current driving operation is lower than the likelihood threshold value (S28). When the likelihood is lower than the likelihood threshold value, the driver is determined as being in degraded consciousness. Since the likelihood threshold value is calculated for determination on the basis of data when the driver has consciousness, an erroneous determination of degraded consciousness due to difference in driver operation characteristics is suppressed.
US09064418B2

A vehicle-mounted environment recognition apparatus including a simple pattern matching unit which extracts an object candidate from an image acquired from a vehicle-mounted image capturing apparatus by using a pattern shape stored in advance and outputs a position of the object candidate, an area change amount prediction unit which calculates a change amount prediction of the extracted object candidate on the basis of an object change amount prediction calculation method set differently for each area of a plurality of areas obtained by dividing the acquired image, detected vehicle behavior information, and an inputted position of the object candidate, and outputs a predicted position of an object, and a tracking unit which tracks the object on the basis of an inputted predicted position of the object.
US09064406B1

A method and apparatus for monitoring vehicles. The vehicles are monitored using a sensor unit. The sensor unit comprises a housing, a camera system, a wireless communications system, and a controller associated with the housing. The camera system has a field of view and is configured to generate images. The wireless communications system is configured to transmit wireless signals. The controller is configured to detect a number of vehicles in the images, generate information for the number of vehicles, and send the information in the wireless signals. The information for the number of vehicles is sent to a remote location.
US09064403B2

A method of controlling access to an area accessible by persons, particularly to a space closed by a door, utilizes at least two communications units for transmitting and receiving an identification code and an access code. The identification code is transmitted at a predetermined first transmission power from a first communications unit to at least one second communications unit. The second communications unit checks the identification code and transmits an acknowledgement code at a second transmission power, which is lower than the first transmission power, from the second communications unit to the first communications unit if the check of the identification code was successful. The first communications unit transmits an access code to the second communications unit. After a successful check of the access code by the second communications unit the access is freed.
US09064402B2

A device for indicating the presence of an electrical fault for a waterborne structure includes a current tap electrically coupleable to an electrically conductive frame member of the waterborne structure and a grounding member configured for placement in water adjacent to the waterborne structure. An indicator is electrically coupled to the current tap so that an electrical charge supplied to the conductive frame member may be transmitted through the current tap and to the indicator. The indicator is electrically coupled to the grounding member to form a circuit.
US09064399B2

There is provided an information processing device including a characteristic detection unit that detects a characteristic of a battery and a characteristic of an operating device that operates using electric power obtained from the battery, a symbol setting unit that sets one symbol on which information corresponding to the detected characteristics is reflected, and a display control unit that causes the set symbol to be displayed.
US09064392B2

A method may include receiving sensor data, the sensor data including at least one of sound or light; comparing, when the sensor data includes sound, the received sound with sound information included in one or more media files; comparing, when the sensor data includes light, the received light with one or more particular conditions; determining, based on comparing at least one of the received sound or the received light, if alert information should be provided, the alert information indicating a dangerous situation; and providing, when the alert information should be provided, the alert information indicating the dangerous situation.
US09064390B1

The present disclosure pertains to a mood sensing sharing device, suitable for decorative jewelry, which enables the sharing of an included mood stone's indicated emotions over a communications network.
US09064387B2

A haptic conversion system is provided that intercepts frames of audio data, such as a digital audio signal, converts the frames into a haptic signal, and plays the created haptic signal through an actuator to produce haptic effects. The haptic signal is based on a maximum value of each audio data frame, which defines a magnitude of the haptic signal. The haptic signal is applied to the actuator configured to receive the haptic signal, where the actuator utilizes the haptic signal to generate the one or more haptic effects.
US09064385B2

The disclosure relates to generating haptic feedback based on video content analysis, sensor information that includes one or more measurements of motion of one or more objects on a video, and/or sensor information that includes one or more measurements of motion of one or more image capture devices. The video content analysis may include image processing of the video. The system may identify one or more events based on the image processing and cause a haptic feedback based on the one or more events. The haptic feedback may vary based on an estimated acceleration of an object of a scene of the video, wherein the estimated acceleration is based on the image processing. The estimated acceleration may be made more accurate at high speeds using the sensor information and an estimated acceleration based on the sensor information may be made more accurate at lower speeds based on the image processing.
US09064378B2

Embodiments of the invention include a mystery degressive bonus system. Instead of a bonus that increases its value as the likelihood of winning the bonus increases, embodiments of the invention disconnect the likelihood of winning a mystery bonus from the amount awarded for triggering the mystery bonus. In some embodiments as the likelihood of winning the mystery bonus increases, the award for winning the mystery bonus decreases. Some embodiments include a minimum value for winning the mystery bonus. Additional embodiments are directed to an indicator system to show to the player a present amount of the mystery bonus award as well as the likelihood of winning the award. Further embodiments include a gaming device that includes a bonus game in which the amount awarded to the player decreases over time.
US09064373B2

A system includes a server, which provides activities and possibly other services to a player through a mobile gaming device. To verify that the mobile gaming device is communicating with the server, information received from a verification device is stored. Thereafter, in response to a request from the mobile gaming device, the stored information is determined and sent to the mobile gaming device via the server.
US09064372B2

A gaming machine for playing a wagering game includes a housing having a display region. A first image display device for simulating mechanical reels of a slot machine in the display region includes a curved surface that approximates the radius of curvature of a mechanical reel. The curved surface displays first video images that include a plurality of symbols indicating a randomly selected outcome of the wagering game. A second image display device displays second video images spatially separated from and overlaying the first video images within the display region. The second video images include indicia related to the wagering game.
US09064370B1

A method for conducting a reality sports television show, where the method includes providing a cast, wherein the cast comprises a plurality of sports players that remain undrafted by a professional sports league, broadcasting a plurality of private lives of the cast, broadcasting the cast playing at least one sports game, wherein the sports game comprises a game without timeouts and huddles, and wherein on-field communication between the cast is accomplished by using a means for improving in-game communications, wherein said means includes at least one player transceiver for transmitting and receiving audio or visual communications to and from players, coaches, referees, or television production members, and at least one coach transceiver for transmitting and receiving audio or visual communications to and from players, coaches, referees, or television production members.
US09064356B2

A method of implementing use cases includes associating a use case with each of a plurality of devices capable of being used or accessed by a user. The method also includes providing a plurality of stackable blades, each providing a standard physical interface and being configured to implement a solution to the use case associated with each of the plurality of devices. The method further includes stacking the plurality of stackable blades to form an interconnected stack. Each of the plurality of stackable blades are coupled using the standard physical interface. The method also includes executing a first purpose corresponding to a first use case and executing a second purpose corresponding to a second use case. Embodiments provide an electronic ecosystem featuring ubiquitous connectivity in which a standard contact array in each component of the ecosystem assures interoperability between heterogeneous devices.
US09064350B2

A method of providing graphics data, comprising generating a first set of data vectors specifying geometrical characteristics of a graphical object in a first digital picture, generating a second set of data vectors specifying geometrical characteristics of the graphical object in a second digital picture to be displayed after the first digital picture, generating a parameter set comprising information specifying intermediate geometrical characteristics of the graphical object based on the geometrical characteristics of the graphical object in the first digital picture, and of the graphical object in the second digital picture, wherein the intermediate geometrical characteristics are geometrical characteristics of the graphical object in at least one third digital picture to be displayed after the first digital picture and before the second digital picture, and generating at least one data file comprising the first set of data vectors, the second set of data vectors and the parameter set.
US09064349B2

A computer-implemented image composition method and apparatus, wherein, after a user selects a base image from a plurality of sequential images, and specifies an area to be modified, the content of the specified area in the base image is replaced with the content of a corresponding area in the remaining images one by one, and the base image after the replacement is output for a user's previewing and determination. It is possible to improve the quality of the images sequentially captured by applying the present disclosure.
US09064345B2

Data representing animated hair in a computer generated imagery (CGI) scene may be compressed by treating hair data as arrays of parameters. Hair data parameters may include control vertices, hair color, hair radius, and the like. A principal component analysis (PCA) may be performed on the arrays of hair data. PCA may yield new basis vectors, varying in length, with the largest basis vector corresponding to a new dimension with the largest variance in hair data. The hair data may be quantized based on the varying lengths of new basis vectors. The number of bits allocated for quantizing each new dimension corresponding to each new basis vector may be determined based on the relative lengths of new basis vectors, with more bits allocated to dimensions corresponding to longer basis vectors. The quantized hair data may be bit-packed and then compressed using lossless entropy encoding.
US09064344B2

Systems, methods, apparatuses, and computer readable medium are provided that cause a two dimensional image to appear three dimensional and also create a dynamic or animated illustrated images. The systems, methods, apparatuses and computer readable mediums implement displacement maps in a number of novel ways in conjunction with among other software, facial feature recognition software to recognize the areas of the face and allow the users to then customize those areas that are recognized. Furthermore, the created displacement maps are used to create all of the dynamic effects of an image in motion.
US09064337B2

Methods, systems and apparatus are described to render a map with adaptive textures for map features. Embodiments may for a portion of map data, such as a map tile, including a feature of a given feature type specify a level-of-detail texture. A level-of-detail texture may be one of a plurality of level-of-detail textures for a given feature type ordered according to level-of-detail. Embodiments may then provide the specified level-of-detail texture with a mipmap chain to a rendering unit to render the map data. At the lowest level of the mipmap chain may be the specified level-of-detail texture. At the next lowest level of the mipmap chain may be a portion of the level-of-detail texture adjacent to the specified level-of-detail texture in the ordered plurality of level-of-detail textures for the feature type.
US09064336B2

A machine readable storage media containing executable program instructions which when executed cause a digital processing system to set a plurality of operands and operators. A plurality of texture maps are sent to a processor for texture compositing. Operands are selected for a texture operation. A first logic is used wherein if the circulation of blend stages is equal to a number of blend stages, then a color saturation is performed, and a second logic that if the circulation number of blend stages does not equal the number of blend stages then at least one operand is selected for another texture compositing operation.
US09064335B2

An example system includes an information processing device, which includes: an arrangement item including a first marker; an arrangement region providing object which provides an arrangement region and includes a plurality of second markers; and an information processing device including: an imaging processing unit to generate a captured image with an imaging device; a positional relationship judgment unit to judge a positional relationship between the first marker of the arrangement item and at least one of the second markers, from a captured image which includes the first marker of the arrangement item and at least one of the plurality of second markers of the arrangement region providing object; an information superimposition unit to superimpose predetermined information based on the positional relationship, onto the captured image; and a display processing unit to cause a display device to display the captured image on which the predetermined information is superimposed.
US09064317B2

A method (100) is provided for detecting an obstruction within a field of view of a camera (12) from an image (200) captured by the camera (12). The method (100) includes: analyzing the image (200) by applying edge detection (104) to the image (200), identifying (108) regions of the image (200) lacking edge content and comparing (112) a size of the identified regions to a threshold; and determining if there is an obstruction based upon a result of said comparison.
US09064314B2

A MacBeth color checker chart automatic detection system includes an imaging unit that provides an image and a processing unit that applies an edge detection operation to the image and performs a flood-fill operation on the image to provide a flood-filled image. Additionally, the MacBeth color checker chart automatic detection system includes a testing unit that tests the flood-filled image to provide a modified flood-fill image, wherein a set of heuristic tests are employed to automatically determine quantity and location of MacBeth color checker charts. Generally, the set of heuristic tests are employed to automatically reject regions that are unlikely to belong to a MacBeth color checker chart and to cluster the remaining regions that are likely to belong to a Macbeth color checker chart. A MacBeth color checker chart automatic detection method is also provided.
US09064312B2

An augmented reality scene may be registered onto an arbitrary surface. A camera may capture an image of the arbitrary surface. The camera may analyze the surface geometry of the arbitrary surface. In some embodiments, a processing computing device may analyze data captured by the camera and an adjacent camera to reconstruct the surface geometry of the arbitrary surface. A scene may be registered to a three dimensional coordinate system corresponding to the arbitrary surface. A projector may project the scene onto the arbitrary surface according to the registration so that the scene may not display as being distorted.
US09064303B2

In multi-slice imaging of a magnetic resonance imaging apparatus based on a non-Cartesian sampling method in which an overlap portion is generated in k space, stable body movement correction is realized at high speed. In order to do so, the rotation and translation of an object is detected for each specific region (in the case of a hybrid radial method, each blade) using a most characteristic slice in the imaging region, and the detected body movement is used for body movement correction of the specific region in all slices. The slice used for correction may be determined using a mathematical analysis result, such as correlation. In addition, data collection and correction processing may be performed in parallel.
US09064301B2

