US09144186B2
A method of mounting electronic parts on a surface mounting substrate includes a step of forming a film resist layer by applying a resist with a film coating device to amounting surface of a surface mounting substrate formed with a wiring pattern including a pair of lands to mount an electronic part; precuring the formed film resist layer; exposing, by using a mask, inner side regions of the film resist layer, the inner side regions defining the exposure regions and another region defining non-exposure region; etching away the film resist layer in the non-exposure regions and forming film resist layers in the inner side regions; post curing the film resist layers; printing solder pastes in regions on the lands excluding the inner side regions; and placing the electronic part on the solder pastes and reflow-soldering thereon.
US09144181B2
A data center includes a hot stack for exhausting heated air from the data center and a cold stack that cools intake air relative to the environment surrounding the data center. The temperature difference between air in the cold stack and the environment creates an airflow through the cold stack and into a cold aisle. This pressurizes the cold aisle, causing air to flow from the cold aisle across computing assets to a lower-pressure hot aisle. While flowing across the computing assets, the air absorbs heat generated by the computing assets. The temperature difference between the heated air and air outside the data center causes the heated air to flow through the hot stack and outside of the data center.
US09144177B2
A heat dissipation apparatus for effective dissipation of heat comprises an air flow module and a heat sink. The air flow module comprises a casing, a piston module slidably mounted in the casing, an airflow outlet module attached to a first side of the casing, and an electromagnet module attached to a second side of the casing that is opposite to the first side. The airflow outlet module comprises a plurality of airflow outlet grooves. The piston module comprises a magnet. The heat sink is aligned with the plurality of airflow outlet grooves. The electromagnet module is capable of moving the magnet and the piston module back and forth in the casing. The air flow module is capable of blowing air to the heat sink via the plurality of airflow outlet grooves.
US09144176B2
A modular datacenter includes a server rack, a main beam, and an attachment member. The server rack is configured to hold a plurality of servers. The main beam is configured to hold the server rack in a specific location within the modular datacenter. The attachment member is coupled to the main beam and connected to the server rack. The attachment member is configured to apply a force to the server rack to put the server rack under compression or tension, and to change the natural frequency of the server rack based on the compression or the tension and on the location of the attachment member with respect to the server rack.
US09144167B2
An electrical cut-off device (1) with a single cut-off which comprises fuse boxes (5) that are each provided with a fuse (50) connected in series with the single cut-off element. The fuse box is a separate element mounted onto the electrical cut-off device and comprises a handle (55) that is movable, relative to the electrical cut-off device, into a passive position where the fuse box is connected to the electrical cut-off device but not locked, the electrical cut-off device being in an open position, an active position wherein the fuse box is connected and locked to the electrical cut-off device, the electrical cut-off device is switchable between open and closed positions and an intermediate position where the fuse box is partially removed from the electrical cut-off device and forms a disconnected position. The electrical cut-off device being able to be padlocked, in the intermediate position, so that it is isolated, and the disconnected position of the contacts being visible to the operator through the fuse box.
US09144166B2
One aspect of an electronic component is an electronic component comprising an element body having a mounting surface and a plurality of side faces, the electronic component further comprising a first terminal electrode formed on the mounting surface and one of the plurality of side faces, a second terminal electrode formed on the mounting surface and another side face in the plurality of side faces, a metal film disposed on a surface of a mounting part of the first and second terminal electrodes formed on the mounting surface, and an oxide film covering at least a part of surfaces of side face parts of the first and second terminal electrodes formed on the side faces.
US09144165B2
A housing structure includes a shell integrally formed in aluminum and at least one mounting member. The shell includes a bottom wall, a first end wall, a second end wall and a top wall connected to the first end wall and the second end wall. The first end wall and the second end wall extend from opposite ends of the bottom wall. The bottom wall, the first end wall, the second end wall, and the top wall cooperatively form a receiving space with at least one opening. A first installation rail and a second installation rail protrude respectively from inners wall of the first end wall and the second end wall. The at least one mounting member is connected with the first installation rail and the second installation rail to enclose the at least one opening. The disclosure also supplies an electronic device using the same.
US09144161B2
A bus is placed at the center of a housing. Breakers and cables forming branch circuits branching from the bus are placed at the upper and lower stages in the housing, being displaced in the right-left direction. Spaces formed between the side wall of the housing and the side walls of an upper-stage breaker compartment and an upper-stage cable compartment containing the upper-stage apparatuses are used as paths leading to the housing ceiling for a bus compartment, and a lower-stage breaker compartment and a lower-stage cable compartment containing the lower-stage apparatuses. The bus compartment and all the apparatus compartments each directly lead to a ceiling portion of the housing and have an opening portion. Pressure discharge plates are provided on the opening portions.
US09144156B2
An information processing apparatus is configured to compute the shape of a conductive pattern to be formed on a board by a drawing apparatus that performs drawing on the board using conductive liquid droplets. The information processing apparatus includes an image data generation unit configured to generate image data in which dots each having a diameter determined according to a drawing condition of a conductive pattern by the drawing apparatus are arranged at respective positions which are indicated by data of a conductive pattern and at which conductive liquid droplets are to be landed.
US09144147B2
Substrate processing systems are described that have a capacitively coupled plasma (CCP) unit positioned inside a process chamber. The CCP unit may include a plasma excitation region formed between a first electrode and a second electrode. The first electrode may include a first plurality of openings to permit a first gas to enter the plasma excitation region, and the second electrode may include a second plurality of openings to permit an activated gas to exit the plasma excitation region. The system may further include a gas inlet for supplying the first gas to the first electrode of the CCP unit, and a pedestal that is operable to support a substrate. The pedestal is positioned below a gas reaction region into which the activated gas travels from the CCP unit.
US09144145B2
A C-arm x-ray device includes a C-arm and an x-ray source and an x-ray detector arranged on the C-arm. At least one damping element with an oscillation-damping effect is arranged between the x-ray source and the C-arm. Transmission of oscillations of the x-ray source onto the C-arm may be reduced with the at least one damping element. The C-arm x-ray device also includes at least one holding element arranged on the C-arm. The oscillation-damping effect of the at least one damping element may be influenced.
US09144137B1
A controller for a buck regulator for a lighting system including light emitting diodes includes a voltage control loop configured to compare a voltage reference and a feedback voltage. The feedback voltage is based upon a DC supply voltage to the controller. A voltage regulator is configured to receive an output of the voltage control loop and to generate a current reference. A current control loop is configured to receive a feedback current and to compare the current reference to the feedback current. A current regulator is configured to receive an output of the current control loop. A pulse width modulation circuit is configured to receive an output of the current regulator and to generate drive signals for first and second switches of the buck regulator.
US09144135B2
A controller is configured for and a corresponding method of adaptive monitoring and control of a lighting system are suited for adaptively establishing lighting parameters on a fixture by fixture basis. The controller includes a communication interface configured to communicate with a multiplicity of light fixtures, a memory for storing software routines and information associated with each of the light fixtures; and a processor coupled to the memory and the communication interface and configured to execute the software routines and selectively communicate with at least one of the multiplicity of light fixtures to adaptively establish lighting parameters for the at least one of the multiplicity of light fixtures. A method of facilitating the monitoring and control of the light fixture includes controlling a lamp circuit to provide one of a multiplicity of light levels; assessing performance parameters of the light fixture; and communicating with a central server.
US09144134B2
A method for coating polyimide on liquid crystal display panel includes: (1) providing nozzles and a glass substrate; (2) tightly and regularly juxtaposing the nozzles in a row so that the row has a length that corresponds to width of the glass substrate; (3) vertically positioning the entire row above the glass substrate so as to correspond to the glass substrate along the width of the glass substrate; (4) simultaneously activating the nozzles to allow each of the nozzles to simultaneously drip down polyimide solution according to predetermined flow rate, while moving the glass substrate so as to have the polyimide solution uniformly applied to the glass substrate form a polyimide film; and (5) using a doctor blade to shape the polyimide film that is uniformly coated on the glass substrate so as to provide a regular and flat surface of the polyimide film on the glass substrate.
US09144129B2
A switchable luminance LED light bulb, including embodiments that may be used with any common commercial fitting.
US09144110B2
A modem device may be provided. The modem device may include: a transceiver structure configured to transmit and receive data using at least one of a plurality of communication technologies; a memory configured to store a profile, the profile including or being information specifying a configuration of the transceiver structure for each communication technology of the plurality of communication technologies; and an application processor interface, wherein the modem device is configured to receive from the application processor a command for configuring the transceiver structure through the application processor interface. The command may include or may be an instruction to the modem device to configure the transceiver structure according to the profile.
US09144109B2
A system and method for the distribution of time signals is available for devices with multiple communication cores. An embodiment may or may not use a centralized manager for the management of time preservation. When a communication core in a multiple communication core device requires timing information, it may request the time information from another communication core or from the centralized manager. The centralized manager, if present, can obtain time information from an external source or from one of the communication cores. The result can be reduced power consumption at a lower cost.
US09144108B2
This invention is related to the link adaptation for the downlink transmission in type-II relay network. An method in an eNodeB for adapting link for downlink transmission in type-II relay network, said type-II relay network comprises the eNodeB, one or more relay nodes and a plurality of User Equipments (UE), the method comprises the steps of: classifying the plurality of UEs into two groups: macro-UEs which are served directly by the eNodeB without the help of the one or more relay nodes, and relay-UEs which are served by the eNodeB and the one or more relay nodes; and adapting link for the macro-UEs and the relay-UEs separately.
US09144096B2
Systems, methods, and devices for communicating data in a wireless communications network are described herein. One innovative aspect of the present disclosure includes a method of communicating in a wireless network. The wireless network includes an access point and a relay. The method includes indicating to a client, at the relay, a network address of the access point. The method further includes receiving an association request, from the client, addressed to the access point. The method further includes forwarding the association request to the access point.
US09144088B2
A method and apparatus for performing channel access in a WLAN system are disclosed. A method for managing a network allocation vector (NAV) by a station (STA) in a wireless LAN (WLAN) system includes: receiving a Contention Free (CF)-END frame including a duration field; if the CF-END frame is a first-type CF-END frame, resetting the NAV; and if the CF-END frame is a second-type CF-END frame, determining whether to reset the NAV according to a comparison result between a value of the duration field and a NAV value of the STA.
US09144084B2
Prior to implementing a coexistence solution for a multi-radio device, a measurement determines whether interference experienced by one radio is caused by another radio on the device. This determination includes comparing measurements of the first radio during times when the other radio is operational and when the other radio is inactive. If the compared performance measurements are within a certain range, a coexistence/interference management solution may be implemented.
US09144075B2
The present disclosure is related to a large-scale broadband wireless network capable of providing a very high wireless data capacity, wherein one aspect of the system utilizes a periodic beam forming system. When a wireless base station cell operates a periodic beam forming system, it is necessary to locate each user served by the cell within a sub-area covered by one of the m times N RF beams generated by the system. Methods for locating users within RF beam sub-areas are disclosed herein, where a user may be scheduled for transmission or reception only when an RF beam is focused on the sub-area that covers the user location. The present disclosure pertains to the systems and methods that may be used to process transmissions of and receptions by the baseband system of an LTE wireless base station that employs a periodic beam forming RF and antenna system.
US09144072B2
Logic may implement a slot assignment scheme that uses information provided in traffic indication map (TIM) information element (IE) and restricted access window (RAW) parameter set (PS) IE to determine a station-to-slot mapping function for communication of slot assignments to stations for RAWs. The TIM IE may comprise a bitmap indicating paged and unpaged stations. The RAW PS IE may comprise a duration and a slot duration. Logic may implement the station-to-slot function by determining the number of slots in a RAW and correlating slot assignments for stations based upon a position for the station in the TIM bitmap. The TIM bitmap may identify each station via a bit on a page in the bitmap based upon an assignment of the station to a position in the TIM bitmap. The station-to-slot mapping function may use an offset for fair access.
US09144065B2
Methods and apparatuses for transmitting and receiving signaling, by a User Equipment (UE) with reduced processing capabilities, to conserve power are provided. A method for transmitting from a network a Physical Downlink Shared CHannel (PDSCH) to a first User Equipment (UE) from a first class of UEs or to a second UE from a second class of UEs, includes transmitting a PDSCH to the first UE using a first bandwidth unit; and transmitting a PDSCH to the second UE using a second bandwidth unit, wherein the second bandwidth unit is smaller than the first bandwidth unit.
US09144057B2
A data distribution control apparatus controls data distribution in which distribution data having the same content are distributed to multiple wireless terminals. The data distribution control apparatus is provided with a terminal identifying unit which identifies the multiple wireless terminals to which the distribution data are distributed and a base station designating unit which designates a set of base stations selected so that one or more base stations can be connected to all of the multiple wireless terminals as the set of base stations which transmit the distribution data to the wireless terminals. The base station designating unit includes, in the set, a base station which can be connected to the multiple wireless terminals, prior to a base station which can be connected to only one wireless terminal.
US09144055B2
Various arrangements for determining a location of a base station without timing synchronization are presented. A mobile device may determine that it is moving faster than a threshold velocity. The mobile device may capture a first unsynchronized time of arrival (TOA) measurement and determine an associated first location, wherein the first unsynchronized TOA measurement is based on a first unsynchronized timing measurement of a first received reference signal. The mobile device may capture a second unsynchronized TOA measurement and determine an associated second location, wherein the second unsynchronized TOA measurement is based on a second unsynchronized timing measurement of a second received reference signal. Based on the mobile device moving faster than the threshold velocity, the first location, the second location, the first unsynchronized TOA measurement, and the second unsynchronized TOA measurement may be used for determining the location of the base station.
US09144053B2
An apparatus comprising a mobile access gateway (MAG) configured to register an Internet Protocol (IP) address for a mobile node (MN) with a local mobility anchor (LMA) to allow proxy mobile IP version 6 (PMIPv6) mobility management for the MN, wherein the MAG communicates a query message that comprises a PMIPv6 service name to a Domain Name Service (DNS) and obtains the IP address of the LMA from the DNS. Also disclosed is a network component comprising at least one processor coupled to a memory and configured to send a DNS query for a plurality of Service Resource Records (SRV RRs), and receive a DNS reply that comprises a plurality of Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs) for a plurality of LMAs, wherein the DNS query comprises a Proxy Mobile Internet Protocol version 6 (PMIPv6) service name, a protocol name, and a domain name.
US09144051B2
Detection of an increase in a mismatch of an antenna of a radio frequency (RF) device and/or a change in a capacitance value of the antenna indicates proximity of a body to the antenna. Upon detection of proximity of a body to the antenna, reduction of transmit power of the RF device may be done to meet Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) level regulations.
US09144045B2
The scheduling flexibility of CSI reference signals enables time and frequency synchronization using multiple non-zero CSI-RSs transmitted in the same subframe, or using CSI-RSs transmitted in the same subframe with other synchronization signals. Also, multiple synchronization signals may be scheduled in the same subframe to enable fine time and frequency synchronization without cell-specific reference signals.
US09144044B2
Methods may be providing for signal synchronization at a wireless terminal communicating with a radio access network. For example, a command may be received from the radio access network, and the command may be to add a first carrier on a first frequency as a link for communications from the radio access network to the wireless terminal. Responsive to receiving the command to add the first carrier, the first carrier may be synchronized and/or configured using signals of a second carrier on a second frequency different than the first frequency. Related wireless terminals, network nodes, and network node methods are also discussed.
US09144031B2
In accordance with the example embodiments of the invention there is at least a method, apparatus, and executable computer program to receive a location of a white space device, determine an original probability with which a primary receiver would operate correctly at the location, wherein the original probability is determined without taking interference due to the white space device into account, determine a maximum degradation to the original probability that the white space device may cause at the location, wherein the maximum degradation is based at least in part on an estimated signal quality of a primary system at the location, and determine a maximum transmission power for the white space device based on the maximum degradation.
US09144024B2
When time at present is included in a high-traffic time period, an interference determining unit (37) determines that there is a possibility that a downlink signal to be received by any wireless terminal has interference with a pilot signal transmitted from a wireless base station. A pilot signal transmission control unit (40) controls the transmission of the pilot signal, which is included in an OFDMA frame or an OFDM frame. When it is determined that there is the possibility of interference, the pilot signal transmission control unit (40) stops the transmission of the pilot signal or reduces power of the pilot signal in a whole or a portion of a user data area.
US09144023B2
Method for saving energy in a mobile terminal, this method comprising A first period, called the mobile terminal in-use period (1), for sending control messages with a first transmission frequency; and A second period, called the mobile terminal idle period (2), for sending control messages with a second transmission frequency, The transition from an idle period to an in-use period, or vice versa, is dependent upon the movement of the mobile terminal, and a time-out.
US09144017B2
This disclosure provides systems, methods and apparatus for wireless data communication. In one aspect, a device communicates with a base station. The device comprises a circuit configured to generate energy based on an environmental input. The device further comprises a storage device configured to store the energy. The device further comprises a clock circuit configured to generate a clock signal. The clock circuit is configured to power on during an active state of the device and power off during a sleep state of the device. The device further comprises a trigger circuit configured to generate a trigger signal that transitions the device into the active state when a level of the energy stored reaches a threshold value. The device further comprises a transmitter configured to transmit a message to the base station in response to generation of the trigger signal.
US09144015B2
A method of user equipment (UE) indication of traffic-related information to network is provided. The method comprises a UE determining a traffic indicator and transmitting the traffic indicator to a base station. In one embodiment, the traffic indicator indicates either that default power consumption is preferred or low power consumption is preferred. For example, when the UE is in background traffic or sparse traffic, low power consumption is preferred. In another embodiment, the traffic indicator indicates a time pattern of the traffic history. From the network perspective, upon receiving and evaluating information contained in the traffic indicator, the network triggers a QoS modification procedure by applying one or more QoS modification algorithms.
US09144014B2
A method for operating a portable terminal so as to reduce power consumption during the support of a communication service and a portable terminal supporting the same is provided. The method includes activating a Radio Frequency (RF) communication unit, downloading a part of data of predetermined contents through the RF communication unit, buffering the downloaded part of the data in a buffer so as to output the buffered downloaded part of the data, and executing an idle time for terminating or reducing a power supply of the RF communication unit when the downloading of the part of the data of the predetermined contents is completed.
US09144011B2
The handheld wireless network detector and adaptor includes a housing at least partially enclosing a processor, a self-contained power source, an interface, a wireless transceiver, a wireless network detector and a wireless network adapter. The interface is configured to communicate with an external computing device. The wireless transceiver is configured for transmitting and receiving radio signals. The wireless network detector is configured to use the wireless transceiver to detect a presence of a detected wireless network. The wireless network adapter is configured for facilitating real time communication between the external computing device and the detected wireless network via the interface and said wireless transceiver.
US09144006B2
Multi-hop communication terminal, multi-hop communication system, and multi-hop communication method
In a gateway (GW), when interference is detected by an interference detection unit, a frame generation unit sends an interference broadcast signal. A terminal receives the interference broadcast signal sent at a maximum transmission power from the GW to which the terminal belongs. The interference broadcast signal includes information on a planned transmission power value that is a transmission power value of a data signal in the GW and is smaller than the maximum transmission power value. The interference broadcast signal is sent at the maximum transmission power value.
US09144001B2
A method for handoff between cells in a communication system includes the network sends a cell individual offset preset for a cell in the active set relative to each of its neighboring cells respectively to a terminal. After measuring the cell in the active set and its neighboring cells, the terminal evaluates the measurement in accordance with the measurement result and the cell individual offset for the cell in the active set relative to its each neighboring cell. The terminal then submits a measurement report to the network in accordance with the measurement evaluation result. The network instructs the terminal to perform a handoff between cells in accordance with the measurement report.
US09143992B2
A handover method of a target base station is disclosed in the present invention, including: after a source base station to which a terminal belongs transmitting a handover request message to at least one alternate target base station, every alternate target base station notifying the source base station of a load state Parameter, and the source base station determining one target base station according to the load state parameter of every alternate target base station and indicating the terminal to perform handover to the target base station. A base station is also provided in the present invention, including: a handover request transmission module, a handover request response reception module, a target base station determination module and a handover request response transmission module. The present invention avoids the re-request process of the base station when the handover request fails, and can improve the handover success ratio.
US09143978B2
Cell site congestion may result in dropped calls, time-outs on data sessions, web access problems, or the like. A network congestion status may be used to minimize network congestion. In an example embodiment, messages which are distributed via a network may be formatted based on the network's congestions status and a device's connection mechanism. Further, a network access may be based on the network's congestion status and on a device's connection mechanism.
US09143975B2
Systems and methods provide adaptability in a mobile ad hoc network (MANET), based on an existing protocol, such as adaptive hybrid domain routing (AHDR). The systems and methods are especially suited for fast changing topologies that may change after a reactive route discovery has been completed.
US09143955B2
Physical-Layer Cell Identifier (PCID) collisions may occur in a wireless network when two neighboring evolved Node Bs (eNBs) having different Global Cell Identifiers (GCID) select identical PCIDs. Evolved Node Bs may uniquely identify themselves by transmitting on a broadcast channel, such as a Physical Broadcast Channel (PBCH), a pattern of bits corresponding to the eNB's GCID. Individual User Equipments (UEs) may recognize the PCID collision by decoding the PBCH payload to identify different GCID-modulated payloads from two eNBs involved in the PCID collision. Alternatively, UEs may detect PCID collisions in the wireless network by monitoring Primary Synchronization Signals (PSS) and Secondary Synchronization Signals (SSS) on the PBCH for identical signals separated by a relatively large time offset. After detecting a PCID collision, the UEs may attempt by best effort to report the PCID collision, may report to a fallback eNB, or the UEs may use special resources on an uplink channel.
US09143950B2
Methods and corresponding systems for spectrum management featuring advanced frequency-allocation planning and advanced interference avoidance. The invention discloses access points that transmit directionally and assigning a predefined channel in a predefined direction, in order to reduce interference between closely located access-points.
US09143933B2
A communication device, which can simplify various setting processes, transmits, to a server via a network, external device information received from an external device by using proximity wireless communication. The communication device includes: an antenna for the proximity wireless communication with the external device; a proximity wireless communication unit communicating with the external device via the antenna to receive the external device information from the external device; an external device storage unit storing the external device information received by the proximity wireless communication unit; a registration information generation unit generating registration information to be registered in a database in the server based on (a) the external device information stored in the external device storage unit and (b) communication device information including communication device identification information for identifying the communication device; and a server communication unit transmitting registration information to the server via the network.
US09143932B1
Privacy centric feature analysis. A secure set of multiple mapped features is selected and provided to a mobile device. Each mapped feature maps a sharable feature to a matching criterion for an item of protected information and no combination of mapped features for a secure set are unique to an individual item of protected information. Privacy compliance instructions enable the mobile device to select a mapped feature from a received set of mapped features by identifying an item of protected information available to the mobile device which corresponds to a matching criterion found in the received set of mapped features. The sharable feature of the selected mapped feature is identified and sent to a privacy compliant destination. Advantageously, the analysis system protects the privacy of the mobile device user because it does not require the mobile device to relay protected information for the selection of customized content or relevant advertisements.
US09143927B2
A method and apparatus for managing communication in a wireless communication network is provided. The method includes generating a plurality of sets of Connection Identifiers (CIDs) from the plurality of CIDs. Each CID in each of the plurality of sets of CIDs is absent in at least one of the plurality of sets of CIDs. Each CID of the plurality of CIDs identifies a connection between a Base Station (BS) of a plurality of BSs and a Mobile Station (MS) communicating with the BS. The method further includes assigning the plurality of sets of CIDs to the plurality of Base stations (BSs) in the wireless communication network based on a predefined condition.
US09143917B2
A communication method and a terminal adopting same are provided. The method includes setting a calling terminal in a short-range wireless communication standby mode; and transmitting, upon detecting movement of the calling terminal during the short-range wireless communication standby mode, data to a called terminal via a short-range wireless communication.
US09143915B2
A system and method for confirming that emergency resources are available to be used at a particular location, communicating to the incident manager at that location and estimated time of arrival of the resource, and tracking the resource during transit to the location for updating the estimated time of arrival. The system further includes the step of funding the system, which can include charging a fee to those who benefit from the system, the public generally, or both.
US09143910B2
A method and system for remotely wiping a mobile device, the method receiving, at a telephonic server hosting a telephonic menu, a selection to wipe data and connections from the mobile device; and forwarding a wipe data request to a network server to send a wipe command.
US09143903B2
The disclosure is directed to requesting and providing acknowledgements to a talk spurt in a group communication. An embodiment transmits the talk spurt to one or more recipients participating in the group communication, receives a selection of one or more target recipients among the one or more participating recipients, and transmits a request to each of the one or more target recipients to acknowledge the talk spurt. An embodiment receives, at a mobile device, a talk spurt during the group communication, receives, at the mobile device, a request to acknowledge the talk spurt, and transmits, by the mobile device, an acknowledgement (ACK) or a negative acknowledgement (NACK) in response to the request without obtaining the floor of the group communication.
US09143893B2
Position information indicating the position of a communication apparatus or another communication apparatus when a predetermined message is received from the other communication apparatus, and battery information about the battery of the other communication apparatus are stored. The user is notified of the stored position information and battery information according to a user operation for the communication apparatus.
US09143890B2
An apparatus and method for providing a Bluetooth infrastructure. A master of a network for providing the Bluetooth infrastructure connects with at least one device via bidirectional Bluetooth communication. A hub of the network connects between the at least one device and the master via the bidirectional Bluetooth communication.
US09143877B2
Provided is an electromechanical transducer device including a substrate that is conductive, and a plurality of electromechanical transducer elements disposed on a first surface of the substrate. A groove that electrically isolates the plurality of electromechanical transducer elements from each other is formed in the substrate, the groove extending from a second surface side of the substrate toward the first surface side of the substrate, the second surface being opposite the first surface. The width of the groove on the first surface side of the substrate is smaller than the width of the groove on the second surface side of the substrate.
US09143862B2
Example apparatus and methods concern performing stereo acoustic echo cancellation using a correlation based filter adaptation control approach and without using stereo de-correlation. An embodiment includes a stereo adaptive filter that produces an echo removed microphone signal from received audio signals. The embodiment includes a mono adaptive filter that produces an echo removed microphone signal from the received audio signals. A correlation detector determines a level of correlation between the received signals and provides a signal to an adaptive filter controller. The adaptive filter controller controls how the stereo adaptive filter and the mono adaptive filter adapt audio echo cancellation as a function of the correlation between the received signals. A signal selector may select for output the signal from either the stereo adaptive filter or the mono adaptive filter based, for example, on the power level of the signals.
US09143861B2
The present disclosure relates to an audio player and speaker system, and particularly, to a wireless audio player and speaker system. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a portable, rechargeable, wireless boombox-style audio player, for playing audio from an external audio source, and including a wireless charging element for wirelessly recharging an external media device.
US09143846B2
Provided is a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical transmission device which is suitable of performing splitting, wavelength multiplexing, switching, and routing on an optical WDM signal in which optical signals having a spectrum close to a rectangle are arranged with a high density, and efficiency of spectral usage is ultimately high in units of wavelengths. A WDM optical transmission device according to the present invention is configured to cause flat portions of adjacent transmission bands on a wavelength spectrum overlap each other.
US09143845B2
A branching unit includes a supply destination switching section that switches one supply destination of each of a plurality of power lines that supply electric power to a unit that transfers an optical signal received from a terminal station unit through a transmission line to another supply destination corresponding to a control signal received from the terminal station unit; a current detection section that outputs a detection signal that includes information that denotes whether currents are flowing in the plurality of power lines and information that represents current directions if currents are flowing; and a monitor section that transmits a monitored result based on at least one of a plurality of detection signals received from the current detection section to the terminal station unit.
US09143843B2
A machine vision process monitors and controls safe working practice in a production area by capturing and processing image data relative to personal protective equipment (PPE) worn by individuals, movement of various articles, and movement-related conformations of individuals and other objects in the production area. The data is analyzed to determine whether there is a violation of a predetermined minimum threshold image, movement, or conformation value for a predetermined threshold period of time. The determination of a safety violation triggers computer activation of a safety control device. The process is carried out using a system including an image data capturing device, a computer and computer-readable program code, and a safety control device.
US09143838B2
A device, computer program product and a method, the method may include: extracting a first size information about sizes of different frames of a first segment of an encrypted first streaming media flow that has a first constant bit rate (CBR); extracting second size information about sizes of different frames of a second segment of a second streaming media flow that has a second CBR; and determining a relationship between qualities of the first and second streaming media flows based on the first and second size information; wherein the extracting of the first and second size information and the determining of the relationship are executed without decrypting the first and second encrypted streaming media flows.
US09143836B2
A mosaic video channel displayed on a monitor, with a plurality of individual video feeds being presented at a given time. A mosaic video channel in accordance with the present invention comprises a plurality of video cells presenting at least video information, each video cell associated with one of the plurality of individual video feeds, a cursor, which can be moved between the plurality of video cells, for selecting at least one characteristic associated with a selected video cell, such that the user can then directly select a video program associated with the selected video cell, and a receiver, coupled to the monitor and receiving the plurality of video feeds and mosaic video channel, wherein a blackout criteria is dynamically programmed into the receiver such that when at least one of the video cells is selected by the cursor, the receiver tunes to a channel other than the individual video feed associated with that video cell.
US09143830B2
An information processing apparatus that can communicate with plural content viewing apparatuses includes a group registering unit that registers users of the content viewing apparatuses in groups, a sharing-level setting unit that sets sharing level information representing an information sharing level among users belonging to an identical group, a viewing-information receiving unit that receives viewing information of the users, a user-viewing-content managing unit that manages a user viewing content database, a discriminating unit that discriminates, when a viewing information request of another user is received, the other users belonging to a group identical with a group to which the user of the content viewing apparatus at the request source belongs, an information extracting unit that extracts viewing information of the discriminated other users from the user viewing content database, and a viewing-information transmitting unit that transmits the viewing information to the content viewing apparatus at the request source.
US09143821B2
A program information acquisition unit 60 acquires program information of each of a plurality of channels over a plurality of broadcasting types, among which a transmitting form of a broadcasting signal is different. A program table displaying unit 88 causes a program table, in which program information of the plurality of channels is juxtaposed in a classified state for each channel, to be displayed. The program table displaying unit 88 causes both of program information of channels belonging to a first broadcasting type and program information of channels belonging to a second broadcasting type to be displayed in a juxtaposed relationship in the same program table.
US09143815B2
Disclosed is a method and system for providing the digital content of non-free event to viewers through mobile computing devices. The present invention collects the viewer's preferred date and time, ticket count, the content provider and non-free event information. Then the present invention initiates the payment process and communicates to appropriate media server to book the tickets and download the digital content of non-free event. At the time of the event the present invention authorizes the authentication code on ticket, leverages the mobile device camera to validate the count of viewers watching the event based on count of tickets purchased and if viewers are in right age to watch the event depending on rating of the event. Then the present invention downloads the digital content of event and streams to viewer's computing device from the non-free digital event content provider.
