US09265248B2

The present invention provides for antimicrobial compositions, methods of preparing the antimicrobial compositions, methods of using the antimicrobial compositions, and/or kits that include the antimicrobial compositions. The antimicrobial compositions can be in a dry, solid (e.g., powdered) form, or can be in a liquid (e.g., aqueous) form.
US09265247B2

The described invention provides a gel formulation of a composition comprising at least one insecticide in an amount effective to control an insect larval population, an apparatus for autodissmenination of an insecticide for insect management containing (1) a cap component, (2) a cup component, and (3) a mesh component, a method and a system for autodissemination for effectively controlling an insect larval population. Also disclosed is an improvided biphasic autodissemination station for control of undesirable insect populations.
US09265244B2

A kit for converting a climbing tree stand into a cart includes a bracket having a first side and a second side. The first side is shaped to attach to a top part of a climbing tree stand. The second side is shaped to attach to a bottom part of the climbing tree stand. At least one wheel with an axle is positioned on the bracket. The bracket converts the climbing tree stand into a cart by attaching the top part of the climbing tree stand to the first side and attaching the bottom part of the climbing tree stand to the second side.
US09265240B2

A fishing mechanism for selectively attaching a fishing device to a line is provided. In one example, the fishing mechanism comprises an elongated outer insert mechanism having a line path channel formed therein, the line path channel extending from one end of the elongated outer insert mechanism to its other end, and wherein the elongated outer insert mechanism further comprises an elongated opening that extends from said one to said other end, the elongated opening being configured such that the line may be placed through the elongated opening and into the line path channel without having to guide an end of the line through the line path channel from said one end to said other end.
US09265231B2

A portable poultry waterer is provided having a manifold with a connector placed on the back surface to attach the manifold to a water storage vessel. The connector extends outward in a substantially perpendicular fashion to the manifold. Holes are placed into the manifold to accept a plurality of longitudinally spaced poultry nipples. One or more holes are placed into the manifold to accept a clean out plug(s).
US09265230B2

An electric fence for deterring animals from an area with one or more supplies of feed and at least one separate feed processing machine, wherein the fence comprises an electrically conductive member, an electric power supply connected to said member for energizing the member and arranged to provide an electric shock to an object coming into contact with said member. A controller is operatively connected to the fence, wherein the controller is arranged to measure a value of an electrical parameter of the fence, and to automatically adjust the operating state of the machine within the area when the measured parameter value fulfills a predetermined criterion.
US09265221B1

A novel maize variety designated PH252W and seed, plants and plant parts thereof. Methods for producing a maize plant that comprise crossing maize variety PH252W with another maize plant. Methods for producing a maize plant containing in its genetic material one or more traits introgressed into PH252W through backcross conversion and/or transformation, and to the maize seed, plant and plant part produced thereby. Hybrid maize seed, plant or plant part produced by crossing the variety PH252W or a locus conversion of PH252W with another maize variety.
US09265218B2

According to the invention, there is provided seed and plants of the hybrid corn variety designated CH816051. The invention thus relates to the plants, seeds and tissue cultures of the variety CH816051, and to methods for producing a corn plant produced by crossing a corn plant of variety CH816051 with itself or with another corn plant, such as a plant of another variety. The invention further relates to genetic complements of plants of variety CH816051.
US09265216B2

According to the invention, there is provided seed and plants of the hybrid corn variety designated CH998883. The invention thus relates to the plants, seeds and tissue cultures of the variety CH998883, and to methods for producing a corn plant produced by crossing a corn plant of variety CH998883 with itself or with another corn plant, such as a plant of another variety. The invention further relates to genetic complements of plants of variety CH998883.
US09265215B2

According to the invention, there is provided seed and plants of the hybrid corn variety designated CH199984. The invention thus relates to the plants, seeds and tissue cultures of the variety CH199984, and to methods for producing a corn plant produced by crossing a corn plant of variety CH199984 with itself or with another corn plant, such as a plant of another variety. The invention further relates to genetic complements of plants of variety CH199984.
US09265212B2

According to the invention, there is provided seed and plants of the corn variety designated CV890045. The invention thus relates to the plants, seeds and tissue cultures of the variety CV890045, and to methods for producing a corn plant produced by crossing a corn plant of variety CV890045 with itself or with another corn plant, such as a plant of another variety. The invention further relates to corn seeds and plants produced by crossing plants of variety CV890045 with plants of another variety, such as another inbred line. The invention further relates to the inbred and hybrid genetic complements of plants of variety CV890045.
US09265203B2