A method and apparatus for analyzing white blood cells (WBCs) within a whole blood sample quiescently residing within a chamber is provided. The chamber is defined by at least one transparent panel, and the whole blood sample includes at least one colorant operable to differentially identify at least one WBC type from another WBC type within the sample. The method includes the steps of: a) creating at least one image of the sample quiescently residing within the chamber; b) identifying portions of the sample image, with each portion representing a single WBC; c) compressing the sample image portions using a first compression algorithm; and d) one of compressing a remainder of the sample image not included in the portions using a second compression algorithm, or discarding the remainder.
US09064300B2

A method and system for automatically associating coronary arteries with regions of the myocardium to which the arteries supply blood is described. The method uses three dimensional image data of a patient, and an axial image slice is used to identify candidate locations of the aorta. Candidate aorta centroid locations are evaluated to eliminate spurious identifications, and the identified aorta is used to locate the left ventricle of the heart with respect thereto. Arteries of the coronary artery tree may be located by segmentation of contrasted images, and the individual arteries may be identified by skeletonization of the segmented arteries. The skeletonized arteries are projected onto an image of the patient heart, and may be associated with specific regions of the myocardium.
US09064299B2

The technology described in this document relates to filters and functions that are based on exponential decay functions. In one aspect, the technology is embodied in a method that includes using a computing device to compute a first function as a combination of (i) an exponential decay function, a decay factor for which is chosen based on a Gaussian function, and (ii) at least a second function that is obtained by one or more convolution operations on the decay function. The first function provides an approximation of at least a portion of the Gaussian function.
US09064295B2

The invention is directed to systems, methods and computer program products for enhancing video encoding using depth information. An exemplary method comprises: determining, using a computing device, depth information associated with a first object in an image; determining, based on the depth information, that the first object is an object in focus; determining, based on the object in focus, a more important segment of an image; determining a first bit rate for encoding the more important segment of the image; and encoding the more important segment using the first bit rate.
US09064294B2

An image processing apparatus processes encoded data obtained by encoding image data for each of line blocks obtained by dividing an image. The image processing apparatus includes: a body-partition generating unit configured to generate body partitions of a file with a predetermined format for each piece of encoded data for one of the line blocks, the body partitions containing the encoded data; and a partition merging unit configured to merge the body partitions generated by the body-partition generating unit, a header partition containing header information, and a footer partition containing footer information to thereby generate the file.
US09064287B2

Disclosed are computer implemented methods, apparatus, systems, and computer readable media for providing information to an information feed associated with a group of an online social network. In some implementations, a network communication including a group address and data is received at a computing device. The group address is encoded to include a first identifier associating the network communication with a first user and a second identifier associating the network communication with the group. The group address is decoded to obtain the first identifier and the second identifier. At least a portion of the data in the network communication is provided as an information update to the information feed associated with the group, and the information update is included in the information feed for display on a display device.
US09064282B1

An auctioning method is conducted using an interactive auction host system. The method includes providing access for auction participants to a live auction for one or more auctioned lots of products or services that is conducted and overseen by an auction administrator at an auction host location. At least some of the access to the live auction is provided to remote auction participants through an auction host system of the auction host system. Data is transmitted substantially in real time from the auction host system, which may include auction-related data and at least one of video and audio feeds of the live auction through a network to one or more remote auction participants located at a remote participant interface. Information provided from the remote auction participants through the remote participant interface is provided and received by auction host system. At least one of various other actions are performed.
US09064279B1

A system allows people to more easily find products matching their skin tone. A kiosk at a retail store or other location can assist customers in determining what products are right for them and then purchase them from the retailer. The kiosk can include a scanning device is used to scan one or more spots of a person's skin. For example, three different spots can be scanned. The scan determines a skin-tone identifier for the person's skin. This skin-tone identifier is used by a software program (e.g., executing on a tablet computer) to determine and output a listing of products that are appropriate for the person's skin tone.
US09064278B2

A system for managing, storing and providing shared digital content to a group of users in a multi-platform environment, comprising a cloud storage component configured to store digital content items that are shared by members in a user relationship defined group, and a cloud service component configured to provide one of the digital content items to a first platform for a first member of the user relationship defined group in a format suitable for the first platform and to a second platform for a second member of the user relationship defined group in a format suitable for the second platform, wherein the first platform and the second platform are different platforms.
US09064277B2

Consistent with some embodiments of the invention, a web-based comparison shopping and marketplace service enables a user to search for and/or browse products of interest, and then obtain geographically-relevant, real-time product availability and pricing information for a product of interest that is offered by one or more physical retail stores. Additionally, with some embodiments, the service enables a user to conclude a purchase transaction for a product that is located at a retail store, and then provides the user with driving directions from the user's location to the retail store.
US09064271B2

A portable device includes solid-state memory, an Ethernet and/or wireless network connection, and an HDMI. The portable device receives content guide data from a first server and displays a content guide on a display. In response to a user's selection of a content item, the portable device requests the content item over the Internet from a second server. The portable device receives the content item, stores the content item in solid-state memory, generates display signals that represent the content item, and sends the display signals to a display. The second server may match the content item with relevant advertisements based on keywords associated with the content item and the advertisements. The second server may send selected advertisement URLs to the portable device. Using the URLs, the portable device may obtain the advertisements over the Internet and cause the display to display the advertisements in conjunction with the content item.
US09064265B1

A portable electronic device connected over a network to a server is used to guide a person using the device to one or more selected items within a facility, with the location of the device being tracked using radio frequency signals generated within the facility or GPS signals from satellites. The process of connecting to the server may be started when a bar code is photographed using a camera within the device, or when an RFID tag is read by a reader within the device. Location processes are provided for finding a vehicle left in a parking area, and for locating items that are additionally described in messages displayed on the electronic device.
US09064261B2

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer-readable storage medium, including a method comprising: receiving a content item request from a resource, the resource associated with a resource sponsor; verifying the content item request including filtering out spam requests and determining if the content item request is valid; for any invalid requests, providing a content item in response to the content item request that is in conformance with an existing definition provided by the resource sponsor; and presenting information related to invalid requests to the resource sponsor in a user interface, the user interface including tools for enabling the resource sponsor to automatically accept and validate a content item request so that subsequent requests of the same type are validated upon receipt.
US09064256B2

In an embodiment, an apparatus comprises a processor, and a memory that stores a program. The program, when executed by the processor, directs the processor to perform a method including the following steps: receiving an encrypted query, in which the query indicates at least one security, and at least one price; determining whether the encrypted query corresponds to any order in an encrypted data set that represents orders; outputting a response to the query, in which the response indicates whether the encrypted query corresponds to any order in an encrypted data set that represents orders; receiving order data that represents the orders; and encrypting the order data to yield the encrypted data set that represents orders.
US09064249B1

Disclosed herein are techniques for providing a digital receipt to a consumer upon tender of payment to a merchant through the use of a proxy payment card in a financial transaction. The proxy payment card can be associated with multiple financial accounts (e.g., accounts associated with credit cards, debit cards, or gift cards). The digital receipt is automatically received at a personal computing device of the consumer in response to the financial transaction being charged to a financial account associated with the proxy payment card. The digital receipt includes information indicative of the financial transaction. The digital receipt can also include one or more interactive components that allow the consumer to interact with the transaction (and/or merchant) subsequent to transmission of the receipt, such as adding a tip, providing feedback, redeeming a promotion reward, tracking loyalty reward points, or reviewing transaction records of past and present transactions.
US09064248B2

Embodiments of the present invention relate to methods and apparatuses for processing an image that shows multiple deposit items, where the image was captured by a remote capture device. For example, some embodiments provide a method that includes: (a) displaying a grid on a display associated with a remote capture device, where the remote capture device is configured to capture an image that shows multiple deposit items, and where the grid comprises a plurality of grid portions; and (b) prompting a user of the remote capture device to arrange the multiple deposit items, or to position or operate the remote capture device, such that each of the deposit items in the multiple deposit items appears in a single grid portion of the display before the image is captured.
US09064244B2

Embodiments of the present invention relate to set of improvements to the out of office assistant that send out of office messages to senders of messages while a recipient is out of the office. One embodiment of the out of office assistant associates an out of office message with a calendar event to ensure the out of office message is sent only for the predetermined time period associated with the calendar event. Other embodiments of the out of office assistant generating different messages to people internal to an organization and people external to an organization, and the out of office assistant allows different rich text formatting for the different messages. In a further embodiment, a persistent reminder reminds the user that the out of office message application is turned on.
US09064239B2

A printing system includes a first storage part storing printing partners correlated with respective locations and information for estimating respective production capabilities; a second storage part storing distribution partners correlated with respective locations and information for estimating respective delivery capabilities; a printing partner selecting part selecting a single printing partner whose location is in the same area as a delivery destination of a user-ordered print and that is capable of printing the user-ordered print in the shortest delivery time; a distribution partner selecting part selecting a single distribution partner whose location is in the same area as the single printing partner and that is capable of delivering the print in the shortest delivery time; and an order placing part configured to place, via an electrical network, an order for the printing service to the single printing partner and an order for the delivery service to the single distribution partner.
US09064230B2

The present disclosure extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for automatically determining key words within item information with product types, and classifying new items within product types within a merchant's database.
US09064222B2

The different advantageous embodiments provide a system comprising a number of computers, a graphical user interface, first program code stored on the computer, and second program code stored on the computer. The graphical user interface is executed by a computer in the number of computers. The computer is configured to run the first program code to define a mission using a number of mission elements. The computer is configured to run the second program code to generate instructions for a number of assets to execute the mission and monitor the number of assets during execution of the mission.
US09064213B2

Techniques for model-based analysis of a data center. A method includes creating a metamodel based on domain knowledge to represent a type of object and/or relationship of a data center, using static and dynamic configuration and data analysis techniques to discover topology of elements of the data center and represent the topology as a model that is an instance of the metamodel, using the model to perform analysis of the data center in connection with a specified task, leveraging domain knowledge represented in nodes of the metamodel to guide the analysis in terms of determining guidelines to apply to each node and determining relationships to traverse to continue the analysis, extending the domain knowledge by updating the metamodel upon discovery of additional knowledge for use in improving analysis tasks, and extending the model on-demand using dynamic analysis techniques upon detection of multiple analysis failures.
US09064201B2

A document for variable printing and print settings including a conditional print setting that depends on metadata included in the document are received, information that is common between the conditional print setting and metadata included in the document is replaced with unique information, and printing is instructed using the conditional print setting and the document in which the common information is replaced with the unique information.
US09064200B2

An apparatus for ejecting a flat object from a casing of a mobile device is disclosed. The apparatus is arranged to receive an ejection tool along a first axis and to eject the flat object along a second axis, wherein the first and second axes are not parallel. In one embodiment, the first axis is parallel to a top surface of the mobile device and the second axis is perpendicular to a curved edge surface of the mobile device.
US09064199B2

An RFID tag for and attachable to a flexible material product. The tag includes an RFID antenna that is not susceptible to disconnection, and is close to the flexible material. An RFID antenna for the RFID tag, and there is an RFID antenna continuous body for the RFID tag. The tag base 12 itself is made of a flexible material. An antenna is configured as a conductive thread 14. The RFID tag includes a tag base 12 attachable to a flexible material product. An RFID inlay 15 is capable of performing wireless data communication. The tag base 12 is configured of a flexible material. An RFID antenna 11A includes a base antenna portion 13 configured by integrating the conductive thread 14 into the tag base 12.
US09064192B2

A non-volatile memory system adapted for securely registering votes within a voting system is described. The votes are encoded as a set of logically grouped cells based on a voter's selection of an item. The encoding assures that the votes are easily distinguishable by a read circuit.
US09064188B2

In one embodiment, L dimensional images are trained, mapped, and aligned to an M dimensional topology to obtain azimuthal angles. The aligned L dimensional images are then trained and mapped to an N dimensional topology to obtain 2N vertex classifications. The azimuthal angles and the 2N vertex classifications are used to map L dimensional images into 0 dimensional images.
US09064180B2