US09143810B2
A communication device and method provide selective control of a level of buffering of at least one data stream. The communication device includes a jitter buffer (202), a jitter buffer control unit (204) and a user interface (206). An instruction received via an input to a user interface (206) indicates a jitter buffer strategy (510), such as enabling a jitter buffer or setting a size of a jitter buffer, based on the user input. The control unit (204) sets the buffer strategy based in the instruction, and a data stream transmitted via a packet-switched network is received (530) and buffered for play out based on the buffer strategy (540).
US09143801B2
Methods of encoding and decoding for video data are describe in which significance maps are encoded and decoded using non-spatially-uniform partitioning of the map into parts, wherein the bit positions within each part are associated with a given context. Example partition sets and processes for selecting from amongst predetermined partition sets and communicating the selection to the decoder are described.
US09143786B2
Provided is a method that constructs an MPM group including three intra prediction modes, determines the intra prediction mode of the MPM group specified by the prediction mode index as the intra prediction mode of the current prediction unit if the mode group indicator indicates the MPM group, and derives the intra prediction mode of the current prediction unit using the prediction mode index and the three prediction modes of the MPM group if the mode group indicator does not indicate the MPM group. Accordingly, additional bits resulted from increase of a number of intra prediction mode are effectively reduced. Also, an image compression ratio can be improved by generating a prediction block similar to an original block.
US09143784B2
This disclosure relates to transformation invariant media matching. A fingerprinting component can generate a transformation invariant identifier for media content by adaptively encoding the relative ordering of signal markers in media content. The signal markers can be adaptively encoded via reference point geometry, or ratio histograms. An identification component compares the identifier against a set of identifiers for known media content, and the media content can be matched or identified as a function of the comparison.
US09143783B2
A method of indicating bit stream subsets in a video bit stream (210) is provided. The method comprises receiving the bit stream, dividing the bit stream into video packets (211-216), wherein each packet comprises either one of video data or supplemental information, and marking each packet with a single subset identifier (stream_id). Each subset identifier is associated with a corresponding bit stream subset (221-223). Further, a method of extracting video packets from a video bit stream is provided. The method comprises providing relevant subset identifiers, receiving video packets from the bit stream, and, for each received packet, inspecting the subset identifier of the packet. The packet is extracted if the subset identifier matches one of the relevant subset identifiers. This allows condensing properties of a bit stream subset into a single identifier, thereby simplifying the processing of video packets in the network and on the client side. Further, devices corresponding to the aforementioned methods are provided.
US09143776B2
Techniques for objectively determining perceived video/image quality, the techniques including receiving a degraded bit-stream comprising encoded video/image data, and subsequently parsing the bit-stream to extract one or more video/image coding components. The video coding components may include intra-prediction modes, discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficients, motion information, or combinations thereof, and may be used as a basis for objectively predicting a Quality of Experience (QoE) or Motion Opinion Score (MOS) score of the degraded bit-stream.
US09143774B2
A DTV pilot sensor generates DTV pilot tone detection decisions associated with monitored television band channels without knowledge or estimation of a noise level of the monitored channel.
US09143760B2
A color filter array has G filters, R filters, and B filters. A pair of phase difference pixels adjoining in a horizontal direction is provided with one of the G, R, and B filters. In the color filter array, a fundamental array pattern, including the G, R, and B filters, is repeatedly disposed in horizontal and vertical directions. The G filters, which most greatly contributes to obtainment of luminance information, are disposed in every line extending in the horizontal direction, the vertical direction, and slanting directions. Both of the R filters and the B filters are disposed in every line extending in the slanting directions. The number of the G filters is larger than that of the R filters or the B filters.
US09143757B2
A method of receiving stereoscopic video according to the present invention includes receiving a bit stream including image information, extracting a base image stream corresponding to a base image and an additional image stream corresponding to an additional image from the bit stream, generating the base image and the additional image by decoding the base image stream and the additional image stream, respectively, and generating a left image and a right image by using at least one of the base image and the additional image. According to the present invention, 2D/3D broadcasting service efficiency may be improved.
US09143753B2
A 3D image display has a display unit which is driven so as to emit light in a line-sequential or a block-sequential manner; a storage unit which stores characteristics information relating to temporal change in transmittance of a liquid crystal shutter glasses with respect to light of respective primary colors in the display unit; and a correction unit which corrects an input image signal of the respective primary colors using the characteristics information, so as to reduce color fluctuation between lines or between blocks in the observed image caused by differences in the temporal change of the transmittance of the liquid crystal shutter glasses in respect of each of the primary colors, wherein the display unit displays a corrected image based on a corrected image signal generated by the correction unit.
US09143748B2
A method and system are disclosed for differential distortion correction for use in the three-dimensional (3D) projection of film-based or digital images. A compensation transform determined based on distortion information can be applied to image data to compensate for distortions in stereoscopic images for 3D projection. Different approaches can be used for obtaining the compensation transform.
US09143747B2
In the color imaging element and the imaging device according to an aspect of the present invention, a basic array pattern is repeatedly placed in a first direction and in a second direction, the basic array pattern includes four or more rectangular patterns each corresponding to 3×2 pixels each composed of a first filter, a color filter array includes therein grating filter lines surrounding the four directions of the rectangular pattern, the color filter array includes therein the first filters each disposed in each line in the first direction, in the second direction, in a third direction, and in a fourth direction, and the basic array pattern includes therein one or more second filters of each color, each disposed in each line in the first direction in the second direction.
US09143746B2
An endoscopic video system and method using a camera with a single color image sensor, for example a CCD color image sensor, for fluorescence and color imaging and for simultaneously displaying the images acquired in these imaging modes at video rates in real time is disclosed. The tissue under investigation is illuminated continuously with fluorescence excitation light and is further illuminated periodically using visible light outside of the fluorescence excitation wavelength range. The illumination sources may be conventional lamps using filters and shutters, or may include light-emitting diodes mounted at the distal tip of the endoscope.
US09143741B1
The present invention concerns an apparatus comprising an antenna module and a control module. The antenna module may be configured to connect and send data to a local network and a mobile handheld device through a wireless connection. The control module may be configured to provide (i) a physical connection to the antenna module, (ii) a power source to an external device, and (iii) a camera sensor to capture still and motion pictures and sounds of a surrounding environment of the apparatus. The pictures may be sent as the data through the wireless connection or through a mobile handheld device.
US09143737B2
A device may include a communication interface configured to receive programming information and index data associated with the programming information from a service provider multicast over a plurality of channels. The device may also include logic configured to request address information from the service provider, receive the address information, wherein the address information includes a first multicast address, and join a first multicast group corresponding to the first multicast address, wherein the first multicast group is associated with the index data. The logic may also be configured to receive, via the communication interface, the index data, identify a second multicast address associated with at least some of the programming information, join a second multicast group corresponding to the second multicast address, and receive, via the communication interface, at least some of the programming information.
US09143732B2
A communications system for an aircraft includes an aircraft in-flight entertainment (IFE) system and at least one personal electronic device (PED) carried by an aircraft passenger. The aircraft IFE system includes an IFE advertisement source, IFE passenger seat displays, an IFE wireless transceiver, an IFE controller, and a purchase acceptance controller. The PED includes a PED optical sensor, a PED wireless transceiver, and a PED controller for communicating with the IFE wireless transceiver via the PED wireless transceiver based upon the PED optical sensor sensing a selected advertisement token image. The purchase acceptance controller cooperates with the IFE controller to accept purchase of the selected advertisement token image.
US09143728B2
A device for use in a multimedia conferencing system comprises an audio analysis processor (340), a session type classification processor (310) and a user interface controller (300). The audio analysis processor (340) is configured to analyze audio data of a communication session with multiple participating endpoints. The session type classification processor (310) is configured to determine a type of the communication session on the basis of the analysis of the audio data. The user interface controller (300) is configured to control a representation of the endpoints in a user interface on the basis of the determined type of the communication session, e.g., by sending control data (CD) to the endpoints.
US09143727B2
A video conferencing system is provided that reduces the perspective of an image captured by a video conferencing camera. The perspective is reduced in an image by receiving a first image of a first field of view and receiving a second image of a second field of view. Moreover, the first image is equalized and the second image is equalized independently of the first image. Additionally, the first equalized image is stitched to the second equalized image to create a display image, which can be sent to a display another video conferencing endpoint.
US09143723B1
The communication device which includes a TV phone pausing visual data selecting implementer, a TV phone implementer, a TV phone pausing visual data transferring implementer, and a moving picture data replaying implementer.
US09143716B2
An apparatus (1) for switching real-time media streams of one or multiple sources (Q1, Q2, Q3) to one or multiple sinks (S1, S2, S3) includes one or multiple source ports (QA1, QA2, QA3) for connecting of the one or multiple sources (Q1, Q2, Q3) as well as one or multiple sink ports (SA1, SA2, SA3) for connecting of the one or multiple sinks (S1, S2, S3). The apparatus (1) is adapted to provide a switching sink (SS) and to switch it to a real-time media stream of a first source (Q1). The switching sink (SS) is adapted to receive the real-time media stream of the first source (Q1) in a packet-switched format and to forward the received real-time media stream in a packet-switched format, wherein the packets are provided with a first multi-point destination address (IPMZS) allocated to the switching sink (SS) during forwarding in order to allow for a connecting of the one or multiple sinks (S2) with the real-time media stream of the first source (Q1) forwarded by the switching sink (SS). The switching sink (SS) represents the source of the real-time media stream forwarded by the switching sink (SS) from the “point of view” of the sinks (S1, S2, S3) connected to the apparatus, with which the sinks (S1, S2, S3) can connect through the multi-point destination address (IPMZS).
US09143713B2
The invention is directed to a solid-state imaging device in which pixels each including a photoelectric conversion portion formed above a semiconductor substrate and an MOS type signal reading circuit as defined herein are arranged in an array form, wherein: the photoelectric conversion portion includes a pixel electrode, a counter electrode and a photoelectric conversion layer as defined herein; a bias voltage is applied to the counter electrode as defined herein; the signal reading circuit includes a charge storage portion, an output transistor and a protection circuit as defined herein; the protection circuit has an impurity region as defined herein; the output transistor has an impurity region as defined herein; and the impurity regions of the protection circuits and the impurity regions of the output transistors are used in common to every adjacent two of the pixels as defined herein.
US09143708B2
A pixel array comprises at least one long exposure pixel, short exposure pixel, and a control circuit. The long exposure pixel comprises a first photodiode to generate charges, a first image signal generating module for generating a first image sensing signal; and a first transfer switch device for passing the charges to the first image signal generating module via a first transfer control signal. The control circuit sets the first transfer control signal to be a first predetermined control voltage when the long exposure pixel is in an long exposure phase, and then sets the first transfer control signal to be a second predetermined control voltage when the short exposure pixel is in a short exposure phase.
US09143705B2
An image sensor includes: a plurality of image pixels providing a reset signal and a data signal; a signal providing apparatus generating a ramp signal, and sequentially providing the reset signal, the data signal, and the ramp signal; and an analog-to-digital converting apparatus converting the data signal into a digital signal by using a first timing at which the amplitude of the ramp signal is changed based on the amplitude of the reset signal and a second timing at which the amplitude of the ramp signal is changed based on the amplitude of the data signal, wherein the reset signal used to generate the ramp signal and the data signal which has been converted into the data digital signal may be output from the same image pixel.
US09143698B2
Methods and systems for analyzing camera lenses and presenting information regarding camera lenses performance are described. An interactive user interface is provided over a network for display on a user terminal by a computer system. A user request is received at the computer system from the user terminal for lens data from a first lens. Lens data, including test data obtained via a first digital image captured using the first lens at the first focal length setting and the first aperture setting is accessed from memory and transmitted to interactive user interface. The interactive user interface is configured to display an identification of the first camera body, an identification of the first lens, the first focal length setting used to capture the image, and the first aperture setting used to capture the image. Using the lens test data, the interactive user interface generates and displays sharpness graph data.
US09143696B2
An imaging system includes a sensor array of sensor elements and plural accumulator sets of accumulators. Switches alternatively route detections from a respective sensor element to different accumulators of the respective accumulator set. Offset devices offset an amount read out from a first accumulator of a set by an amount read out from a second accumulator of that set.
US09143695B2
Systems and methods for imaging objects are provided. An imaging device includes a sensor to provide an image of an object. The sensor can have a sensor exposure time and a sensor gain and the image includes a plurality of frames, each of the plurality of frames that can depict at least a portion of the object. The imaging device includes a motion detector to determine whether there is movement of the at least a portion of the object between adjacent frames of the plurality of frames. The imaging device also includes a controller. The controller can set the sensor exposure time to a first value in response to a determination by the motion detector that there is movement of the at least a portion of the object between adjacent frames. The controller can also set the sensor exposure time to a second value in response to a determination that there is no movement of the at least a portion of the object between adjacent frames. The controller can also adjust the sensor exposure time, the sensor gain, or both to maintain a luminance value of the plurality of frames at a target luminance value.
US09143689B2
A method for stabilizing a line of sight of an imaging system on board a satellite uses windows selected within an image sensor. Variations of the line of sight can be characterized at a frequency that is greater than that of a sequential mode of image acquisition by the sensor. The stabilization method can be implemented at the same time as the full-frame acquisition of images by means of the imaging system.
US09143686B2
A photographing apparatus, a motion estimating apparatus, an image compensating method, a motion estimating method, and a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium are provided. The photographing apparatus includes: an image sensing unit which continuously captures a plurality of images by using a rolling shutter method; and an image processor which compensates for a uniformly accelerated motion of the photographing apparatus by using the plurality of images.
US09143680B2
Provided is an event-based image processing apparatus and method, the apparatus including a sensor which senses occurrences of a predetermined event in a plurality of image pixels and which outputs an event signal in response to the sensed occurrences, a time stamp unit which generates time stamp information by mapping a pixel corresponding to the event signals to a time at which the event signals are output from the sensor, and an optical flow generator which generates an optical flow based on the time stamp information in response to the outputting of the event signals.
US09143665B2
A solid-state image sensor, comprising an image sensor chip including a pixel region where a plurality of pixels are arranged and a peripheral region arranged around the pixel region, and a fixing portion including a substrate which supports the image sensor chip and a joint portion which joins the substrate to an external base, wherein the peripheral region includes a first portion, and a second portion which is smaller in an amount of generated heat than the first portion, the substrate includes a first side and a second side, the first portion is arranged nearer the first side than the second side, the second portion is arranged nearer the second side than the first side, and the joint portion is arranged on the first side of the substrate.
US09143664B2
A method for manufacturing camera modules for use in portable electronic devices, such as mobile phones, is provided. More specifically, in camera modules utilizing lens motion type auto focus actuation, permanent magnets associated with voice coil motors utilized in the auto focus system, generate magnetic flux that can interfere with the process of bonding image sensors to camera modules if the permanent magnets of different voice coil motors are positioned too closely. Incorporating a magnetic shield into the manufacturing process to restrain or control the magnetic flux generated by the permanent magnets permits voice coil motors camera modules to be positioned closer together during the manufacturing process. This increases manufacturing throughput and reduces cost.
US09143663B2
A camera includes a housing, a digital video recorder, a camera lens, buttons, at least one port, a battery compartment, a holder for a removable storage device, a microphone connected, and a mounting rail.
US09143659B2
Body art, such as tattoos, are integrated or extended onto clothing. Clothing patterns may be integrated or extended onto body art, such as temporary tattoos. In one embodiment, a computer analyzes an image of a body with a tattoo and generates an image suitable for application to clothing. When applied to clothing, the image displays the portion of the tattoo that is covered by the clothing, or may extend the appearance of the tattoo from the skin to the adjacent clothing.
US09143658B2
Provided are an apparatus and method that obtain a numerical value for an evaluation value of an appearance of noise in a plurality of videos and that coordinate the appearance of noise based on the evaluation value. In an image processing apparatus that coordinates an appearance of noise among a plurality of videos, noise properties are obtained from the videos, and a noise evaluation value is calculated based on the noise properties. Based on the calculated noise evaluation value, noise to be added to the videos is calculated, and the added noise is then added to the videos.
US09143646B2
An image forming apparatus includes a setting unit configured to set a prohibition timer that prohibits shutdown when the image forming apparatus returns from a power saving state, and a control unit configured, when a shutdown time set in advance has passed, to control the shutdown of the image forming apparatus to be delayed until a time of the prohibition timer set by the setting unit is up, and to control the shutdown of the image forming apparatus to be forcibly performed when the time of the prohibition timer has been up.
US09143642B2
In an image processing apparatus, a usage state of a setting item that is set to execute a job is stored for each user. Another setting item corresponding to a setting item having a high usage frequency by the authenticated user is notified to the user. Further, a determination is made regarding whether to notify the user of a new function added to the image processing apparatus based on the usage state of the user.
US09143641B2
A method for operating an electronic device is provided. The method includes detecting a touch of an external input device, determining at least one region associated with the detected touch, receiving scanning data from the external input device, and displaying the scanning data at the determined region.
US09143637B2
Methods and systems for allowing a contents list of a video camera recorder to be smoothly displayed on a television receiver and improve the performance of a selecting operation on video content by a user. A video camera recorder (source device) 10A and a television receiver (sink device) 30A are connected through an HDMI cable 1. The video camera recorder 10A is provided with an HDMI transmission unit (HDMI TX) 28 and a high-speed data line I/F 28A. The television receiver 30A is provided with an HDMI reception unit (HDMI RX) 32 and a high-speed data line I/F 32A. In response to a transmission request from the television receiver 30A side, the video camera recorder 10A transmits, at high speed, additional information (contents list and thumbnail data) to the television receiver 30A by using a high-speed data line constituted by specific lines of the HDMI cable 1.
US09143636B2
A portable device that has first and second image sensors and a central processor. The central processor has four processing units and a first image sensor interface and a second image sensor interface for receiving data from the from the first and second image sensors respectively. The four processing units and the first and second sensor interfaces are integrated onto a single chip such that the four processing units are configured to simultaneously process the data from the first and second image interfaces to generate stereoscopic image data.
US09143635B2
A camera with a CMOS image sensor, an image sensor interface for receiving data from the CMOS image sensor and multiple processing units interconnected with each other for parallel processing of data from the image sensor interface. The multiple processing units and the image sensor interface are integrated onto a single chip.
US09143632B2
A method (250) for signaling a facsimile pass through mode over a voice over internet protocol voice service is disclosed. The method (250) includes: establishing (260) a voice over internet protocol call; detecting (270) that a facsimile tone has been received by a sender; and sending (280) a facsimile pass through notify message, from the sender, in response to detecting that the facsimile tone has been received. Advantageously, the method 250 can be adapted to inform the voice over internet protocol service provider about the details of an ongoing facsimile call in pass through mode. Advantageously, this can provide usage information, quality of transmission information, billing information and other useful information.
US09143631B2
A system, method, and apparatus for a virtual fax machine are provided. In one embodiment, a system for a virtual fax machine is provided including a computer configured to display a virtual fax machine based on a script, a server configured to receive at least one electronic document associated with a fax to be sent using the virtual fax machine, and a traditional facsimile machine configured to receive the fax to be sent. In another embodiment, an apparatus for a virtual fax machine is provided including a computer configured to locate and execute a script associated with a virtual fax machine, display the virtual fax machine, associate at least one electronic document with a fax to be sent, encode the at least one electronic document to a form suitable for communication over a network, and transmit the encoded electronic document over the network as the fax to be sent.
US09143628B2
Systems and methods are provided for ensuring that printed output for a print job matches the expected output for a print job. The system comprises a control unit and a comparison unit. The control unit receives a print job and modifies the print job by adding a tag to each logical page of the print job, and to transmit the modified print job to a printer. The control unit further generates target images for the logical pages of the print job. The comparison unit receives printed pages of the job from the printer. For each printed page of the job, the comparison unit identifies a tag on the printed page, identifies a target image corresponding with the tag on the printed page, and compares an image of the printed page to the target image to detect discrepancies between the printed page and the target image.
US09143624B2
A method includes determining a first quantity of data records of a group of data records from a stream of data records received by an application having a plurality of modules. The method includes, for one or more of the modules of the application, determining a respective second quantity of data records output by the module during processing of the group of data records. The method includes determining whether the first and second quantities of data records satisfy a rule. The rule is indicative of a target relationship among a quantity of data records received by the application and a quantity of data records output by one or more modules of the application.
US09143618B2
A conference call solution with one or more conference server, one or more conference bridge and one or more media mixer. A conference server is chosen as the conference bridge for the conference call using various optimization techniques. A media mixer for the conference call may also be chosen using various optimization techniques. The media mixer mixes media data from one or more conference bridge. If a conference bridge or the media mixer fails, the system recovers from the failure with minimal interruption to the users.
US09143617B2
Embodiments of the disclosed invention include a system and a method for providing a call forward indicator to enable a called party to identify a forwarded call. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving calling information for placing a telephone call. The method determines from the calling information whether the telephone call is a forwarded call. The method modifies a caller identification of a calling party associated with the telephone call to include a call forward indicator in response to determining that the telephone call is a forwarded call. The method transmits the caller identification having the call forward indicator to a forwarded communication device associated with the called party.
US09143612B2
Disclosed is a Centralized Caller Profile System and methods for routing and prioritizing calls. The disclosed systems and methods provide enhanced customer service by allowing multiple parties to update and share the same set of profile information from a centralized database. The disclosed systems and methods provide for faster, easier access to profile information, more efficient call routing, and the ability to prioritize callers in a caller queue.
US09143611B2
A method and system of routing telephone calls from a calling party to a called party including placing a call to a called party, accessing context information associated with the called party, permitting the calling party to opt to continue with the call or terminate the call based on the accessed context information, wherein continuing with the call comprises connecting the call to the called party or selecting a redirection option with the call.
US09143608B2
Methods and apparatus for intercepting communications in an Internet Protocol (IP) network involve maintaining dialing profiles for respective subscribers to the IP network, each dialing profile including a username associated with the corresponding subscriber, and associating intercept information with the dialing profile of a subscriber whose communications are to be monitored. Intercept information will include determination information for determining whether to intercept a communication involving the subscriber, and destination information identifying a device to which intercepted communications involving the subscriber are to be sent. When the determination information meets intercept criteria communications are established with a media relay through which communications involving the subscriber will be conducted or are being conducted to cause the media relay to send a copy of the communications involving the subscriber to a mediation device specified by the destination information.
US09143606B2
A portable electronic device includes a communication unit, a microphone that receives sound, a receiver that outputs sound, and a correcting unit that corrects quality of sound, and while a telephone call is being made by the communication unit, the receiver outputs sound input from the microphone and corrected by the correcting unit, and sound received by the communication unit.
US09143603B2
The present technology concerns improvements to smart phones and related sensor-equipped systems. Some embodiments relate to smart phone-assisted commuting, e.g., by bicycle. Some involve novel human-computer interactions, e.g., using tactile grammars—some of which may be customized by users. Others involve spoken clues, e.g., by which a user can assist a smart phone in identifying what portion of imagery captured by a smart phone camera should be processed, or identifying what type of image processing should be conducted. Some arrangements include the degradation of captured content information in accordance with privacy rules, which may be location-dependent, or based on the unusualness of the captured content, or responsive to later consultation of the stored content information by the user. A great variety of other features and arrangements are also detailed.
US09143602B2
Systems and methods are directed to configuring a portable electronic device such that a user of the portable electronic device is required to use two hands to operate the portable electronic device. In some configurations, the portable electronic device determines whether the portable electronic device is moving at a rate of speed that is greater than a predetermined threshold before requiring the user to use two hands. Alternatively, or in addition, a function, feature, and/or application of the portable electronic device may be inhibited such that two hands are required. Once the portable electronic device determines that the user is using two hands, an operation, feature, function, and/or application may then be enabled although still be inhibited.
US09143601B2
Exemplary methods, apparatus, and systems are disclosed for capturing, organizing, sharing, and/or displaying media. For example, using embodiments of the disclosed technology, a unified playback and browsing experience for a collection of media can be created automatically. For instance, heuristics and metadata can be used to assemble and add narratives to the media data. Furthermore, this representation of media can recompose itself dynamically as more media is added to the collection. While a collection may use a single user's content, sometimes media that is desirable to include in the collection is captured by friends and/or others at the same event. In certain embodiments, media content related to the event can be automatically collected and shared among selected groups. Further, in some embodiments, new media can be automatically incorporated into a media collection associated with the event, and the playback experience dynamically updated.
US09143597B2
A method for synchronizing telephony applications running on different system software images is provided. When a telecommunications session is conducted by a first telephony application, the first telephony application controls the state of the telecommunications session through a signaling protocol stack executing on the same system software image as the first telephony application (or on a virtualization layer). The present invention allows the sharing of the signaling protocol stack by multiple telephony applications running on different system software images.
US09143587B2
The invention relates to a cellular telephone integration system, comprising an adapter and a mounting device, whereby the adapter incorporates a base body with a seating, whereby the adapter incorporates at least one interface with the cellular telephone. Here, the adapter incorporates a clip, which projects over the seating, in the direction of the seating from one edge of the base body in a clamping position under pretension such that a cellular telephone can be inserted between a free end of the clip and the seating in a clamping position, whereby the cellular telephone in the clamping position between the clip and the seating is secured by the clip pressing on the cellular telephone such that this is held firmly in position in the clamping position, even while the vehicle is in operation.
US09143586B2
A mobile electronic device with enhanced laminate construction is disclosed. The device 10 can include: a housing 150 including a front housing 34 and a rear housing 86; a user interface 62 connected to the front housing 34; and a stack module 152 including a printed circuit board 28 including an outwardly facing side 154 and an inwardly facing side 156, an electronic component 48 attached to the inwardly facing side 156 and a battery 32 attached with laminate 162 to the electronic component 48. Advantageously, this provides a durable low profile multilayer construction for use in connection with mobile electronic devices desired by users.
US09143585B2
Data packets of multiple different protocols are transmitted over a broadband wireless air interface between network stations subscribing to the broadband wireless access service. A first network station receives data packets of different network protocols in an upper layer for transmission to a second station over the wireless air interface. The different protocol data packets are processed in the upper layer to look up a destination address and class of service, and are transmitted to a single generic packet convergence sublayer along with an identification tag indicating the destination address and class of service. The generic packet convergence sublayer maps the identification tag to a single connection ID (CID) of a second station of the broadband wireless access service, without having to carry out any packet inspection.
US09143579B2
In an exemplary method, at least one computing device 1) stores a plurality of content instances associated with a plurality of user profiles, 2) determines, based on a predefined relevance heuristic, a relevance between a user profile and each of the other user profiles included in the plurality of user profiles, 3) prioritizes, based on the determined relevance between the user profile and each of the other user profiles, the plurality of content instances relative to one another, and 4) provides, for display, data representative of the prioritized plurality of content instances.
US09143576B2
A streaming media processing method, device and system are disclosed in the embodiments of the present invention. The streaming media processing method includes: judging whether a transcoding is required according to the current bandwidth of a user terminal and a code rate of a pre-stored code stream, if yes, selecting a code stream of which the code rate is higher than the current bandwidth of the user terminal from the pre-stored code stream to perform the transcoding, and outputting the code stream matching the current bandwidth of the user terminal to the user terminal. The embodiments of the present invention enable the user terminal to obtain the streaming media of higher quality by effectively utilizing the bandwidth.
US09143559B2
Information regarding requests made to a directory server by clients is collected. The requests including read, compare, search, write, and update requests. It is determined the number of the read, compare and search requests is greater than a threshold and/or whether the number of the write and update requests is greater than the threshold. In response to determining that either or both numbers are greater than the threshold, the following is performed. The process by which the directory server should be replicated is determined based on the information collected. The type of replication as to which the directory server should be replicated is also determined based on the information collected. A new directory server is then replicated from the directory server using the determined process. The new directory server has the determined type of replication.
US09143549B2
A communication system offering remote access and a communication method thereof are provided. The communication system includes a remote device, a relay node, and at least one server device. The relay node controls a connection from the remote device to a local area network (LAN). The at least one server device is located in the LAN. The remote device communicates with the relay node by using a web access protocol. The relay node converts a first command compliant with the web access protocol into a second command compliant with a LAN data access protocol, so that the remote device can remotely access the at least one server device through the relay node. Thereby, the remote device can remotely access the at least one server device without setting parameters of related network nodes.
US09143544B2
A reproduction information acquiring unit acquires information identifying content streams reproduced by the information processing apparatus. A content information acquiring unit acquires, from a communicating terminal apparatus, information identifying the content streams being reproduced by the communicating terminal apparatus. A display processing unit generates a display screen to be displayed on a display, by using the information acquired respectively by the reproduction information acquiring unit and the content information acquiring unit. A screen display unit displays the display screen generated.
US09143542B1
A system for media content collaboration is provided. The system includes a media component, a collaboration component, a permissions component and a finalization component. The media component receives uploaded media content from a first user. The collaboration component generates an online collaboration space for the uploaded media content. The permissions component generates and grants permissions to a second user to edit or augment the uploaded media content in the online collaboration space. The finalization component generates a final version of the uploaded media content based in part on modifications made by the second user.
US09143541B1
Systems, computer-implemented methods, and computer-readable media are provided to target internet-based services on a geographic location relating to a plurality of candidate geographic locations. A targeted geographic location may be provided based on usefulness, to a user probabilistically located among the plurality of candidates, of internet-based services being targeted thereon. From a first server, a plurality of candidate geographic locations may be obtained, each of which may be associated with a client IP address and a plurality of candidate confidence levels. A plurality of route-utility factors for each respective candidate geographic location, a plurality of probabilistic utility scores for each respective candidate geographic location, and an aggregate probabilistic utility score may be determined for each candidate geographic location. Further, a geographic location having an aggregate probabilistic utility score satisfying preselected criteria may be selected and transmitted to a second server so that geographically-targeted internet-based services can be provided.
US09143534B1
A method, system, and medium are provided for managing multimedia messages being transmitted to recipient devices of foreign networks. The method includes sending a multimedia message having a message size that exceeds a maximum allowable size supported or accepted by a foreign network of a recipient device. The method also includes receiving an indication that the sent multimedia message exceeded the maximum allowable size supported or accepted by the foreign network of the recipient device.
US09143531B2
A method, non-transitory computer readable medium and apparatus for providing a master privacy policy in a communications network are disclosed. For example, the method receives a privacy control parameter to configure a master privacy policy, stores the master privacy policy in the communications network, and applies the master privacy policy to configure a third party service provider privacy policy for a third party service provider based upon the master privacy policy.