The present invention relates to a device for fastening movable wires on a row of plants, in particular grape vines.A fastening device for movable wires (F′, F″) of a row of plants according to the invention includes connecting means (1, 201, 301, 401) suitable to arrange said device in proximity of a head pole (PE) of said row, guide means (2) and a plurality of mounting means (3) of a wire slidingly connected to said guide means (2). The device is characterized in that said guide means (2) include a plurality of guide portions (4A, 4B, 4C, 4D) that define a corresponding plurality of displacement paths of said movable wires (F′, F″) distributed on opposite sides of the row, said displacement paths being oriented transversally relative to the direction of extension of said movable wires (F′, F″), and in that said mounting means (3) are designed to receive a single movable wire (F′, F″) so that each one of said movable wires (F′, F″) is independently displaceable along one of said displacement paths.
US09265202B2

A plant cage kit includes a wire grid, a bottom ring, and a top ring. The wire grid has a plurality of first and second spaced-apart wires. Each of the second wires is coupled to each of the first wires to form the wire grid. The first end of each second wire is formed into a loop and the second end of each second wire is formed into a hook. The hook of each second wire engages the loop of the same second wire when the plant cage kit is in the assembled configuration. When the plant cage kit is in the shipping configuration, the plurality of first wires is generally positioned in a first plane such that wire grid has a generally flat shape. The bottom and top rings have a generally U-shaped cross-section portion forming respective channels.
US09265195B2

A rotary lawn mower includes an internal combustion engine, a blade, and a deck. The internal combustion engine includes an engine block having a crankcase and a cover. The crankcase surrounds a crankshaft, which powers the blade. The blade spins below the deck during operation of the rotary lawn mower. The deck is integrally formed with the cover.
US09265191B2

A seed meter for an agricultural planter in which the seed disc is rotatably mounted within a seed meter housing. As the seed disc rotates, the apertures in the disc rotate along a seed aperture path through a horizontally adjacent seed pool area. The seed disc includes cavities disposed along the seed aperture path to agitate the seeds in the seed pool area. A singulator having multiple co-planar singulator surfaces is biased against the seed side surface of the seed disc.
US09265189B2

Provided is a method for reducing damage by harmful organisms in corn cultivation. Damage by harmful organisms in corn cultivation can be reduced by carrying out the steps of A) ditching a cultivated land; B) seeding with corn a furrow formed in the foregoing step; C) applying to the furrow an aqueous dispersion or aqueous solution of one or more selected from the below-mentioned compound group (I); and D) closing the furrow. Compound group (I): clothianidin, thiamethoxam, imidacloprid or thiacloprid.
US09265187B2

An autonomous vehicle platform and system for selectively performing an in-season management task in an agricultural field while self-navigating between rows of planted crops, the autonomous vehicle platform having a vehicle base with a width so dimensioned as to be insertable through the space between two rows of planted crops, the vehicle base having an in-season task management structure configured to perform various tasks, including selectively applying fertilizer, mapping growth zones and seeding cover crop within an agricultural field.
US09271436B2

A manufacturing method of electronic packaged device includes the following. A plurality of electronic components is disposed on a substrate carrier. An encapsulating member is disposed on the substrate carrier and covers the electronic components. The substrate carrier is separated from the encapsulating member. A plurality of first trenches is arranged on a first surface of the encapsulating member. Conductive material is disposed onto the first surface and into the first trenches to form a conductive layer. The conductive layer is patterned on the first surface to form a circuit layer. The circuit layer includes at least one grounding pad. A plurality of second trenches is arranged on a second surface of the encapsulating member. At least one shielding structure is formed in the first trenches and the second trenches. An electromagnetic shielding layer is connected to the grounding pad.
US09271429B2

A cooling system for a data center is provided, in which a plurality of servers having exothermic electronic components is installed in a housing. The cooling system includes: a cooling circuit, a main cooling device to cool a cooling medium heated by electronic components, and an auxiliary cooling device to assist the main cooling device in cooling the cooling medium.
US09271421B2

The arc-resistant MCC is provided with either the expansion chamber or the plenum. Arc flashes create pressure. Different arc-resistant MCC bases are used depending on whether the expansion chamber or the plenum is to be attached, as the expansion chamber and the plenum deal with the created pressure in different ways and are accordingly attached to the MCC base in different ways.
US09271413B2