The invention relates to a method and apparatus for characterizing the tone of the skin or integuments.The apparatus comprises a digital camera or a digital photographic apparatus (12) allowing the capture of at least one digital image (14) of at least one determined skin zone (34, 36, 38, 40), said image being defined by a multiplicity of pixels (N) that is transmitted to a digital image processing device comprising means for splitting the digital image into three color planes: red, green, blue, termed R, G, B; c) means for extracting each of these planes R, G, B; and on each plane, calculation means for logging the grey level value for each of the pixels, i.e. N values, which are optionally processed mathematically by appropriate calculation means, so as to obtain at least one graphical or statistical value and/or at least one value characteristic of the grey levels for each plane, corresponding to a value characteristic of the color of the skin; as well as the luminosity value L; and d) means for characterizing the tone of the skin or integuments on the basis of the combination of the value characteristic of the color of the skin or integuments and of the Luminosity value L. The invention finds an industrial application in a method for assessing the whitening effect of a cosmetic product.
US09064172B2

The present invention therefore provides a system and method of object detection that employs both global object detection and local object detection. In particular, the present invention applies global object detection techniques to detect global objects, and then applies local object detection techniques on select portions of detected global objects to detect local objects.
US09064170B2

In accordance with an example embodiment a method, apparatus and computer program product are provided. The method comprises determining at least one first 1-D curve and at least one second 1-D curve. The method also comprises computing alignment parameters indicative of alignment adjustment between the at least one first 1-D curve and the at least one second 1-D curve. A scaling parameter and at least one translation parameter may be computed between the at least one first 1-D curve and the at least one second 1-D curve based at least on the alignment parameters.
US09064161B1

A system and method for detecting the presence of known or unknown objects based on visual features is disclosed. In the preferred embodiment, the system is a checkout system for detecting items of merchandise on a shopping cart. The merchandise checkout system preferably includes a feature extractor for extracting visual features from a plurality of images; a motion detector configured to detect one or more groups of the visual features present in at least two of the plurality of images; a classifier to classify each of said groups of the visual features based on one or more classification criteria, wherein each of the one or more parameters is associated with one of said groups of visual features; and an alarm configured to generate an alert if the one or more parameters for any of said groups of the visual features satisfy one or more classification criteria.
US09064160B2

An arrangement 100, 150, and corresponding method, which arrangement is configured to recognize a conference participant 101-103, 151-153 who is currently talking during a conference session The arrangement comprises an identifying unit 120, 170 including a biometric detector 121, 171 adapted to capture at least one biometric characteristic of the participant 101-103, 151-153, and a comparison unit 122, 172 adapted to compare the biometric characteristic to stored biometric characteristics in a database 110, 160, each stored characteristic being associated with an owner identity. The arrangement also comprises a display enabler 123, 173 adapted to, when a match is found between the captured biometric characteristic of the participant 101-103, 151-153 and a stored biometric characteristic in the—database 110, 160, enable display of the identity associated with the matching participant to other participants 101-103, 151-153, 140 in the conference session.
US09064157B2

A pedestrian detection system and method includes: dividing an image to a plurality of granules, and counting magnitude difference value of each granule in diagonal orientation to obtain features of HOGG. And the HOGG and the HOG captured can work together to improve the detection rate and reduce the false alarm rate, which is the ultimate goal of the vision based pedestrian detection.
US09064155B2

Image recognition is performed based on a surrounding image and a recognition template used for the image recognition of a marker object, and a recognition confidence level used for determining if the marker object can be recognized in the surrounding image is calculated. A determination is made if the recognition confidence level has increased as compared with the recognition confidence level calculated based on the surrounding image acquired at the guidance output point. If it is determined that the recognition confidence level has increased, the image of the marker object, generated based on the surrounding image acquired at the guidance output point, is stored as a new template to be used for the image recognition of the marker object. This increases the possibility to recognize the marker object based on the new template, thus increasing the recognition accuracy of the marker object.
US09064153B2

A video device for realtime pedaling frequency estimation is mounted on a bike and comprises an image capture unit capturing continuous dynamic images of an upper body of a biker; an image recognition unit recognizing images of symmetric regions of the biker and images of swings of the symmetric regions from the continuous dynamic images; a microprocessor calculating a frequency of periodical swings of the biker from the images of the symmetric regions and the images of the swings of the symmetric regions, and then obtaining a pedaling frequency; and a display device presenting the pedaling frequency, wherein a widely-used intelligent handheld device replaces the sensors, display device, and complicated circuits of the conventional cyclometer, and wherein a novel image recognition technology is used to measure the pedaling frequency with a considerable accuracy in a lower cost and a convenient way.
US09064151B2

A device and method for identifying plant rows in a field represented by an image is provided. The plant rows may be identified using the frequency domain. The plant rows may further be identified using information regarding plant positions. Additionally, plant rows may be obtained by any appropriate method and analyzed to differentiate between planted and non-planted rows. Further, plant rows may be segmented according to predefined classifications or attributes thereof, wherein the classification/attributes may derived from an image of the area in which the plant rows are found and/or using any other appropriate method.
US09064150B2

A system receives a two-dimensional digital image of an aerial industrial plant area. Based on requirements of image processing, the image is zoomed in to different sub-images, that are referred to as first images. The system identifies circular tanks, vegetation areas, process areas, and buildings in the first image. The system formulates a second digital image by concatenating the first images. The system creates one or more polygons of the regions segmented in the second digital image. Each polygon encompasses a tank area, a vegetation area, a process area, or a building area in the second digital image, which is a concatenated image of the individual regions. The system displays the second digital image on a computer display device.
US09064149B1

Various embodiments provide a method for computing color descriptors of product images. For example, a number of fine color representatives can be determined to describe color variation in an image as a histogram by assigning a saturation value and a brightness value to a plurality of color hues. For each pixel of the image, the closest color among a defined fine color representative set is computed. In this example, each of the pixels is assigned a color ID corresponding to their closest matching fine color representative and at least one family color ID corresponding one or more pure color families. In this example, a histogram of the color representatives and a histogram for the color families are computed. A single color vector descriptor for the image is then determined by combining the family histogram with the color representative histogram.
US09064148B2

Provided is an apparatus for receiving an unmanned mail capable of automatically acquiring the address information even though the user does not directly input the address information. The apparatus acquires address information of an addressee by automatically recognizing the address of the mail when the address is written on the mail, and acquires the address information of the addressee through the paper on which the address is printed or written, identification, and biometric recognition when the address is not written on the mail. The apparatus may acquire the address information of the addressee through a mail sender's voice.
US09064146B2

A system and method for mapping interpersonal relationships, the method including processing a multiplicity of images and contextual information relating thereto including creating and prioritizing a list of a plurality of candidate persons having at least a predetermined relationship with at least one person connected to at least one image, using multi-dimensional information including visually sensible information in the multiplicity of images and contextual information relating thereto and searching the list of a plurality of candidate persons based at least in part on the prioritizing to select at least one of the candidate persons as having at least a predetermined relationship with the at least one person.
US09064145B2

A method for identity recognition based on multiple feature fusion for an eye image, which comprises steps of registering and recognizing, wherein the step of registering comprises: obtaining a normalized eye image and a normalized iris image, for a given registered eye image, and extracting a multimode feature of an eye image of a user to be registered, and storing the obtained multimode feature of the eye image as registration information in a registration database; and the step of recognizing comprises: obtaining a normalized eye image and a normalized iris image, for a given recognized eye image, extracting a multimode feature of an eye image of a user to be recognized, comparing the extracted multimode feature with the multimode feature stored in the database to obtain a matching score, and obtaining a fusion score by fusing matching scores at score level, and performing the multiple feature fusion identity recognition on the eye image by a classifier. The present invention recognizes identity by fusing multiple features of eye regions on a human face, and thus achieves high recognition accuracy and is suitable for applications of high security level.
US09064144B2

A method of recognizing a location of a user including detecting the user's two eyes and mouth of their face is provided, which includes calculating a ratio of a distance between the two eyes to a distance between a middle point of the two eyes and the mouth, calculating a rotation angle of the face according to the ratio, and detecting a distance between the face and the camera based on the rotation angle.
US09064143B2

The invention provides a system and method of analyzing the motion of a biological object, particularly the motion of cultured organisms or cell cultures. The system and method of the invention may be used to determine the effect of a physical stimulus or a test agent on the motion of cell cultures. The system and method is of particular use in assessing the effect a chemical may have on the contractile motion of cardiomyocyte cell cultures.
US09064136B1

Described is a method for accurately reconstructing analog signals. The present invention considers a general parameter estimation problem, extends the utility of compressive sensing to real scenarios, and is able to accurately estimate center frequencies and amplitudes. Specifically, an unknown continuous analog signal comprising a set of arbitrary frequencies and amplitudes is received. A set of non-uniform samples of the unknown continuous analog signal is then obtained at multiple times. Finally, an iterative reconstruction process is utilized to determine a set of frequencies and a set of amplitudes that best fit the set of non-uniform samples in a global minimum problem in order to accurately reconstruct the continuous analog signal.
US09064134B1

A method and apparatus for mitigating software vulnerabilities is disclosed. In some embodiments, information associated with software application installation is processed. The information comprises mappings between each component and a currently installed component version. In response to information identifying at least one compromised component version for at least one software application, an alternate component version for each compromised component version is selected and used to install the at least one software application.
US09064127B2

A secure data parser is provided that may be integrated into any suitable system for securely storing data in and communicating data with cloud computing resources. The secure data parser parses data and then splits the data into multiple portions that are stored or communicated distinctly. Encryption of the original data, the portions of data, or both may be employed for additional security.
US09064123B2

The efficiency of multiplication in secure function computation is increased to make the secret function computation faster than before. Three or more computing apparatuses cooperate to generate a secret value of a random number, perform secure function computation for secret values of arbitrary values by using a function including addition and multiplication to compute concealed function values, and compute a secret value. If the secret value is [0], a concealed function value is output; otherwise, information indicating that tampering has been detected is output.
US09064115B2

A system and method for detecting malware on a limited access mobile platform in a mobile network. The system and method uses one or more feature sets that describe various non-executable portions of malware-infected and malware-free applications, and compares a application on the limited access mobile platform to the features sets. A match of the features in a suspect application to one of the feature sets provides an indication as to whether the suspect application is malware-infected or malware-free.
US09064103B2

A method and apparatus are disclosed wherein a portable memory storage device is provided for interfacing with a communications port of the computer system. During operating system start up of the operating system of the computer, fields relating to security of the operating system are prompted for. The portable memory store retrieves from memory therein data for populating said fields and provides same to the computer system mimicking a data entry device other than a portable memory store.
US09064100B2

An access object management system manages an object in a transmission system, which is allowed for access by a terminal in the transmission system, based on whether access by the terminal is restricted. The access object management system allows the terminal to access a part of the transmission system even when access by the terminal is restricted.
US09064085B2

A method of forming a semiconductor circuit includes receiving target layout. An optical proximity correction process is performed on the target layout data to generate a post-OPC layout. A patterning process is performed using the post-OPC layout. The post-OPC layout may be adjusted to compensate for a top loss of an etch mask layer.
US09064084B2

Enhancements in lithography for forming an integrated circuit are disclosed. The enhancements include a topography analysis of a design data file to obtain accumulative topography information for different mask levels. The topography information facilitates topography driven optical proximity correction and topography driven lithography.
US09064083B2

In one embodiment, a method for aligning an image of a semiconductor device with a bitmap representation thereof includes receiving diffusion layer information of at least a portion of the semiconductor device, receiving implant layer information of the at least a portion of the semiconductor device, deriving distinct p- and n-doped region information from the received diffusion and implant layer information, generating the bitmap representation, including a differentiation between the distinct p- and n-doped regions, and performing an alignment operation of the image of the semiconductor device with generated bitmap representation.
US09064076B1

Systems and methods of user interface for facilitation of high level generation of processor extensions. In accordance with a method embodiment of the present invention, an instruction format is accessed at a graphical user interface. A programming language description of a computation element for an execution unit of the processor extension is accessed. A representation of a hardware design for the processor extension comprising the instruction format and the computation element is generated.
US09064070B2

Disclosed is a simulation method for simulating an operation of a device. The simulation method includes specifying, by a computer, a boundary between a non-defective status and a defective status of a product in design space with a design parameter as an origin. The boundary is specified according to a search using a search indicator defined based on an operating state different from an operating state of a determination indicator that determines the non-defective status and the defective status of the operation.
US09064069B1

An end point report is created from a comprehensive timing report following steps that include: receiving a comprehensive timing report for an electronic circuit, determining a timing data set for a start pin, determining a worst timing path that includes the start pin based, at least in part, upon the comprehensive timing report, and generating an end point report for the worst timing path.
US09064068B1

Partially opaque intellectual property (IP) includes source code providing the IP functionality. Meta-comments (pragmas or attributes) are provided with the source code to enable visibility of one or more nodes in the IP. Aliasing of the visibility-enabled nodes may also be provided for using meta-comments in the IP source code. The visibility-enabled nodes may be used by system designers in debugging a system design in either a software simulation environment and/or in debugging of a hardware device implementing the partially opaque IP.
US09064065B2