US09143521B2
A method and associated system for detecting intrusion of a wireless network. A determination is made that a first data stream received by the wireless network does not include N1 communication protocols included in a second data stream previously determined to be valid, N1 being a positive integer. A determination is made that N1 exceeds a predetermined first tolerance, and in response, that the first data stream does not include N2 communication protocols included in a third data stream previously determined to be intrusive to the wireless network, N2 being an integer equal to or greater than zero. A determination is made that N2 is less than a predetermined second tolerance, and in response, an alert that the received data stream is potentially intrusive to the wireless network is generated.
US09143520B2
Techniques are provided for computer network security. The techniques include obtaining operational data for at least a first networked application; obtaining enterprise data for at least a second networked application; correlating the operational data with the enterprise data to obtain correlated data; and using the correlated data to improve security of the computer network.
US09143518B2
In accordance with some embodiments of the disclosed subject matter, systems, methods, and media for protecting a digital data processing device from attack are provided. For example, in some embodiments, a method for protecting a digital data processing device from attack is provided, that includes, within virtual environment: receiving at least one attachment to an electronic mail; and executing the at least one attachment; and based on the execution of the at least one attachment, determining whether anomalous behavior occurs.
US09143512B2
A message is divided into multiple message segments, and a network interface is selected from among a plurality of different types of network interfaces included within a communication device for transmitting each message segment. Each network interface is dedicated to a different type of communication protocol using a different encryption technique, and a network interface is selected for transmitting each message segment according to a pattern of the network interfaces. Secure transmission of the multiple message segments is initiated via the network interfaces according to the pattern.
US09143510B2
A method is provided for network identification based on high entropy data on a network which are not easily guessed or obtained outside the network, which can prevent an attacker from “spoofing” the network. A component in a client computer connected to a network may obtain over the network a network data block including device identification information of a device controlling the network. Upon parsing the network data block, such high entropy data as unique device identifiers may be obtained from the device identification information. Depending on availability of the unique device identifiers and authentication history of the client computer, different combinations of the unique device identifiers and/or other identification information may be used to generate a unique network identifier such as a network signature. The component may provide the network signature to applications within the client computer.
US09143503B2
Systems and methods for managing trust relationships. In some embodiments, a method may include receiving an indication of an in-person transaction between a first user and a second user; calculating, for the first user, a trust score associated with the second user, the trust score based, at least in part, upon the indication; and storing a record of the trust score. For example, the in-person transaction may include a face-to-face meeting.
US09143494B2
According to one embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a method of authorizing a computing device to access a network, comprising receiving authentication data including a user identifier from the computing device, determining whether approval to verify the authentication data is given, and where it is so determined, authorizing the device to access the network upon verification of the authentication data.
US09143480B2
A method, apparatus, and system are described that provides fully automated network access to remote networked devices. The device and system permits the remote access of a local network without any pre-configuration or administrative burden at the local network. Embodiments as described herein provide a “plug and play” option to insert a device into the local network and provide access to select target devices on the network, even non-routable devices, without first requiring dedicated host software or other administrative privileges or configurations be set at the local network.
US09143463B2
A system and method are disclosed for processing a packet. Processing the packet comprises receiving the packet; translating the packet from a first protocol-specific format to a canonical packet format; translating the packet from the canonical packet format to a second protocol-specific format; and forwarding the packet.
US09143451B2
Layer-7 application layer message (“message”) classification is disclosed. A network traffic management device (“NTMD”) receives incoming messages over a first TCP/IP connection from a first network for transmission to a second network. Before transmitting the incoming messages onto the second network, however, the NTMD classifies the incoming messages according to some criteria, such as by assigning one or more priorities to the messages. The NTMD transmits the classified messages in the order of their message classification. Where the classification is priority based, first priority messages are transmitted over second priority messages, and so forth, for example.
US09143448B1
Data units that are fragments of a larger data unit are received at a network device. A first received fragment of the larger data unit is processed to determine a port of the network device via which the larger data unit is to be transmitted based on a first received fragment of the larger data unit and prior to receiving all of the fragments of the larger data unit. After processing the first received fragment, processing of second received fragments for the purpose of determining the port of the network device via which the larger data unit is to be transmitted is skipped. The larger data unit is reassembled from all of the fragments of the larger data unit after determination of the port of the network device via which the larger data unit is to be transmitted. The larger data unit is forwarded to the port for transmission.
US09143447B2
In an open flow network system in which there are a plurality of networks, in each of which one OFC (OpenFlow Controller) manages a plurality of OFSs (OpenFlow Switches), and a large network is formed by a combination of them, registration of a flow entry which forms a closed loop is prevented without a component and a procedure for cooperation of the plurality of OFCs. Specifically, after route calculation, the OFC temporarily registers an flow entry of a calculation result on a flow table of the OFS as the flow entry for a test. After that, the OFS flows the test packet according to the temporarily registered flow entry. When the test packet is routed without forming the closed loop, the OFS detects it and normally registers the flow entry for a first time. Detecting that the test packet forms a closed loop, the OFS deletes a temporarily registering flow entry and returns an error to the OFC.
US09143446B2
A network control apparatus includes: a power consumption collecting unit configured to collect power consumption information measured by at least one electrical node included in an electrical layer network and at least one optical node included in an optical layer network; a cut-through range identifying unit configured to calculate an optical cut-through path based on the collected power consumption information; and a cut-through path setting instructing unit configured to instruct the electrical node and the optical node to set the optical cut-through path based on the calculation result in the cut-through range identifying unit.
US09143435B1
Various systems and methods for determining and/or using paths through switches of distributed computing system. For example, one method involves accessing switch information by accessing switches using a first network protocol, where the switch information includes parameters of the switches. One or more nodes are configured to access storage devices using the switches, and the node is configured to perform the access using a second network protocol. The method also involves determining one or more paths through the switches, where path is configured to couple the node to the storage devices. The method also involves calculating a path score for at least one path, where the path score can indicate health of the path.
US09143434B2
A network component comprising at least one processor configured to implement a method comprising receiving a packet, determining whether the packet comprises a topology label, and adding the topology label to the packet if the packet does not comprise the topology label. Included is a method comprising routing a plurality of packets corresponding to a plurality of forwarding equivalence classes (FECs) over a plurality of network topologies using a topology label and plurality of forwarding labels for each network topology. Also included is a network comprising a plurality of nodes in communication with each other and having a plurality of network topologies, wherein at least some of the nodes are configured to route data packets for a plurality of FECs along a path in each network topology using a topology label corresponding to each network topology and an inner label corresponding to each FEC.
US09143425B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide a method for measuring performance of multi-service in a tunnel, including: receiving a measurement message corresponding to a service packet, where a priority of the measurement message is the same as that of the service packet, and the measurement message includes at least one of the three: a packet loss measurement parameter, a delay measurement parameter, and a variation measurement parameter; and measuring performance of a service in a tunnel according to a measurement parameter in the measurement message. According to the embodiments of the present invention, a problem that performance measurement cannot be performed for different services transmitted in a tunnel in the prior art may be solved.
US09143419B2
Flow activity is measured on a network device which may be OpenFlow-enabled. A hardware table on the network device, wherein the hardware table includes a record for each flow entry and a hit bit corresponding to each flow entry, is polled for determining status of the hit bit corresponding to each flow entry. An activity measure is updated with the status of the hit bit corresponding to each flow entry.
US09143413B1
In some aspects, a method of displaying wireless-spectrum usage information is described. In some examples, a surface plot of a measure of wireless-spectrum usage for a geographic region is generated. The surface plot is based on analysis of physical layer signals detected at wireless-spectrum monitoring locations distributed over the geographic region. The surface plot is superimposed onto a view of the geographic region by operation of a display device. The superimposed surface plot visually indicates values for the measure of wireless-spectrum usage over the view of the geographic region.
US09143412B1
An apparatus for providing telemetry information of monitored equipment is disclosed. The apparatus may store a first set of application mappings and a second set of application mappings. The first set of application mappings may be established when equipment to be monitored is connected to the disclosed apparatus. When connected, the processor of the disclosed apparatus may instantiate a monitoring application, which may request a communication port number for communicating telemetry information received from the equipment to be monitored. The application mappings may store an association of the instantiated application and its corresponding communication port number. The apparatus may also establish a common communication interface for communicating with the various monitoring applications based on the stored application mappings. Thus, a client device need only communicate with the common communication interface instead of each of the monitoring applications separately.
US09143411B2
An approach for lawful intercept of over-the-top (OTT) communications is described. A request is received to intercept one or more OTT communications. Such interception can be part of a legal mandate of an appropriate law enforcement agency. One or more session and flow identification signatures associated with a packet-based network are determined. Signaling and media traffic associated with the one or more OTT communications are identified, translated and delivered to the law enforcement agency.
US09143409B2
A capability is provided for characterizing the capacity region of a set of transmitters of a communication network. A set of interference constraints is determined for a set of transmitters having a plurality of transmitters. A plurality of expressions for a respective plurality of transmission time fractions for the transmitters are determined, as functions of a plurality of stability parameters of the respective transmitters and a plurality of ratio parameters of the respective transmitters, based on the set of interference constraints. A plurality of expressions for the respective plurality of stability parameters for the transmitters are determined as functions of the transmission time fractions of the transmitters and the ratio parameters of the transmitters. The expressions for the stability parameters are indicative of the capacity region of the set of transmitters, which may be determined by evaluating the expressions for the stability parameters.
US09143408B2
An inter-provider virtual provider network path is identified by identifying a provider network provider edge router having a provider edge interface serving, obtaining routing information from the provider edge router, identifying, from the routing information, a remote customer edge interface of a customer edge router connected to the provider edge router by an intermediate service provider, and identifying the path and associated links between the identified provider edge interface and the identified remote customer edge interface.
US09143396B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide a VPLS fast rerouting method and device. The method includes: generating, by a remote PE, a backup forwarding entry; and when a designated forwarder or a designated forwarder pseudo wire in a multihoming protection group fails, or the designated forwarder is switched in the multihoming protection group, forwarding, by the remote PE, a data packet according to the backup forwarding entry, thereby avoiding broadcasting the data packet to all remote PEs that belong to the same VPLS instance, and further reducing a waste of bandwidth resources in a backbone network and processing resources of the PE.
US09143384B2
A vehicular network is a closed network with known sources, destinations, and network connections that can be mapped in advance, and used to identify network resources needed to transmit a packet from a source to a destination. A network module can determine the source destination, and a priority of a packet based on the packet's content. Using the source and destination information, along with a network topology data, the network module can determine if two packets need the same network resources to be delivered to their destination. When the two packets do not use the same resources, there is no conflict, and the packets can be transmitted concurrently regardless of whether one of the packets has a higher priority than another packet. If there is a conflict, the network module transmits the packets based on the packets' priorities.
US09143379B1
The network monitoring system collects transmission and/or receive power level information from a plurality of customer premise devices connected to the same distribution node for each of a plurality of network distribution nodes. For an individual network distribution node, the network monitoring system calculates a set of fluctuation parameters including a group power level deviation metric, e.g., a modified standard deviation ratio. The network monitoring system evaluates the generated fluctuation parameters and responds, e.g., outputting a fluctuations report, modifying a data collection profile being used by a set of customer premise devices corresponding to a distribution node, commanding diagnostics to be performed on a portion of the network and/or directing a service technician. The network monitoring system compares generated fluctuation parameters corresponding to different distribution nodes, and uses the results of the comparison to assign priority with regard to the assignment of limited available troubleshooting and repair resources.
US09143370B2
Techniques are presented herein for distinguishing between the DC component of a real signal and DC energy of a received signal due to the radio receiver circuitry. Samples are obtained of a received signal derived from output of a receiver of a communication device. A mean of the samples is computed over a sample window comprising a predetermined number of samples. First and second thresholds are provided, the first threshold being greater than the second threshold. An absolute value of the mean is compared with respect to the first threshold and the second threshold as samples are obtained in the sample window. A selection is made between the first threshold and the second threshold for purposes of comparison with the absolute value of the mean to determine whether energy at DC is a true/real DC component of the received signal or is due to circuitry of the receiver.
US09143362B2
System, methods and apparatus are described that facilitate transmission of data, particularly between two devices within an electronic apparatus. Data is selectively transmitted as N-phase polarity encoded symbols or as packets on differentially driven connectors. A desired operational mode for communicating between the two devices is determined, an encoder is selected to drive a plurality of connectors communicatively coupling the two devices, and a plurality of drivers is configured to receive encoded data from the encoder and drive the plurality of connectors. Switches may couple outputs of the selected encoder to the plurality of drivers. One or more outputs of another encoder may be caused or forced to enter a high impedance mode.
US09143357B2
A chat system comprises editor 1 which includes an input area for chatting and an output area where chat conversation is written; information converter 2 which is capable of reading an inputted character string written into the editor 1 and detecting a specific input, and outputting an input to an input area in the editor 1, and reads a character string existing in the editor 1, converts the character string to a code and add to control information for a chat; transmitter 3 which transmits information outputted from the information converter 2 to a chat communication partner; receiver 4 which receives information sent from the chat partner; and information analyzer/converter 5 which analyzes and converts a code to a character string, outputs the character string onto the output area in the editor 1, and performs an operation in accordance with the control information.
US09143353B2
In one embodiment, a Talker device issues a Talker declaration for a stream. The Talker declaration has a declaration type that advertises the Talker device is offering the stream, and includes a stream ID that uniquely identifies the stream, an indication of resource requirements of the stream, and an indication of a priority of data frames belonging to the stream. The Talker device receives a Listener Declaration from a Listener device of one or more Listener devices. The Listener declaration includes the same stream ID as the Talker declaration and has a declaration type that indicates at least one Listener device is ready to receive the stream and that sufficient resources to meet the resource requirements of the stream have been allocated at one or more intervening bridges that received both the Talker declaration and the Listener declaration. In response the received Listener declaration, transmission of the stream is begun.
US09143352B2
A method of monitoring the end-to-end quality of a service in a telecommunications network includes: a step (F10) of negotiating with the provider of the service a contract including at least one quality parameter of said service; a step (F22) of determining functions that must be provided by the network to comply with said contract; a step (F30) of receiving a request from a terminal to access said service; a step (F40) of selecting, on reception of the request, at least one equipment of the network able to provide said functions; and a step (F50) of setting up a path in the network between the terminal and the service provider via said at least one equipment.
US09143340B2
The present invention relates to a method of providing communication between a first device and a second device, wherein the second device has a server component, the method comprising: establishing initial communication between the devices, wherein at least one of the devices receives from the other device data including at least one of a) a description or identification of the other device and b) a description or identification of a service; and providing instructions to the second device based at least on the received data, wherein the instructions and the server component allow the second device to respond to a subsequent request from the first device.The present invention also relates a system comprising electronic devices capable of communicating with each other.
US09143337B2
One example provides a broadcast device configured to display an advertisement for viewing by a user and a mobile client device configured to capture information relating to the advertisement from the broadcast device. The mobile client device determines whether the captured information is sufficient to allow the mobile client device to generate an electronic coupon. If it is, the mobile client device generates a coupon may be stored in the mobile client device and subsequently presented at a point-of-sale device as part of a transaction. If the captured information is insufficient, the mobile client device may request additional information from an advertiser server either directly or via the broadcast device.
US09143335B2
Techniques for organizing and grouping memory contents related to multicast routing so as to enable more efficient multicast operations. For PIM multicast routing, techniques are provided for organizing and grouping multicast routing information into data structures according to a plurality of dimensions such that multicast routing cache entries are accessible when performing a multicast routing operation by traversing the one or more data structures according to at least two of the dimensions.
US09143330B1
Indicating data currentness includes, on any date of a sequence of dates, issuing a proof indicating the currentness status of the data during a particular time interval. The proof may be a digital signature. The time interval may be in the form of a current date and an amount of time. The proof may include a digital signature of the time interval. The proof may include a digital signature of the time interval and the data. The proof may include a digital signature of the time interval and a compact form of the data, such as a hash. Indicating data currentness may also include distributing the proofs to a plurality of unsecure units that respond to requests by users for the proofs. Indicating data currentness may also include gathering a plurality of separate pieces of data and providing a single proof for the separate pieces of data. The data may be electronic documents.
US09143316B1
A data recovery unit includes a phase locked loop configured to receive data samples and generate an output; a first sample selector coupled to the phase locked loop; and an eye scanner coupled to the phase locked loop. The first sample selector is configured to receive the data samples and the output of the phase locked loop. The eye scanner comprises a second sample selector coupled to the phase locked loop via a first horizontal shift module.
US09143298B2
A method for transmitting sounding reference signals by a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system. The method according to one embodiment includes configuring an initial cyclic shift (CS) value and an initial comb value via a higher layer; setting a comb value for at least one antenna port; and transmitting the sounding reference signals using the comb value via at least one antenna port.
US09143292B2
A method and a remote digital unit in a central office of a core network, for handling a radio communication for a mobile terminal being connected to an access point at a local site. The remote digital unit determines that the mobile terminal can be served locally by a local digital unit connected to a local signal switching unit at the local site, and instructs the local digital unit to locally process signals to or from the mobile terminal in the communication. The remote digital unit further schedules the signals over a radio interface between the mobile terminal and the access point, and sends updated scheduling information to the local digital unit to indicate the scheduling, thereby enabling the local digital unit to handle the radio communication according to the updated scheduling information. In this way, the functionality of a base station is divided into a relatively simple digital unit and switching function at the local site and a more advanced digital unit with scheduling function at the central office, such that the costs for implementing radio access at a local site are low and tromboning of communicated signals over the core network can be avoided.
US09143291B2
A first user equipment (UE) receives information regarding a signal configuration from a network entity on a first carrier, and a reference signal from a second UE on a second carrier. The second carrier is associated with a transmission bandwidth configuration and a channel bandwidth. The transmission bandwidth configuration of the second carrier is contained within the channel bandwidth of the second carrier. The reference signal is within the channel bandwidth of the second carrier and in proximity to an edge of the transmission bandwidth configuration of the second carrier.
US09143289B2
It is determined that there are X uplink control channel resources available for uplink signaling. Each of those X uplink control channel resources are sub-channelized into a plurality of sub-channels that each defines a unique time instant or point in time. For each of Y units of control information there is selected a unique combination of one of the sub-channels and a modulation (X and Y are each integers greater than one). The Y units of control information are sent on the X uplink control channel resources according to the respectively selected combinations. By example the uplink resources may be an ACK/NAK/DTX bit on a PUCCH. In one example the sub-channels are individual slots of a PUCCH. In another example the sub-channels are the reference-signal part and the data part of a single PUCCH slot.
US09143279B2
Wireless communications devices are adapted to perform retransmissions of data blocks. A wireless communications device can be adapted to transmit a plurality of data blocks to a receiving device. When the plurality of data blocks are transmitted, the wireless communications device can initiate a block timer associated with a round trip time for communications between the wireless communications device and the receiving device. When, prior to expiration of the block timer, a transmission is received with an indication that at least one data block was not successfully received, the wireless communications device can retransmit the unsuccessful data block. On retransmission, the block timer is restarted. If another transmission is received prior to expiration of the restarted block timer, the wireless communications device can ignore any indication of unsuccessful receipt associated with the retransmitted data block. Other aspects, embodiments, and features are also claimed and described.
US09143275B2
A system and method for identifying the accessibility of femto base stations in a communication system. The system and method includes a plurality of macro base stations, open-access femto base stations and femto base stations with different subscriber groups. At least one of the base stations includes a transmitter configured to apply a base station identifier, such as a closed subscription group identifier, as a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) mask to XOR (exclusive OR) the CRC of a broadcast channel communication or an input to generate a scrambling sequence to the broadcast channel communication.
US09143272B2
A serial interface packet information detection and control method for a Mobile Industry Processor Interface is disclosed. The serial interface packet information detection and control method includes receiving and decoding a packet; generating a control signal according to packet information of a header of the packet; and disabling a function register according to the control signal.
US09143261B2
An optical transceiver includes: a first WDM filter which reflects a first optical signal from a first light source and passes a second optical signal from a second light source; a first total reflection mirror which reflects the first optical signal to make it enter the first WDM filter; a second total reflection mirror which reflects the second optical signal; and a second WDM filter which reflects the second optical signal reflected by the second total reflection mirror to make it enter the first WDM filter. The first and second WDM filters are disposed on a light path, the first and second light sources are disposed back and forth along the light path on both sides thereof, the first and second total reflection mirrors are disposed outside the light path, and an incident angle of the first optical signal to the first WDM filter is smaller than 45 degrees.
US09143254B2
A method for downlink power control for use in a spread spectrum time division communication system having time slots for communication, implemented in a user equipment, includes receiving data in a command per coded composite transport channel (CCTrCH) transmitted over a plurality of time slots. An interference power for each time slot of the plurality of time slots is measured and a single power command for the entire CCTrCH is transmitted in response to a signal to interference ratio of the received CCTrCH and the measured interference power measurement for each time slot. A subsequent data is received in the CCTrCH communication having a transmission power level for each downlink communication time slot set individually in response to the interference power measurement for that time slot and the single power command for the entire CCTrCH.
US09143253B2
Examples are disclosed for delivering, at user equipment (UE) such as a wireless device, emergency payloads for non-voice emergency services (NOVES). The examples include receiving, at a UE, an emergency payload associated with a NOVES that may include an emergency indicator, a voice message, a video or a text message. An attempt may be made to deliver the emergency payload to a public service answering point (PSAP) and if the attempt is not successful, the emergency payload may be stored at the UE. A number of reattempts may be made to deliver the emergency payload to the PSAP if the attempt is not successful. Based on an acknowledgement of delivery of the emergency payload to the PSAP or aborting reattempts to deliver the emergency payload, the stored emergency payload may be removed from the UE. Other examples are described and claimed.
US09143252B2
The present invention is a transmission apparatus and a data communication channel processing method that make it possible to realize construction of a monitoring and controlling data communication network in accordance with a network management form desired by a user or an already existing network management form in a network conforming to SONET, SDH, etc., and the transmission apparatus is configured so as to comprise a data communication channel terminator for selectively performing termination processing of an signal received by a data communication channel in accordance with an area attribute setting and a data communication channel pass-through unit for passing through a signal for which termination processing is not performed by the data communication channel terminator to a transmission apparatus belonging to another area.
US09143247B2
A wireless communication method and apparatus that produce only a small amount of transmission delay even when carrier sensing is performed. Intensity indication data indicating the radio wave intensity of a received wireless signal is generated. The intensity indication data is intermittently captured and retained. An average of the retained intensity indication data is calculated. If the average is less than or equal to a threshold, a wireless transmission operation is enabled. The average is calculated with a frequency according to the frequency of capturing of the intensity indication data. The average and the threshold are compared at a frequency corresponding to the frequency of calculation of the average.
US09143245B2
Provided is a method for acquiring continuous physical signal such as temperature, pressure and the like. The method comprises the following steps: inputting a voltage signal u representing continuous physical signal; obtaining a sampled signal uk of an analog voltage through an analog sampling channel (1), wherein the sampling frequency is fΔh; performing digital low-pass filtering on the uk (6) to obtain a voltage signal ũk subjected to low-pass filtering, and resampling the ũk to obtain a resample signal ũj, wherein the resampling frequency fΔy is the same as the sampling frequency required by an application terminal and the sampling frequency fΔh is M times of the resampling frequency fΔy; and storing and outputting the resample signal ũj to the application terminal. Provided also is a corresponding device. The cost of the analog sampling channel is lowered; the ūj can be directly applied to industrial automation for substitution of the ũj, especially output signals do not contain transient values, the requirements of a stable model on input quantity can be met, the random disturbance can be inhibited, and the measurement accuracy can be improved.
US09143238B2
A method of transmitting a data signal using an optical transmitter of an optical communications system. The optical transmitter is configured to modulate an optical carrier in successive signalling intervals to generate an optical signal. A modulation scheme is provided which comprises a multi-dimensional symbol constellation. The modulation scheme is designed such that an average degree of polarization of a modulated optical signal output from the optical transmitter has a first value when averaged across a first signaling interval, and has a second value when averaged across more than one and fewer than 100 signaling intervals. The second value is less than 10 percent of the first value. During run-time, an encoder of the optical transmitter encoding a data signal to be transmitted as symbols of the constellation, and a modulator of the optical transmitter modulating available dimensions of the optical carrier in accordance with the symbols.
US09143230B2
Various exemplary methods and apparatus are directed to using Visible Light Communication (VLC) in a downlink, e.g., a supplemental downlink, in combination with a wireless radio downlink/uplink pair. A gateway is coupled, via a wireline link, to a VLC access point. In some embodiments, the gateway includes a wireless radio base station. A user equipment device detects a visible light signal from the VLC access point, and transmits a radio signal to a communications device, e.g., a gateway including a base station or a macro base station, indicating that the UE device is in a VLC coverage area. The gateway configures the VLC access point to serve as a supplemental wireless cell which supports downlink communications. The gateway sends traffic signals to the VLC access point, via the wireline, which are converted by the VLC access point into VLC signals which are transmitted. The UE device receives VLC downlink traffic signals and transmits a corresponding acknowledgment signal via an uplink radio channel.
US09143217B2
Method and arrangement for determining at least one phase affecting error related to transmission from at least one pair of correlated antennas. The method involves transmitting (1002) reference signals from the correlated antennas in the at least one pair, in a set of frequency bands, wherein a number of controlled phase differences are introduced between reference signals transmitted from the antennas. The method further involves receiving (1004), in response to the transmitted reference signals, for a number of the controlled phase differences, one or more indications of a selected precoder matrix. Further, the method involves identifying (1006) changes of selected precoder matrix over the number of controlled phase differences, over the set of frequency bands, wherein the identifying is based on the received one or more indications; and determining (1008) at least one relation between the identified changes. Further, at least one phase affecting: error is determined based on said at least one relation. The method and arrangement enable adjustment of transmission from the at least one pair of correlated antennas, such that said at least one phase affecting error is reduced.
US09143214B2
A transmitter includes first generator to generate pilot source signal by modulating pilot sequence, second generator to generate data source signal with time length longer than that of pilot source signal by modulating data sequence, first cyclic shifter to perform cyclic shift of first shift amount to pilot source signal to generate first pilot signal, second cyclic shifter to performs cyclic shift of second shift amount to data source signal to generate first data signal, third cyclic shifter to perform cyclic shift of third shift amount to pilot source signal to generate second pilot signal, fourth cyclic shifter to perform cyclic shift of fourth shift amount to data source signal to generate second data signal, first transmit antenna to transmit first pilot signal and first data signal, and second transmit antenna to transmit second pilot signal and second data signal.
US09143211B2
A method, apparatus, and system to transmit signals using multiple antennas with per-antenna power constraints. The method includes initializing a precoding algorithm to a complex matrix. The precoding algorithm is for precoding signals transmitted by a plurality of antennas. The method includes iteratively processing the precoding algorithm on a per-antenna basis by, at each iteration, sequentially updating a precoder for each of the plurality of antennas. The method includes, after each iteration, determining whether the precoding algorithm has converged based on a change in a rate of mutual information across iterations. Additionally, the method includes, in response to determining that the precoding algorithm has converged, transmitting the signals using the precoding algorithm.
US09143208B2
A radio front end that includes a diversity switch module adapted to route diversity receive (RX) signals to transceiver circuitry from diversity antenna switch circuitry coupled to at least one diversity antenna port is disclosed. The radio front end further includes ultrahigh band (UHB) switch circuitry adapted to route UHB transmit (TX) signals from power amplifier and switch circuitry to a UHB antenna port and/or to at least one diversity antenna port. The UHB switch circuitry is also adapted to route UHB RX signals from the UHB antenna port and/or to at least one antenna port to the transceiver circuitry, wherein the UHB RX signals include band 7 (B7) wherein linearity of the UHB switch circuitry is greater than linearity of the diversity switch module.
US09143207B2
Disclosed is a method for allocating a reference signal, in a method for transmitting a Channel State Information-Reference Signal (CSI-RS) for measuring a transmission channel according to each antenna and a data signal in a broadband wireless communication system based on a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) scheme through a plurality of antennas.
US09143205B2
A data transmission device comprises a data sending device that includes an electromagnetic signal sending unit. The data sending device is configured to output binary data in such a polarity that an electromagnetic signal, which is output from the electromagnetic signal sending unit, is substantially point symmetric with a point, at which amplitude of the electromagnetic signal crosses 0, as a symmetric point. Binary data is output corresponding to whether a gradient at the symmetric point is positive or negative.
US09143203B2
The present inventions, in one aspect, are directed to a system comprising a portable sensor device including a housing having a physical size/shape that is adapted to couple to a user's body, an identification tag including identification data which is associated with the sensor device and an identification tag transmitter to responsively and wirelessly transmit the identification data according to a first communication protocol. The system further includes a portable electronic device including an identification tag receiver to wirelessly receive the identification data of the identification tag according to the first communication protocol, transceiver circuitry to wirelessly and responsively communicate with the sensor device according to a second communication protocol, and processing circuitry to instruct the transceiver circuitry, after receiving the identification data, to wirelessly request, from the sensor device the sensor data and/or data which is representative of the sensor data.
US09143200B2
In some examples, the receiver apparatus includes a receiver interface configured to receive a signal from a transmitter and output an input sequence of M-bit samples. The apparatus may also include a quantizer circuit configured to convert the input sequence of M-bit samples into an output sequence of N-bit samples, wherein M and N are positive integer numbers, and wherein M is greater than N. The apparatus may further include a decoder circuit configured to decode the output sequence of N-bit samples.
US09143193B2
A processor for a radio circuit is disclosed. The processor includes a full spectrum receiver and a white space classifier. The full spectrum receiver is configured to receive an analogue radio signal comprising multiple channels within a frequency band and transform the analogue radio signal to a digital radio signal. The full spectrum receiver is also configured to transform the digital radio signal from a time domain signal to a frequency domain signal. The white space classifier is configured to identify an unused channel within the frequency band using the frequency domain signal derived from the analogue radio signal.
US09143190B2
Methods and receiver circuits are provided for correlating an incoming signal with PN codes. An embodiment of the method includes receiving I/Q baseband samples in the I/Q domain; converting the I/Q baseband samples to phase baseband samples; generating a pseudonoise (PN) code; converting the PN code to PN phase data; performing a correlation on the phase baseband samples using the PN phase data to generate correlated I/Q values; performing an adding operation on the correlated I/Q values to generate demodulated I/Q values; converting the demodulated I/Q values into demodulated phase values; performing a frequency correction operation on the demodulated phase values to generate frequency correction data; converting the demodulated I/Q values into demodulated magnitude values; and performing signal decoding and synchronization on the magnitude values to generate output data. The operation of performing correlation on the phase baseband samples using the PN phase data is accomplished using scalar subtraction.