A shelter for protecting a portable electrical inlet/outlet (PEIO) includes a base and a cover. In some examples, the base includes a platform to support a body of the PEIO, and the platform is configured to segregate the PEIO body from water that may accumulate. In some examples, the cover configured to mate with the base to substantially enclose the platform. Upon being inserted into the shelter, the PEIO may be protected from unwanted elements, such as rain, snow, unintended contact by humans or animals, or the like.
US09271411B2

A housing assembly includes a first housing, a second housing, two first bolts, two second bolts, two first guiding rails and two second guiding rails. The first housing has a top board and two side boards. The second housing has a bottom board. The two first bolts and two second bolts are formed on the two side boards of the first housing. The two first guiding rails and two second guiding rails are formed on two sides of the bottom board of the second housing. Each first guiding rail has a first guiding groove, which includes a first vertical section, a first horizontal section, a first opening and a first fixing node. Each second guiding rail has a second guiding groove, which includes a second vertical section, a second horizontal section, a second opening and a second fixing node.
US09271403B2

Various embodiments of semiconductor assemblies with multi-level substrates and associated methods of manufacturing are described below. In one embodiment, a substrate for carrying a semiconductor die includes a first routing level, a second routing level, and a conductive via between the first and second routing levels. The conductive via has a first end proximate the first routing level and a second end proximate the second routing level. The first routing level includes a terminal and a first trace between the terminal and the first end of the conductive via. The second routing level includes a second trace between the second end of the conductive via and a ball site. The terminal of the first routing level and the ball site of the second routing level are both accessible for electrical connections from the same side of the substrate.
US09271395B2

In a display device, a cover window is capable of increasing transparency of a curved part to improve visibility of a screen and appearance quality of a product. The cover window for the display device includes at least one curved part. In addition, the curved part includes an outer surface formed in an arc having a curvature radius of r1 and an inner surface formed in an arc having a curvature radius of r2, where r1≦r2≦2r1.
US09271387B2

A circuit board structure manufacturing method includes the following steps. A circuit substrate is provided including an insulating layer, a first metal layer, and a second metal layer. The insulating layer is disposed between the first metal layer and the second metal layer. The first metal layer has a first cavity. The insulating layer has a second cavity and a provisional region. A width of the first cavity is larger than a width of the second cavity. The provisional region is defined between a sidewall of the first metal layer defining the first cavity and another sidewall of the first metal layer defining the second cavity. A first masking layer is formed to cover the first metal layer and provisional region. The second cavity is exposed from the first masking layer. A heat-dissipating metal member is formed in the second cavity. Furthermore, the first masking layer is removed.
US09271373B2

The present disclosure is directed to a light emitting diode (LED) lighting system. In one embodiment, the LED lighting system includes an LED light source deployed in a first location and a power supply for powering the LED light source, wherein the power supply is remotely located from the LED light source in a second location and designed to power the LED light source to minimize a power loss along a length of an electrical connection coupled between the LED light source and the power supply.
US09271366B2

Disclosed are dimmable LED driver circuits and methods. A dimmable LED driver can include: an SCR, an electronic transformer, and a rectifier bridge to convert an AC voltage to a DC voltage signal; a power stage circuit that receives the DC voltage signal, and outputs a constant current to drive an LED load, where the power stage circuit includes first and second power stage circuits, the first power stage circuit receiving the DC voltage signal, and generating a first output voltage to the second power stage; and an input current control circuit that receives an input current of the first power stage circuit and the first output voltage, and generates a first control signal to control the input current as a square wave signal during an on time of the SCR, and the input current is substantially zero during an off time of the SCR.
US09271360B2

A LED driving circuit applied to a LED module includes a read address generating unit, a memory cell and a driving unit. The read address generating unit receives a clock signal and outputs a reading signal. The memory cell is coupled to the read address generating unit and generates an output signal in accordance with the reading signal. The driving unit is coupled to the memory cell, receives the output signal and the clock signal and outputs a driving signal to the LED module. A LED driving device and a driving method are also disclosed.
US09271358B2

Provided is a lighting apparatus using LEDs (light-emitting diodes having improved flicker performance. In general, in a direct-drive LED lighting apparatuses of the related art which use no switching-mode power supply (SMPS), percent flicker (hereinafter referred to as “% F”) is 100%. In contrast, the % F of the LED lighting apparatus having improved flicker performance according to the present invention is 40% or less that is equivalent to the % F of fluorescent lamps using a magnetic ballast.
US09271346B2