Coupling architectural and implementation/behavioral models of a computer-based system by creating a bridge element, defining a port of the bridge element, associating the port of the bridge element with a port of an implementable element of an architectural model of a computer-based system and a port of an implementation element of an implementation/behavioral model of the computer-based system, mapping an interface member of the implementation element port to an interface member of the implementable element port, generating, from a template, skeleton source code applicable for the mapped interface member, generating a usage description element for the architectural model corresponding to the mapped interface member, generating an architectural description document from the architectural model, generating implementation code from the implementation/behavioral model and the generated skeleton source code, and generating a declaration file for an operating system service for use by the implementation code.
US09064054B2

A method and apparatus for synchronizing execution of a test application is described. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving two or more commands from a test application. The method may also include distributing a first command from the received two or more commands to a plurality of client computer systems, each client computer system to issue the first command to a server computer system. Furthermore, the method may include distributing a second command from the received two or more commands to the plurality of client computer systems after receipt of a response to the first command from each of the plurality of client computer systems.
US09064046B1

A method, apparatus and computer program product for using correlated stack traces to determine faults in client/server software is presented. Client/server software is executed. A client call stack is maintained on the client and a server call stack is maintained on the server. When an unexpected occurrence is detected while running the client/server software then the client call stack is collected, as is the server call stack. The client call stack and the server call stack are correlated to produce a correlated call stack and the correlated call stack is provided to a user.
US09064043B2

A fault replay system uploads part or all of a log file from a subject system and replays the events detailed within the log file upon physical copies of devices present in the subject system. The replay of the log file events aid the determination of at which event a fault occurred and improves the accuracy of fault determination.
US09064032B2

Disclosed is a method for simultaneously finding matches for rules that require greedy matching and comprehensive matching by executing a single Deterministic Finite Automaton (DFA). DFAs annotations are used to enable a single DFA to represent rules that require greedy and comprehensive matching. DFA descents are performed from various positions in an input stream, match information is recorded and match results are selectively generated (filtered) to achieve the greedy or comprehensive match behavior required by individual rules.
US09064030B2

Embodiments relate to tree traversal in a memory device. An aspect includes a method for tree traversal in a memory device. The method includes receiving a pointer to a tree structure within memory of the memory device. An evaluation condition is received to identify a desired node of the tree structure. The tree structure is traversed to identify the desired node. Data is returned from the desired node meeting the evaluation condition.
US09064029B2

A method to perform component-based rendering of a webpage includes identifying a component hierarchy from which to render the webpage. A set of components are selected from the component hierarchy as an evaluation component set. The evaluation component set is evaluated by determining that a particular component of the evaluation component set does not include a data request for data item to be used in the rendering of the webpage. Responsive to the determination, least one child component of the particular component is identified within the component hierarchy. The child component is added to the evaluation component set. The newly added component may be evaluated to determine whether the component requires data to be rendered. A batch module may identify data items that are subject to the data request in the evaluation component set, and may proceed to retrieve the data items as a batch from relevant data sources.
US09064027B2

Scan information is obtained from a scan of a managed endpoint (e.g., a user workstation) in an enterprise environment. The scan information includes information about an endpoint object (e.g., a software program), on the managed endpoint. External information about the endpoint object is received from an information source outside of the enterprise environment. This external information may be provided by an IT information server that communicates with multiple enterprise environments. The scan information and external information is combined to produce integrated information. The integrated information is displayed on a user interface. At least a portion of the integrated information is also sent to a computer outside of the enterprise environment to be shared with users of other enterprise environments.
US09064013B1

A server system having one or more processors and memory launches an instance of an application subject to a first set of resource constraints. Exceeding the first set of resource constraints will cause the application instance to be terminated. The server system transmits a first request from the application instance to a datastore server system. The first request is subject to a second set of resource constraints that are more restrictive than the first set of resource constraints. The server system receives a first response to the first request. When processing the first request exceeds the second set of resource constraints, the first response includes a first set of partial results and information enabling the application instance to request resumption of processing the first request, and when the first request was processed without exceeding the second set of resource constraints, the first response includes complete results.
US09064012B2

A web analytics system and method is provided. Generally, the system contains a collection element collecting browser information associated with a web page, wherein the browser information is collected into a string variable. A tag creation element creates a first tag and a second tag within the web page. A naming element names a tag source of the first tag with the string variable having the browser information. A record of the web page is established at the server, wherein a script is returned as the named tag source and arrives with an identifier for a visit or a visitor of the web page. At least a portion of the browser information is flushed to the server, wherein the portion of the collected browser information is initiated based on at least one of a length of the string variable and an elapsed time between at least two mouse movements.
US09064006B2

Natural language query translation may be provided. A statistical model may be trained to detect domains according to a plurality of query click log data. Upon receiving a natural language query, the statistical model may be used to translate the natural language query into an action. The action may then be performed and at least one result associated with performing the action may be provided.
US09064005B2

A computer-implemented system and method is disclosed for retrieving documents using context-dependant probabilistic modeling of words and documents. The present invention uses multiple overlapping vectors to represent each document. Each vector is centered on each of the words in the document and includes the local environment. The vectors are used to build probability models that are used for predictions of related documents and related keywords. The results of the statistical analysis are used for retrieving an indexed document, for extracting features from a document, or for finding a word within a document. The statistical evaluation is also used to evaluate the probability of relation between the key words appearing in the document and building a vocabulary of key words that are generally found together. The results of the analysis are stored in a repository. Searches of the data repository produce a list of related documents and a list of related terms. The user may select from the list of documents and/or from the list of related terms to refine the search and retrieve those documents which meet the search goal of the user with a minimum of extraneous data.
US09063997B2

Provided are a computer program product, system, and method for asynchronous pausing of the formation of consistency groups. A first copy operation is initiated to copy the source data from the first storage to the first data copy in the second storage. A second copy operation is initiated to copy the first data copy in the second storage to a second data copy in response to forming a consistency group of the source data at the first data copy forms consistent as of a point-in-time with respect to the source data. The first copy operation is suspended to allow for further processing of the first data copy in response to completing the second copy operation. The formation of a next consistency group is restarted between the source data and the first data copy in response to receiving a resume command.
US09063996B2

A method, system, and program product are provided for minimizing replication when a new server is replicated with. A replication application for a client computer having a replica of a database thereon is executed by a processor in a computer to receive for a replication service comprising a plurality of servers containing replicas of the database, an indication of each healthy server in the replication service and a determined period of time within which replication is assured to have been completed for each healthy server. The replication application updates a replication history after successful completion of each replication by adding an entry comprising an identification for the server replicated with and a timestamp for the time of replication and by adding an entry for each other healthy server in the replication service containing an identification for the respective server and an imputed timestamp adjusted for the determined period of time.
US09063993B2

Coexistence tools are described for synchronizing properties between on-premises customer locations and remote hosting services. These tools may provide methods that send the tools for installation onto on-premises infrastructure located at customer sites, execute the tools to manage the customer infrastructure remotely via a hosted service, and synchronize properties at the customer site with the hosted service. Other methods may include receiving the tools from the hosted service, communicating configuration parameters related to operating the tools, and executing the tools in response to the configuration parameters. The tools may also provide systems that include on-premises servers associated with the customer infrastructure, with the on-premises servers including on-premises coexistence components for maintaining the property at the customer site. These systems may also include administrative servers associated with the hosted service. The administrative servers may include hosted-side coexistence components for maintaining and synchronizing counterparts of the on-premises properties.
US09063970B1

Concept-based ranking is applied to the results of a search process. Concept-based ranking relies on the input query, that produced the search results, having pinnacle concept properties specified for some of its keyword-based search terms. For each record “r” of a search result, it can be assigned a concept-based ranking score as follows. For each query term “QT,” of the input query, the following can be performed. The set of occurrences of “QT,” in the record, can be determined. Based upon the pinnacle concept of “QT,” and certain characteristics of the set of occurrences, a value can be assigned to “QT.” Characteristics, of the set of occurrences, can include the type of pinnacle concept asserted by at least one sub-unit of the record in which there is an occurrence. Once each “QT” has been assigned a value, such values can be combined to produce a score for ranking the record.
US09063964B2

In one embodiment, a method determines a permission list from an application and generates a set of potential behaviors. The potential behaviors are associated with actions that the application allows when executing on a mobile device where the potential behaviors are determined without execution of the application. The method then determines functional category information regarding a functional category from a set of application marketplaces that contain the application and determines application description information for the application. A required behavior list is generated including a set of required behaviors from the functional category information and the application description information. The method compares the required behaviors to the potential behaviors to determine a set of security related behaviors. The security related behaviors are behaviors found in the potential behaviors, but not in the required behaviors. A security rating is determined based on the set of security related behaviors.
US09063963B2

A system and method for migrating a managed subscriber device from an incumbent managing server to a new managing server. Registration data for the subscriber device and authentication certificates are transferred to the new managing server or an associated memory device, and a DNS name and IP address mapping request is transmitted to a DNS server. When the name change is implemented, a DNS lookup for the managing server performed by the subscriber device returns an IP address associated with the new managing server. The new managing server may then assume the management functions with respect to the subscriber device. The migration may be performed for a number of subscriber devices simultaneously.
US09063961B2

A High-Performance, Scalable, Adaptive and Multi-dimensional Event Repository is described and utilized in a method for publishing an event in a database. The present method includes transparently intercepting a request to a database to publish an event. A messaging system operable with the database intercepts the request. The present method further includes examining an event repository for a template of the event. The event repository is operable with the database and the messaging system. The present method additionally includes retrieving the event template from the event repository. The present method also includes marshaling the event template to create the event. The present method also includes publishing the event in an event queue.
US09063943B1

Systems and methods for calculating a uniqueness rating for a vehicle may include a user preference module to receive user preference data for calculating a uniqueness rating of a vehicle, the user preference data comprising a social media preference that indicates a number of levels to traverse of a user's social graph; a retrieval module to retrieve vehicle characteristics for a set of vehicles in the user's social graph based on the social media preference; a calculation module to calculate the uniqueness rating for the vehicle based on a comparison between characteristics of the vehicle and the vehicle characteristics in the set of vehicles; and a presentation module to present the uniqueness rating to the user based on the user preference data.
US09063938B2

Techniques for enabling user search of content stored in a file archive include providing a search interface comprising a search rules portion and an action rules portion, receiving a file archive search criterion comprising at least one search rule, and searching the file archive using the search criterion. The techniques also include generating a set of files filtered using the search criterion and performing an action specified in the action rules portion on a file included in the set of files.
US09063928B2

Processing data packets from a receive queue is provided. It is determined whether packets are saved in a pre-fetched queue. In response to determining that packets are not saved in the pre-fetched queue, a number of packets within the receive queue is determined. In response to determining the number of packets within the receive queue, it is determined whether the number of packets within the receive queue is greater than a number of packets called for by an application. In response to determining that the number of packets within the receive queue is greater than the number of packets called for by the application, an excess number of packets that is above the number of packets called for by the application is saved in the pre-fetched queue. An indication is sent to the application of the excess number of packets. The predetermined number of packets is transferred to the application.
US09063927B2

Systems and methods for short message age classification in accordance with embodiments of the invention are disclosed. In one embodiment of the invention, classifying messages using a classifier includes determining keyword feature information for a message using the classifier, classifying the determined feature information using the classifier, and estimating user age using the classifier.
US09063925B2

One embodiment of the invention sets forth a mechanism for recommended commands to a designer of a graphics design application. Each time a command is executed within the graphics design application, a resource module receives command use information associated with the executed command. In response, the resource module generates and transmits one or more recommendation lists to the designer, where each recommendation list includes a list of recommended commands that may be executed by the designer next. The resource module generates the recommendation lists based on frequency information associated with the recommended commands stored within a local frequency store. The frequency information is received by the resource module from a central server that processes command use information associated with different designers in the community to produce the frequency information.
US09063919B2

A host device receives a Universal Serial Bus (USB) transfer request from a USB host driver, modifies the USB transfer request, encapsulates the modified USB transfer request for transmission via a wireless communication link, transmits the encapsulated modified USB transfer request to a wireless peripheral device via the wireless communication link, receives a transfer response that encapsulates a plurality of USB transfer responses from the wireless peripheral device via the wireless communication link, decapsulates the encapsulated transfer response, and transmits each of the plurality of USB transfer responses to the USB host driver.
US09063917B2