US09143181B1
A cell phone protector case having a soft silicone interior to retain the cell phone in a safe and operative manner. A key unique feature of the present invention cell phone protector case is to connect the inside soft silicone interior and the outside hard plastic protective shell through an innovative mechanism wherein the soft silicon interior has slot openings and the front and back exterior hard plastic shell members have retaining member clips that are inserted into and retained within the receiving openings within the soft silicone interior so that the soft silicone interior has an all around protection on the inside and absorbs shocks while the exterior front and back hard plastic members protect the front and back of the cell phone or any other portable electronic device retained within the protective case.
US09143177B2
A technique for performing Automatic Gain Control for a receiver (102) of a device (100) connected to a communication system is provided. As for a method embodiment, a method (200) comprises the steps of receiving (205) a signal using a gain setting (310; 410; 510; 610) of the receiver (102); at least partially decoding (210) the received signal (301; 401; 501; 601) to obtain a decoding result; and selecting (215) the gain setting based on the decoding result.
US09143174B2
A wireless mouse suitable for accommodating a receiver is disclosed. The wireless mouse comprises a mouse body, and a cover shell. The mouse body includes an upper casing, and a lower casing fixed to the upper casing. The lower casing has a receiving portion. The cover shell selectively covers the lower casing. The receiver is removably fixed on the cover shell corresponding to the position of the receiving portion. When the receiver is fixed on the cover shell and the cover shell covers the lower casing, the receiver is accommodated in the receiving portion.
US09143171B1
A duobinary voltage-mode transmitter comprises a first branch including a first logic circuit and a first driver, and a second branch including a second logic circuit and a second driver. When a transition occurs between NRZ signals, two ends of a first match circuit are electrically coupled between the output nodes of the first driver and the second driver, respectively, and the first driver and the second driver are turned off.
US09143169B2
Reliable detection of the configuration of transmit antennas includes obtaining a data for transmission, encoding the data, and modulating the data. During the modulating of the data, the data may be configured in such a way as to convey the configuration of the antennas through the modulation of the data. An antenna configuration is obtained by obtaining a representation of the antenna configuration, and masking the data with an error correcting code, where the mask corresponds to the antenna configuration.
US09143160B2
A first and a second data value are co-compressed by generating a sequence of symbols having a most significant symbol that is the most significant symbol of a compressed representation of the first data value and a least significant symbol that is the most significant symbol of a compressed representation of the second data value. The compressed representation of the first data value corresponds to at least a portion of the symbols of the sequence of symbols starting from the most significant symbol and extending towards the least significant symbol in a first reading direction. The compressed representation of the second data value also corresponds to at least a portion of the symbols of the sequence of symbols, however, starting from the least significant symbol and extending in an opposite reading direction towards the most significant symbol.
US09143154B2
To that end, it is an object of the invention to provide a method for converting a high-speed digital signal in the form of optical pulses intended to be transmitted within optical guides, within which the signal is converted into a series of optical pulses in three possible phase states (π/6, 5π/6, −π/2) separated from one another two-by-two by an angle greater than π/2.
US09143146B1
A reconfigurable wideband analog-to-digital converter (ADC) system comprising a first converter stage having a first signal path including a first sample and hold circuit for sampling an input signal at a first resolution, and a second signal path responsive to the input signal and arranged in parallel with the first signal path. The second signal path includes a second sample and hold circuit for sampling the input signal at a second resolution. A first ADC is also included for generating a digital representation of the input signal sampled by the first converter stage. A control processor is arranged between outputs of the first and second sample and hold circuits and the input of the ADC for selectively providing the signal sampled by one of the first or second sample and hold circuit to the input of the ADC.
US09143142B2
A method and system for transparent timing of an Ethernet signal over an optical transport network are disclosed. In one embodiment, a transceiver includes a first clock recovery circuit, a first synchronizer and an asynchronous mapper. The first clock recovery circuit recovers a first clock from a first signal received from an Ethernet network. The first synchronizer multiplies the first clock by a ratio M/N to produce a second clock to time a second signal transmitted over the optical transport network. M and N are integers. The asynchronous mapper maps frames of the first signal to produce frames of the second signal.
US09143141B2
A method for measuring characteristics of a power line signal having a fundamental frequency is provided. The method includes estimating the fundamental frequency of the power line signal, and generating a sampling clock that is substantially synchronized to the estimated fundamental power line frequency. The power line signal is sampled with the substantially synchronized sampling clock to generate data samples that include one or more substantially complete cycles of the power line signal. The data samples are processed to detect zero crossings of the power line signal, and the detected zero crossings are used to calculate an r.m.s. voltage of the power line signal measured over one full cycle, commencing at a zero crossing, and refreshed each half-cycle. Other aspects are also provided.
US09143137B2
An electronic circuit includes an illustrative low voltage CMOS power on reset circuit. The electronic circuit can comprise a power on reset circuit coupled between a supply voltage terminal and a signal node. The illustrative power on reset circuit comprises a voltage detector coupled to the supply voltage terminal which is configured to track CMOS thresholds and deactivate when supply voltage reaches a level for proper operation of CMOS logic.
US09143130B2
There is provided an integrated circuit having a plurality of circuit blocks. An acquisition unit acquires a request of a reset operation for at least one of the plurality of circuit blocks. A determination unit determines, based on constraining condition information indicating whether or not a reset target circuit block can perform the reset operation simultaneously with another circuit block in which the reset operation is underway, whether or not to instruct the reset target circuit block to perform the reset operation according to the request. An instruction unit instructs the reset target circuit block to start the reset operation according to the request when the determination unit determines to instruct the reset target circuit block to perform the reset operation.
US09143119B2
A comparator includes a first amplification unit suitable for differentially amplifying a pixel signal and a ramp signal, a second amplification unit suitable for amplifying a signal outputted from the first amplification unit and outputting a comparison result, a current control unit suitable for controlling a current flow in response to the comparison result and a current compensation and noise removal unit suitable for compensating for current and removing noise under control of the current control unit.
US09143111B2
Disclosed herein is a signal processor including: a plurality of parallel-connected variable gain amplification sections with variable gains; and a control section adapted to control the potentials of control terminals of each of the variable gain amplification sections and make transitions in the control terminal potentials according to different input signal levels.
US09143108B2
A variable gain amplifier includes: a first input terminal, a second input terminal and an output terminal; an operational amplifier; a first resistor interposed between the first input terminal and an inverted input terminal of the operational amplifier; second and third resistors interposed between the inverted input terminal and the output terminal; and a fourth variable resistor having a first terminal connected to a node between the second resistor and the third resistor and a second terminal connected to the non-inverted input terminal, wherein the fourth variable resistor includes a resistance pass including a resistor and a switch.
US09143106B1
A device for providing speech to a user has a sound wave generator, a sound wave guide for guiding the sound wave to a user's nasal cavity, an airflow generator for producing airflow through the sound wave guide, a pitch controller, and a volume controller. The device causes air and sound waves to pass through the user's mouth so the user can convert the airflow and sound waves to speech. The device can have a nasal cover or nasal prongs to engage the nose. The resulting speech can be controlled to have a substantially constant volume, and can be controlled to have proper tonal inflection. The sound wave generator can provide more than one frequency at a time. The sound wave generator can be a musical instrument. The device is handheld and portable. The device can be used to train a user to control a singing voice.
US09143100B2
In an amplifier, a first stage receives a differential input voltage, which is formed by first and second input voltages, and outputs a first differential current in response thereto on first and second lines having respective first and second line voltages. A second stage receives the first and second line voltages and outputs a second differential current in response thereto on third and fourth lines having respective third and fourth line voltages. A transformer includes first and second coils. A first terminal of the first coil is coupled through a first resistor to the first line. A second terminal of the first coil is coupled through a second resistor to the second line. A first terminal of the second coil is coupled through a third resistor to the third line. A second terminal of the second coil is coupled through a fourth resistor to the fourth line.
US09143096B2
Apparatus and methods for envelope tracking systems are disclosed herein. In certain implementations, an envelope tracking system for generating a power amplifier supply voltage for a power amplifier is provided. The envelope tracking system includes a DC-to-DC converter that generates a regulated voltage from a battery voltage and controls a voltage of the regulated voltage using a low frequency feedback signal. The envelope tracking system further includes an error amplifier that generates an output current using an envelope signal and a high frequency feedback signal. The low frequency feedback signal is based on a low frequency component of the power amplifier supply voltage and the high frequency feedback signal is based on a high frequency component of the power amplifier supply voltage. The error amplifier generates the power amplifier supply voltage by adjusting the magnitude of the regulated voltage using the output current.
US09143091B2
An amplifier module is expressed by a model having a first filter that is a linear time-invariant filter for limiting the bandwidth of an input signal, an amplifier unit that amplifies a signal output from the first filter, and a second filter that is a linear time-invariant filter for limiting the bandwidth of a signal output from the amplifier unit. A memoryless amplifier unit calculates an output from the amplifier module when being memoryless, using AM-to-AM distortion and AM-to-PM distortion of the amplifier unit. A cross-correlation calculating unit calculates a correlation between the signal output from the amplifier module and the output calculated by the memoryless amplifier unit and calculates an estimate of a transfer function of the first filter and the second filter. A distortion compensating unit compensates the input signal based on the estimate of the transfer function and outputs the signal to the amplifier module.
US09143087B2
Methods, systems, and devices are described for an adaptive demodulator that supports multiple modes. An FM signal may be received at a demodulator and parameters corresponding to the FM signal may be identified. Connections between multiple modules within the demodulator may be configured, based at least in part on the parameters, to select one of multiple demodulation modes supported by the demodulator to demodulate the FM signal. The modes may include a phase differencing mode, a phase-locked loop (PLL) mode, a frequency-compressive feedback (FCF) mode, and/or a quadrature detector mode. The parameters may include one or both of a signal strength of the FM signal and a maximum frequency deviation of the FM signal. Based on the parameters, one or more signals may be generated to configure the connections within the demodulator. A switch from one mode to another may occur when one of the parameters breaches a threshold value.
US09143073B2
Position control device for electric motor inputs deviation signal between angle command and angle detection value to position control section and calculates angular velocity command, inputs deviation signal between this angular velocity command and angular velocity detection value to speed control section and calculates torque current command, and controls, according to this torque current command, the electric motor current control section. The Position control device has disturbance observer section which inputs the torque current command and the angular velocity detection value and estimates signal corresponding to disturbance torque; rate-of-change limitation section which has limiter inputting disturbance observer output value by this disturbance observer section and performing rate-of-change limitation of upper and lower limit values of the angle command; and target value filter section which is configured by control gain equivalent to the speed control section and through which the angular velocity command from the position control section passes.
US09143071B2
The present invention concerns a method of controlling a wind power installation having a generator with a stator, a pole wheel with at least two rotor poles with a respective pole winding for producing a magnetic field guided in the respective rotor pole, and an air gap between the stator and the pole wheel, including the steps—controlling a respective exciter current through each pole winding,—varying at least one of the exciter currents relative to at least one further one of the exciter currents, and/or—varying at least one of the exciter currents in dependence on the position of the pole wheel in relation to the stator.
US09143068B2
An estimating method for a rotor position of a motor and an estimating device for the same are disclosed herein. The estimating method includes injecting a first high frequency signal to the motor at a first estimating angle, generating a first sensing signal of the motor in a period when the first high frequency signal is injected to the motor, injecting a second high frequency signal to the motor at a second estimating angle, generating a second sensing signal of the motor in a period when the second high frequency signal is injected to the motor, determining a quadrant of an operating angle according to the first sensing signal and the second sensing signal, and acquiring the rotor position according to the first sensing signal, the second sensing signal, and the quadrant of the operating angle.
US09143066B2
A system includes a permanent magnet motor having a rotor and a stator. The rotor and the stator have a configuration that causes the motor to generate a back-electromagnetic force (EMF) waveform that is substantially sinusoidal. The system also includes a motor controller having a sliding-mode observer configured to identify the back-EMF waveform and a position observer configured to estimate at least one characteristic of the motor using the identified back-EMF waveform. The stator may include multiple teeth projecting towards the rotor and multiple conductive windings, where each conductive winding is wound around a single tooth. The rotor may include multiple magnetic poles, where each magnetic pole has a span of about 60° or less. The sliding-mode observer may be configured to receive current measurements associated with three-phase signals and voltage commands generated by the motor controller. The position observer may include a proportional-integral (PI) regulator.
US09143057B1
A microelectromechanical (MEMS) package including a compressive system preferentially directs external forces, towards the MEMS sensor in a manner that affects several components of the Quality Factor (Q) of the MEMS system. Relatively rigid materials (force transfer elements) are added or deposited in strategic places along any of the edges, faces or corners of a MEMS sensor, followed by the addition of material, which by virtue of the annealing process, applies a compressive stress to all objects encased therein. As a result, vibrational modes are affected due to changes in the effective mass and spring constants of the total MEMS apparatus system, dampening particular modes and stabilizing the MEMS transducer since such modes cannot be spuriously activated due to environmental changes. By attenuating, or at least causing them to be constant, the spurious modes and their absorption of vibrational energy are predictable over all operating conditions and thus amenable to electronic controls, e.g., electrical compensation.
US09143051B2
A two-wire load control device (such as, a dimmer switch) is operable to control the amount of power delivered from an AC power source to an electrical load (such as, a high-efficiency lighting load) and has substantially no minimum load requirement. The load control device includes a bidirectional semiconductor switch (such as thyristor), which may be operable to remain conductive independent of the magnitude of a load current conducted through the thyristor and to conduct the load current to and from the load during a single half-cycle. The dimmer switch comprises a power supply that conducts a charging current through the load in order to generate a supply voltage. The dimmer switch comprises a control circuit that controls a gate coupling circuit for rendering the thyristor conductive each half-cycle. The control circuit may provide a constant gate drive to the thyristor after the thyristor is rendered conductive each half-cycle.
US09143046B2
A control device that controls a switching circuit and minimizes hard switching that occurs in the switching circuit of a half-bridge resonant converter having a high-side transistor and a low-side transistor. The control device is configured to turn the high-side and low-side transistor on and, so that a square-wave voltage is applied to a primary winding of a transformer. The controller starts the switching of the half-bridge converter by first turning on the low-side transistor for a first time period useful for pre-charging a bootstrap capacitor couplable to the middle point of the half-bridge, and then turning the low-side transistor and the high-side transistor off for a second time period that immediately follows and is longer than the first time period.
US09143039B2
System and method for regulating a power conversion system. An example system controller for regulating a power conversion system includes a signal generator and a driving component. The signal generator is configured to receive a feedback signal associated with an output signal of a power conversion system and a current sensing signal associated with a primary current flowing through a primary winding of the power conversion system and generate a modulation signal based on at least information associated with the feedback signal and the current sensing signal. The driving component is configured to receive the modulation signal and output a drive signal to a switch based on at least information associated with the modulation signal.
US09143038B2
The power supply includes a transformer for generating a first output voltage by a first secondary winding, and a superimposing voltage by a second secondary winding, and a driver. Furthermore, the circuit includes first and second rectifying and smoothing circuits for respectively rectifying and smoothing the first output voltage and superimposing voltage, and an adder for adding the rectified and smoothed superimposing voltage on the rectified and smoothed first output voltage to output a second output voltage. The first and second output voltages are fed back respectively by DC coupling, the fed-back first and second output voltages are respectively adjusted by first and second feedback factors, and the adjusted feedback components are combined and amplified to be applied to the driver for PWM-control.
US09143037B2
An apparatus for power conversion comprises a voltage transformation element, a regulating element, and a controller; wherein, a period of the voltage transformation element is equal to a product of a coefficient and a period of the regulating circuit, and wherein the coefficient is selected from a group consisting of a positive integer and a reciprocal of said integer.
US09143036B2
Provided is a power supply for use in a solar electric production system, including: a first stage having an input connected to a voltage from a photovoltaic panel and an output providing a first voltage different from the voltage from the photovoltaic panel; and a second stage connected to the output of the first stage, the second stage supplying power at a second voltage to a micro-controller, where the output of the first stage is turned on and stable for a period of time before the second stage is turned on to supply the power at the second voltage to the micro-controller.
US09143033B2
A hysteretic power converter includes a comparator, a calibration circuit, and an output node having an output voltage. The calibration circuit is configured to supply a calibrated voltage to the comparator. The comparator controls the output voltage based on the calibrated voltage and a feedback voltage representing at least a portion of the output voltage.
US09143031B2
A three-phase resonant cyclo-converter comprising a power control module, wherein the power control module is arranged to develop a plurality of repeating switching periods within a cycle, the power control module further arranged to: control the length of a first switching period in the cycle to adjust the power flow, and control the relative length of two or more further switching periods in the cycle to adjust the power factor, wherein the relative length is controlled based on a cross-product of voltage and current values associated with the further switching periods.
US09143029B2
A direct current (DC) power distribution system is provided for an aircraft. The system includes a DC system bus configured to carry electrical power from a source of electrical power to a plurality of electrical loads. The electrical loads are onboard the aircraft. The DC system bus includes a load side. The system includes a plurality of power converter modules that are electrically coupled in series to the DC system bus on the load side of the DC system bus. The power converter modules are configured to be electrically attached to corresponding sub-sets of the electrical loads. At least one of the power converter modules is configured to be short circuited in response to a fault such that the at least one power converter module does not supply electrical power to the corresponding subset of the electrical loads.
US09143025B2
A magnetic gear mechanism including a simplified assembly of a magnetic flux modulating section in the magnetic gear mechanism which improves the strength thereof. In the magnetic flux modulating section of the magnetic gear mechanism, the magnetic flux modulating section being formed of a magnetic member and a non-magnetic member, a piece of the magnetic member and a piece of the non-magnetic member are separately produced. The piece of the magnetic member is sandwiched between circumferential projections provided in pieces of the non-magnetic member, and the magnetic member and the non-magnetic member and bearing holding sections form a structure in which the magnetic member and the non-magnetic member are fitted into the bearing holding sections by using recessed portions provided in the bearing holding sections and axial projections provided in the pieces of the non-magnetic member. This structure simplifies production and improves strength.
US09143021B2
A structure which enables highly accurate detection of the temperature of the stator windings of a dynamo-electric machine. A terminal base (12) integrated with a stator by resin molding is provided with: positioning sections (13, 14, 15) for three-phase stator windings (100, 101, 102); and a positioning section (16) for a thermistor (17). The positioning section (16) is disposed between the positioning sections (14, 15). The thermistor (17) is insert molded on the terminal base (12).
US09143019B2
The rotating electric machine is configured in such a way that a surface of the heat sink, on which the cooling fins of the heat sink are formed, faces the housing; and a plate, which blocks the surface of the housing facing the heat sink and forms a wind passage between the heat sink and the plate, intervenes between the cooling fins and the surface of the housing facing the heat sink; and outside air is aspirated from an inlet formed on the protective cover, and then, the outside air is passed through the wind passage formed between the heat sink and the plate so as to be passed through a window formed on the housing, and is exhausted, by the cooling fan of the rotor, from an outlet formed on the housing.
US09143017B2
A motor structure includes a housing having a shaft tube receiving a shaft retaining assembly. The shaft tube includes a positioning member on an outer periphery thereof. A rotor includes a shaft rotatably extending through the bearing. A stator is mounted around the shaft tube, couples with the positioning member, and includes a bobbin having an abutting portion pressing a top face of the shaft retaining assembly by a free end thereof. Specifically, the positioning member is distant from the top face by a first distance in an axial direction of the shaft tube, the abutting portion is made of elastic material, the positioning member is distant from the free end by a second distance in an axial direction of the assembling hole is defined, and the second distance is smaller than the first distance when the stator is separate from the shaft tube.
US09143016B2
An electrical machine (1). The electrical machine (1) has a commutator (3), a brush (5) and a spring. In this case, the brush (5) is designed to make contact with the commutator (3). The spring is provided for the purpose of pressing the brush (5) against the commutator (3). In this case, the spring is designed as a coil spring (7) with a first coil strip (9) and a second coil strip (11).
US09143011B2
A power receiving device includes a resonant coil, an electromagnetic coupling coil, a rectifier circuit, a smoothing circuit, a voltage converter circuit which converts a voltage value of DC power into another voltage value, a control circuit which obtains voltage and current values of the DC power input to the voltage converter circuit, calculates an impedance from the obtained voltage and current values, and generates a pulse width modulation signal for controlling an output voltage and an output current of the voltage converter circuit, and a load to which the output voltage and the output current of the voltage converter circuit are input. The duty ratio of the pulse width modulation signal is determined so that the impedance calculated by the control circuit becomes close to an impedance for the maximum efficiency in transferring the AC power. The power receiving device is included in a contactless power feeding system.
US09143008B2
A power demand and supply scheduling apparatus a includes a transceiver that mutually exchanges power supply reservation information including at least information of a total suppliable power amount, a suppliable state start time, a suppliable state end time, and a maximum suppliable amount per unit time zone, and power request reservation information including at least information of a total request power amount, a receivable state start time, a receivable state end time, and a maximum receivable amount per unit time zone, with scheduling apparatuses for other energy management systems each of which manage other power equipment, and a plan creating unit that plans a power reception amount and a power supply amount in each of the unit time zone which are delivered to and received from the other power equipment, and creates a power delivery and reception plan.
US09143003B2
The present invention provides wireless power supply systems that wirelessly supply power to a remote device for rapidly charging a charge storage capacitor, which charges a battery with the power stored in the charge storage capacitor. This allows the remote device to be positioned near the inductive power supply for rapid charging of the charge storage capacitor and allows battery charging to continue even after the remote device is removed from the inductive power supply.
US09142994B2
The present inventions, in one aspect, are directed to techniques and/or circuitry to applying a charge pulse to the terminals of the battery during a charging operation, measure a plurality of voltages of the battery which are in response to the first charge pulse, determine a charge pulse voltage (CPV) of the battery, wherein the charge pulse voltage is a peak voltage which is in response to the first charge pulse, determine whether the CPV of the battery is within a predetermined range or greater than a predetermined upper limit value and adapt one or more characteristics of a charge packet if the CPV is outside the predetermined range or is greater than a predetermined upper limit value.
US09142992B2
A rechargeable battery with an internal microcontroller, a memory and a temperature sensor. The microcontroller draws a current from the cells internal to the battery used to power device to which the battery is attached. Normally, the microcontroller, is in a first operating mode in which the microcontroller draws a relatively low current. During these periods the temperature sensor generates a signal representative of the temperature of the battery. When the signal from the temperature sensor indicates the battery temperature exceeds a threshold temperature, the microcontroller enters a second operating mode in which the microcontroller draws a relatively high current. While in the second operating mode the microcontroller records in the memory data regarding the fact that the battery temperature exceeded the reference temperature and the amount of time the battery was at a temperature above the reference temperature.
US09142986B2
A coil unit includes a second resonance coil that has a plurality of unit coils and performs at least one of transmission and reception of electric power to and from a first resonance coil spaced apart from the second resonance coil via electromagnetic resonance with the first resonance coil. The directions of magnetic fields formed by the unit coils are the same.
US09142982B2
A method and an apparatus for performing charging port detection control are provided, where the method is applied to an electronic device, and a communication port of the electronic device has a functionality of obtaining power from an external power source for the electronic device. The method may include the steps of: detecting whether an output voltage level of a battery of the electronic device reaches a predetermined threshold value; and control operation(s) according to whether the output voltage level reaches the predetermined threshold value. For example, the method may include: when it is detected that the output voltage level is less than the predetermined threshold value, pre-charging the battery with a predetermined pre-charging current level to make the output voltage level reach the predetermined threshold value, and then controlling a detection path switching unit to electrically connect data terminal(s) of the communication port to a charging port detection circuit.
US09142981B2
A cell balance control unit is provided, including: a discharge circuit connected to each of a plurality of battery cells constituting a battery in parallel; a voltage detecting circuit that detects a voltage of each of the battery cells; and a control device that controls each of the switching elements of the discharge circuit so that the voltage of each of the battery cells is made uniform based on voltage detection results of each of the battery cells, wherein the control device controls the switching elements of the discharge circuits connected to the adjacent battery cells in each different duty ratio, and detects disconnection of wirings extracted from both ends of each battery cell based on a potential difference between the adjacent battery cells.
US09142971B2
Managing electrical power usage in a power distribution system. Power usage data indicative of electrical current flow through electrical outlets in the system are collected and displayed for a user. The user may select an outlet and issue a command to control current flow through that outlet. Environmental data may also be collected and displayed. Outlets in different Cabinet Power Distribution Units (CDUs) in different locations may be clustered for reporting and control. A database structure provides a “system” table for data descriptive of the system, a “tower” table for data descriptive of outlets and other elements in the system, an “infeed” table for data descriptive of input electrical power, and an “outlet” table for data descriptive of electrical power flowing through the outlets.
US09142970B2
A power on and off testing device includes a control module, a switch module, an alternating current and direct current converter module, an input module, and a detecting module. The switch module is connected to an alternating current source. The alternating current and direct current converter module is connected to a motherboard of a computer. The input module is connected to the control module to input testing references to the control module. The detecting module is connected between the control module and the motherboard. The detecting module detects a power status of the motherboard and sends the power status to the control module. The control module controls the switch module to be switched on according to the power status after receiving the testing references, thereby controlling the alternating current source to supply power to the motherboard.
US09142969B2
A system to store and to transmit electrical power includes at least one storage system, at least one bidirectional converter, and at least one load coupled to a network, wherein the load is adapted to both, receive electrical power from the network and supply electrical power to the network. A first storage system is used to store electrical power of a power source. The first storage system is connected to a first bidirectional converter by a DC power transmission system. The first bidirectional converter is connected to an AC network and the AC network is connected to a first load.
US09142966B2
A method for controlling a grid-connected power supply system having multiple power supply modules, a relay commonly connected to output terminals of the power supply modules and connected between the power supply modules and a mains power grid, and a controller controlling each power supply module and the relay. The method is performed by the controller after the grid-connected power supply system is started and has steps of determining if each power supply module outputs power, activating each power supply module and charging an energy storage capacitor of the power supply module, and activating the relay when the stored voltages of the energy storage capacitors of all the power supply modules are greater than a preset peak voltage of the mains power. Accordingly, required number of relays is reduced and the size of the system can thus be more compact.
US09142961B1
An apparatus and method are provided for communicating over power lines. The apparatus includes a coupling modem that is situated between a power line and a device. The coupling modem is configured to demodulate a signal received from the power line into a sine signal and a cosine signal. The coupling modem is also configured to modulate a communicated bit stream received from the device into a transmitted signal in order to impose the transmitted signal onto the power line.
US09142956B2
Aspects of the invention are directed to a multilevel power converter the includes a DC power supply assembly having a positive terminal, a negative terminal, and a zero terminal; a first semiconductor switch series circuit composed of first through sixth semiconductor switches connected in series between the positive terminal and the negative terminal. The converter can include a second semiconductor switch series circuit composed of a first bidirectional switch, seventh and eighth semiconductor switches, and a second bidirectional switch connected in series between the connection point of the first and second semiconductor switches and the connection point of the fifth and sixth semiconductor switches, a first capacitor connected in parallel with a series circuit of the third and fourth semiconductor switches and a second capacitor connected in parallel with the second semiconductor switch series circuit.
US09142938B2
An array of light beam emitter sections comprises: a substrate having a surface divided into an array of sections; and a grouping of light emitters disposed at each surface section and configured to emit light beams at different emission angles with respect to the surface. Also disclosed is apparatus for establishing optical communication channels between the array of light beam emitter sections and an array of light detectors. Further disclosed is a method of establishing optical communication channels between the array of light emitter sections and the array of light detectors by mapping at least one light emitter of each grouping with a light detector of the detector array to establish optical communication channels between the arrays based on the mappings.
US09142931B2
A crimp tool is provided for crimping a workpiece. The crimp tool includes a crimp head having a crimp jaw. The crimp jaw includes opposing upper and lower jaw members arranged along a crimp axis. The lower jaw member is movable along the crimp axis relative to the upper jaw member. A handle is mounted to the crimp head. The handle includes a frame and a lever rotatably mounted on the frame for rotation relative to the frame between an open position and a closed position. A cam is operatively connected between the lever of the handle and the lower jaw member of the crimp head. The cam is configured to translate rotational movement of the lever relative to the frame into movement of the lower jaw member along the crimp axis.
US09142925B2
The present disclosure relates generally to connector plugs and jacks and in particular to an audio connector plug and jack that can be used in place of the a standard low profile plug and electronic devices using low profile plug receptacles. The connector plug has a reduced plug length and thickness, an intuitive insertion orientation and a smooth, consistent feel when inserted and extracted from its corresponding receptacle connector. A portion or all of the plug connector may include a flexible material that allows the connector to bend with respect to an insertion axis along which the plug connector is designed to be inserted into a corresponding receptacle connector. A corresponding connector jack may be configured to receive the reduced length and thickness connector plug.
US09142918B2
A card connector (100) includes an insulative housing (1), a number of contacts (2) retained in the insulative housing, a metal shield (3) covering the insulative housing for defining a receiving space (10), an ejector comprising an operating member (4), and an actuating member (5) actuated by the operating member. The actuating member includes a post (51) located in the insulative housing, a pivoting plate (52) pivotedly assembled on the post, and a torsion spring (50). The torsion spring has a helical portion (501) installed around the post, a first flexible beam (5021) retaining with the pivoting plate, and a second flexible beam (5022) secured with the operating member.
US09142909B2
A weld cable connector system that includes a first terminal and a terminal protection system. The first terminal includes a first lock feature. The first terminal is configured to couple with a welding component and to conduct a welding power. The terminal protection system includes a cap, a base coupled to the first terminal, and a tether coupled to the base and to the cap. The cap includes a first mating lock feature. The cap is configured to removably couple with the first terminal in a first locking position to separate the first terminal from an external environment. The first mating lock feature is configured to interface with the first lock feature.
US09142908B2
Various embodiments of low profile male connectors are described. In one embodiment, a connector includes a plug housing having a depth and an interior cavity designed to accommodate pins that extend within the interior cavity in a direction of the depth. The plug housing may be designed to be fully insertable into a receptacle connector of an electronic device, and to have a rear surface that conforms with a shape of an exterior surface of the electronic device. The pins arranged in the plug housing may include various features, such as connecting portions protruding from the plug housing at an angle of approximately 90 degrees for coupling to a cable, bases including cutouts for extending a length of an elongated shaft of the pin, barbs for engaging the plug housing, and limit stops for distributing a force applied to the elongated shaft upon engagement with a receiving pin.
US09142900B1
Shields or deflectors are supported on fuse barrels and positioned to protect power linemen and other electrical workers on high voltage distribution lines against injuries resulting from the ejection of sparks and fuse debris that occurs when a fuse melts or operates due to excessively high electrical currents, by securing the deflectors on the fuse barrels in a position immediately below the fuse barrels where the deflectors can effectively direct the dangerous materials away from the workers.