A lighting power supply device includes a control circuit controlling a transistor that controls a drive current flown through a lamp, receiving a pulsating flow converted from an alternating current by a rectifying circuit rectifying the alternating current subjected to phase control by a phase-controlled dimmer, and generating/outputting direct current voltage/current supplied to the lamp. The control circuit includes a time-voltage conversion circuit converting a time decided according to a phase of a voltage corresponding to the pulsating flow into a voltage; and a terminal to which a capacitor with an arbitrary capacitance value is connectable. The time-voltage conversion circuit allows the capacitor to generate a charging voltage corresponding to the phase of the pulsating flow. A sample-and-hold circuit takes in the charging voltage of the capacitor at predetermined timing corresponding to a change of an output of a voltage comparison circuit, and holds/outputs the taken-in voltage until next timing.
US09271345B2

The present invention relates to a lighting application, the lighting application comprises an LED assembly comprising a serial connection of two or more LED units, each LED unit comprising one or more LEDs, each LED unit being provided with a controllable switch for substantially short-circuiting the LED unit. The lighting application further comprises a control unit for controlling a drive unit and arranged to receive a signal representing a voltage level of the supply voltage, and control the switches in accordance with the signal. The invention further provides for an LED driver that enables to operate a TRIAC based dimmer at an optimal holding current and an LED driver comprising a switchable buffer, e.g. a capacitor.
US09271324B2

Methods, systems and apparatus are provided for camping, assisted serving cell addition or removal, and discontinuous reception (DRX) in networks having a macro cell and at least one assisted serving cell. In other aspects, enhancements to Layer 1 channels and uplink timing alignments are provided in networks having a macro cell and at least one assisted serving cell. In further aspects, assisted serving cell Layer 2 architecture and transport channels are provided in networks having a macro cell and at least one assisted serving cell. In further aspects, collaborated HARQ solutions are provided in networks having a macro cell and at least one assisted serving cell.
US09271322B2

A system and method of creating more than one communication interface between a wireless device using a single, dual-radio transceiver by leveraging the basic service set (BSS) and radio measurement information. A wireless device operating in multiple-in, multiple-put (MIMO) mode maintains a first communications interface with an access point while establishing a second communications interface by downgrading the existing MIMO connection to a single-in, single-out (SISO) connection. The downgrading of the MIMO connection to a SISO connection frees up a radio signal processing chain to establish a second communications interface utilizing the BSS and radio measurement information from the first communications interface.
US09271320B2

Disclosed are a method for performing communication between devices in a wireless access system supporting device-to-device communication, and a device for same. More particularly, the method comprises the steps of: transmitting, from a first device to a base station, instruction information on whether or not device-to-device communication is supported by the first device; receiving, by the first device, group information for grouping devices which support device-to-device communication, from the base station using mobility information and position information on the devices supporting device-to-device communication; selecting, by the first device using the group information, a second device that is to perform device-to-device communication between devices; and performing device-to-device communication with the second device selected by the first device.
US09271314B2

A Bluetooth communication method and system for enabling one Bluetooth device to rapidly connect to another Bluetooth device using an audio signal, and also enabling them to transmit data to each other are provided. The system includes first and second Bluetooth devices. The first Bluetooth device transforms authentication information required to establish a Bluetooth communication connection into an audio signal, and broadcasts the audio signal. The second Bluetooth device receives the audio signal and extracts the authentication information from the received audio signal. The second Bluetooth device establishes a Bluetooth communication channel with the first Bluetooth device, using the extracted authentication information.
US09271303B2

Method and arrangement in base station (110) for estimating the amount of data to be received from a terminal (120). The base station (110) and the terminal (120) are comprised within a wireless communication system (110). The terminal (120) comprises a buffer arranged to buffer frames comprising data. The method comprises determining (401) a service requested by the terminal (120), estimating (403) the arrival time of data to be received from the terminal (120), based on the determined service, and setting (404) a buffer estimate, comprising an estimation of the amount of data to be received, based on an estimated frame size for the determined service.
US09271299B2

Disclosed herein is a method and a Radio Resource Management arrangement in a wireless communication system for allocating communication of one or several services to at least one of several available frequency spectrum resources. The method comprises the steps of categorizing said available frequency spectrum resources with respect to volatility, and categorizing said one or several services with respect to compressibility, and assigning said one or several services to the available spectrum resources such that compressible services are assigned to volatile spectrum resources.
US09271293B2