Markup language stylizations that may be applied to a source document are defined in overlay documents such that no special tags or markers are required in the source document to enable stylization via the overlay document. A manifest document defines an association between a source document and one or more overlay documents.
US09063916B2

Techniques for encoding node locations are provided. In some examples, a node in a hierarchy such as a document object model (DOM) may be expressed as a location path from the root node of the hierarchy to the node. Each node on the location path may be encoded using a mapping between the type and/or index of the node and a set of characters such as ASCII characters. The encoding of each node on the path be concatenated to form the encoded location path. The encoding seeks to minimize the length of the encoded location path. For example, in an embodiment, a single ASCII character may be used to encode both the type and the index of a node. In an embodiment, breakpoint locations may be encoded using methods provided to reduce storage and computing resource required.
US09063909B2

Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media for isolating mirroring operations when interacting with a data storage space, and more specifically to directing data to be stored in two locations, where storing the data in the second location does not slow or impede storing the data in the first location. Upon receiving a request to store data, the system can determine a first storage space and a second storage space in which to store the data. Instructions can be prepared for storing the data in the first storage space while at the same time preparing instructions for storing identical data in the second storage space. The system can communicate the instructions to both storage systems, with the first storage space immediately beginning the storage process while the second storage space places the instructions into a queue for later processing.
US09063896B1

Described is non-disruptive data migration from a source virtual array at a source storage array to a target virtual array at a heterogeneous destination storage array. A name server database is queried to obtain port names for each source port. The source storage array is queried to obtain information about each source virtual array LUN. A target virtual array is generated at the destination array for receiving a copy of data resident at the source virtual array. The target virtual array has at least as many ports and at least as many LUNs as the source virtual array. Data resident in the source virtual array LUNs are copied to corresponding target virtual array LUNs. The name server database is reconfigured to associate source port names with the virtual port addresses of the target virtual array such that the target virtual array appears to a host as the source virtual array.
US09063885B2

A mobile wireless communications device may include a display, a graphics processing unit (GPU) being resettable and causing a change in the display when reset, a wireless transceiver, and a processor cooperating with the GPU and the wireless transceiver for wireless communications. The processor may be resettable along with the GPU, and the processor also may be partially resettable without resetting the GPU to avoid a change in the display.
US09063881B2

A method begins by a processing module receiving a data retrieval request to retrieve data stored as a plurality of sets of encoded data slices in a dispersed storage network memory. The method continues with the processing module determining an access sequence for retrieving the plurality of sets of encoded data slices in accordance with the access sequence, entering a loop to produce recovered decoded data that includes sending a slice retrieval message for a set of encoded data slices of the plurality of sets of encoded data slices, receiving at least a decode threshold number of encoded data slices of the set to produce received encoded data slices, dispersed storage error decoding the received encoded data slices to produce the recovered decoded data, and exiting the loop when a set of encoded data slices is not requested in accordance with a system maintained access sequence.
US09063880B2

A write DMA includes a write unit, a read unit and a parity generation unit. The read unit reads parity data from one of two NAND flashes storing the parity data therein. The parity generation unit generates parity data based on the read parity data and a plurality of stripes obtained by dividing user data. The write unit writes a stripe into any of a plurality of NAND flashes storing stripes therein, and writes generated parity data into the other NAND flash from which parity data is not read.
US09063872B2

A method of performing forward error correction with configurable latency, where a configurable latency algorithm evaluates a target Bit Error Rate (BER) against an actual BER and adjusts the size of a configurable buffer such that the target BER may be achieved when utilizing the smallest buffer size possible. When errors are corrected without the utilization of each of the configurable buffer locations, the algorithm reduces the size of the buffer by y buffer locations; the algorithm may continue to successively reduce the size of said buffer until the minimum number of buffer locations are utilized to achieve the target BER. If the buffer locations have been reduced such that the buffer size is too small and the target BER cannot be achieved, the algorithm may increase the size of the buffer until the minimum number of buffer locations are utilized to achieve the target BER.
US09063855B2

A method for detecting errors in a processing device is disclosed. A data source unit of a processing device transmits data and a qualifier synchronously with the data, the qualifier to indicate the data is uncorrectable. At least one intermediate functional unit in the processing device receives the data and the qualifier. The at least one intermediate functional unit detects the data is uncorrectable based on the qualifier. The at least one intermediate functional unit transmits, without using, the data and the qualifier synchronously with the data to a data consumer unit of the processing device. The data consumer unit receives the data and the qualifier. The data consumer unit detects the data is uncorrectable based on the qualifier. The data consumer unit maintains, without using the data and the qualifier.
US09063850B2

Methods, systems and devices for configuring access to a memory device are disclosed. The configuration of the memory device may be carried out by creating a plurality of access profiles that are adapted to optimize access to the memory device in accordance with a type of access. For example, when an application with specific memory access needs is initiated, the memory access profile that is designed for that particular access need may be utilized to configure access to the memory device. The configuration may apply to a portion of the memory device, a partition of the memory device, a single access location on the memory device, or any combination thereof.
US09063847B2

A chassis management controller includes a root file system, a shared memory, a daemon process module, and an interposer library. The root file system includes a plurality of directories associated with firmware applications of the chassis management controller. The daemon process module is configured to read the parameters of the directories, and to create, in the shared memory, a table including parameters of the directories. The interposer library is configured to intercept an input/output library call for an operation associated with one of the firmware applications, to read table entries associated the one or the firmware applications, to determine whether the operation associated with the input/output library call would result in an over-allocation of a parameter in the entries of the table, and if the operation would not result in the over-allocation, pass the output operation to a standard system library, otherwise to return an out of space error message.
US09063846B2

The present disclosure includes methods and devices for operating a solid state drive. One method embodiment includes receiving an indication of a desired number of write input/output operations (IOPs) per unit time performed by the solid state drive. The method can also include managing the number of write IOPs performed by the solid state drive at least partially based on the desired number of write IOPs per unit time, a number of spare blocks in the solid state drive, and a desired operational life for the solid state drive.
US09063843B2

A data maintenance device includes: a first storage including volatile storage media; a second storage including nonvolatile storage media; an electronic circuit unit including at least one volatile register; and a selector configured to select one of the first and the second storage to be accessed by the electronic circuit unit. The selector selects the first storage in a state where data processing performed by the electronic circuit unit is ongoing, and the second storage in a state where the data processing is stopped for a shutdown of electric power of the data processing apparatus. The electronic circuit unit stores register data in the storage selected by the selector, the register data being stored in the register at the time when the data processing is stopped for the shutdown.
US09063839B2

A system for capacity forecasting for backup storage comprises a processor and a memory. The processor is configured to calculate a set of statistical analyses for subsets of a set of capacities at points in time. The processor is further configured to determine a selected statistical analysis from the set of statistical analyses. The processor is further configured to forecast a full capacity time based at least in part of the selected statistical analysis. The memory is coupled to the processor and configured to provide the processor with instructions.
US09063835B2

A technique includes determining a workload on mass storage system that is associated will user requests during a time in which mass storage system is replicating data from a source data unit of the mass storage system to a replica storage unit of the mass storage system. The technique includes determining a progress rate associated with the replication and managing processing of the user requests and the data replication for the mass storage system, including initiating corrective action in response to determining that the workload is near a predetermined maximum workload threshold and the progress rate is near a predetermined minimum threshold.
US09063824B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, system and computer program product for melding mediation and adaptation modules of a service component architecture (SCA) system. A method for melding mediation and adaptation modules of an SCA system can include selecting each of a mediation module and an adaptation module in an integrated development tool executing in memory by a processor of a computer and loading respectively different descriptor files for each of the mediation module and the adaptation module. The method further can include combining descriptors from the different descriptor files into a single descriptor file for a melded module. Finally, the method can include modifying names and wiring descriptors in the single descriptor file for the melded module to account for a combination of the mediation component and the adaptation component in the melded component.
US09063813B2

An image forming device conducts software installation according to a script acquired from an external storage device, after connection of the external storage device. When conducting the software installation, the image forming device acquires from the external storage device and saves data related to software installation of a subsequent step to be conducted according to the script. The image forming device then provides a notification urging disconnection of the external storage device in response to saving of data related to software installation until a step directly after a software installation step that is being conducted.
US09063811B2

A system and methods for managing applications on a mobile device. One method includes: receiving context data related to the mobile device; assigning a situational utility score to one or more applications available in an application repository by analyzing the context data and tags associated with the one or more applications to determine which applications have situational usefulness; and when a first application has a situational utility score greater than a first threshold value, displaying a prompt on the mobile device to install the first application.
US09063805B2

A method for enabling access to functionality provided by resources outside of an operating system environment is provided. The method includes: receiving a call for functionality provided by resources outside of the operating system environment; and copying function parameters from within the received call to an area of memory accessible to the resources outside of the operating system environment that provide the called functionality.
US09063803B1

Information regarding the execution of a program is recorded. A program execution monitor detects the occurrence of events related to the execution of the program. In response to detecting an event, the program execution monitor creates an entry in an event list identifying the event and the time at which the event occurred. A playback component may utilize the event list to play back the recording of the program at a time corresponding to an identified event. In other embodiments, the program execution monitor stores the operational state of a program at the time an event is detected. The stored operational state can be utilized to recreate the state of the program at the time the event was detected and restart execution of the program at that time. Other types of inputs to the program might also be recorded and played back.
US09063797B2

A method for event handling in a multi-platform system, comprising acquiring an event of a file access from the multi-platform system, processing the event taking account of an auxiliary data to decide an action and activating the action, and an apparatus for performing the same.
US09063793B2

Disclosed herein are a virtual server and a virtual machine management method for supporting a zero client. The virtual server includes a virtual machine management agent unit and a virtualization unit. The virtual machine management agent unit generates a virtual host interface resource pool and a directly allocatable host interface resource pool by classifying attributes of host interface resources of the virtual server. The virtualization unit provides a host interface of a virtual machine by selectively using any one of emulation mode in which a virtual host interface set corresponding to the virtual host interface resource pool is generated and direct connection mode in which a directly allocatable host interface set corresponding to the directly allocatable host interface resource pool is connected to the zero client.
US09063792B2

In some implementations, a method includes receiving, by a mobile device, a request to switch from a first mobile execution environment to a second mobile execution environment. The first mobile execution environment runs on a same operating system, and the second execution environment runs on the same operating system. In response to the request, the mobile device switches from the first mobile execution environment to the second execution environment, wherein the second mobile execution environment has at least one of a different control policy or a different application framework than the first mobile execution environment.
US09063791B2

A service-level specification for information technology services is obtained from a user. The service-level specification is mapped into an information technology specific deployment plan. Information technology specific resources are deployed in accordance with the information technology specific deployment plan to provide the information technology services.
US09063788B2

Embodiments of the disclosure include a system for providing stream processing with runtime adaptation, having a stream processing application that receives an incoming data stream and a runtime infrastructure configured to execute the stream processing application. The system also includes an orchestrator configured to communicate with the runtime infrastructure and the stream processing application, the orchestrator configured to perform a method. The method includes registering one or more events, wherein each of the events is associated with a stream processing application. The method also includes monitoring, by a processor, for an occurrence of the one or more events associated with the stream processing application, wherein each of the one or more events is associated with one or more runtime metrics. The method further includes receiving an event notification, wherein the event notification includes event identification and an event context and executing an adaptation of the stream processing application.
US09063786B2

A set of like tasks to be performed is organized into a first group. Upon a determined imbalance between dispatch queue depths greater than a predetermined threshold, the set of like tasks is reassigned to an additional group.
US09063785B2

Systems and methods of managing software threads provide for selecting a software thread for execution by a processing architecture having a plurality of processing cores and a cooling module. A target core is selected from the plurality of cores based on the effectiveness of the cooling module with regard to each of the plurality of cores, and the selected thread is scheduled for execution by the target core.
US09063782B2

A software environment (300) is established in a portable multimode communication device (PMCD) (100) in which a plurality of software applications (310, 312, 314, 316) are executing. Each software application performs a predetermined function using a hardware set. The hardware set includes a plurality of hardware resources (204, 206, 209, 210, 218, 220, 222, 104, 226, 236, 228, 232, 230, 234) provided on the PMCD. The PMCD will periodically evaluate a usage scenario and, based on this evaluation, allocates to each software application selected ones of the plurality of hardware resources comprising the hardware set. The allocation of hardware resources comprising each hardware set is dynamically varied in response to the evaluating.
US09063769B2