US09142893B2
There are provided a polarizer rotating device and a satellite signal receiving apparatus having the same. The satellite signal receiving apparatus includes a feedhorn that receives a satellite signal; a low noise block down converter that processes the signal received by the feedhorn; a skew compensating device that is provided at the low noise block down converter or the feedhorn and rotates the low noise block down converter or the feedhorn to compensate for a skew angle when the satellite signal received by the feedhorn is a linearly polarized wave; a polarizer that receives a linearly polarized signal and a circularly polarized signal of the satellite signal; and a polarizer rotating device that rotates the polarizer when the satellite signal received by the polarizer is a circularly polarized wave. In such a simple structure, the linearly polarized wave and the circularly polarized wave are all received to be processed.
US09142892B2
The present invention relates to a metamaterial and a metamaterial antenna. The metamaterial is disposed in a propagation direction of the electromagnetic waves emitted from a radiation source. A line connecting the radiation source to a point on a first surface of the metamaterial and a line perpendicular to the metamaterial form an angle θ therebetween, which uniquely corresponds to a curved surface in the metamaterial. Each point on the curved surface to which the angle θ uniquely corresponds has a same refractive index. Refractive indices of the metamaterial decrease gradually as the angle θ increases. The electromagnetic waves propagating through the metamaterial exits in parallel from a second surface of the metamaterial. The refraction, diffraction and reflection at the abrupt transition points can be significantly reduced in the present disclosure and the problems caused by interferences are eased, which further improves performances of the metamaterial and the metamaterial antenna.
US09142891B2
The present invention relates to a man-made composite material and a man-made composite material antenna. The man-made composite material is disposed in a propagation direction of a plane electromagnetic wave and convert it into a spherical wave. Reverse extensions of the spherical wave intersect at a virtual focus. A line connecting the virtual focus to a point on the second surface of the man-made composite material and a line perpendicular to the man-made composite material form an angle θ therebetween, which uniquely corresponds to a curved surface in the man-made composite material. A set formed by points having the same angle θ forms a boundary of the curved surface to which the angle θ uniquely corresponds. Each point on the curved surface to which the angle θ uniquely corresponds has a same refractive index. Refractive indices of the man-made composite material increase gradually as the angle θ increases.
US09142890B2
An antenna assembly includes a carrier, a metal sheet, and an antenna. The metal sheet is attached to the carrier and defining at least one notch. The antenna is connected to the metal sheet and includes a radio body for receiving and transmitting wireless signals. The radio body is positioned above the metal sheet. The length of current path in a peripheral wall of the at least one notch is in a predetermined proportion to the wavelength of the wireless signals, enabling the metal sheet to resonate with the radio body to increase the bandwidth of the antenna.
US09142888B2
Provided is an antenna-device substrate which is capable of flexibly adjusting multiple resonance frequencies, and also provided is an antenna device. The antenna-device substrate is provided with a substrate main body (2), a ground plane (GND) on the surface of the substrate main body (2), first to third elements (1 to 5), and a short part (6) connecting the first element (3) and the second element (4). The first element is provided with a feed point (FP) at the base end and extends comprising a first connector (C1) of a first passive element (P1). The second element is connected to the ground plane and is provided with a first antenna element (AT1) at the tip end, and extends comprising a second connector (C2) of a second passive element (P2) and comprising a fourth passive element (P4). The third element extends comprising a third connector (C3) of a third passive element (P3). The first element extends with a gap provided between the first element and each of the second element, the third element, and the ground plane such that a floating capacitance can be generated therebetween.
US09142887B2
A front end module for a wireless transmission/reception device has two antennas and two signal paths connected thereto. A mismatch in the antenna is identified by monitoring the transmitted power and the reflected power in the active and passive signal paths and using the powers in a controller to generate a control signal for the antenna tuner. In this case, decreasing isolation between the first and second antennas and the first and second signal paths is identified, and is compensated for using different devices, in order to ensure faster and safer antenna matching.
US09142870B2
Tunable microwave magnetic devices that provide increased performance with reduced size, weight, and cost. The disclosed microwave magnetic devices are voltage-tunable devices that include ferrite substrates. To tune the devices, the magnetic permeability of the respective ferrite substrates is varied by external, voltage-tuned, magnetic fringe fields created by one or more magnetoelectric (ME) transducers.
US09142868B2
Provided are a charge/discharge control circuit having a self-test function, which can dispense with a complicated test device, and a battery device. The battery device includes the charge/discharge control circuits each including a pull-up/pull-down circuit provided at a terminal to which a secondary battery is to be connected. When a self-test start signal is input so as to enter a self-test state, a self-test control circuit controls the pull-up/pull-down circuit, to thereby perform a test on a voltage detection circuit provided at the terminal to which the secondary battery is to be connected. When the self-test is finished, a self-test start signal is output to a next-stage charge/discharge control circuit, to thereby perform a test sequentially on the voltage detection circuits of the cascade-connected charge/discharge control circuits.
US09142862B2
A nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery according to an embodiment of the present invention includes an electrode assembly, a nonaqueous electrolyte, and a container. The electrode assembly includes a positive electrode, a negative electrode, and a separator. The negative electrode is opposed to the positive electrode. The separator is disposed between the positive electrode and the negative electrode. The container houses the electrode assembly and the nonaqueous electrolyte. The container has a positive electrode terminal and a negative electrode terminal. The positive electrode terminal is electrically connected to the positive electrode. The negative electrode terminal is electrically connected to the negative electrode. The container further includes a short-circuiting mechanism that short-circuits the positive electrode terminal and the negative electrode terminal if the internal pressure rises. The nonaqueous electrolyte contains lithium bis(oxalato)borate (LiBOB).
US09142857B2
Disclosed are an apparatus for harvesting/storing piezoelectric energy, including: a substrate having a groove at a side thereon; a piezoelectric MEMS cantilever having an end fixed to the substrate and the other end floating above the groove, and configured to convert and store an external vibration into electric energy; and a mass formed at one end of the piezoelectric MEMS cantilever and configured to apply a vibration, and a manufacturing method thereof.
US09142854B2
Disclosed is a battery including a cathode and an anode wound to face each other with a separator interposed therebetween. Both surfaces of a cathode collector are provided with cathode active-material coating layers so as not to provide a cathode uncoated part at a winding beginning portion of the cathode. The cathode uncoated part for installation of a cathode lead is provided only at a winding ending portion of the cathode. An insulator tape is attached to the boundary of the cathode active-material coating layer facing the anode at the winding ending portion of the cathode. Providing the insulator tape to the boundary of the cathode active-material coating layer at a position where a non-coating part not containing the cathode active-material coating layer and an anode active-material coating layer face each other achieves enhanced electrical insulation capability and consequential safety of the battery.
US09142849B2
A pump assembly including a first subassembly and a second subassembly. The first subassembly includes a fluid conduit; an inlet fluidly coupled to the liquid reactant dispenser and the fluid conduit; an outlet fluidly coupled to a reaction chamber and the fluid conduit; and a diaphragm, defining a portion of the fluid conduit, that flexes to pump the liquid reactant from the inlet to the outlet. The diaphragm preferably includes an actuation point coupled to the diaphragm, wherein the liquid reactant is substantially contained within the first subassembly during pumping. The second subassembly is couplable to the first subassembly, and is fluidly isolated from the liquid reactant. The second subassembly includes an actuator that couples to the actuation point, wherein operation of the actuator causes pumping action.
US09142848B2
A fuel cell vehicle includes a fuel cell, a storage battery, a fuel-cell-output-controller, and a remaining-capacity-detector. An output of the fuel cell is supplied to a load. An output of the storage battery is supplied to the load. The fuel-cell-output-controller is configured to control the output of the fuel cell. The remaining-capacity-detector is configured to detect a current remaining capacity in the storage battery. The fuel-cell-output-controller is configured to determine and control a reference output value for the output of the fuel cell in accordance with a change in the current remaining capacity in the storage battery, and configured to increase the reference output value as an output of the load becomes higher referring to a state of the output of the load for a specific period of time.
US09142846B2
Whether a gas leakage occurs or not is accurately determined in a simple configuration. When receiving a request for activation of a fuel cell, a control unit opens a main shutoff valve to start hydrogen gas supply from a hydrogen tank to the fuel cell. The control unit thereafter performs gas leakage determination processing for a hydrogen piping system. If it is determined in the gas leakage determination processing that a gas leakage occurs, a gas leakage alert is output to stop the activation of the fuel cell. If it is determined in the gas leakage determination processing that a gas leakage does not occur, a compressor is activated to start oxidant gas supply to the fuel cell, and the fuel cell continues being operated.
US09142843B2
A cooling device (10) for a functional system, in particular a fuel cell system (12) for a motor vehicle is disclosed. The cooling device (10) includes a conduit system (14, 22) for a cooling fluid flow connected to the functional system (12) for cooling. A container (20) of the cooling device (10) for the cooling fluid is fluidically connected to the conduit system (14, 22). A treatment unit, in particular an ion exchanger (24), for treating the cooling fluid is fluidically connected to the conduit system (14, 22). The container (20) includes a receptacle chamber to receive the treatment unit (24) and/or an ion exchanger (24) disposed so as to stand upright in the container (20).
US09142838B2
The disclosure provides a double-layer anode structure on a pretreated porous metal substrate and a method for fabricating the same, for improving the redox stability and decreasing the anode polarization resistance of a SOFC. The anode structure comprises: a porous metal substrate of high gas permeability; a first porous anode functional layer, formed on the porous metal substrate by a high-voltage high-enthalpy Ar—He—H2—N2 atmospheric-pressure plasma spraying process; and a second porous anode functional layer, formed on the first porous anode functional layer by a high-voltage high-enthalpy Ar—He—H2—N2 atmospheric-pressure plasma spraying and hydrogen reduction. The first porous anode functional layer is composed a redox stable perovskite, the second porous anode functional layer is composed of a nanostructured cermet. The first porous anode functional layer is also used to prevent the second porous anode functional layer from being diffused by the composition elements of the porous metal substrate.
US09142834B2
Electrodes employing as active material magnesium nanoparticles synthesized by a novel route are provided. The nanoparticle synthesis is facile and reproducible, and provides magnesium nanoparticles of very small dimension and high purity for a wide range of metals. The electrodes utilizing these nanoparticles thus may have superior capability. Magnesium ion electrochemical cells employing said electrodes are also provided.
US09142833B2
A lithium ion battery that incorporates an anode formed from a Group IV semiconductor material such as porous silicon is disclosed. The battery includes a cathode, and an anode comprising porous silicon. In some embodiments, the anode is present in the form of a nanowire, a film, or a powder, the porous silicon having a pore diameters within the range between 2 nm and 100 nm and an average wall thickness of within the range between 1 nm and 100 nm. The lithium ion battery further includes, in some embodiments, a non-aqueous lithium containing electrolyte. Lithium ion batteries incorporating a porous silicon anode demonstrate have high, stable lithium alloying capacity over many cycles.
US09142827B2
The present application provides a rechargeable battery including a battery case and a battery cap coupled to the battery case. The battery cap includes a conductive cap plate; a first electrode electrically connected to the cap plate; a second electrode insulatively connected to the cap plate, the second electrode being in electrical connection with one end of a conductive plate for securing the second electrode to the conductive cap plate; and a conductive turnover component in electrical connection with the conductive cap plate, the turnover component being initially separated from the conductive plate and capable deforming to contact other end of the conductive plate due to high pressure in the battery case, so as to short-circuit the first electrode and the second electrode.
US09142823B2
A rechargeable battery includes an electrode assembly that performs charging and discharging, a case in which the electrode assembly is located, a cap plate coupled to an opening of the case, and electrode terminals located in the cap plate and insulated from the cap plate by insulation members located at terminal holes of the cap plate, the electrode terminals being connected to electrodes of the electrode assembly and extending outside the cap plate and the electrode terminals including a fastening portion that receives at least a part of a bus bar to be welded.
US09142820B2
A lithium secondary battery that has a battery cell structure, with improved electrochemical stability between an electrode and an electrolyte. In addition, the lithium secondary battery improves ion conductivity while applying a solid electrolyte. More specifically, a lithium secondary battery comprising a separator formed by an electrolyte between the cathode and the anode, wherein a composite coated layer of lithium-lanthanum-titanate (LixLayTiO3) and lithium-lanthanum-zirconium-oxide (Li7La3Zr2O12) is formed on the interface of the anode and the electrolyte.
US09142818B2
The present invention relates to a battery separator including: a porous substrate; and a layer of a crosslinked polymer supported on at least one surface of the porous substrate, in which the crosslinked polymer is obtained by reacting (a) a reactive polymer having, in the molecule thereof, a reactive group containing active hydrogen with (b) a polycarbonate urethane prepolymer terminated by an isocyanate group.
US09142814B2
A rechargeable battery including an electrode assembly, the electrode assembly including an anode, a cathode, and a separator therebetween; a case accommodating the electrode assembly, the case having an opening; a cap plate coupled to the opening of the case, the cap plate having a discharge hole; and a vent plate coupled to the discharge hole, wherein the vent plate includes a main notch part corresponding to the discharge hole, and a sub-notch part separated from the main notch part.
US09142812B2
A battery pack providing power to a portable electronic device is disclosed which inhibits electromagnetic waves generated by the battery pack from interfering with the portable electronic device. The portable electronic device may include a radiofrequency (RF) circuit including a transceiver. The battery pack may include a battery cell and a protection circuit module (PCM) which operates to prevent the battery cell from overcharge/overdischarge and overheating. The PCM may include a substrate and a protection device mounted to the substrate. Electromagnetic waves generated when the protection device operates are shielded from the portable electronic device by a shielding layer formed on the substrate of the PCM. The substrate may include a plurality of circuit layers, each including a circuit layer, with the circuit layers in electrical communication with one another. A shielding pattern is formed on at least one of the circuit layers.
US09142809B2
A battery module including a plurality of battery cells spaced apart in a first direction, and a barrier between adjacent battery cells of the plurality of battery cells, the barrier including a plate, and a protrusion extending from the plate in the first direction and contacting the adjacent battery cells, the protrusion including an elastomer.
US09142806B2
A mask is disclosed. The mask includes at least one support base having at least one opening formed therein, where at least a portion of the boundary of the opening is tapered. The mask also includes at least one positioning layer disposed on the at least one support base, where at least one through opening corresponding to and aligned with the at least one opening is formed in the at least one positioning layer. In addition, at least a portion of the boundary of the through opening is tapered.
US09142798B2
A package of an environmental sensitive electronic element including a first substrate, a second substrate, an environmental sensitive electronic element, a flexible structure layer and a filler layer is provided. The environmental sensitive electronic element is disposed on the first substrate and located between the first substrate and the second substrate. The environmental sensitive electronic element includes an anode layer, a hole injecting layer, a hole transporting layer, an organic light emitting layer, a cathode layer and an electron injection layer. The flexible structure layer is disposed on the environmental sensitive electronic element and includes a soft layer, a trapping layer and a protective layer. The material of the trapping layer is the same as the material of the electron injection layer. The filler layer is disposed between the first substrate and the second substrate and encapsulates the environmental sensitive electronic element and the flexible structure layer.
US09142797B2
A gas barrier substrate including a first gas barrier layer, a substrate, and a second gas barrier layer is provided. The first gas barrier layer has a central bonding surface bonded with the substrate and a peripheral boding surface surrounding the central bonding surface. The second gas barrier layer entirely covers the substrate and the first gas barrier layer. The second gas barrier layer is bonded with the substrate and the peripheral boding surface of the first gas barrier layer, wherein a minimum distance from an edge of the substrate to an edge of the first gas barrier layer is greater than a thickness of the first gas barrier layer.
US09142795B2
An organic light-emitting diode includes a first electrode and a second electrode facing the first electrode; an emission layer between the first electrode and the second electrode; a hole transport layer between the first electrode and the emission layer and includes a first hole transport layer, a second hole transport layer, and a buffer layer between the first hole transport layer and the second hole transport layer; and an electron transport layer between the emission layer and the second electrode, wherein the buffer layer and the electron transport layer each include a mixture of an electron-transporting organometallic compound and an electron-transporting organic compound.
US09142793B2
An OLED display includes: a substrate; a thin film transistor on the substrate; a first insulation layer on the thin film transistor; a second insulation layer on the first insulation layer, the second insulation layer having a first opening exposing a portion of the first insulation layer; a first electrode electrically connected with the thin film transistor and contacting the second insulation and contacting the first insulation layer through the first opening; a pixel defining layer disposed on the first electrode and having a second opening exposing a portion of the first electrode in a region corresponding to the first opening, the second opening being smaller than the first opening; an organic emission layer on the first electrode in a region corresponding to the second opening; and a second electrode on the organic emission layer in a region corresponding to the second opening.
US09142770B2
The present disclosure includes a high density resistive random access memory (RRAM) device, as well as methods of fabricating a high density RRAM device. One method of forming an RRAM device includes forming a resistive element having a metal-metal oxide interface. Forming the resistive element includes forming an insulative material over the first electrode, and forming a via in the insulative material. The via is conformally filled with a metal material, and the metal material is planarized to within the via. A portion of the metal material within the via is selectively treated to create a metal-metal oxide interface within the via. A second electrode is formed over the resistive element.
US09142763B2
An electronic component (100), a first electrode (101), a second electrode (102), and a convertible structure (103) electrically coupled between the first electrode (101) and the second electrode (102), being convertible between at least two states by heating and having different electrical properties in different ones of the at least two states, wherein the convertible structure (103) comprises terminal portions (104, 105) connected to the first electrode (101) and to the second electrode (102), respectively, and comprises a line portion (106) between the terminal portions (104, 105), the line portion (106) having a smaller width or thickness than the terminal portions (104, 105), and wherein the convertible structure (103) is arranged with respect to the first electrode (101) and the second electrode (102) so that, in one of the at least two states, the line portion (106) has an amorphous ‘Spot (107) extending along only a part of the line portion (106).
US09142759B2
A magnetic memory device comprises a first electrode, a second electrode, a laminated structure comprising plural first magnetic layers being provided between the first electrode and the second electrode, a second magnetic layer comprising different composition elements from that of the first magnetic layer and being provided between plural first magnetic layers, a piezoelectric body provided on a opposite side to a side where the first electrode is provided in the laminated structure, and a third electrode applying voltage to the piezoelectric body and provided on a different position from a position where the first electrode is provided in the piezoelectric body.
US09142754B2
A linear resonant actuator includes: (a) an electromechanical polymer (EMP) actuator; (b) a substrate having a first surface and a second surface, the EMP actuator being mounted on the first surface of the substrate; (c) clamping structure provided on two sides of the substrate so as to allow the substrate to vibrate freely between the two sides of the substrate, in response to an electrical stimulation of the EMP actuator; and (d) an inertial mass element having a contact surface for attaching to the substrate at the second surface of the substrate. The inertial mass element may include contact structures provided to attach to the substrate along thin parallel lines. In one embodiment, the inertial mass element may have a “T” shape, or any suitable shape for stability.
US09142735B2
Disclosed is a light emitting device including a light emitting structure comprising a first semiconductor layer, an active layer and a second semiconductor layer, a phosphor plate disposed on the second semiconductor layer, and a bonding portion disposed between the light emitting structure and the phosphor plate, the bonding portion bonding the phosphor plate to the light emitting structure.
US09142734B2
An emitter includes a light source and a separately formed conversion material region with conversion particles. The light source is capable of emitting light along a plurality of light paths extending through the conversion material region where at least some of the light can be absorbed by the conversion particles. The light from the light source and the light re-emitted from the conversion particles combine to provide a desired color of light. Each light path extends through a substantially similar amount of conversion particles so that the desired color of light has a substantially uniform color and intensity along each light path.
US09142733B2
A light source device is provided. The light source device comprises a semiconductor light-emitting element; and a wavelength conversion member for converting a wavelength of a light emitted from the semiconductor light-emitting element. The semiconductor light-emitting element has a light-emitting peak wavelength of not less than 380 nanometers and not more than 420 nanometers. The light emitted from the semiconductor light-emitting element has a light energy density of not less than 0.2 kW/cm2. The wavelength conversion member contains at least one fluorescent substance selected from the group consisting of a (Sr1-x,Bax)3MgSi2O8:Eu2+ (0≦x≦1) fluorescent substance, a (Y1-y,Gdy)3(Al1-z,Gaz)5O12:Ce3+ (0≦y≦1, 0≦z≦1) fluorescent substance, and an Eu3+-activated fluorescent substance. The light source device has a high output and a high light-emitting efficiency.
US09142732B2
A lighting device 100 includes a light source 101, a first phosphor layer 102 disposed directly or indirectly on top of the light source 101, a first quantum dots layer 103 disposed directly on top of the first phosphor layer 101, and a second phosphor layer 104 disposed directly on top of the first quantum dots layer 103. The first quantum dots layer 103 includes a population of quantum dots 106 dispersed in a first matrix material 107. Each of the first and second phosphor layers 102, 104 includes a population of conventional phosphor particles 105. Another embodiment is a lighting device 400 that includes a light source 401 and a wavelength-shifting phosphor layer 402 disposed on top of the light source 401. The wavelength-shifting phosphor layer 402 includes a population of quantum dots 404 and a population of phosphor particles 403 both dispersed in a matrix material 405.
US09142731B2
One embodiment of the invention describes a method for producing a luminescence conversion substance layer on a substrate with a semiconductor element that emits a primary radiation during operation. A composition includes a luminescence conversion substance, a matrix material and a solvent. The composition is applied to a substrate. At least part of the solvent is removed, with the result that the luminescence conversion substance layer is formed on the substrate.
US09142724B2
A nitride-based semiconductor light-emitting device includes an n-type nitride-based semiconductor layer, an active layer, a p-type nitride-based semiconductor layer, an ohmic contact layer covering a portion of the p-type nitride-based semiconductor layer upper surface, and a p electrode including a first portion contacting the p-type nitride-based semiconductor layer and a second portion contacting the ohmic contact layer.
US09142722B2
There is provided a light emitting device including a plurality of nanoscale light emitting structures spaced apart from one another on a first conductivity-type semiconductor base layer, the plurality of nanoscale light emitting structures each including a first conductivity-type semiconductor core, an active layer and a second conductivity-type semiconductor layer, and an electrode connected to the second conductivity-type semiconductor layer. The electrode is disposed between a first nanoscale light emitting structure and a second nanoscale light emitting structure among the plurality of nanoscale light emitting structures, and the electrode has a height lower than a height of the plurality of nanoscale light emitting structures.
US09142718B2
A light emitting device including a light emitting structure having a first conductive semiconductor layer, an active layer disposed under the active layer and a second conductive semiconductor layer disposed under the active layer; a trench formed in a portion of the light emitting structure; a current barrier layer in the trench and configured to hinder current supply to the active layer at a portion where the trench is located and to block the active layer over the trench from emitting light; and a first electrode on the first conductive semiconductor layer above the portion where the trench is located.
US09142716B2
In at least one embodiment, the semiconductor component includes a semiconductor layer sequence with an active layer for generating an electromagnetic radiation. The semiconductor component includes a radiation-permeable element and a connecting element. The connecting element is layered in form and connects the radiation-permeable element and the semiconductor layer sequence to another mechanically. The connecting element is designed to be passed through by at least one part of the radiation generated in the active layer. A refractive index of the connecting means deviates from a refractive index of the semiconductor layer sequence by a maximum of 25%. The connecting element includes at least two principal components, which are solids at a temperature of 300 K. At least one of the principal components has a melting temperature of no more than 750 K.
US09142713B2
An optoelectronic semiconductor component includes at least one radiation-emitting semiconductor chip including a radiation-outcoupling face through which at least some of electromagnetic radiation generated in the semiconductor chip leaves the semiconductor chip; and at least one radiation-transmissive body arranged at least in places downstream of the semiconductor chip on its radiation-outcoupling face, which body is in at least indirect contact with the semiconductor chip, wherein the radiation-transmissive body is formed with at least one polymer or contains at least one polymer, and one monomer of the polymer is formed with at least one silazane.
US09142703B2
A photoelectric conversion device includes a plurality of photoelectric conversion regions disposed over a substrate, and a colored region disposed among the photoelectric conversion regions over the substrate, the colored region forming an image over the substrate.
US09142695B2
A packaged sensor assembly and method of forming that includes a first substrate having opposing first and second surfaces and a plurality of conductive elements each extending between the first and second surfaces. A second substrate comprises opposing front and back surfaces, one or more detectors formed on or in the front surface, and a plurality of contact pads formed at the front surface which are electrically coupled to the one or more detectors. A third substrate is mounted to the front surface to define a cavity between the third substrate and the front surface, wherein the third substrate includes a first opening extending from the cavity through the third substrate. The back surface is mounted to the first surface. A plurality of wires each extend between and electrically connecting one of the contact pads and one of the conductive elements.
US09142686B2
A nonvolatile semiconductor memory device includes a charge storage layer on a first insulating film, a second insulating film which is provided on the charge storage layer, formed of layers, and a control gate electrode on the second insulating film. The second insulating film includes a bottom layer (A) provided just above the charge storage layer, a top layer (C) provided just below the control gate electrode, and a middle layer (B) provided between the bottom layer (A) and the top layer (C). The middle layer (B) has higher barrier height and lower dielectric constant than both the bottom layer (A) and the top layer (C). The average coordination number of the middle layer (B) is smaller than both the average coordination number of the top layer (C) and the average coordination number of the bottom layer (A).
US09142681B2
A metal oxide layer is in contact with an interlayer insulating layer covering a transistor, and has a stacked-layer structure including a first metal oxide layer having an amorphous structure and a second metal oxide layer having a polycrystalline structure. In the first metal oxide layer, there are no crystal grain boundaries, and grid intervals are wide as compared to those in a metal oxide layer in a crystalline state; thus, the first metal oxide layer easily traps moisture between the lattices. In the second metal oxide layer having a polycrystalline structure, crystal parts other than crystal grain boundary portions have dense structures and extremely low moisture permeability. Thus, the structure in which the metal oxide layer including the first metal oxide layer and the second metal oxide layer is in contact with the interlayer insulating layer can effectively prevent moisture permeation into the transistor.
US09142675B2
A method is provided for fabricating a fin field-effect transistor. The method includes providing a substrate having a first region and a second region; and forming a plurality of fin structures on a surface of the substrate. The method also includes forming a first mask layer having a plurality of first openings exposing the fin structures in the first region near the second region; and removing the fin structures in the first region near the second region. Further, the method includes forming a second mask layer on the fin structures in the second region; and removing the fin structures in the first region. Further, the method also includes forming fins by etching the substrate using the fin structures in the second region as an etching mask; and forming a gate structure and source/drain regions in the fins at both sides of the gate structure.
US09142667B2
According to one embodiment, a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device includes: forming a plurality of trenches; forming a gate insulating film; burying a gate electrode; burying an insulating member; projecting the insulating member; forming a base layer; forming a mask film; forming a first semiconductor layer; forming a carrier ejection layer; forming a first electrode; and forming a second electrode. The projecting includes projecting the insulating member from the upper surface of the semiconductor substrate by removing an upper layer portion of the semiconductor substrate. The mask film is formed so as to cover the projected insulating member. The forming the first semiconductor layer includes forming a first semiconductor layer of the first conductivity type in an upper layer portion of the base layer by doping the base layer with impurity, the upper layer portion having a lower surface below an upper end of the gate electrode.
US09142666B2
An embodiment of an integrated electronic device formed in a body of semiconductor material, which includes: a substrate of a first semiconductor material, the first semiconductor material having a first bandgap; a first epitaxial region of a second semiconductor material and having a first type of conductivity, which overlies the substrate and defines a first surface, the second semiconductor material having a second bandgap wider than the first bandgap; and a second epitaxial region of the first semiconductor material, which overlies, and is in direct contact with, the first epitaxial region. The first epitaxial region includes a first buffer layer, which overlies the substrate, and a drift layer, which overlies the first buffer layer and defines the first surface, the first buffer layer and the drift layer having different doping levels.
US09142665B2
A method for producing a semiconductor component includes providing a semiconductor body with a first surface and a second surface opposite the first surface, forming an insulation trench which extends into the semiconductor body from the first surface and which in a horizontal plane of the semiconductor body has a geometry such that the insulation trench defines a via region of the semiconductor body, forming a first insulation layer on one or more sidewalls of the insulation trench, removing semiconductor material of the semiconductor body from the second surface to expose at least parts of the first insulation layer, to remove at least parts of the first insulation layer, or to leave at least partially a semiconductor layer with a thickness of less than 1 μm between the first insulation layer and the second surface, and forming first and second contact electrodes on the via region.
US09142660B2
A transistor structure is formed to include a substrate and, overlying the substrate, a source; a drain; and a channel disposed vertically between the source and the drain. The channel is coupled to a gate conductor that surrounds the channel via a layer of gate dielectric material that surrounds the channel. The gate conductor is composed of a first electrically conductive material having a first work function that surrounds a first portion of a length of the channel and a second electrically conductive material having a second work function that surrounds a second portion of the length of the channel. A method to fabricate the transistor structure is also disclosed. The transistor structure can be characterized as being a vertical field effect transistor having an asymmetric gate.
US09142654B2
A manufacturing method of an oxide semiconductor thin film transistor according to the disclosure includes the following. A source and a drain are formed. A channel layer is formed between the source and the drain, wherein the channel layer is separated from the source and the drain. An insulation layer is formed, wherein the insulation layer covers the source, the drain, and the channel layer. A first conductor is at least formed in a first opening of the insulation layer, wherein the first conductor contacts the source and the channel layer. A second conductor is at least formed in a second opening of the insulation layer, wherein the second conductor contacts the drain and the channel layer.
US09142648B2
Disclosed is a semiconductor device including an oxide semiconductor film. A first oxide semiconductor film with a thickness of greater than or equal to 2 nm and less than or equal to 15 nm is formed over a gate insulating layer. First heat treatment is performed so that crystal growth from a surface of the first oxide semiconductor film to the inside thereof is caused, whereby a first crystal layer is formed. A second oxide semiconductor film with a thickness greater than that of the first oxide semiconductor film is formed over the first crystal layer. Second heat treatment is performed so that crystal growth from the first crystal layer to a surface of the second oxide semiconductor film is caused, whereby a second crystal layer is formed. Further, oxygen doping treatment is performed on the second crystal layer.
US09142645B2
A SGT production method includes a step of forming first and second fin-shaped silicon layers, forming a first insulating film, and forming first and second pillar-shaped silicon layers; a step of forming diffusion layers by implanting an impurity into upper portions of the first and second pillar-shaped silicon layers, upper portions of the first and second fin-shaped silicon layers, and lower portions of the first and second pillar-shaped silicon layers; a step of forming a gate insulating film and first and second polysilicon gate electrodes; a step of forming a silicide in upper portions of the diffusion layers formed in the upper portions of the first and second fin-shaped silicon layers; and a step of depositing an interlayer insulating film, exposing and etching the first and second polysilicon gate electrodes, then depositing a metal, and forming first and second metal gate electrodes.
US09142640B1
A non-planar transistor is fabricated with dummy or sacrificial epitaxy and a structure for subsequent replacement or final epitaxy containment is created around the sacrificial epitaxy. The dummy epitaxy is then removed and replaced with the replacement epitaxy. The containment structure allows for uniform growth of the replacement epitaxy and prevents merger. Where n-type and p-type structures are present, the replacement epitaxy process is performed for each type, while protecting the other type with a mask. Optionally, one of the replacement epitaxies, i.e., the one for n-type or p-type, may be used as the dummy epitaxy, resulting in the need for only one mask.
US09142636B2
A III-Nitride field-effect transistor, specifically a HEMT, comprises a channel layer, a barrier layer on the channel layer, an etch stop layer on the cap layer, a dielectric layer on the etch stop layer, a gate recess that extends to the barrier layer, and a gate contact in the gate recess. The etch stop layer may reduce damage associated with forming the recessed gate by not exposing the barrier layer to dry etching. The etch stop layer in the recess is removed and the remaining etch stop layer serves as a passivation layer.
US09142634B2
One or more embodiments relate generally to the field of photoelectron spin and, more specifically, to a method and system for creating a controllable spin-polarized electron source. One preferred embodiment of the invention generally comprises: method for creating a controllable spin-polarized electron source comprising the following steps: providing one or more materials, the one or more materials having at least one surface and a material layer adjacent to said surface, wherein said surface comprises highly spin-polarized surface electrons, wherein the direction and spin of the surface electrons are locked together; providing at least one incident light capable of stimulating photoemission of said surface electrons; wherein the photon polarization of said incident light is tunable; and inducing photoemission of the surface electron states.
US09142632B2
It is an object to provide a liquid crystal display device including a thin film transistor with high electric characteristics and high reliability. As for a liquid crystal display device including an inverted staggered thin film transistor of a channel stop type, the inverted staggered thin film transistor includes a gate electrode, a gate insulating film over the gate electrode, a microcrystalline semiconductor film including a channel formation region over the gate insulating film, a buffer layer over the microcrystalline semiconductor film, and a channel protective layer which is formed over the buffer layer so as to overlap with the channel formation region of the microcrystalline semiconductor film.
US09142631B2
Semiconductor Schottky barrier devices include a wide bandgap semiconductor layer, a Schottky barrier metal layer on the wide bandgap semiconductor layer and forming a Schottky junction, a current spreading layer on the Schottky barrier metal layer remote from the wide bandgap semiconductor layer and two or more diffusion barrier layers between the current spreading layer and the Schottky barrier metal layer. The first diffusion barrier layer reduces mixing of the current spreading layer and the second diffusion barrier layer at temperatures of the Schottky junction above about 300° C. and the second diffusion barrier layer reduces mixing of the first diffusion barrier layer and the Schottky barrier metal layer at the temperatures of the Schottky junction above about 300° C.
US09142627B2
A semiconductor device includes a first layer of a first conductivity type between a first and a second electrode. A second layer of the first conductivity type is between the first layer and the second electrode. A pair of third layers of a second conductivity type has a first portion in the first layer and a second portion contacting the second layer. A fourth layer is between the second layer and the second electrode and between the third layers and the second electrode. A fifth layer is between the fourth layer and the second electrode. A third electrode is adjacent to the second layer via a first insulating film. A fourth electrode is between the second electrode and the third electrode and adjacent to the fourth semiconductor layer via a second insulating film. The second insulating film is thinner than the first insulating film.
US09142625B2
Embodiments of a semiconductor device, a circuit including a semiconductor device and a driver circuit, and a method for operating a semiconductor device are described. In one embodiment, a semiconductor device includes a substrate, a source region, a drain region, and a drain extension region formed in the substrate, and an insulation layer adjacent to the drain extension region. A gate layer and a field plate are formed one of within and on the insulation layer. The field plate is located adjacent to the drain extension region and is electrically insulated from the gate layer and the source region such that a voltage can be applied to the field plate independent from voltages applied to the gate layer and the source region. Other embodiments are also described.
US09142616B2
Processes for suppressing minority carrier lifetime degradation in silicon wafers are disclosed. The processes involve quench cooling the wafers to increase the density of nano-precipitates in the silicon wafers and the rate at which interstitial atoms are consumed by the nano-precipitates.
US09142605B2
Disclosed herein is a display panel based on active matrix driving having a display area made up of N pixel control lines, M video signal lines orthogonally intersecting the N pixel control lines, and pixel circuits arranged at intersections between the N pixel control lines and M video signal lines, wherein positional identification patterns are arranged on every k (k being a natural number) pixel control lines inside each of the pixel circuits.
US09142604B2
A display device including a pixel array having a plurality of pixels arranged in a matrix form, each of the pixels including a sampling transistor configured to sample a data potential from a video signal line which is insulated from and intersects a control line in response to the change in potential of the control line, and a light-emitting element configured to emit light at the brightness commensurate with the magnitude of the post-sampling data potential.
US09142600B2
An organic light-emitting display device includes a plurality of organic light-emitting diodes which shares a cathode, a plurality of switching elements which is connected to the cathode, a plurality of capacitors, each comprising a first electrode which is connected to each of the switching elements, respectively, and a second electrode and a power bus line which is connected to the second electrode, wherein each of the plurality of switching elements controls a connection between the cathode and the first electrode.
US09142598B2
To provide a light-emitting panel in which the occurrence of crosstalk is suppressed. To provide a method for manufacturing a light-emitting panel in which the occurrence of crosstalk is suppressed. The light-emitting panel includes a first electrode of one light-emitting element, a first electrode of the other light-emitting element, and an insulating partition which separates the two first electrodes. A portion with a thickness A1 smaller than a thickness A0 of a portion of the layer containing a light-emitting organic compound, which overlaps with a side surface of the partition, is included. The ratio (B1/B0) of a thickness B1 of a portion of the second electrode, which overlaps with a side surface of the partition, to a thickness B0 of a portion of the second electrode, which overlaps with the first electrode, is higher than the ratio (A1/A0).
US09142588B2
A die includes a first plurality of edges, and a semiconductor substrate in the die. The semiconductor substrate includes a first portion including a second plurality of edges misaligned with respective ones of the first plurality of edges. The semiconductor substrate further includes a second portion extending from one of the second plurality of edges to one of the first plurality of edges of the die. The second portion includes a first end connected to the one of the second plurality of edges, and a second end having an edge aligned to the one of the first plurality of edges of the die.
US09142586B2
A semiconductor image sensor device includes first and second semiconductor substrates. A pixel array and a control circuit are formed in a first surface of the first substrate. An interconnect layer is formed over the first surface of the first substrate and electrically connects the control circuit to the pixel array. A top conducting layer is formed over the interconnect layer to have electrical connectivity with at least one of the control circuit or the pixel array via the interconnect layer. A surface of a second substrate is bonded to the top conducting layer. A conductive through-silicon-via (TSV) passes through the second substrate, and has electrical connectivity with the top conducting layer. A terminal is formed on an opposite surface of the second substrate, and electrically connected to the TSV.
US09142583B2
Provided is a light sensor including a substrate, a dielectric layer, a plurality of pixels, a plurality of spacers, and a plurality of metal interconnects. The dielectric layer is located on the substrate. The pixels are located in the dielectric layer. The spacers are located on the sidewall of openings between adjacent pixels. The metal interconnects are located in the openings and cover the spacers so as to be electrically connected to the corresponding pixels.
US09142580B2
An image pickup apparatus includes a pixel portion in which pixels are arranged, the pixels each including a first semiconductor region of first conductivity type having signal charges as majority carriers and a second semiconductor region of second conductivity type having signal charges as minority carriers, the second semiconductor region being contiguous to the first semiconductor region, the first semiconductor region being disposed between a surface of a semiconductor substrate. The pixel portion includes a class I pixel and a class II pixel located near a reference contact. A distance between the surface of the semiconductor substrate and the second semiconductor region of the class I pixel is smaller than a distance between the surface of the semiconductor substrate and the second semiconductor region of the class II pixel.
US09142579B2
In order to achieve a photoelectric conversion cell and an array of high sensitivity and high dynamic range, there is a need for a photoelectric conversion cell and an array in which combination of an amplified photoelectric conversion element and a selection element are resistant to external noise, and the combination is resistant to effects from address selection pulse noise at array readout time. In the present invention, in order to solve the problem, a photoelectric conversion cell has been configured with a combination of an amplified photoelectric conversion element (100) and a selection element (10 and the like) which are resistant to external noise, and various means of solution of the combination are provided which are resistant to the effects of address selection pulse noise at array readout time. As a result, a dynamic range of 6 to 7 orders of magnitude for light detection has become possible.
US09142568B2
It is an object of one embodiment of the present invention to manufacture a light-emitting display device by simplifying a manufacturing process of a transistor, without an increase in the number of steps as well as the number of photomasks as compared to those in the conventional case. A step for processing a semiconductor layer into an island shape is omitted by using a high-resistance oxide semiconductor which is intrinsic or substantially intrinsic for the semiconductor layer, used to form transistors. Formation of an opening in the semiconductor layer or an insulating layer formed over the semiconductor layer and etching of an unnecessary portion of the semiconductor layer are performed at the same time; thus, the number of photolithography steps is reduced.
US09142565B2
A semiconductor device includes a SOI substrate including a silicon substrate, an oxide layer on the silicon substrate, and a silicon layer on the oxide layer; a source region and a drain region formed in the silicon layer; and an acceptor-doped layer formed between the oxide layer and the silicon substrate, the acceptor-doped layer being doped with acceptors.
US09142557B2
A high capacitance embedded metal interconnect capacitor and associated fabrication processes are disclosed for using a directional barrier metal formation sequence in a dual damascene copper process to form multi-layer stacked copper interconnect structure having reduced barrier metal layer formation at the bottom of each via hole so that the multi-layer stacked copper interconnect structure may be readily removed and replaced with high capacitance MIM capacitor layers.
US09142539B2
A standard cell has gate patterns extending in Y direction and arranged at an equal pitch in X direction. End portions of the gate patterns are located at the same position in Y direction, and have an equal width in X direction. A diode cell is located next to the standard cell in Y direction, and includes a plurality of opposite end portions formed of gate patterns that are opposed to the end portions, in addition to a diffusion layer which functions as a diode.
US09142537B2
An integrated circuit device includes a plurality of fins on an upper surface of a semiconductor substrate and extending in a first direction, a device isolation insulating film placed between the fins, a gate electrode extending in a second direction crossing the first direction on the insulating film; and an insulating film insulating the fin from the gate electrode. In a first region where a plurality of the fins are consecutively arranged, an upper surface of the device isolation insulating film is located at a first position below an upper end of the fin. In a second region located in the second direction as viewed from the first region, the upper surface of the device isolation insulating film is located at a second position above the upper end of the fin. In the second region, the device isolation insulating film covers entirely a side surface of the fin.
US09142533B2
A bump structure that may be used to interconnect one substrate to another substrate is provided. A conductive pillar is formed on a first substrate such that the conductive pillar has a width different than a contact surface on a second substrate. In an embodiment the conductive pillar of the first substrate has a trapezoidal shape or a shape having tapered sidewalls, thereby providing a conductive pillar having base portion wider than a tip portion. The substrates may each be an integrated circuit die, an interposer, a printed circuit board, a high-density interconnect, or the like.
US09142531B1
An integrated circuit packaging system and method of manufacture thereof includes: an L-plated lead; a die conductively connected to the L-plated lead; and an encapsulant encapsulating the L-plated lead and the die.
US09142529B2
A chip package includes: a semiconductor chip having an upper surface and a lower surface opposite to each other, the semiconductor chip including an image sensor circuit; a metal heat conductive layer formed on the lower surface, for conducting or absorbing heat generated by the semiconductor chip; a bond pad formed on the upper surface, for electrically connecting with the image sensor circuit in the semiconductor chip, wherein the metal heat conductive layer conducts or absorbs heat generated by the semiconductor chip, to thereby reduce temperature of the image sensor circuit in the semiconductor chip and improve the performance of the circuit, wherein the metal heat conductive layer entirely covers the lower surface.
US09142509B2
A copper interconnect structure in a semiconductor device comprises a dielectric layer having sidewalls and a surface defining an opening in the dielectric layer. The copper interconnect structure also comprises a barrier layer deposited on the sidewalls and the surface of the dielectric layer defining the opening. The copper interconnect structure further comprises a barrier/seed mixed layer deposited on the barrier layer. The copper interconnect structure additionally comprises an adhesive layer deposited on the barrier/seed mixed layer. The copper interconnect structure also comprises a seed layer deposited on the adhesive layer.
US09142508B2
Methods of fabricating a multi-layer semiconductor device such as a multi-layer damascene or inverted multi-layer damascene structure using only a single or reduced number of exposure steps. The method may include etching a precursor structure formed of materials with differential removal rates for a given removal condition. The method may include removing material from a multi-layer structure under different removal conditions. Further disclosed are multi-layer damascene structures having multiple cavities of different sizes. The cavities may have smooth inner wall surfaces. The layers of the structure may be in direct contact. The cavities may be filled with a conducting metal or an insulator. Multi-layer semiconductor devices using the methods and structures are further disclosed.
US09142507B1
An integrated circuit (IC) device includes a plurality of metal layers having metal traces, and a plurality of vias interconnecting the metal traces. The presence of vacancies within the metal layers may disrupt the functionality of the IC device if the vacancies migrate to the vias interconnecting the metal layers. To mitigate vacancy migration, stressor elements are formed at the metal traces to form stress effects in the metal traces that, depending on type, either serve to repel migrating vacancies from the via contact area or to trap migrating vacancies at a portion of the metal trace displaced from the contact area. The stressor elements may be formed as stress-inducing dielectric or conductive material overlying the metal traces, or formed by inducing a stress memory effect in a portion of the metal trace itself.
US09142505B2
Methods and apparatus are disclosed for the back end of line process for fabrication of integrated circuits (ICs). A barrier layer comprising a bottom part and a side part is formed within an opening for a metal contact, wherein the bottom part comprises a graphene material, the side part comprises an amorphous carbon material and covers a sidewall of the opening, and the bottom part and the side part are formed at a same time. A capping layer comprising a first part and a second part is formed on a dielectric layer and a metal contact, wherein the first part comprises a graphene material, the second part of the capping layer comprises an amorphous carbon material on the dielectric layer, and the first part and the second part are formed at a same time.
US09142491B2
There are provided semiconductor packages having corner pins and methods for their fabrication. Such a semiconductor package includes a leadframe and a die paddle, the leadframe having first and second edge sides meeting to form a first corner. The semiconductor package also includes edge pins arrayed substantially parallel to the first edge side and edge pins arrayed substantially parallel to the second edge side. In addition, the semiconductor package includes a first corner pin situated at the first corner, the first corner pin being electrically isolated from the die paddle.
US09142480B2
A microelectronic package is provided. The microelectronic package includes a substrate, a die coupled to a top surface of the substrate and a integrated heat spreader thermally coupled to the die, wherein the integrated heat spreader comprises integrated heat spreader walls. The microelectronic package also includes a thermal interface material disposed between the die and the integrated heat spreader and an underfill material disposed between the integrated heat spreader and the substrate, wherein the underfill material is disposed within gaps between the integrated heat spreader walls, the die and the thermal interface material.
US09142478B2
A semiconductor package stack may include a lower semiconductor package and an upper semiconductor package stacked on a lower package board. The upper semiconductor package may include an upper semiconductor chip mounted on an upper package board with an opening configured to expose a lower surface of the upper semiconductor chip and a first heat slug disposed within the opening, contacting the lower surface of the upper semiconductor chip, and contacting an upper surface of a lower semiconductor chip.
US09142477B2
According to one embodiment, a semiconductor module includes a substrate, which has a first surface and a second surface opposite to the first surface, a controller device and a memory device formed on the first surface, and a metal plate bonded on the second surface. The metal plate is formed at least at a portion of the second surface corresponding to the controller device so that heat generated at the controller device conducts away from the memory device.
US09142461B2
A substrate including an NMOS transistor region and a PMOS transistor region is prepared. A silicon-germanium layer is formed on the PMOS transistor region. Nitrogen atoms are injected in an upper portion of the silicon-germanium layer. A first gate dielectric layer is formed on the NMOS transistor region and the PMOS transistor region. The nitrogen atoms are injected into the upper portion of the silicon-germanium layer before forming the first gate dielectric layer.
US09142454B1
A semiconductor structure and a method for manufacturing the same are disclosed. The semiconductor structure includes a substrate, a first conductive structure, a second conductive structure, a dielectric structure, a dielectric layer, a first conductive plug, and a second conductive plug. The first conductive plug passes through only an upper dielectric portion of the dielectric structure, the dielectric layer and a lower dielectric portion of the dielectric structure to physically and electrically contact with the first conductive structure. The second conductive plug passes through the upper dielectric portion, the dielectric layer and the lower dielectric portion to physically and electrically contact with the second conductive structure.
US09142453B1
An interconnect structure and a method of forming an interconnect structure are disclosed. The interconnect structure includes a low-k (LK) dielectric layer over a substrate; a first conductive feature in the LK dielectric layer, wherein the first conductive feature has a first sidewall, a second sidewall facing the first sidewall, and a first bottom surface contacting the LK dielectric layer; a first dielectric feature along an upper portion of the first sidewall, wherein a length of the first dielectric feature is at least 10 percent less than a length of the first sidewall; and a second dielectric feature along an upper portion of the second sidewall. The interconnect structure may also include a second conductive feature adjacent to the first conductive feature in the LK dielectric layer.
US09142452B2
A method includes forming a barrier layer in a via hole and over a hard mask layer. The hard mask layer is disposed over a dielectric layer. The via hole is located through the dielectric layer and the hard mask layer. A filler layer is formed in the via hole and over the barrier layer. The filler layer and the hard mask layer are removed. A metal layer is formed in the via hole.
US09142445B2
Methods for rounding the bottom corners of a shallow trench isolation structure are described herein. Embodiments of the present invention provide a method comprising forming a first masking layer on a sidewall of an opening in a substrate, removing, to a first depth, a first portion of the substrate at a bottom surface of the opening having the first masking layer therein, forming a second masking layer on the first masking layer in the opening, and removing, to a second depth, a second portion of the substrate at the bottom surface of the opening having the first and second masking layers therein. Other embodiments also are described.
US09142440B2
A method of producing a carrier structure for fabricating a stacked-type semiconductor device includes laminating thin plates for a lower carrier associated with an upper carrier. The method includes forming openings in the thin plates by etching or electric discharge machining. The lower carrier includes a magnet that is buried therein and the magnet maintains contact between the lower carrier and the upper carrier. A thin plate of the laminated thin plates is provided on each opposing surface of the magnet. The lower carrier further includes multiple magnets arranged around a periphery of the lower carrier and through a center region of the lower carrier that is between magnets on the periphery.
US09142435B2
Provided is a substrate processing apparatus including a partitioned susceptor and configured to heat a substrate uniformly for improving process quality and yield. The substrate stage comprises a plurality of susceptor segments embedded with heating units, a substrate stage unit comprising the plurality of susceptor segments arranged in a flat configuration to define a substrate placement surface, and a uniform heating part mounted at the substrate placement surface.
US09142433B2
In a substrate processing apparatus, an anti-static liquid supply part supplies the anti-static liquid having electrical resistivity higher than that of an SPM liquid onto a substrate to puddle an entire upper surface of the substrate with the anti-static liquid, to thereby gradually remove static electricity from the substrate. Then, the processing liquid supply part supplies the SPM liquid onto the substrate to thereby perform an SPM process. In the SPM process, it is thereby possible to prevent a large amount of electric charges from rapidly moving from the substrate to the SPM liquid and prevent any damage to the substrate. Further, by maintaining the electrical resistivity of the anti-static liquid at the target electrical resistivity, it is possible to increase the static elimination efficiency of the substrate and shorten the time required for the static elimination process within the limits of causing no damage to the substrate.
US09142422B2
Methods of facilitating fabrication of defect-free semiconductor structures are provided which include, for instance: providing a dielectric layer, the dielectric layer comprising at least one consumable material; selectively removing a portion of the dielectric layer, wherein the selectively removing consumes, in part, a remaining portion of the at least one consumable material, leaving, within the remaining portion of the dielectric layer, a depleted region; and subjecting the depleted region of the dielectric layer to a treatment process, to restore the depleted region with at least one replacement consumable material, thereby facilitating fabrication of a defect-free semiconductor structure.
US09142416B1
A method for providing electroless deposition of a metal layer on a plurality of metal patterns, wherein a dielectric surface is between some of the plurality of metal patterns and metal residue is on the dielectric surface is provided. The dielectric surface is pretreated with an alkaline solution with a pH of at least 8 comprising at least one complexing agent, wherein the complexing agent forms a metal complex with the metal residue and wherein some metal oxide residue remains. The dielectric surface is pretreated with an acidic solution, wherein the acidic solution dissolves metal oxide residue. Metal is electrolessly deposited on the plurality of metal patterns.
US09142413B2
Systems and methods for MBE growing of group-III Nitride alloys, comprising establishing an average reaction temperature range from about 250 C to about 850 C; introducing a nitrogen flux at a nitrogen flow rate; introducing a first metal flux at a first metal flow rate; and periodically stopping and restarting the first metal flux according to a first flow duty cycle. According to another embodiment, the system comprises a nitrogen source that provides nitrogen at a nitrogen flow rate, and, a first metal source comprising a first metal effusion cell that provides a first metal at a first metal flow rate, and a first metal shutter that periodically opens and closes according to a first flow duty cycle to abate and recommence the flow of the first metal from the first metal source. Produced alloys include AlN, InN, GaN, InGaN, and AlInGaN.
US09142411B2
A method for producing a semiconductor device includes: an arranging process of arranging a plurality of silicon carbide wafers having opposed first and surfaces so that the first surface and the second surface of adjacent silicon carbide wafers face each other and are separated in parallel; and a heat treatment process of heating the arranged plurality of silicon carbide wafers so that the first surface of each silicon carbide wafer becomes higher in temperature than the second surface thereof, and, in the adjacent silicon carbide wafers, the second surface of one silicon carbide wafer becomes higher in temperature than the first surface of the other silicon carbide wafer that faces the second surface.
US09142409B2
A polysilicon thin film and a manufacturing method thereof, an array substrate and a display device are disclosed. The manufacturing method of the polysilicon thin film comprises the following steps: forming a graphene layer and an amorphous silicon layer which are adjacent; forming polysilicon by way of crystallizing amorphous silicon so as to obtain the polysilicon thin film. The polysilicon thin film manufactured by the method possesses good characteristics.
US09142408B2
Liquid precursors containing indium and selenium suitable for deposition on a substrate to form thin films suitable for semiconductor applications are disclosed. Methods of preparing such liquid precursors and method of depositing a liquid precursor on a substrate are also disclosed.
US09142406B1
III-N material grown on a buffer on a substrate that includes one of a single crystal silicon or a single crystal sapphire. A buffer of single crystal alloy, including one of ErxAl1-xN or (RE1yRE21-y)xAl1-xN, is positioned on the substrate. A layer of single crystal III-N material is positioned on the surface of the buffer and the single crystal alloy has a lattice constant substantially crystal lattice matched to the layer of single crystal III-N material. When the III-N material is GaN, the x in the formula for the alloy varies from less than 1 adjacent the substrate to greater than or equal to 0.249 adjacent the layer of single crystal GaN.
US09142395B2
The present invention relates to a parallel IMS and MS measurement method where a sample flow is split and delivered to an IMS and a MS in parallel. A parallel acquisition MS/IMS method is used to supplement LC-MS and or MS data by using a synchronized MS/IMS acquisition.
US09142390B2
Interchangeable or standard electrode interface for a thermal spray plasma gun includes an interchangeable electrode having a first connecting section and a first annular coupling surface. A second connecting section is arranged in a plasma gun and includes a second annular coupling surface. An annular seal is spaced or axially spaced from an annular interface formed between the first and second annular coupling surfaces.
US09142381B2
An X-ray tube for generating two focal spots displaced with respect to each other and a medical device using such X-ray tube are proposed. The X-ray tube (1) comprises a cathode (7) and an anode (9) wherein the cathode (7) comprises a first electron emitter (15) adapted for emitting a first electron beam (17) for generating a first focal spot (25) on the anode (9) and a second electron emitter (19) for emitting a second electron beam (21) for generating a second focal spot (27) on the anode (9). Therein, each electron emitter (15, 19) comprises an associated switchable grid (37, 39) for blocking the respective emitted electron beam (17, 21). In order to realize a desired displacement of the first and second focal spots (25, 27) in a y-direction, the first and second electron emitters (15, 19) may be displaced in the z-direction. Due to the focal spots (25, 27) being displaced in y-direction, an overall resolution of for example a high quality CT scanner may be significantly enhanced.
US09142375B2
Switching device comprising: a switching unit comprising, for each electric pole, a first disconnection contact, a second disconnection contact and one or more solid state switches; a supporting frame comprising, for each electric pole, a third disconnection contact and a fourth disconnection contact, which are coupled/separated respectively with/from the first and second disconnection contacts, when the switching unit is in an insertion/withdrawn position with respect to the supporting frame; actuating means for moving the switching unit between the insertion position and said the withdrawn position, and viceversa; a control unit comprising control means that are configured to coordinate the operation of the actuating means and the solid state switches, when an insertion/withdrawn operation of the switching unit has to be performed, so that the actuating means move the switching unit only when the solid state switches are in an off-state.
US09142367B2
A power button module includes a pressing member, a printed circuited board, a supporting member and a bottom cover. The supporting member defines a receiving hole therein and includes a mounting portion. The mounting portion includes a base body, a mounting section and a plurality of resilient arms interconnecting the base body and the mounting section, the pressing member is partially received in the receiving hole and fixed to the mounting section, the printed circuit board partially extends through the mounting section and connects with the pressing member. The printed circuit board comprises a contacting portion away from the pressing member. The bottom cover is fixed to the supporting member and receives the mounting portion. The bottom cover comprises an electrical connecting portion spaced from the contacting portion. The present invention further discloses an electronic device using the power button module.
US09142365B2
A solenoid-driven automatic bus transfer switch may automatically transfer one or more electrical loads from a first power source to a second power source, or vice versa, in the event of a power failure or other casualty that affects either power source. The transfer switch may be operated in response to the energization of a solenoid coil, which causes a main shaft having a transfer element to rotate from being in contact with the first power source to being in contact with the second power source. The transfer element may be spring-mounted to the shaft, which ensures that a sufficient electrical contact exists between the surfaces of the transfer element and the respective leads of the first and second power sources, regardless of any wear or degradation that may be experienced at any of the surfaces.
US09142356B2
Provided is a method of manufacturing a solid electrolytic capacitor including a capacitor element, the capacitor element having an anode body with a dielectric coating film formed on a surface thereof and a solid electrolyte made of a conductive polymer. The method includes the steps of: forming the capacitor element having the anode body with the dielectric coating film formed on the surface thereof; preparing a polymerization liquid A containing one of a monomer as a precursor of the conductive polymer and an oxidant, and a silane compound; preparing a polymerization liquid B by adding the other of the monomer and the oxidant that is not contained in polymerization liquid A, to polymerization liquid A; and performing polymerization after impregnating the capacitor element with polymerization liquid B.
US09142352B2
An electrolytic capacitor capable of operating at 75 g or greater is provided having a case with a base and a lid, with a wound capacitor element positioned on its side, lengthwise along the bottom of the base and with the underside of the lid pressed against the length of the capacitor element, to frictionally engage the capacitor element. The case is provided with inwardly projecting surfaces, including a bulkhead at one end of the capacitor element and ridges on the lid, which function as barriers to restrict movement of the capacitor element within the case. A compartment is created at one end of the case, to allow space for terminals, which are embedded in a non-conductive support matrix.
US09142323B1
A method for correcting a cell voltage driftage in a NAND flash device is disclosed. An indicator indicating a cell voltage driftage in a memory unit of a NAND flash device is monitored by a processor. A cell voltage driftage in the NAND flash device is detected based at least in part on the indicator. One or more NAND commands correcting the cell voltage driftage are generated. The one or more NAND commands include a NAND command associated with changing a configuration setting of the NAND flash device.
US09142318B2
A method for controlling the breakdown of an antifuse memory cell formed on a semiconductor substrate, including the steps of: applying a programming voltage; detecting a breakdown time; and interrupting the application of the programming voltage at a time following the breakdown time by a post-breakdown time.
US09142316B2
An OTP anti-fuse memory array without additional selectors and a manufacturing method are provided. Embodiments include forming wells of a first polarity in a substrate, forming a bitline of the first polarity in each well, and forming plural metal gates across each bitline, wherein no source/drain regions are formed between the metal gates.
US09142315B2
Methods and systems are disclosed for adjusting read/verify bias conditions for non-volatile memory (NVM) cells to improve performance and product lifetime of NVM systems. System embodiments include integrated NVM systems having a NVM controller, a bias voltage generator, and an NVM cell array. Further, the NVM systems can store performance degradation information and read/verify bias condition information within storage circuitry. The disclosed embodiments adjust read/verify bias conditions for the NVM cells based upon performance degradation determinations, for example, temperature-based performance degradation determinations.
US09142306B2
A memory device comprises memory cells arranged in rows and columns, and source lines associated with memory sections, each of which includes a plurality of memory cells. Source terminals of transistors included in the memory cells in a first memory section are physically coupled to a first source line that is distinct from other source lines associated with other memory sections on a same row of the memory device as the first memory section. Gate terminals of transistors included in memory cells in a row share a common wordline configured for providing a signal to the gate terminals.
US09142295B2
A content addressable memory includes a memory array having a plurality of match lines extending in a first direction, a plurality of search lines extending in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction, and a plurality of memory cells, each disposed at points where the match lines and the search lines intersect. The content addressable memory also includes a plurality of search line drivers, each of the search line drivers being provided to drive the search lines based on search data; a search control circuit generating a search line enable signal, and including a first and a second transistor, the first transistor) for output the search line enable signal and the second transistor for receiving the search line enable signal; and a control signal wiring coupled to the search control circuit and transmitting the search line enable signal to each of the search line drivers.