Embodiments of the present invention relate to a method and system to monitor network performance in a computer including at least one physical server having a hardware machine attached via a hypervisor to a set of virtual machines. According to an embodiment of the present invention, the system measures network performance parameters for selected packet flows in transition between the hardware machine and the virtual machines, analyzes the measured performance parameters, and identifies a source of network degradation.
US09063768B2

Disclosed herein is a method of verifying that a reconstructed inventory of a virtualized computer system has been accurately reproduced from an original inventory of a virtualized computer system. A first snapshot and a second snapshot are received, where the first snapshot is a snapshot of the original inventory and the second snapshot is a snapshot of the reconstructed inventory. The first snapshot and the second snapshot are then analyzed to determine that hierarchical relationships, roles and permissions, configuration settings, and/or custom definitions of items in the original inventory match hierarchical relationships of corresponding items in the reconstructed inventory.
US09063766B2

Execution behavior for processes within a virtual machine is recorded for subsequent replay. The execution behavior comprises a detailed, low-level recording of state changes for processes within the virtual machine. The low-level recording is processed via replay to produce a sliced recording that conforms to time, abstraction, and security requirements for a specific replay scenario. Multiple stages of replay may be arbitrarily stacked to generate different crosscut versions of a common low-level recording.
US09063758B2

A namespace-based static metadata model is projected into a dynamic programming environment. A dynamic object is created for each static namespace. The host environment populates the dynamic object with a top-level namespace of the static namespace. The dynamic objects are defined such that a request for a member a member of the namespace lazily populates the static metadata into a projected sub-namespace object or a projected type object.
US09063756B2

Methods and systems for n-way cloning and synchronization of a user desktop image are provided. Example embodiments provide a Cloning and Synchronization System (“CSS”) which binds a server stored CVD object representing the user's desktop image to one or more endpoint devices. Each endpoint device receives a clone of the CVD object that comprises one or more layers of the server CVD depending upon the suitability of the endpoint device hardware and operating system to the server stored desktop. The cloned CVDs in the endpoint devices are then kept synchronized by synchronization operations. In one embodiment, the CSS allows only one endpoint device to act as a master device and push up changes to the server CVD. These changes are then pushed down to the other devices using different synchronization methods dependent upon the layer.
US09063752B2

A security method for verifying a client device comprising: loading and executing a boot loader at the client device which establishes a connection to a boot compliance server; sending a first cryptographic element from the boot compliance server to the client device; generating a first cryptographic response with the first cryptographic element based on at least part of the boot loader and sending the first cryptographic response to the boot compliance server for verification; and continuing the boot process upon successful verification of the first cryptographic response.
US09063750B2

The mapping of High Performance Computing (“HPC”) applications to platforms is provided. An HPC application characterization module determines an HPC application signature to characterize the HPC application. An HPC application mapping module selects a platform from a plurality of platforms to execute the HPC application based on the HPC application signature and a set of benchmarks. An HPC application monitoring module monitors the execution of the HPC application on the selected platform.
US09063739B2

A method and computer program are provided for graphically configuring devices in a control area network that includes providing one or more application programming interfaces, creating one or more graphical objects on a computer display using a graphical user interface, and associating one or more functions of an application programming interface with one or more of the devices using the graphical user interface. Each application programming interface corresponds to a class of devices and includes a set of functions. Each class of devices includes one or more devices. At least one of the graphical objects represents one or more of the devices.
US09063738B2

This document describes techniques for dynamically placing computing jobs. These techniques enable reduced financial and/or energy costs to perform computing jobs at data centers.
US09063732B2

Systems and methods are disclosed for limiting power consumption of a non-volatile memory (NVM) using a power limiting scheme that distributes a number of concurrent NVM operations over time. This provides a “current consumption cap” that fixes an upper limit of current consumption for the NVM, thereby eliminating peak power events. In one embodiment, power consumption of a NVM can be limited by receiving data suitable for use as a factor in adjusting a current threshold from at least one of a plurality of system sources. The current threshold can be less than a peak current capable of being consumed by the NVM and can be adjusted based on the received data. A power limiting scheme can be used that limits the number of concurrent NVM operations performed so that a cumulative current consumption of the NVM does not exceed the adjusted current threshold.
US09063729B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide an apparatus, system, and method of generating an execution instruction. Some demonstrative embodiments my include generating an execution instruction of a predetermined executable format based on memory address data of a memory-access instruction representing a memory address. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US09063726B1

A method and system for the dynamic extension (e.g. subclassing) of objects to enable visual styling of on-screen elements is disclosed herein. The present invention allows designers and developers alike to conceive, implement, and modify native mobile interfaces effortlessly and in real time through a familiar CSS-based syntax. The technique of dynamic subclassing for the purpose of styling greatly simplifies the development process by no longer requiring the developer to directly configure visual element's properties or to subclass objects in code.
US09063724B2

A method of executing an instruction set to select a set of registers, includes reading a first instruction of the instruction set; interpreting a first operand of the first instruction to represent a first register S to be selected; interpreting a second operand of the first instruction to represent a number N of registers to be selected; and selecting N consecutive registers starting at the first register S to form the set of registers.
US09063723B2

A method for comparing a first subroutine and a second subroutine in functionality, includes: defining a plurality of instruction sets, each instruction set associated with a corresponding instruction set process; obtaining a first program section and a second program section from a first subroutine and a second subroutine, respectively, and categorizing the first subroutine and the second subroutine to one of the instruction sets, respectively; performing a program section comparison process to select and perform one of the instruction sets according to the instruction set to which the first program section is categorized and the instruction set to which the second program section is categorized, so as to compare whether the first program section and the second program section have identical functions, and to accordingly determine whether the first subroutine and the second subroutine are equivalent in functionality.
US09063722B2

A control processor is used for fetching and distributing single instruction multiple data (SIMD) instructions to a plurality of processing elements (PEs). One of the SIMD instructions is a thread start (Tstart) instruction, which causes the control processor to pause its instruction fetching. A local PE instruction memory (PE Imem) is associated with each PE and contains local PE instructions for execution on the local PE. Local PE Imem fetch, decode, and execute logic are associated with each PE. Instruction path selection logic in each PE is used to select between control processor distributed instructions and local PE instructions fetched from the local PE Imem. Each PE is also initialized to receive control processor distributed instructions. In addition, local hold generation logic is associated with each PE. A PE receiving a Tstart instruction causes the instruction path selection logic to switch to fetch local PE Imem instructions.
US09063721B2

Trustworthy systems require that code be validated as genuine. Most systems implement this requirement prior to execution by matching a cryptographic hash of the binary file against a reference hash value, leaving the code vulnerable to run time compromises, such as code injection, return and jump-oriented programming, and illegal linking of the code to compromised library functions. The Run-time Execution Validator (REV) validates, as the program executes, the control flow path and instructions executed along the control flow path. REV uses a signature cache integrated into the processor pipeline to perform live validation of executions, at basic block boundaries, and ensures that changes to the program state are not made by the instructions within a basic block until the control flow path into the basic block and the instructions within the basic block are both validated.
US09063720B2

Instruction, method, apparatus, and processing systems for performing a string comparison operation. An apparatus includes execution resources to execute a single-instruction-multiple-data (SIMD) comparison instruction. In response to the SIMD comparison instruction, said execution resources store a result of a comparison between each data element of a first and second operand corresponding to a first and second text string, respectively.
US09063716B2

An image processing apparatus includes: a switch of a main power supply unit that is switched between ON and OFF in response to a user's operation so as to switch the power supply between a supply of power and an interruption of the supply; a first notification unit that sends an interrupt request notification for requesting to interrupt a process in a recoverable way to all of or a part of the applications being run if the switch of a main power supply unit is turned off; and a power supply control unit that interrupts the supply from the power supply when a time lapse, that is measured since a time when the notification unit has sent the interrupt request notification, exceeds a first predetermined time.
US09063710B2

An execution framework allows developers to write sequential computational logic, constrained for the runtime system to efficiently parallelize execution of custom business logic. The framework can be leveraged to overcome limitations in executing low level procedural code, by empowering the system runtime environment to parallelize this code. Embodiments employ algorithmic skeletons in the realm of optimizing/executing data flow graphs of database management systems. By providing an extensible set of algorithmic skeletons the developer of custom logic can select the skeleton appropriate for new custom logic, and then fill in the corresponding computation logic according to the structural template of the skeleton. The skeleton provides a set of constraints known to the execution environment, that can be leveraged by the optimizer and the execution environment to generate parallel optimized execution plans containing custom logic, without the developer having to explicitly describe parallelization of the logic.
US09063704B2

Systems and methods for recognizing human gestures are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method for recognizing a gesture made by an operator with a portable device, may comprise: obtaining a first sensor data profile associated with measurements made by the first sensor while the operator made a specific gesture involving the portable device; obtaining a second sensor data profile associated with measurements made by the second sensor while the operator made the specific gesture involving the portable device; and identifying the specific gesture by analyzing the first sensor data profile and the second sensor data profile.
US09063699B1

A glass touch screen protector for a portable electronic device having a front face that includes a touch screen portion and a chamfered outer perimeter, the glass screen protector including a glass sheet having front and back sides, an outer band that corresponds to that of the device, and having a transparent window portion that corresponds in size to the touch screen portion. A spacer is provided along the outer perimeter of the glass sheet substantially continuously surrounding the transparent window. The spacer increases in thickness toward the periphery of the glass sheet and has a thickness sufficient to space the glass sheet near but not in contact with the touch screen portion. The spacer has an exposed adhesive facing the portable device and having adhesive strength enabling repeated removal and re-attachment.
US09063698B2

A portable electrical device includes a tablet computer, a base panel, two supporting arms and two connecting members. Two ends of each supporting arm are pivotally disposed at one lateral side of the tablet computer and one lateral side of the base panel. The base panel has two guiding grooves oppositely arranged on one surface thereof. One end of the connecting member is pivoted with the lateral side of the tablet computer, and the other end of the connecting member is limited and slidably disposed in one of the guiding grooves. When the other ends of both the connecting members are at one distal end of the guiding groove, the tablet computer is stacked on the base panel, and a touch-controlled display of the tablet computer can alternatively face towards or opposite to the base panel.
US09063695B2

Functionality is described for allowing a first user to select a sound item. The first user can use a first device to send this sound item to a second device operated by a second user. Upon the occurrence of a triggering event, the sound item selected by the first user can be presented by the second device to the second user. The first device and the second device may correspond to two devices in an Instant Messaging (IM) system. According to another illustrative aspect, functionality is described that allows the first user to select the new sound item from a source sound item by adjusting the position and/or size (e.g., width) of a graphical selection unit that is presented over a graphical depiction of the source sound item.
US09063691B2

System and method for zero client communications. A zero client device includes a housing, and in the housing, a transcoding processing unit (transcoder) and a communications processing unit coupled to the transcoder. The transcoder is configured to receive input data from human interface device(s), encode the input data, and provide the encoded input data to the communications processing unit for transmission over a network to a server. The communications processing unit is configured to receive the encoded input data from the transcoder, transmit the encoded input data over the network to the server, receive output data from the server, and send the output data to the transcoder. The transcoder is further configured to receive the output data from the communications processing unit, decode the output data, and send the decoded output data to at least one of the human interface devices.
US09063683B2

Methods and systems provide a network-based site for obtaining user preferences, using a computerized device connected to a computer network. User preferences are received through the network-based site, and the user preferences comprise printer option selections that are specific to a specific printing device and a specific user. Such methods and systems store the user preferences using the computerized device. After storing the user preferences, the methods and systems receive a print job and an indication to apply the user preferences. In response to only receiving the print job and the indication to apply the user preferences, the methods and systems automatically print the print job according to the user preferences using the specific printing device.
US09063678B2

An image forming apparatus stores setting information received from an external device in a temporary region, and compares device identification information acquired from the setting information with device identification information of the image forming apparatus. The image forming apparatus determines a reflection level used to reflect each setting included in the setting information stored in the temporary region, and stores the setting information in a database. Further, the image forming apparatus extracts a setting compliant with the reflection level and a reflection policy, using a plurality of import modules, and stores the extracted setting in a database that is actually used for control performed by the image forming apparatus.
US09063670B2

A system including an Ethernet network interface module, a processor, and a hard disk control module. The Ethernet network interface module is configured to transmit and receive packets via an Ethernet connection. The processor is configured to process the packets transmitted and received by the Ethernet network interface module via the Ethernet connection. The processor is configured to support processing of the packets transmitted and received using (i) a hyper-text transfer protocol, (ii) a peer-to-peer sharing protocol, and (iii) an Internet small computer system interface (SCSI) protocol. The hard disk control module is configured to control, based on the packets transmitted and received, writing and reading of data to a hard disk drive. The hard disk control module, the processor, and the network interface module are located in an integrated circuit included in the hard disk drive.
US09063667B2