US09142292B2
Provided is a method for reading data from a variable resistance nonvolatile storage element, where the operation for reading data is less susceptible to a fluctuation phenomenon of resistance values in reading the data. The method includes: detecting a current value Iread that flows through the nonvolatile storage element that can be in a low resistance state RL and a high resistance state RH, with application of a fixed voltage; and determining that (i) the nonvolatile storage element is in a high resistance state when the current value Iread detected in the detecting is smaller than a current reference level Iref, and (ii) the nonvolatile storage element is in a low resistance state when the current value Iread detected in the detecting is larger than the reference level Iref, the current reference level Iref being defined by (IRL+IRH)/2
US09142280B1
A circuit for configuring an external memory includes a memory controller, a register, an OR gate, first and second input/output (IO) pads, and pull-up and pull-down resistors. When the circuit is in a high power mode, the memory controller refreshes the external memory by providing reset and clock enable signals to the external memory by way of the first and second IO pads. When the circuit is in a low power mode, the pull-up and pull-down resistors configure the external memory in a self-refresh mode. When the circuit exits the low power mode, the first and second IO pads are powered on. The OR gate receives and provides a control signal output by the register to the external memory by way of the first IO pad, which keeps the external memory in the self-refresh mode.
US09142278B2
A first write driver applies a first voltage above a fixed potential to a first terminal. A second write driver applies a second voltage that is higher above the fixed potential than the first voltage to a second terminal. There is at least one magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) structure coupled at the first terminal at a first side to the first write driver and coupled at the second terminal at a second side to the second write driver. The first side of the MTJ structure receives the first voltage and the second side of the MTJ structure receives a ground voltage to change from a first state to a second state. The second side of the MTJ structure receives the second voltage and the first side of the MTJ structure receives the ground voltage to change from the second state to the first state.
US09142273B2
According to one embodiment, a semiconductor memory device includes a memory cell array including memory cells, word lines connected to the memory cell array to select rows of the memory cell array, first bit lines connected to the memory cell array to select columns of the memory cell array, a replica cell array including replica cells respectively connected to the word lines, and storing information on characteristics of the rows of the memory cell array, and a second bit line connected to the replica cells. An operation is changed for each row of the memory cell array based on the information in the replica cells.
US09142266B2
Within a memory 2 comprising an array 4 of bit cells 6 write driver circuitry 14 uses a boosted write signal which is boosted to a lower than normal level during a write operation. Column select transistors 16 are driven by column select circuitry 12. The column select signal is boosted to a lower than normal level when a column is unselected and to higher than a normal level when a column is selected. Voltage boost circuitry, such as charge pumps 20, 22 are employed within the column select circuitry 12 to achieve these boosted levels for the columns select signal.
US09142263B2
A memory device providing signals indicating when refresh operations are complete. The signals from a number of memory devices can be combined, such as by logically ORing, to provide a refresh complete signal to a power management controller. Dynamic factors can affect the refresh operation and the memory may be refreshed without restoring the entire system to a high power state. The time required to perform a refresh operation can be determined dynamically, allowing the system to be returned to a low power state as soon as refresh is complete. Ambient temperatures can be monitored to dynamically determine when to perform a refresh operation.
US09142259B2
Provided is an editing device including an input material timeline area display control unit that executes control such that an input material timeline in which an event is arranged is displayed, using a material which is an element of selected content as the event, and an output material timeline area display control unit that executes control such that an output material timeline in which an event which is being edited or has been edited is arranged is displayed. The input material timeline and the output material timeline have a same time axis, and the input material timeline area display control unit controls a display of the input material timeline such that the event arranged in the input material timeline is expressed by the same time axis as the event arranged in the output material timeline.
US09142253B2
A computer-implemented method includes displaying, within a user interface in a digital media system, a media pane and a tools pane, displaying, within the media pane, a thumbnail group representing a media item, the thumbnail group including one or more thumbnails, displaying, within the tools pane, a tool configured to assign a keyword, enabling a user to select a segment of the media item, and enabling a user to assign a keyword to the selected segment by activating the tool.
US09142251B2
Systems and method relating generally to data processing, and more particularly to systems and methods for data synchronization and detection.
US09142247B2
A spindle motor is disclosed, the spindle motor including a turntable coupled to the rotation shaft to rotate along with the rotation shaft and accommodating a disk, and a turntable fixing member coupled at an upper surface of the turntable to the rotation shaft to fix the turntable.
US09142246B1
An apparatus includes a plurality of magnetic read/write heads, a system controller and a switching network. Each of the magnetic read/write heads includes a read sensor element configured to perform a read operation and a write element configured to perform a write operation. The switching network is coupled between the plurality of magnetic read/write heads and the controller. Further, the switching network is configured to substantially simultaneously select elements from at least two of the plurality of magnetic read/write heads in response to a command from the controller such that the operations of the selected elements are performed substantially simultaneously to establish a manufacturing parameter of a disk drive.
US09142240B2
An apparatus may include a first magnetic layer, a first exchange break layer formed on the first magnetic layer, a second magnetic layer formed on the first exchange break layer, a second exchange break layer formed on the second magnetic layer, and a third magnetic layer formed on the second exchange break layer. The first magnetic layer has a first magnetic anisotropy energy, Hk1, the second magnetic layer has a second magnetic anisotropy energy, Hk2, and the third magnetic layer has a third magnetic anisotropy energy, Hk3. In some embodiments, Hk1−Hk2 is less than Hk2−Hk3. In some embodiments, the apparatus may be a perpendicular magnetic recording medium.
US09142236B1
A recording head unit is described that can use a pulsed drive signal. The head unit can include a recording head to interact with a storage media, an actuator connected to the recording head and configured to move the recording head relative to the storage media, and control circuitry to send a control signal to the actuator, wherein the control circuitry includes a pulse driven switching circuitry to control current flow to the actuator. An H-bridge can be used to drive the actuator and move the read head.
US09142235B1
A disk drive is disclosed comprising a disk having a plurality of tracks, a head, and a voice coil motor (VCM) and a microactuator for actuating the head over the disk in response to a feed-forward compensation value. A sinusoidal disturbance is applied to the microactuator, and the resulting feed-forward compensation value is processed to characterize the microactuator.
US09142233B1
A heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) write transducer has an air-bearing surface (ABS) configured to reside in proximity to a media during use and is coupled with a laser that provides energy. The HAMR transducer includes a main pole, at least one additional pole adjacent to the main pole in a down track direction, a waveguide and at least one coil for energizing the main pole. The main pole is configured to write to a region of the media and is recessed from the ABS by a first distance. The additional pole(s) are recessed from the ABS by a second distance greater than the first distance. The waveguide is optically coupled with the laser and directs a portion of the energy toward the ABS at an acute angle from the ABS. A portion of the waveguide resides between the additional pole(s) and the ABS.
US09142230B2
A device including a magnetic transducer; top and bottom magnetic shields, wherein the top and bottom magnetic shields are adjacent the magnetic transducer on opposite surfaces thereof; a heating element configured to provide heating along a heating path towards the first and second magnetic shields; and a low thermal conductivity structure, wherein at least a portion of the low thermal conductivity structure is positioned along the heating path between the heating element and the magnetic transducer.
US09142217B2
A system for facilitating free form dictation, including directed dictation and constrained recognition and/or structured transcription among users having heterogeneous protocols for generating, transcribing, and exchanging recognized and transcribed speech. The system includes a system transaction manager having a “system protocol,” to receive a speech information request from an authorized user. The speech information request is generated using a user interface capable of bi-directional communication with the system transaction manager and supporting dictation applications. A speech recognition and/or transcription engine (ASR), in communication with the system transaction manager, receives the speech information request, generates a transcribed response, and transmits the response to the system transaction manager. The system transaction manager routes the response to one or more of the users. In another embodiment, the system employs a virtual sound driver for streaming free form dictation to any ASR.
US09142202B2
An electronic percussion pad includes a pad layer and a holding layer that holds this pad layer from a back surface thereof, in which the pad layer is formed of polyurethane foam laminated on a front surface of the holding layer. This pad layer is directly bonded to the holding layer by allowing a polyurethane foam composition, which is supplied to one surface of the holding layer, to foam and be cured.
US09142199B1
A length-adjustable strap has two plies joined together to form a channel therebetween. The channel generally does not extend the entire length of the strap. At least one extender slidably engages in the channel. The extender may have holes therethrough or recesses that engage elements of one or more fasteners at or near the proximal end of the strap in an adjustment region outside of the channel. Mating screws are joined to the fastener(s) to secure the extender in place. Optionally, the fastener(s) and mating screws are replaced by a tie that threads through holes formed through the first ply and optionally the second ply as well as the hole(s) formed through the extender to secure the extender in place. Multiple fastening connections more evenly distribute the load.
US09142193B2
Some embodiments implement a linear switching application that provides functionality for switching between different windows based on an x-axis ordering of the windows instead of the z-axis or other ordering of prior art. The linear switching application identifies an array of currently open windows and sorts the array based on the leftmost x-coordinate position of the windows in the array. Optionally, the linear switching application modifies the GUI to display window identifiers based on the leftmost x-coordinate position of each window to orient the user to the x-coordinate position of each of the windows on-screen. The application determines an index in the current x-sorted array for the window that is currently frontmost and changes the frontmost window based on the current frontmost window and a directional input provided by the user.
US09142188B2
A method including selecting a luminance setting for at least a portion of a display from a plurality of luminance settings; controlling the insertion of blank fields with respect to frames of data displayed on the display for the selected luminance setting at a duty ratio, at least some of the luminance settings having an associated range of duty ratios for reducing flicker and/or blur perceived by a user.
US09142185B2
A machine-implemented method includes obtaining input data and generating output data. The status of at least one contextual factor is determined and compared with a standard. If the status meets the standard, a transformation is applied to the output data. The output data is then outputted to the viewer. Through design and/or selection of contextual factors, standards, and transformations, output data may be selectively outputted to viewers in a context-suitable fashion, e.g. on a head mounted display the viewer's central vision may be left unobstructed while the viewer walks, drives, etc. An apparatus includes at least one sensor that senses a contextual factor. A processor determines the status of the contextual factor, determines if the status meets a standard, generates output data, and applies a transformation to the output data if the status meets the standard. A display outputs the output data to the viewer.
US09142172B2
An operation of floating charged particles and an operation of dispersing charged particles in a liquid crystal layer are controlled by determining strengths of electric fields to be applied to a liquid crystal element in accordance with a length of elapsed time from a point turning on the liquid crystal display device.
US09142169B2
A digital to analog converter for a source driver chip of a liquid crystal display device is disclosed. The digital to analog converter comprises an output terminal for outputting an output voltage, a plurality of receiving terminals for receiving a plurality of Gamma voltages, and a plurality of transmission paths comprising a plurality of first-type transistors coupled between the plurality of receiving terminals and the output terminal, respectively, for outputting one of the plurality of Gamma voltages as the output voltage according to a digital select signal; wherein a first transmission path corresponding to a first receiving terminal receiving a first Gamma voltage closest to a middle voltage among the plurality of Gamma voltages has lower on-resistance than other transmission paths among the plurality of transmission paths when a same source-to-gate voltage is applied.
US09142168B2
The present invention discloses a driving device of a display device. The driving device comprises a gamma voltage generator, for generating a gamma voltage according to a control signal to a source driver of the display device, and a logic unit, for generating the control signal to the gamma voltage generator according to a difference among image properties of a plurality of frames to be displayed, to adjust the gamma voltage.
US09142162B2
A flexible display apparatus includes a substrate that is flexible and is foldable according to an intention of a user, the substrate including a display area, wherein a size of the substrate is variable according to a folding thereof, a deformation sensing unit that is in an overlapping relationship with the display area and that senses deformation of the substrate, a control unit obtaining information from the deformation sensing unit, and a resolution adjusting unit that is controlled by the control unit and adjusts a resolution of an image displayed on the display area.
US09142161B2
In a display apparatus, selection signals are supplied sequentially to scanning lines in each subframe period including a frame period for performing a display scan to write display data to a plurality of data lines into pixel circuits in a first interval of a selection period. Selection signals are also supplied sequentially to scanning lines in at least two successive subframe periods including a frame period for performing an erase scan to write erase data to the plurality of data lines into pixel circuits in a second interval of the selection period. There is an overlapping period between two erase scan periods in the at least two successive subframe periods. During the overlapping periods, selection signals for performing the display scan and erase scan are supplied simultaneously to the scanning lines.
US09142151B2
Described are robotic signs comprising: a sign post; an arm movably attached to the sign post, the arm having a positioning apparatus configured to allow the arm to rotate independently and contiguously around the sign post, the arm having at least one face comprising an electronic display configured to present display items; and a communication element configured to receive display item information from a remote administration application, the display item information comprising a direction and a description; wherein upon presenting a display item, an arm rotates to indicate the direction and displays the description. Also described are software applications for configuring the robotic signs, networks of the robotic signs, and advertising systems utilizing the robotic signs.
US09142150B2
A sign holder assembly includes a support member and a cover member. The support member includes a substantially planar panel and a plurality of rails. The panel extends between a first end and a second end and between a top edge and a bottom edge and has a front surface and a rear surface. The plurality of rails rearwardly extend from the rear surface of the panel and are spaced vertically from one another to define at least two reception tracks each extending between two adjacent ones of the plurality of rails. The cover member is substantially transparent and has a bottom longitudinal edge and a top longitudinal edge. The cover member is angled from the bottom longitudinal edge toward the front surface of the support member such that the sign holder assembly is configured to maintain a sign between the cover member and the front surface of the panel.
US09142148B2
The disclosure is directed to a reminder label, specifically to a thermoplastic adjustable reminder label that is configured to indicate removal of content from a bottle to which the thermoplastic reminder label is coupled. The label has a flanged thermoplastic knob extending above a rectangular flange with a longitudinal axis and a transverse axis perpendicular to the longitudinal axis. A pair of resilient units is coupled to the flange along transverse sides and extends beyond the transverse sides. Each resilient member terminates in protrusions to engage parallel grooves etched internally in each of longitudinal parallel walls (101, 102) of a housing (130). A flap (110) is hingedly coupled to a housing base frame (140) to frictionally engage the housing and form a floor.
US09142139B2
An exercise system stimulates the learning and memory of a user by detecting a stress level of the user with one or more biometric sensor devices, determining that the user's stress level is within a stress zone that is suitable for memory retention by the user, and presenting educational content to the user at one or more output devices.
US09142129B2
A virtual-screen setup unit sets up a virtual screen in a seam of images captured by an image capturing unit, the virtual screen being orthogonal to a road surface and extending in a direction from a near side to a far side of the vehicle. A virtual-screen projection image generation unit performs conversion of the images captured by the image capturing unit for projection onto the virtual screen, and thereby generates a virtual-screen projection image. The virtual-screen projection image is displayed on the image display unit.
US09142124B2
Disclosed is a vehicle-mounted communication device that carries out radio communications with a communication device for pedestrians which is carried by a pedestrian, the vehicle-mounted communication device including: a receiver that receives pedestrian information showing whether the pedestrian belongs to a pedestrian group formed of the pedestrian and a plurality of pedestrians in the vicinity of the pedestrian from the communication device for pedestrians; a controller that judges the pedestrian information received by the receiver and issues a command to present pedestrian attention information when the pedestrian information shows that the pedestrian does not belong to a pedestrian group; and an information outputter that presents the pedestrian attention information according to the command from the controller. Therefore, the vehicle-mounted communication device enables the driver to certainly recognize the existence of a pedestrian not belonging to a pedestrian group.
US09142123B2
A transmitter for remote control, the transmitter includes a first analog-to-digital converter (ADC) configured to receive a first audio signal from a electronic device and convert the first audio signal to a first direct-current (DC) signal, a first boost circuit electrically connected to the first ADC to receive and amplify the first DC signal, and a transmission module electrically connected to the first boost circuit to receive the amplified first DC signal, wherein the amplified first DC signal is configured to modulate a carrier signal generated by the transmission module and the first audio signal is one of a left channel audio signal and a right channel audio signal output from the electronic device through an audio connector.
US09142122B2
A mobile device includes a position sensing unit, a remote control information obtainment unit, and a storage unit. Position information obtained by the position sensing unit is stored in the storage unit in association with remote control information. The mobile device further includes a directional space obtainment unit and an apparatus specification unit. The mobile device recognizes a direction pointed by a user using the mobile device, and enables operation of a terminal apparatus existing in the pointing direction.
US09142121B2
An apparatus and method for processing an information processing request in a mobile device. In one embodiment, the method includes: receiving an information processing request message; collecting at least one type of environmental state information associated with the mobile device if the information processing request message is not processed by the mobile device within a predetermined time; generating prompt information according to the collected environmental state information, wherein the prompting information is used to prompt a user to process the unprocessed information processing request message. Therefore, a user can timely perceive the information processing request message that has been received but not processed by the mobile device in time, thus effectively increasing the usability of the mobile device.
US09142120B2
Signals from a remote control device may be received in a first viewing area and retransmitted to a second viewing area to control customer premises equipment (CPE) devices in the second viewing area. In some embodiments, signals are translated for compatibility with the CPE devices in the second viewing area. A repeater in the first viewing area may receive infrared signals encoded with a remote control command and retransmit the remote control command with an RF signal to a receiver in the second viewing area. The repeater may be incorporated into a multimedia processing resource such as a set-top box.
US09142110B2
A panic device operable in conjunction with a local device is configured to unlock a locking mechanism. The panic device can take the form of an electronic key fob, a key shaft, or a key holder. A first trigger on the panic device triggers a local alarm that is on-board or off-board the panic device. A second trigger on the panic device can activate an alarm circuitry that utilizes a local device to provide position information to a distant dispatch station. The local device uses a GPS-aware circuitry or other non-GPS means such as triangulation to determine the position information. The position information can then be sent to the distant dispatch station with or without the aid of the local device.
US09142100B2
A gaming machine and method are provided which provide a video slot game to a player. The video slot game includes a plurality of cells arranged in a grid. The grid has a plurality of rows and columns. The machine and method display a first instance of the video slot game and in response to occurrence of a triggering event, video slot game is split and second and third instances of the video slot game are displayed and played.
US09142090B1
A wagering game having a primary game and a secondary game. In one embodiment, an intermediate game outcome for the primary game is first determined. The intermediate game outcome provides the player with an indication of the probability of receiving a winning primary game outcome. The player may then use this indication for determining whether to play the secondary game. The optional secondary game, if won, modifies the play of the primary game to the advantage of the player. Consequently, the intermediate game outcome is resolved to determine the primary game outcome in accordance with the modified primary game. If the secondary game outcome is lost, the immediate game outcome is resolved to determine the primary game outcome without modifying the primary game.
US09142088B2
A gaming system and methods provide a plurality of gaming devices configured to operate a multiple-player bonus or secondary game. Each gaming device of the gaming system generates targets upon occurrences of target-generation events. Each gaming device also generates collectors upon occurrences of collector-generating events. The collectors may be used in conjunction with the aforementioned targets to obtain awards in a bonus sequence as described. Upon the occurrence of a redemption event at one of the plurality of gaming devices, the gaming device provides all players playing at one of the gaming devices in the gaming system the opportunity to redeem all accumulated collectors and targets in a bonus sequence. In the bonus sequence, the gaming system determines any awards associated with the redemption of accumulated collectors and targets and provides them to the players.
US09142077B2
According to one embodiment, a sheet processing apparatus includes a feeding unit including a support surface inclined with respect to a vertical direction and a stacking surface substantially perpendicular to the support surface, a plurality of paper sheets being stacked on the stacking surface in such a manner that the paper sheets are inclined along the support surface, a pick up mechanism configured to pick up the paper sheets from a side of the stacking surface of the feeding unit, a conveying path configured to convey the picked up paper sheets, an inspection device configured to inspect the conveyed paper sheet, and an accumulation unit configured to accumulate the inspected paper sheets.
US09142076B2
The present invention relates to a medium storage box. The medium storage box according to one aspect comprises: a medium depositing and withdrawing unit through which medium is deposited or withdrawn; a temporary medium stacker for temporarily stacking the medium deposited through the medium depositing and withdrawing unit; a medium storage unit for storing medium for withdrawal; a printing apparatus for printing one of the deposited medium and the medium for withdrawal; and a reversal unit for reversing the deposited medium when it is necessary to reverse the deposited medium.
US09142048B2
A system and method for placing cluster groupers in a visual display is provided. Groupers of document clusters are obtained. One of the groupers is placed into a center of a display. A further grouper is selected, and a size of the further grouper is determined. An angle for placement of the further grouper and a radius from the center of the display for placement of the further grouper are also determined based on the grouper size to minimize overlap with the placed grouper. The further grouper is positioned in the display in relation to the grouper based on the determined angle and radius.
US09142039B2
A method for improving a speed of rasterizing transparent images, comprising determining, from P graphic entity objects on a transparent page, M transparent images and N nontransparent images. Each of the N nontransparent images includes an intersecting area with one of the M transparent images, P is an integer larger than 0, M is an integer larger than 0 and smaller than or equal to P, N is an integer larger than or equal to 0 and smaller than P, and P=M+N. The method also comprises determining a page-level transparent area and a page-level de-transparentizing area of the P graphic entity objects. Contributions of the transparent images and the nontransparent images to the page-level transparent area and the page-level de-transparentizing area are calculated using different methods. The methods further comprises assembling the M transparent images according to the page-level transparent area and the page-level de-transparentizing area.
US09142034B2
Techniques described herein determine a center of mass state vector based on a body model. The body model may be formed by analyzing a depth image of a user who is performing some motion. The center of mass state vector may include, for example, center-of-mass position, center-of-mass velocity, center-of-mass acceleration, orientation, angular velocity, angular acceleration, inertia tensor, and angular momentum. A center of mass state vector may be determined for an individual body part or for the body as a whole. The center of mass state vector(s) may be used to analyze the user's motion.
US09142022B2
Embodiments relate to tracking a pose of a 3D object. In embodiments, a 3D computer model, consisting of geometry and joints, matching the 3D real-world object may be used for the tracking process. Processing the 3D model may be done using collision constraints generated from interpenetrating geometry detected in the 3D model, and by angular motion constraints generated by the joints describing the connections between pieces/segments/bones of the model. The depth data in its 3D (point cloud) form, supplied by a depth camera, may be used to create additional constraints on the surface of the 3D model thus limiting its motion. Combined together, all the constraints, using linear equation processing, may be satisfied to determine a plausible pose of the 3D model that matches the real-world pose of the object in front of the 3D camera.
US09142015B2
The present invention relates to visualizing information of an object. In order to provide spatial information and in addition situation specific data to the user while ensuring an effective perceptibility, a method (110) is provided comprising the steps of: a) providing (112) pre-navigation data (114) of a region of interest of an object (22); wherein the pre-navigation data comprises spatial geometrical data (116) and a functional parameter surface (118) in correspondence to the spatial geometrical data; b) acquiring (120) live image data (122) of the region of interest; c) detecting (124) an element (126) in the live image data; d) determining (128) spatial relation (130) of the pre-navigation data and the live image data; e) determining (132) the position (134) of the detected element in the spatial geometrical data, which determining is based on the spatial relation, and computing (136) a predetermined related point of location (138) on the functional parameter surface; f) generating (140) a combination (142) of a simplified surface representation (144) of the region of interest, which simplified surface representation is based on a visualization of the functional parameter surface, and a marker (146) indicating the computed predetermined related point of location; and g) displaying (148) the combination as navigation guidance (150).
US09142009B2
Techniques for sharpening an image using local spatial adaptation and/or patch-based image processing. An image can be sharpened by creating a high-frequency image and then combining that high frequency image with the image. This process can be applied iteratively by using the output of one iteration, i.e., the sharpened image, as the input to the next iteration. Using local spatial adaptation and/or patch-based techniques can provide various advantages. How to change the intensity at a given position in the image can be calculated from more than just information about that same position in the input image and the blurred image. By using information about neighboring positions an improved high frequency image can be determined that, when combined with the input image, reduces ringing and halo artifacts, suppresses noise boosting, and/or generates results with sharper and cleaner edges and details.
US09142008B2
Motion blur rasterization may involve executing a first test for each plane of a tile frustum. The first test is a frustum plane versus moving bounding box overlap test where planes bounding a moving primitive are overlap tested against a screen tile frustum. According to a second test executed after the first test, for primitive edges against tile corners, the second test is a tile corner versus moving edge overlap test. The corners of the screen space tile are tested against a moving triangle edge in two-dimensional homogeneous space.
US09142004B2
Methods, techniques, and systems for dynamically allocating graphics processing units among virtual machines are provided. Example embodiments provide a dynamic GPU allocation system (“DGAS”), which enables the efficient allocation of physical GPU resources to one or more virtual machines. In one embodiment, the DGAS comprises virtualization logic running on a server computing system that computes GPU benefit factors for the virtual machines on a dynamic basis, and combines the computed GBFs with static priorities to determine a ranked ordering of virtual machines. The available GPU resources are then allocated to some subset of these ranked virtual machines as physical GPU capacity is matched with the requirements of the subset. Physical GPU resources are then allocated to the subset of virtual machines that have the highest promise of GPU utilization.
US09142000B2
A content recognition system operates in conjunction with a media hosting service to identify hosted media content and ownership rights associated with the hosted content. By applying melody recognition, the content recognition system can identify compositions embodied in hosted media content even when these compositions do not precisely match any known sound recording. Thus, the content recognition system is beneficially able to detect, for example, recorded cover performances and recorded live performances embodied in hosted media content. Once identified, ownership information is determined and the media hosting service can carry out appropriate rights management policies associated with the content such as monetizing or blocking the protected content.
US09141996B2
A system and method may create auto insurance quotes using data collected from a device that tracks vehicle usage data and other data. Usage data may be tracked by an On Board Diagnostic (OBD) device or other portable computing device such as a smart phone. Based on a received coverage type, the usage data and other data may be analyzed to determine auto insurance quotes. A potential customer may then purchase an auto insurance policy. Once the purchased policy has been determined to have expired, new usage data will be collected, and new quotes will be created for the customer.
US09141986B1
A mobile messaging data management service is disclosed. Using a computing device, a merchant or other user of the service may transmit an operation to be run on data in a data store to an interactive computing system. In some embodiments, the operation is transmitted as part of a short messaging service (SMS) message. The interactive computing system may process the operation, and return the results to the computing device from which the message was received. The data management service may also enable a merchant or other user to specify one or more custom operations for future use.
US09141980B2
Content in digital form like pictures, music files, videos, software etc. from a plurality of content providers (110) is sold to a plurality of users (130) over a communication network like the internet. The content provider submits to a service provider (100) information about the content to be sold and the service provider provides controlled user access to the content for sale under the conditions defined by the information submitted by the content provider. Purchase data about sold items are stored and the user authentification and payment process for all content providers is carried out centrally through a payment system (120) thus offering low transaction costs.
US09141974B2
Systems, apparatus, and methods are disclosed for accurately identifying a mobile thing (MT), a mobile thing motion activity (MTMA) associated with the MT, or both, using sensor data from one or more sensors, such as an accelerometer, gyroscope, etc., associated with a wireless communication device (WCD) transported by the MT, so as to enable or initiate a further one or more intelligent MT-identity-based and/or MTMA-based actions.
US09141960B2
A method and system for generating by a server, a recommendation for a venue or an event of interest proximally located to an inferred current location of a user of a portable media player devise. In an embodiment, a server may determine one or more media preferences for a user based at least in part on media stored on or accessed using the portable media player devise of the user. The server may generate information related to the current location or a recommendation for a venue or an event of interest to the user based at least in part on the one or more media preferences and the inferred current location of the user. Once generated, the server then may communicate the recommendation (or the information) to the user, e.g. the portable media player devise. Other embodiments may also be described and claimed.
US09141945B2
Methods and systems for enabling and performing secured, single action payments from a mobile device are disclosed. One method includes receiving user credentials at an application installed on a mobile device, and transmitting the user credentials from the mobile device to a server alongside a device identifier. The method includes receiving data at least partially defining encrypted personal payment information and saving the encrypted personal payment information in a memory of the mobile device in association with the application. At least prior to receiving a user request to make a payment via the application, the mobile device lacks a decryption key capable of decrypting the encrypted personal payment information.
US09141941B2
A computer determines whether destination information is included in permission target information. The destination information indicates a destination to which a file stored in a storage device is transferred. The permission target information includes information indicating a target permitted to access the file. The computer prompts before the file is transferred, upon determining that the destination information is not included in the permission target information, a user to input whether to permit the transfer. The computer adds the destination information to the permission target information upon receiving, via an input device, a permission input for permitting the transfer. The computer transfers the file upon receiving the permission input.
US09141940B2
Intention data is used to determine an intent of a sender of a message, or other participant, in an electronic communication system such as an email system. For example, a message that is designated for sending can be compared to the sender's intention data and if a discrepancy or deficiency is detected between the sender's determined intent and the actual message then an action is taken such as providing an alert to the sender or to another person, process or device; requiring an action by the sender such as confirming the message, making an edit, checking information, etc.
US09141937B2
Complex collaboration or decision support applications perform complex design or planning tasks, often with the input of large groups of people over long periods of time. The combination of time and complexity can often obscure past actions, making it difficult to remember the factors that influenced earlier stages in the planning task. This is especially true if the task involves many people and different people work at different times. The application state navigation system provides an application-independent mechanism that allows operators to walk back through the history of the application in order to better understand (or remember) the application actions that were taken in the past and the triggers for those actions.
US09141933B2
Methods and systems for generating personalized reports are disclosed. In some embodiments, a report generating application or service facilitates generating reports that can be personalized on a per-user and per-report basis. Accordingly, after personalizing a report to include only those columns desired, and formatting the report to have the columns appear in a desired order, the report generating application or service enables a user to save the personalization preferences to a file. Upon receiving a subsequent report request from the same user, the report generating application or service automatically generates the report in accordance with the user's saved personalization preferences. In addition to personalizing the report by specifying the particular columns and format, a user may establish, and save for later use, other report parameters (e.g., such as a date range) that are required in order to generate the report.
US09141927B2
Techniques are disclosed for modeling costs when editing a workflow process model. A request may be received to assign a cost factor to a workflow process step of the workflow process model. Responsive to the request, the cost factor may be assigned to the workflow process step, such that a traversal of the workflow process step by a transaction invoking the workflow process model results in the cost factor being included in a total cost to be charged for executing the transaction.
US09141924B2
A processor-implemented method, system, and/or computer program product generates a recommendation for a worker to be included in a project team. A requisite skill set that is not presently needed, but will be needed in the future, by a project team is determined. Historical data that describe antecedent conditions, which caused a historical worker to obtain the requisite skill set, is received. A candidate worker's current skill set data is adjusted with skill set enhancers, which are available to members of the project team, to generate a predicted future skill set of the candidate worker. In response to the needed requisite skill set matching the predicted future skill set of the candidate worker, a recommendation is generated for adding that candidate worker to the project team.
US09141916B1
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for using embedded function with a deep network. One of the methods includes receiving an input comprising a plurality of features, wherein each of the features is of a different feature type; processing each of the features using a respective embedding function to generate one or more numeric values, wherein each of the embedding functions operates independently of each other embedding function, and wherein each of the embedding functions is used for features of a respective feature type; processing the numeric values using a deep network to generate a first alternative representation of the input, wherein the deep network is a machine learning model composed of a plurality of levels of non-linear operations; and processing the first alternative representation of the input using a logistic regression classifier to predict a label for the input.