For dynamic memory relocation, a tracking module tracks accesses to a plurality of memory devices. Each of the plurality of memory devices is in communication with one memory controller of a plurality of memory controllers embedded in a computing device comprising a plurality of nodes. A migration module migrates first data from a first memory device in communication with a first memory controller to a second memory device in communication with a second memory controller.
US09063663B2

The flash memory controller compresses data in response to a write request. On condition that there is a compression effect with respect to the compressed data, the flash memory controller writes the compressed data to the base area of a physical block of a flash memory. As physical pages assigned to the physical block, the flash memory controller reduces the physical pages assigned to the base area from 102 down to 59, and increases the physical pages assigned to the update area from 26 up to 69. Therefore, it is possible to suppress exhaustion of physical pages which are assigned to the update area, to reduce the number of erases of the physical block, and to consequently prolong device operating life.
US09063661B1

Described are techniques for parameter selection. First processing is performed that migrates data of a first device from an origin to a destination data storage system. The first processing includes cutover processing. After cutover processing is performed, requests to the first device are serviced by the destination data storage system rather than the origin data storage system. During first processing, occurrence of cutover processing is detected. Responsive to detecting the occurrence of cutover processing, second processing is performed to update one or more parameters each having a value that varies in accordance with a type of physical data storage system. Prior to second processing, the parameters have values determined in accordance with a type of physical data storage system of the origin data storage system, and after second processing, the parameters have values determined in accordance with a type of physical data storage system of the destination data storage system.
US09063659B2

Methods and apparatuses for data sector cluster-based data recording are disclosed. In one embodiment, an apparatus may comprise a processor configured to receive a write request containing host data for writing to a target location of a data storage medium. A target location may comprise one or more clusters, where a cluster may be multiple sequentially-numbered data storage addresses of the data storage medium. The processor may write at least one cluster of the target location with host data and dummy data pursuant to the write request, dummy data being arbitrary data written to fill data storage addresses in the target location not written by host data.
US09063657B2

According to one embodiment, a system includes a virtual tape server coupled to at least one tape library, a library manager in communication with the at least one tape library and the virtual tape server, a memory adapted for acting as logical tape storage and a physical tape drive for processing physical tape media adapted for buffering deduplication operations, logic adapted for receiving a data stream from a host system, logic adapted for sending data from the data stream when the data stream is active to at least one of the memory and the tape drive based on whether at least one of a plurality of conditions is met, and logic adapted for sending previously stored data stream data from the tape drive to the memory when the data stream is inactive during a deduplication operation. Other systems and methods are also described according to more embodiments.
US09063645B1

Methods and apparatus for displaying information content in a user interface. The content includes an information panel that contains at least one information element. Information indicating a position within the user interface is used to automatically determine whether to display the information panel in its expanded or collapsed state. The title of the information panel is displayed. The title of the information element is displayed beneath the information panel title when the information panel is displayed in its expanded state. The title of the information element is not displayed when the information panel is displayed in its collapsed state.
US09063641B2

An electronic book system provides interfaces particularly suited to students' use of textbooks. A finger press on a touch screen produces a contextual menu with user choices that relate to where the finger was pressed or what the user was recently doing with the book. A student provisionally navigates through a book by a specific gesture which, when it stops, returns the user to the previous position in the book. Annotations are displayed and hidden using specific gestures and through selective movement of the reader as sensed by its accelerometer.
US09063633B2

A system for Virtual Navigation in real and Virtual Spaces. Such navigation in Virtual spaces may be applied particularly in 3D computer games and 3D programming of motion pictures. Such navigation in real spaces creates a new paradigm in communication and media particularly with unique 3 D video interface devices disclosed in this invention.
US09063632B2

Disclosed are methods, apparatus, systems, and computer readable storage media for interacting with one or more records via a single user interface. The user interface includes a publisher and an information feed. A user may request to interact with a first record from the publisher. Information may be submitted through the publisher to interact with the first record to update the record. A feed item may be presented for inclusion in the information feed based on the update, where the feed item includes one or more actionable selections providing a reference to the first record. When a user selects one of the actionable selections, the user can perform additional interactions with the first record or perform a new interaction with a second record.
US09063629B2

A portable electronic device with first and second modes, the first mode, associated with allowing for the availability of one or more of a first level of power consumption and processor activity for the portable electronic device, and allowing general unlocked user interaction with the user interface of the portable electronic device; the second mode, associated with allowing for the availability of one or more of a second level of power consumption or processor activity, and allowing locked user interaction with the user interface; and the locked user interaction allowing for the provision of one or more specific limited user inputs using the user interface, to directly interact with associated second mode output provided using the user interface in the second mode, the one or more specific limited user inputs not being associated with general unlocking of portable electronic device to enter the first mode of operation.
US09063620B2

A touch device and a fabrication method thereof are provided. The touch device includes a cover lens, a first light shielding pattern and a touch sensing element disposed on the cover lens, a passivation layer covering the touch sensing element and the first light shielding pattern, and a second light shielding pattern disposed on the passivation layer, wherein the second light shielding pattern overlaps with a part of the first light shielding pattern.
US09063614B2

A lens for placement opposite a diode in an optical touch sensor, including an upper portion including an upper refractive surface located nearer to the diode, and an upper reflector located further from the diode, the upper reflector being curved in two dimensions and cut horizontally by a top horizontal plane of the lens, and a lower portion, coplanar with the diode, including a lower refractive surface located nearer to the diode, and a lower reflector located further from the diode, the lower reflector being curved in the two dimensions and cut horizontally by a bottom horizontal plane of the lens, wherein the upper and the lower reflector are symmetrical and vertically aligned, and wherein non-collimated light reflected by the lower reflector onto the upper reflector is partially collimated in the two dimensions by the lower reflector and further collimated in the two dimensions by the upper reflector.
US09063608B2

A processing system for an input device includes a transmitter modules coupled to a plurality of transmitter electrodes including a first set and a second set of transmitter electrodes, the first set and second set being disjoint and having different sizes. The transmitter module is configured to simultaneously transmit a first plurality of transmitter signals with the first set of transmitter electrodes during a first period, and to simultaneously transmit a second plurality of transmitter signals with the second set of transmitter electrodes during a second period, wherein the first period and the second period are non-overlapping. Each of the first plurality of transmitter signals is based on a different sequence of a code, which includes a set of mathematically independent sequences and has a size equal to the size of the first set of transmitter electrodes.
US09063607B2

A dual mode touch sensing display includes a display module, and a dual mode touch sensing module disposed at the display module. The dual mode touch sensing module includes a plurality of first conductors, a plurality of second conductors, and a switch unit. The first conductors extend in a first direction. The second conductors extend in a second direction intersecting the first direction. The switch unit includes a first switch circuit coupled to the first conductors and capable of interconnecting at least a portion of the first conductors to form sensing loops, and a second switch circuit coupled to the second conductors and capable of interconnecting at least a portion of the second conductors to form sensing loops.
US09063606B2

The present invention discloses a control device for a touch panel that comprises a plurality of X-directional sensing lines and Y-directional sensing lines. The X-directional sensing lines and Y-directional sensing lines are arranged in an interlaced manner. The control device comprises a clock generation circuit, a selection module, a driving signal generation circuit, a differential detection module, and a digital-to-analog conversion module. The selection module selects a first sensing line and a second sensing line from the X-directional sensing lines or Y-directional sensing lines. The driving signal generation circuit generates first and second driving signals to the first and second sensing lines, respectively. The digital to analog conversion module selectively outputs a first voltage to the first sensing line or outputs a second voltage to the second sensing line. The operation frequency of the touch panel can be increased using the control device of the present invention.
US09063598B2

An input device includes a touch pad which is rotatably supported and has an upper surface as an input operation surface, a switch element located on a lower side of the touch pad, and a control unit configured to perform a continued-ON state control during an operation of an operation body (finger, etc.) moving on the input operation surface and pressing the input operation surface downwardly to cause the switch element to be in an ON state, the continued-ON state control maintaining the ON state even if the ON state of the switch element is released while the operation of the operation body continues on or in a vicinity of the input operation surface.
US09063581B2

A solution for auto-completing words being input to a computer is proposed. For this purpose, a user starts inputting a prefix of a target word; the computer tries predicting the target word that is desired, and it completes the prefix automatically (without the need of inputting the entire target word). In the proposed solution, the user also inputs an indication of the length of the target word. In this way, the computer can restrict the words being eligible to complete the prefix (i.e., including it) only to the ones having the desired length. This allows solving any ambiguity with shorter prefixes.
US09063579B2

There is disclosed a method for the detection of the selection of a character of a character string to be input from a character set on an input surface, wherein the selection of at least one character of the character string is detected by evaluating a direction vector of a gesture which is input on the input surface. There is also disclosed an input device for carrying out the method, especially a mobile terminal with a touch-sensitive input surface for selecting characters of a character string to be input, in which on the touch-sensitive input surface an input pattern with a number of characters from a character set can be displayed, whereby the input device comprises an evaluation unit, which detects the selection of at least one character of the character string by evaluating a direction vector of a gesture input with an input medium on the input surface.
US09063578B2

Users move their hands in a three dimensional (“3D”) physical interaction zone (“PHIZ”) to control a cursor in a user interface (“UI”) shown on a computer-coupled 2D display such as a television or monitor. The PHIZ is shaped, sized, and positioned relative to the user to ergonomically match the user's natural range of motions so that cursor control is intuitive and comfortable over the entire region on the UI that supports cursor interaction. A motion capture system tracks the user's hand so that the user's 3D motions within the PHIZ can be mapped to the 2D UI. Accordingly, when the user moves his or her hands in the PHIZ, the cursor correspondingly moves on the display. Movement in the z direction (i.e., back and forth) in the PHIZ allows for additional interactions to be performed such as pressing, zooming, 3D manipulations, or other forms of input to the UI.
US09063570B2

A feedback control system is provided. The feedback control system receives a user input. The feedback control system determines a context. The feedback control system displays a control in response to the user input and based on the context. The feedback control system adjusts a feedback parameter according to the control, where the control is configured to adjust feedback output to a user based on the adjusted feedback parameter.
US09063562B2

A server is configured to receive, from a user device, a first connection request including a request for a list of one or more camera devices connected to the server; establish a first channel, between the user device and the server, based on receiving the first connection request; provide the list of one or more camera devices to the user device via the first channel; receive a second connection request identifying a particular camera device of the one or more camera devices; establish a second channel based on receiving the second connection request; and provide the second connection request to the particular camera device via the second channel. A third channel may circumvent the server, and may be used to provide content, captured by the particular camera device, to the user device independently of the server.
US09063556B2

An example bandgap reference circuit includes an amplifier, a first, a second, and a third switch, and a capacitor. The first switch is coupled between an inverting input and an output of the amplifier to provide a negative feedback loop around the amplifier when the first switch is closed. The capacitor has a first end coupled to the inverting input, and a second end coupled to the second switch, where the capacitor is charged to a voltage substantially equal to an offset voltage of the amplifier when the second switch is closed. The third switch is coupled to a second end of the capacitor, where the voltage across the capacitor is subtracted from an input loop of the reference circuit to cancel the offset voltage of the amplifier when the third switch is closed.
US09063555B2

A user interface for use with an HVAC system, a method of providing service reminders on a single screen of a user interface of an HVAC system and an HVAC system incorporating the user interface or the method. In one embodiment, the user interface includes: (l) a display configured to provide information to a user, (2) a touchpad configured to accept input from the user and (3) a processor and memory coupled to the display and the touchpad and configured to drive the display and provide a plurality of seasonal programs.
US09063543B2

The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for performing cooperative autonomous driving between a vehicle and a driver. For this, a cooperative autonomous driving apparatus according to the present invention includes a driver state determination unit for determining a state of a driver and calculating the state of the driver as a risk index. An autonomous driving control unit classifies section characteristics of respective sections included in a path to a destination corresponding to the driver based on section data stored in a database (DB), and controls autonomous driving of a vehicle in which the driver is riding, based on a driving environment recognized for the path to the destination corresponding to the driver. A driving control determination unit determines driving modes of the respective sections included in the path based on the state of the driver and the section characteristics.
US09063530B2

In work implements, power machines and methods of operating implements and power machines using machine and implement controllers, an implement controller receives information from a power machine, with which the work implement is paired, indicative of operational characteristics of the power machine. The implement controller is configured to responsively provide information to the power machine to direct operation of the power machine based upon the received information.
US09063529B2

A smartphone or other mobile computer app that causes a smartphone or another mobile computer device to actively control a configuration of footwear structural elements located in both footwear of a device user. Sensors are located in both footwear soles and in the device of the user. The footwear structural elements are configured for computer control by the device. Instructions of the app cause the device to: first, control the footwear structural elements by establishing a first configuration of the footwear structural elements for a first device user locomotion test; second, control the footwear structural elements by establishing a second, different configuration of the footwear structural elements; third, process sensor measurement data from the first and second tests; fourth, compare the test data with a preferred data set; fifth, select and establish a configuration of the footwear structural elements from the test data closest to matching the preferred data set.
US09063528B2

A group of sensor devices is connected to the power line and configured for collecting power usage information and enabling power management to reduce the carbon footprint of the home, as well as to provide local area networking. In one embodiment, the devices include an intelligent master sensor and its sub-sets, such as a communication and power management sensor and a power control switch sensor. The master device is configured to collect, compile, and communicate the collected data via the web or other communication medium to the outside world. The master device also receives and distributes control instructions that are used to control the power usage via the associated switches in the home or office. The sensors are used in the home or office environment to provide integrated sensing and control of home power usage and power management, while establishing a LAN having communication capability, including streaming media delivery capability.
US09063527B2

There is provided a scheduling device in which a dividing unit selects a predetermined number of semi-finished products from a head out of a semi-finished products for which scheduling order was determined, and divides selected semi-finished products according to a plurality of patterns to generate a plurality of set sequences, the set sequences each being a sequence of one or more sets each including at least one semi-finished product; a calculating unit assigns, for each of the set sequences, the sets included in the set sequence to different ones of the processing devices so that processing of all the semi-finished products are completed fastest, and finds the set sequence that completion time is completed fastest among the set sequences; and a determining unit determines that a top set in the set sequence found by the calculating unit is processed by the processing device assigned thereto.
US09063522B2

A structure for a timepiece includes a middle part and a back cover that confines an electronic or electrical module. The module includes a plate, at least one circuit with at least one electrical contact area, and a connecting contactor. The plate includes a compartment that is arranged to receive an electrical energy accumulator. The connecting contactor provides an electrical connection between the accumulator and the at least one contact area. The contactor is rigid and includes an elastic return that tends to return the contactor to a rest geometry. The contactor includes at least a first arm and at least a second arm that together form a clamp that presses the circuit and the accumulator towards each other.
US09063519B2

A device includes a delay line, a first readout circuit electrically connected to the delay line, a second readout circuit electrically connected to the delay line, and a phase interpolator electrically connected to the second readout circuit.
US09063517B1

A watch press is provided with a press block for pressing the backs onto wristwatches. The press block defines a clearance through which a watch band can be routed while pressing a back to the attached watch. The press block can be generally U-shaped with the clearance defined between upper and lower members thereof.
US09063516B2

A timepiece includes a dial plate and a solar battery which is disposed on a rear surface side of the dial plate. The dial plate has an area larger than the solar battery. The solar battery is encompassed by the dial plate in a planar view. The dial plate is provided with grooves or ridges which have a function of condensing incident light.
US09063505B2

An electrophotographic photosensitive member has a laminated body and a hole transporting layer formed on the laminated body, wherein the laminated body has a support, an electron transporting layer and a charge generating layer in this order, and satisfies the following expressions (2) and (4): |Vl2−Vl1|≦0.35  (2) 0.10≦|(Vd2−Vl3)/Vd2|≦0.20  (4).
US09063502B2

Disclosed is an image forming apparatus including an image forming unit that forms an image on a recording medium, an image reading unit that is provided above the image forming unit so as to read an image of a document, a frame that accommodates the image forming unit therein, including a pair of front and rear planar members disposed so as to face each other and a beam portion that connects the pair of planar members and supports upward the image reading unit, and a cover that covers at least a portion of the frame, provided with an opening portion of which an upper edge portion is supported by the beam portion.
US09063496B2

An image forming apparatus includes a photosensitive drum, a charging roller, a transfer roller, a first bias application unit, a second bias application unit, and a control unit. The charging roller contains an ion conductive material. The first bias application unit applies a first bias to the charging roller. The second bias application unit applies a predetermined bias to the transfer roller. The control unit controls the first bias application unit not to apply the first bias to the charging roller in a non-image forming period in which a toner image is not formed on the photosensitive drum. The control unit controls the second bias application unit to apply the second bias, which is a bias that can electrically charge the surface of the photosensitive drum, to the transfer roller in the non-image forming period.
US09063492B2

A fuser includes a fixing belt that is endless and includes a heat generating layer and circulates, an end restraining member that supports an end of the fixing belt, a heat generating source that is disposed around the fixing belt and heats the heat generating layer, an opposite part that contacts an outer peripheral surface of the fixing belt, a pressure part that is disposed inside the fixing belt and located at a position opposite to the opposite part, and presses the fixing belt to the opposite part side to form a nip between the fixing belt and the opposite part, and a rotation part that contacts an inner peripheral surface of the fixing belt at a position opposite to the heat generating source.
US09063488B2

According to embodiments, a heating member or a sliding member arranged in contact with the surface of a fusing roller is moved in an intersecting direction with the rotational direction of the fusing roller in a contact state with the heating member or the sliding member so as to prevent a scratch from being generated on the surface of the fusing roller or to repair the scratch.
US09063485B2

A fixing device configured to thermally fix a developing agent image to a recording sheet includes a fixing belt having a tubular shape defining an inner space, a heat generating member, a nip member, and a stay which are disposed in the inner space of the fixing belt, and a rotating member disposed outside the inner space of the fixing belt. The fixing belt is nipped between the nip plate and the rotating member. The stay comprises a first receiving portion and a second receiving portion which are positioned upstream and downstream of the heat generating member, respectively, in a conveying direction of the recording sheet and are configured to receive a force exerted from the rotating member to the nip member. The heat insulator is disposed between the nip member and one of the first receiving portion and the second receiving portion of the stay.
US09063482B2

A cooling device includes a cooling member including a circulation passage for liquid coolant, and a cooling surface being directly or indirectly made to contact with a recording material being conveyed to cool the recording material. The circulation passage includes multiple passage sections arranged crossing to a conveying direction of the recording material, and a folded passage section to guide the liquid coolant from one of the multiple passage sections to another one of the multiple passage sections while changing a flowing direction of the liquid coolant. The folded passage section is disposed outside of an image forming area of the recording material on the cooling surface of the cooling member.
US09063480B2

In an embodiment, provided is a fixing device that includes: a fixing belt rotatable and endless; a belt holding member holding the fixing belt at each end part in an axial direction; a heat source heating the fixing belt; a nip forming member provided inside the fixing belt; an opposing rotator forming a nip portion between the opposing rotator and the fixing belt via the fixing belt; and a separating member that extends near the nip portion and separates a recording medium from a surface of the fixing belt. A leading end of the separating member is provided with a receding portion and an approaching portion that is at a different position from a position of the receding portion different in the axial direction. The approaching portion is provided nearer to the nip portion than the receding portion is provided.
US09063476B2

An image forming apparatus includes plural image carriers, an intermediate transfer body, plural first transfer devices, a second transfer device, and an adjustment device. Each image carrier carries a color component image formed thereon. The intermediate transfer body is rotated while facing the image carriers, is disposed so as to be in contact with at least one or more image carriers used for image formation, and temporarily carries one or more images formed on the one or more image carriers. Each first transfer device forms a transfer electric field in a first transfer region to transfer a color component image onto the intermediate transfer body. The second transfer device forms a transfer electric field in a second transfer region to transfer color component images onto a recording material. The adjustment device adjusts first transfer conditions for the plural first transfer devices.
US09063474B2

A transfer device includes a plurality of transfer members and a switch section. The switch section, in a first state, causes the transfer members to be pressed against a plurality of image bearing members. The switch section, in a second state, causes a transfer member opposed to a first image bearing member to be pressed against the first image bearing member, and causes a transfer member opposed to a second image bearing member to be separated from the second image bearing member. In the first state, toner images of different colors are transferred from the image bearing members to an intermediate transfer belt and superimposed together. In the second state, a single-color toner image is transferred from the first image bearing member to the intermediate transfer belt. The switch section changes a pressing force of the transfer member to the first image bearing member between the first and second states.
US09063453B2

An image formation apparatus includes: an image data processor to generate page data representing images to be printed on a page basis based on print data; a print work execution unit to form images for two pages on both faces of each recording media based on the page data upon two-sided printing; and a charge information generator to generate charge information according to the image formation executed by the print work execution unit. The image data processor generates, where the number of pages of the images represented by the print data is an odd number upon the two-sided printing, edited image data for an even number of pages including a blank page with a blank image which does not correspond to the print data as the page data. The charge information generator generates the charge information without the blank page being set as a charge item.
US09063452B2

An image forming apparatus includes a charging roller including elastic and surface layers and a photoconductor drum. Initially, the surface layer has a surface roughness Rz of 3-6 μm, and the layers have an impedance ratio of 0.81 or less in absolute value at a frequency of 800-3000 Hz. After a predetermined time, the surface roughness Rz is reduced by a decrement ΔRz of 0.1-4 μm. The drum has a film thickness D initially ranging from 20-40 μm and reduced by a decrement ΔD of 5-25 μm after the predetermined time. Herein, 0.005≦ΔRz/ΔD≦0.8 holds. The impedance ratio is represented as ZE/(ZE+ZS) wherein ZE and ZS represent the respective impedances of the elastic layer and the surface layer, and 100k A4-size recording media recorded with images with an area coverage of 7% are printed in the predetermined time.
US09063451B2

Electrostatic image graduations inclined by a first angle in a main scanning direction are formed on a photosensitive drum and transferred to an intermediate transfer belt, and electrostatic image graduations inclined by a second angle in the main scanning direction are formed on the photosensitive drum and transferred to the intermediate transfer belt so as to overlap with the electrostatic image graduations inclined by the first angle. The electrostatic image graduations inclined by the first angle are detected by a conducting wire having a linear conductive member inclined by the first angle in the main scanning direction of the intermediate transfer belt. The electrostatic image graduations inclined by the second angle are detected by a conducting wire having a linear conductive member inclined by the second angle in the main scanning direction of the intermediate transfer belt.
US09063449B2

An image forming apparatus capable of reducing fluctuations in the rotational speed of an image carrier caused by harmonic noise. A surface of the image carrier is charged with electricity. An exposure unit forms an electrostatic latent image by exposing on the charged surface of the image carrier to light. A rotational drive unit rotates the image carrier. A first detecting unit detects a rotational speed of the image carrier. A second detecting unit detects a home position of the image carrier. An exposure control unit controls timing with which the exposure unit exposes the image carrier to light based on the rotational speed of the image carrier detected by the first detecting unit and the home position detected by the second detecting unit.
US09063443B2

The present invention provides a magnetic carrier that can stably impart charge to a toner on a long term basis and that exhibits an excellent toner separation property and thus exhibits an excellent developing performance. This magnetic carrier is a magnetic carrier in which a vinyl resin coats the surface of a resin-filled core in which a resin is filled in pores of a porous ferrite particle, wherein the resistivity, Mg content, and total content of Sr and Ca oxides of the porous ferrite particle exhibit prescribed values and the magnetic carrier has a total area—in the backscattered electron projection image obtained by observation using a scanning electron microscope at an acceleration voltage of 2.0 kV—for a region originating with the porous ferrite particle of from at least 0.2 area % to not more than 5.0 area % with reference to the projected area of the magnetic carrier.
US09063428B2

A method for manufacturing a semiconductor device of the present invention includes steps of (a) preparing a silicon carbide substrate including a photoresist film formed on a principal surface, (b) dropping a first developing solution onto the photoresist film, (c) rotating the silicon carbide substrate to drain the first developing solution dropped onto the photoresist film after a lapse of a first development time since the end of the step (b), (d) dropping a second developing solution onto the photoresist film after the step (c), and (e) rotating the silicon carbide substrate to drain the second developing solution dropped onto the photoresist film after a lapse of a second development time since the end of the step (d).
US09063421B2

A chemically amplified positive resist composition comprising (A) 100 pbw of a base resin which is normally alkali insoluble or substantially insoluble, (B) 0.05-20 pbw of a photoacid generator, (C) 0.1-50 pbw of a thermal crosslinker, and (D) 50-5,000 pbw of an organic solvent is coated to form a thick film having a high sensitivity and resolution.
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