US09141906B2
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for scoring concept terms using a deep network. One of the methods includes receiving an input comprising a plurality of features of a resource, wherein each feature is a value of a respective attribute of the resource; processing each of the features using a respective embedding function to generate one or more numeric values; processing the numeric values to generate an alternative representation of the features of the resource, wherein processing the floating point values comprises applying one or more non-linear transformations to the floating point values; and processing the alternative representation of the input to generate a respective relevance score for each concept term in a pre-determined set of concept terms, wherein each of the respective relevance scores measures a predicted relevance of the corresponding concept term to the resource.
US09141905B2
A card-type information recording medium having an embedded antenna for NFC communication is provided. The card-type information recording medium includes: a PCB that has a loop antenna pattern and a routing pattern formed on the top surface and the bottom surface thereof through the use of an etching process; an NFC communication unit and a USIM card unit that are horizontally mounted on the top of the PCB; and a molding material that is formed on the top of the PCB to cover the NFC communication unit and the USIM card unit. Accordingly, it is possible to perform functions of NFC and RFID read/tag by only mounting a USIM device thereon without adding any module or any constituent having an antenna function to a mobile terminal.
US09141901B2
The present invention relates to a communication object comprising means for radiofrequency communication with a remote device, wherein said communication means are capable of establishing a first short-range communication and a second communication having a longer range than the first communication, said long range being enabled by Bluetooth or Wifi technology. The communication means use the same type of communication technology for the first and second communications. The invention also relates to a method for implementing the dual-range radiofrequency communication of the object.
US09141899B2
A method for marking an article with an identification pattern which may include information relating to the article and/or to the use thereof, the method including: defining an alphabet of a plurality of symbols; defining, for each symbol, at least two valid states and at least one invalid state; developing a reference pattern including a set of symbols from the alphabet; developing at least one representation of the reference pattern by allocating a specific valid state to each symbol of the reference pattern; and applying a marking, reproducing the representation of the reference pattern, onto the article.
US09141896B2
If the processing result of the job which has not been notified is stored in the memory when a state of the apparatus has transited from a state incapable of communication with the job management apparatus to a state capable of communication in accordance with a user instruction, the processing result is read out from the memory and is notified to the job management apparatus.
US09141887B2
A print request is received via network connection from a registered user. Content from the print request is rendered according to the registered user's rendering permissions. The rendered content is then provided to a device associated with the registered user.
US09141882B1
Methods, systems, and apparatuses, including computer programs encoded on computer-readable media, for tokenizing n-grams from a plurality of text units. A multi-dimensional array is created having a plurality of dimensions based upon the plurality of text units and the n-grams from the plurality of text units. The multi-dimensional array is normalized and the dimensionality of the multi-dimensional array is reduced. The reduced dimensionality multi-dimensional array is clustered to generate a plurality of clusters that each cluster includes one or more of the plurality of text units.
US09141881B2
A maximum hypersphere is created in the feature space according to support vectors, wherein the support vectors are one or more feature vectors in a feature space. A center of the created maximum hypersphere is calculated according to the support vector(s). A decision hyper sphere is created with the same center as the calculated center of the created maximum hypersphere. Feature vector(s) are classified within the decision hypersphere, as positive feature vector(s). False positive rate is kept to a predetermined level to provide effective object detection.
US09141878B2
Similar faces may be determined within images based on human perception of facial similarity. The user may provide an image including a query face to which the user wishes to find faces that are similar. Similar faces may be determined based on similarity information. Similarity information may be generated from information related to a human perception of facial similarity. Images that include faces determined to be similar, based on the similarity information, may be provided to the user as search result images. The user then may provide feedback to indicate the user's perception of similarity between the query face and the search result images.
US09141873B2
An information processing apparatus includes an input unit configured to input a plurality of images captured from a plurality of viewpoints, an extraction unit configured to extract a region of an object from each of the plurality of images, an acquisition unit configured to obtain a contour from the region of the object, a smoothing unit configured to perform smoothing of the contour based on a point group on the obtained contour, a correlation unit configured to correlate regions of the object extracted from respective ones of the plurality of images, and a calculation unit configured to calculate a position of the object based on information of regions correlated by the correlation unit and the point group obtained by the smoothing unit.
US09141866B2
A method for summarizing image content from video images received from a moving camera includes detecting foreground objects in the images, determining moving objects of interest from the foreground objects, tracking the moving objects, rating movements of the tracked objects, and generating a list of highly rated segments within the video images based on the ratings.
US09141865B2
The invention provides a method of using machine vision to recognize text and symbols, and more particularly traffic signs.
US09141862B2
The unattended surveillance device may include a housing to be positioned for unattended surveillance, a video camera associated with or carried by the housing to capture video, and an image processor carried by the housing and cooperating with the video camera. The image processor extracts moving objects in the foreground of the captured video, generates a profile image or sequence of profile images of the extracted moving objects, compresses the sequence of profile images, and generates a surveillance information packet based upon the compressed sequence of profile images. Also, a wireless transmitter or transceiver may be associated with the image processor to transmit the surveillance information packet to a surveillance monitoring station.
US09141857B2
There is provided an image processing device including an image quality configuring part configured to configure image quality on a per-recognizable scene of an image basis according to an instruction from a user, an image quality storage configured to store the image quality configured for each scene, an image recognition part configured to recognize a scene of an image to be acquired, and an image processing part configured to perform image processing on the image based on the image quality configured for the recognized scene by the image quality configuring part.
US09141848B2
In accordance with some embodiments, wireless devices may automatically form ad hoc networks to enable more efficient sharing of media between the devices and in some cases more efficient facial recognition of captured media. In some embodiments, automatic story development may be implemented at the local level without involving backend servers.
US09141846B2
An image processing device includes a memory; and a processor coupled to the memory and configured to: acquire, for each of different entrance positions, each of captured images generated by changing the luminance of pixels within a given distance from an entrance position indicating a location at which light is incident to a photographic subject, the pixels being in an image obtained by illuminating the photographic subject with the light from a light source and capturing the light reflected from the photographic subject, generate a composite image by adding together each of the captured images, and generate an output image by performing image restoration on the composite image by using a model having the shape of the reflected light.
US09141844B2
The system includes a 3D feature detection module and 3D recognition module 202. The 3D feature detection module processes 3D surface map of a biometric object, wherein the 3D surface map includes a plurality of 3D coordinates. The 3D feature detection module determines whether one or more types of 3D features are present in the 3D surface map and generates 3D feature data including 3D coordinates and feature type for the detected features. The 3D recognition module compares the 3D feature data with biometric data sets for identified persons. The 3D recognition module determines a match between the 3D feature data and one of the biometric data sets when a confidence value exceeds a threshold.
US09141843B2
A compact authentication device that prevents user from feeling pressure and is strong against external light, when capturing an image of a finger blood vessel pattern with transmitted light. The device includes a guidance part for determining the finger position, a light source disposed on at least one side of the guidance part to emit light to be transmitted though the finger, an image capture part for capturing the transmitted light, a shading unit for limiting an irradiation region of the light, a finger thickness measuring unit, a unit for controlling a light amount of the light source based on a result of the measurement, a unit for recording registered image patterns of the finger, a unit for collating a captured image pattern from the image capture part with the registered patterns, and a unit for controlling different processing according to the collation result.
US09141833B2
An aiming light assembly generates an aiming light spot with increased brightness and uniformity over a range of working distances in which targets are electro-optically read by image capture. The assembly includes a light emitting diode (LED) for emitting an aiming light beam, a field stop through which the aiming light beam passes, an aiming lens for optically modifying the aiming light beam passing through the field stop to form the aiming light spot over the range of working distances, and a field lens located in the vicinity of the field stop and operative for imaging the LED downstream of the field stop and in the vicinity of a lens aperture of the aiming lens.
US09141831B2
An electronic circuit (200) includes one or more programmable control-plane engines (410, 460) operable to process packet header information and form at least one command, one or more programmable data-plane engines (310, 320, 370) selectively operable for at least one of a plurality of cryptographic processes selectable in response to the at least one command, and a programmable host processor (100) coupled to such a data-plane engine (310) and such a control-plane engine (410). Other processors, circuits, devices and systems and processes for their operation and manufacture are disclosed.
US09141824B2
A system and methods to provide updates of an oblivious database that is based on an original database without compromising privacy guarantees, and without requiring a periodic downtime to re-initialize the database. According to embodiments of the present invention, update caches are provided at the random servers that are not emptied or sent to the oblivious database after every update in a predictable fashion. Instead, updates are made incrementally to the oblivious database in an order that is independent of how the original database is updated. Hence there is no way for the server to learn which record of the oblivious database corresponds to an updated block from the original database.
US09141810B2
A device supports the processing of multiple active applications in a processor through a mapping system that securely identifies and differentiates commands issued by clients. An entity selection signal is generated by the mapping system to signal the processor to process an algorithm and provide services for a specific client using the commands identified for that client and data permitted by a client tracking system for that client. Other data accesses and commands identified for other clients are restricted when processing the algorithm.
US09141787B2
A system and method for transforming a software application comprising binary code and optionally associated data, from an original form to a more secure form. The method includes performing a combination of binary transmutations to the application, and interlocking the transmutations by generating and placing interdependencies between the transmutations, wherein a transmutation is an irreversible change to the application. Different types of the transmutations are applied at varied granularities of the application. The transmutations are applied to the application code and the implanted code as well. The result is a transformed software application which is semantically equivalent to the original software application but is resistant to static and/or dynamic attacks.
US09141785B2
Techniques for tenant-bases storage security and service level assurances in a cloud environment are presented. A Tenant Storage Machine (TSM) for each tenant uses a unique identifier. The TSM is dynamically allocated with operating system resources to run processes based on agreed service level assurances. The service level assurances are stored in a Service Level Assurance (SLA) policy store. The TSM communicates with the SLA policy store via a TSM bus to acquire a SLA policy configured for the tenant and based on which resources are dynamically allocated. Processes running under the TSM run with root privileges to provide security.
US09141776B2
A Hardware Analysis Module (“HAM”) embedded in an integrated circuit (IC) implements a dedicated hardware-controlled access control procedure. The secure hardware analysis features are unlocked by a key unit subject to successful completion of an access control procedure. The access control procedure prevents unlocking of the secure hardware analysis features by an unauthorized or compromised key unit by including an embedded control command in an authentication challenge sent by the HAM to the key unit during the access control procedure.
US09141767B2
Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to software license management and provide a method, system and computer program product for authorizing customer managed software installation. In an embodiment of the invention, a method for authorizing customer managed software installation based on entitlement records can be provided. The method can include in response to a request to transfer a registered software product from an existing platform to a new platform, validating both an entitlement record and also a maintenance record for the registered software product and transferring the registered software product to the new platform only if both the entitlement record and the maintenance record validate.
US09141763B2
A method and system for patient-specific computational modeling and simulation for coupled hemodynamic analysis of cerebral vessels is disclosed. An anatomical model of a cerebral vessel is extracted from 3D medical image data. The anatomical model of the cerebral vessel includes an inner wall and an outer wall of the cerebral vessel. Blood flow in the cerebral vessel and deformation of the cerebral vessel wall are simulated using coupled computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational solid mechanics (CSM) simulations based on the anatomical model of the cerebral vessel.
US09141754B2
A method comprises generating a first set of configurations of a layout of semiconductor components. The configurations of the first set of configurations each satisfy a first sub-set of a set of design rules. The method also comprises generating a second set of configurations of the layout of semiconductor components. The second set of configurations are generated by eliminating one or more configurations of the first set of configurations based on a determination that the eliminated one or more configurations of the first set of configurations fail to satisfy a second sub-set of the set of design rules. The method further comprises selecting a layout generation configuration for generating the layout of semiconductor components. The method additionally comprises generating the layout of semiconductor components based on the selected layout generation configuration.
US09141752B2
A method includes accessing data representing a layout of a layer of an integrated circuit (IC) having a plurality of polygons defining circuit patterns to be divided among a number (N) of photomasks over a single layer of a semiconductor substrate, where N is greater than two. The method further includes inputting a conflict graph having a plurality of vertices, identifying a first and second vertex, each of which is connected to a third and fourth vertex where the third and fourth vertices are connected to a same edge of a conflict graph, and merging the first and second vertices to form a reduced graph. The method further includes detecting at least one or more vertex in the reduced having a conflict. In one aspect, the method resolves the detected conflict by performing one of pattern shifting, stitch inserting, or re-routing.
US09141750B2
A beam writing apparatus includes a unit to obtain a specific value by calculating an integer by dividing a total irradiation time by a multiplied value of a region number and a repeating times number, and by multiplying the integer by the repeating times number, to add the repeating times number to the specific value when a region is in the multiple writing unit regions and is not a specific region and when a region number of the multiple writing unit region, defined excluding the specific region, is below or equal to a value obtained by dividing the total irradiation time by the multiplied value of the region number and the repeating times number, to obtain a first remainder, and dividing the first remainder by the repeating times number, and to treat an added value of the repeating times number and the specific value, as a total irradiation time.
US09141747B1
Various embodiments of the present disclosure provide techniques for enabling a user to efficiently design a programmable logic device (PLD) capable of partial reconfiguration. In some implementations, a processor is configured to run a system level design tool and accepts, as inputs from a user, an identification of at least two personas to be used within a reconfigurable region of the PLD. The design tool defines one or more boundaries of a partial reconfig (PR) domain, the PR domain including a partitioned reconfigurable region of the PLD that is selectably configurable as any of the at least two personas. In some implementations, the PR domain includes at least one IP component configured to safely shut down at least one signal, the at least one signal originating from or directed toward an element of the PLD outside of the PR domain.
US09141735B2
The present disclosure provides systems for predicting semiconductor reliability. In an embodiment a method for predicting the semiconductor reliability includes receiving a degradation parameter input of a semiconductor device and using a degradation equation to determine a plurality of bias dependent slope values for degradation over a short time period according to the degradation parameter input. The plurality of slope values include at least two different slope values for degradation over time. The system accumulates the plurality of slope values and projects the accumulated slope values over a long time period to determine a stress effect for the semiconductor device.
US09141727B2
An information search device includes: a path field generating part that, for each node, generates a path field in which paths with the node as an origin are connected; an index generating part that, for each element configuring graph structure information, generates a posting list as a list of information composed of a node having a path field including the element and location information representing a location where the element appears in the path field, and generates an index repository in which the element and the posting list are associated; a search path generating part that generates a search path representing a search condition; and a searching part that extracts a node having a path field satisfying an appearance sequence of elements included in the search path based on the location information of the posting list.
US09141726B1
A system, method, and computer-readable media are provided for facilitating clinical decision making, and in particular, decision making based on a third party's clinical situation by determining and providing useful, up-to-date information, such as patient-related information to a decision maker. In one embodiment, a user first identifies an information item concerning a patient. Based on that item, a set of related information items is determined and prioritized, and a reference pointer, which identifies the set of related information, is generated. The reference pointer is communicated to the user's mobile device. Subsequently, the user's mobile device requests information from the set of information items associated with the reference pointer, and provides information authorization information. Following authentication of the user's credentials, updates of information from the set of information items is communicated to the user's mobile device as they become available.
US09141725B2
A method is disclosed for presenting static and dynamic data corresponding to an entity within an application on a mobile device. An entity object is created as part of a data model within the application such that the entity object has a plurality of fields with the plurality of fields having static data corresponding to the entity. Based on the static data corresponding to the entity, dynamic data corresponding to the entity is received into the entity object from at least one of a plurality of applications executable within the mobile device. The static and dynamic data from the entity object corresponding to the entity is displayed simultaneously within a user interface of the application in a single presentation view.
US09141720B2
The disclosed invention is a system and method (collectively the “system”) for the automated management of content on a network interface. The network interface can be a web site on the World Wide Web, an Internet location, an intranet location, an extranet location, or some other form of network interface (collectively “web site”). The system can automatically create applications and links to those applications without human intervention. Examples of automated applications include newsroom applications, calendar of events, employment opportunities, project portfolio, biographies, frequently asked questions, document library, category management, product catalogs, e-mail broadcasts, surveys, and newsletters. Fully normalized hierarchies of business rules and user profiles can be supported by the system to facilitate automation and configurability. Multiple content providers can manage a single web site in a simultaneous or substantially simultaneous manner. In ASP embodiments, multiple organizations can use the system to manage multiple web sites in a substantially simultaneous manner.
US09141713B1
A web page optimization engine for optimizing a web page is described. The web page optimization engine includes a keyword mapping engine configured to generate a keyword map including a listing of keywords, where each keyword is associated with one or more web pages. The web page optimization engine further includes a map reversal engine configured to generate a web page map including a listing of web page subject matters, where each web page subject matter is associated with one or more keywords based on the associations from the keyword map. The web page optimization engine yet further includes a web page generation engine configured to generate a web page for a web page subject matter in the web page map to include at least one of the one or more keywords for that web page subject matter.
US09141711B2
A request to navigate to a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) can be received within a cobrowsing session. The cobrowsing session can be associated with a unique session identifier of a cobrowsing application. The cobrowsing application can be part of a collaboration software. An annotation previously associated with the URI from a historic cobrowsing session can be retrieved. Content associated with the URI can be obtained and presented within an interface associated with the cobrowsing session. The annotation can be presented within the content associated with the URI of the interface.
US09141708B2
A real-time system receives a selection structure formed by weighted rules joined by links, each of the weighted rules including a condition part, a conclusion part and a weight. The selection structure is an Algebraic Decision Diagram (ADD) that includes internal nodes, each representing a decision point and terminal nodes, each representing a subset of candidate results having an accumulated weight. In response to a query that specifies a set of conditions, the ADD is traversed by making a series of decisions at decision points of the ADD to reach at least one terminal node having a maximum accumulated weight among terminal nodes that satisfy the set of conditions. The subset of candidate results represented by the at least one terminal node is selected as the output for responding to the query.
US09141705B2
A hardware and/or software facility facilitates search string entry and refinement on a mobile device. A user enters a search string on a mobile device via one or more input methods. The facility searches the user's device and/or one or more remote data areas and returns search results that match the entered search string. Search results include, for example, information, links, files, and other results that correspond to the search string. Before and/or after the search is performed, the facility applies one or more filters that produce refined search results. Filters may relate to location, category, synonyms, data type, social-network, and other groupings—including user-defined groupings—that may refine the search results. Filters may be applied automatically and/or in response to user selection of a filter.
US09141698B2
A semantic note taking system and method for collecting information, enriching the information, and/or binding the information to services is provided. User-created notes are enriched with labels, context traits, and relevant data to minimize friction in the note-taking process. In other words, the present invention is directed to collecting unscripted data, adding more meaning and use out of the data, and binding the data to services. Mutable and late-binding to services is also provided to allow private thoughts to be published to a myriad of different applications and services in a manner compatible with how thoughts are processed in the brain. User interfaces and semantic skins are also provided to derive meaning out of notes without requiring a great deal of user input. Linking physical objects to notes are also provided, such as through QR codes.
US09141694B2
Method and apparatus for transparent, steerable recommendations. A steerable recommender uses tag clouds including descriptive tags and associated weights to generate recommendations. Users may dynamically interact with the recommender via a user interface to steer the recommendations. A tag cloud for an item is displayed, items for which associated tag clouds are most similar to the displayed tag cloud are identified, and the items are displayed as recommendations. The strength of similarity of the items to the displayed tag cloud may be displayed. The user may modify a tag cloud, for example by changing the weight of a tag or by adding or removing a tag, and the recommendations may be automatically updated to reflect the modification. A recommended item may be selected to display the tag cloud corresponding to the item. A user may select a user interface element to request information on why a particular item was recommended.
US09141693B2
[Object] To lead a user to various types of information easily with an electronic book as a starting point. [Solving Means] A server apparatus includes a storage, a communication section, and a controller. The storage stores an electronic book obtained by digitizing a book having at least one page in which at least one information item is represented, and associated information that is associated with the information item. The communication section communicates with an external electronic apparatus. The controller generates, when the electronic book is displayed by the external electronic apparatus and the information item of the electronic book is designated, an electronic book unit by adding first metadata to the information item so that display processing of the associated information is executed on the external electronic apparatus, and controls the communication section to transmit the generated electronic book unit to the external electronic apparatus.
US09141680B2
An extract-transform-load (ETL) platform fetches consistent datasets in a batch for a given period of time and provides the ability to rollback that batch. The batch may be fetched for an interval of time, and the ETL platform may fetch new or changed data from different cloud/on-premise applications. It will store this data in the cloud or on-premise to build data history. As the ETL platform fetches new data, the system will not overwrite existing data, but rather will create new versions so that change history is preserved. For any reason, if businesses would like to rollback data, they could rollback to any previous batch.
US09141665B1
The present disclosure provides a system and methods for intelligently optimizing search system resource usage and performance using multiple data store technologies. A search query optimization system may utilize multiple query processors, such as a general search engine and one or more specialized data stores, to efficiently and intelligently manage and route queries. The search query optimization system may be configured to evaluate the performance of the various query processors for various types of queries, and may use this information to intelligently route search queries to the query processors best suited to service them.
US09141660B2
System, method, and computer program product to identify changes in evidence used to answer questions by a deep question answering system, by identifying a first evidence related to a feature, the deep question answering system having identified the feature as being relevant to answering a first type of question of a plurality of types of questions, and responsive to: (i) detecting a change in the first evidence, and (ii) determining that a confidence score of a first response generated for a first question, of the first type of question, exceeds a confidence threshold, generating an updated response for the first question based on the changed first evidence.
US09141633B1
Techniques for deduplicating a backup stream with ACL data embedded therein are described. According to one embodiment, a storage system receives a backup stream from a client, where the backup stream includes multiple data streams to be stored in the storage system. Each data stream represents a file or a directory of one or more files of a file system associated with the client. The storage system is to scan the backup stream to recognize an access control list (ACL) marker associated with at least one of the data streams, where the ACL marker identifies ACL data representing an ACL of the at least one data stream. The storage system is to chunk using a predetermined chunking algorithm the ACL data into a plurality of ACL data chunks to be stored in the storage system in a deduplicated manner.
US09141629B2
Methods and systems for providing related video files in a video file storage system are disclosed. One method includes identifying a plurality of video files within the video file storage system, wherein the plurality of video files each have a relationship with the first file, wherein the video file storage system provides a platform for storing and sharing videos, and each video file includes a video and associated information. The method further includes generating, by a system server, a list of inquiries based on the plurality of video files, providing, by the system server, the list of inquiries to at least one creator of the first file, receiving from the at least one creator at least one response to the list of inquiries, selecting a subset of the plurality of video files based on the at least one response, and storing information related to the selected subset of the plurality of video files for access if the first file is selected.
US09141628B1
A relationship model system automatically recognizes relationships among data in a local IT environment. Such data may be derived from multiple sources, such as multiple devices and/or software applications of different types. Such data are collected automatically, remotely, and transparently from the local IT environment. Relationships among the data are recognized automatically by correlating data from the multiple sources. Records of such relationships are stored remotely in a relationship model. The system may draw conclusions based on the recognized relationships and take actions in response to those conclusions.
US09141627B2
A method of providing a user access to data files distributed in a plurality of different types of user devices is described. According to the method, a copy of data files stored locally at each user device is received at a server via a respective network communication link. Index information is generated based on the received data files. The index information facilitates performing a search operation using user-provided search information to select any of the data files. If a selected data file from the search operation is not stored locally at a desired user device, a copy of the selected data file is sent from the server via the respective network communication link to provide the user access to the selected data file at the desired user device.
US09141622B1
Techniques of creating a classifier model for a multi-class linear classifier are disclosed. The classifier model includes feature weights for each of a plurality of feature and label combinations. One technique includes selecting an update set of feature weights to be updated from the classifier model, determining an update for each of the feature weights in the selected update set using a processor, a plurality of the updated determined independently of all other updates and determined based on a largest reduction in an output of a loss function, modifying each of the updates using a step size, and updating the classifier model feature weights using the modified, determined updates.
US09141621B2
A plurality of differential data stores are stored in persistent storage media. In response to receiving a first request to store a particular data object, one of the differential data stores that are stored in the persistent storage media is selected, wherein selecting the one differential data store is according to a criterion relating to compression of data objects in the differential data stores. The selected differential data store is copied into temporary storage media, where the copying is not delayed after receiving the first request to await receipt of more requests. The particular data object is inserted into the copy of the selected differential data store in the temporary storage media, where the inserting is performed without having to retrieve more data from the selected differential store in the persistent storage media. The selected differential data store in the persistent storage media is replaced with the copy of the selected differential data store in the temporary storage media that has been modified.
US09141608B2
A data validation system and method for a fully or partially automated docket management solution. The system may require single-user double entry and/or double user data re-entry for validation and confirmation of data content. Un-validated/un-confirmed data may be quarantined or otherwise hidden from part or all of the rest of the docket management system.
US09141606B2
Systems and methods for multi-engine machine translations are disclosed. Exemplary methods and systems involve normalizing and/or tokenizing a source string using user-specific translation data. The user-specific translation data may include glossary data, translation memory data, and rule data for use in customizing translations and sequestering sensitive data during the translation process. The disclosed methods and systems also involve using one or more machine translation engines to obtain a translation of the normalized and/or tokenized source string.
US09141602B2
An improved handheld electronic device and associated method enable spell checking in a reduced keyboard and disambiguation environment. The improved spell checking routine converts a misspelled word into a canonical version thereof and receives from a dictionary 42 proposed letter for possible acceptance by the spell checking routine. The spell checking routine advantageously maintains states of various spell check algorithms in order to ensure that no letter is accepted that would require an edit distance of more than one from the misspelled word. The improved spell checking routine advantageously reduces unnecessary processor operation by reducing the extent to which certain portions of the dictionary 42 are searched multiple times during a spell checking operation.
US09141595B2
Techniques for contextual commenting on the web are disclosed. In some embodiments, contextual commenting on the web includes receiving a content selection for a comment within a corpus of content; determining a contextual based location within the corpus of content to map the contextual comment to a subset of content with the corpus of content; and storing the comment and the contextual based location within the corpus of content for the comment.
US09141594B2
A system redacts content in a multi-layered document by executing a content modifier process that redacts a first portion of content in a source layer and then automatically redacts related content in at least one target layer. The content modifier process overlays the source redaction region on corresponding areas of other layers in the document to identify target redaction regions in those other layers that contain target content. In turn, the content modifier process automatically identifies and redacts the target content within target redaction regions.
US09141586B2
A mechanism for performing single-path floating-point rounding in a floating point unit is disclosed. A system of the disclosure includes a memory and a processing device communicably coupled to the memory. In one embodiment, the processing device comprises a floating point unit (FPU) to generate a plurality of status flags for a rounded value of a finite nonzero number. The plurality of status flags are generated based on the finite nonzero number without calculating the rounded value of the finite nonzero number. The plurality of status flags comprises an overflow flag and an underflow flag. The FPU determines whether a rounded value should be calculated for the finite nonzero number based on the plurality of status flags and whether the overflow flag is asserted. Upon determining that the rounded value should be calculated for the finite nonzero number based on the plurality of status flags and that the overflow flag is asserted, the FPU calculates the rounded value of the finite nonzero number based on an overflow rounding. Upon determining that the rounded value should be calculated for the finite nonzero number based on the plurality of status flags and that the overflow flag is not asserted, the FPU calculates the rounded value of the finite nonzero number based on a blended reduced precision rounding.
US09141584B2
A vehicle's dynamic handling state, driver inputs to the vehicle, etc. may be examined to determine one or more measures of driver workload. Driver interface tasks may then be delayed and/or prevented from executing based on the driver workload so as to not increase the driver workload. Alternatively, driver interface tasks may be scheduled for execution based on the driver workload and caused to execute according to the schedule, for example, to minimize the impact the executing driver interface tasks have on driver workload.
US09141579B2
An apparatus and method for routing data among multicores that is capable of reconfiguring the connection among the multicores are provided. The apparatus includes a configuration information generating unit and at least one switching unit. The configuration information generating unit is configured to generate configuration information that indicates a local network connection among the multicores based on a program counter received from each of the multicores. The at least one switching unit is configured to change a data transfer path among the multicores based on the configuration information.
US09141577B2
In one embodiment, a converged protocol stack can be used to unify communications from a first communication protocol to a second communication protocol to provide for data transfer across a physical interconnect. This stack can be incorporated in an apparatus that includes a protocol stack for a first communication protocol including transaction and link layers, and a physical (PHY) unit coupled to the protocol stack to provide communication between the apparatus and a device coupled to the apparatus via a physical link. This PHY unit may include a physical unit circuit according to the second communication protocol. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US09141576B2
A device including a first integrated circuit (IC), a second IC configured to provide instructions to the first IC based on received data, wherein the first IC is a high-voltage IC and the second IC is a low-voltage IC, and a communication interface between the first and second ICs including a data bus of parallel data lines. The second IC is configured to select, based on the received data, one of a plurality of different communication modes for providing the instructions to the first IC via the communication interface, wherein each mode is defined by a quantity of address data and a quantity of configuration data used to provide the instructions to the first IC.
US09141567B2
A configurable device interface enhances the ability of a processor to communicate with other devices. A configurable serial interface promotes efficient data transmission and reception. The configurable serial interface includes a source of transmit data that the configurable serial interface may access even while data reception is simultaneously completing.
US09141563B2
According to one embodiment, a command processing device includes a frontend part and a backend part. The frontend part is configured to execute a data communication with respect to a host based on a predetermined communication protocol, and accept a request of an execution of first and second commands from the backend part. The backend part is configured to queue commands including the first and second commands, and execute a data communication according to the first command with respect to an attachment device and a data communication according to the second command with respect to the attachment device in parallel.
US09141557B2
A dynamic random access memory (DRAM) comprising a programmable intelligent search memory (PRISM) for regular expression search using non-deterministic finite state automaton and further comprising a cryptography processing engine for performing encryption and decryption, said PRISM and cryptography processing engines creating a secure DRAM for use in a system.
US09141552B2
A method for minimizing soft error rates within caches by configuring a cache with a certain way which is more resistant to soft errors and then using this way to store modified data. In certain embodiments, the memory is made more soft error resistant by increasing a voltage across bitcells of the cache.
US09141551B2
Embodiments relate to a method and computer program product for prefetching data on a chip having at least one scout core and a parent core. The method includes saving a prefetch code start address by the parent core. The prefetch code start address indicates where a prefetch code is stored. The prefetch code is specifically configured for monitoring the parent core based on a specific application being executed by the parent core. The method includes sending a broadcast interrupt signal by the parent core to the at least one scout core. The broadcast interrupt signal being sent based on the prefetch code start address being saved. The method includes monitoring the parent core by the prefetch code executed by at least one scout core. The scout core executes the prefetch code based on receiving the broadcast interrupt signal.