Bidirectional iterative beam forming techniques are described. An apparatus may include a wireless device having an antenna control module operative to initiate beam formation operations using an iterative training scheme to form a pair of communications channels for a wireless network, the antenna control module to communicate training signals and feedback information with a peer device via the transceiver and phased antenna array using partially or fully formed high rate channels, and iteratively determine antenna-array weight vectors for a directional transmit beam pattern for the phased antenna array using feedback information from the peer device. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US09271291B2

Embodiments contemplate techniques for managing aggregation between using an anchor channel over a first frequency band as the anchor band between an Access Point and a wireless receiver/transmitter unit (WTRU). One or more embodiments may include the WRTU receiving one or more beacons via the anchor channel, where the one or more beacons may provide allocation information for allocating a supplementary channel on a second frequency band as a supplementary band that may be different from the first frequency band. Embodiments also contemplate establishing the supplementary channel over the supplementary band using the allocation information provided in the one or more beacons. Embodiments also contemplate exchanging data over the established supplementary channel on the supplementary band.
US09271290B2

A method of managing carrier aggregation for a multi-radio access technology (RAT) wireless transmitter/receiver unit (WTRU) is disclosed. The method may include: receiving, by the WRTU over a primary channel associated with a RAT of a first type, provisioning information for provisioning a supplementary channel associated with a RAT of a second type; establishing the supplementary channel associated with the RAT of the second type based on the received provisioning information; and wirelessly exchanging, by the WRTU, first data associated with a communication over the primary channel via the RAT of the first type, while wireless exchanging second data associated with the communication over the supplementary channel via the RAT of the second type.
US09271279B2

A method for reporting uplink control information (UCI) on a user equipment (UE) is described. A Type 2 channel state information (CSI) report is generated for a CSI reference resource. The Type 2 CSI report is sent to a base station. The Type 2 CSI report is computed from a channel measurement based on a non-zero power reference signal on a single subframe within a configured CSI-RS resource associated with a CSI process.
US09271278B2

An apparatus and method for using a radio frequency (RF chain) in a dual-network architecture are disclosed herein. An evolved node B (eNodeB) receives RF chain sharing information from user equipment (UE) associated with the eNodeB. The RF chain sharing information comprises indication of a non-usable frequency band or indication of which frequency band is supported for each of a first network and a second network that an RF chain is switchable between. The RF chain is included in the UE and at least a frequency band is shared between the first and second networks. The eNodeB transmits radio resource control (RRC) connection reconfiguration signaling to the UE to release a secondary cell (SCell) or perform inter-frequency handover of a primary cell (PCell) in response to the RF chain sharing information.
US09271274B2

A method for informing about power information and a base station are disclosed in the present document. The method includes: a base station informing a user equipment of at least one of the following types of power ratio information through signalings: ratio information of transmission power for transmitting a second category of control signaling information to transmission power for transmitting dedicated demodulation pilots; and ratio information of transmission power for transmitting data information to transmission power for transmitting dedicated demodulation pilots in a subframe where data transmission occupies only one slot. In the example of the present document, when the second category of control signalings and the data are sent, different transmission layers and transmission powers can be selected, which solves the problem resulted from an inconsistency of Demodulation Reference Signal (DMRS) powers and avoids a demodulation error.
US09271270B2

A method in a wireless communication device may include receiving a plurality of sub-frames, each sub-frame having time-frequency resource elements, at least one of the sub-frames having a control channel. In some implementations, the plurality of sub-frames forms a continuum of concatenated sub-frames. Each of the plurality of resource allocation fields of the control channel may indicate a resource assignment to the wireless communication device based on a channel quality report, as well as resource assignments in sub-frames of the continuum of concatenated sub-frames. At least one sub-frame of the continuum of concatenated sub-frames may include information indicating that at least some of the resource assignments are frequency diverse.
US09271268B2

Provided are a wireless transmission device, a wireless reception device, and a bandwidth allocation method for, when non-contiguous bands allocation is performed, improving the frequency resource use efficiency of a system and thereby improving the system performance. RIV decoding unit (106) decodes start RBG# and end RBG# that are indicated by each RIV output from scheduling information decoding unit (104). Allocation boundary setting unit (107) previously adds a predetermined offset to the boundary of each RIV so that the boundaries of the allocations of respective RIVs are different from each other. Based on the start RBG# and end RBG# output from RIV decoding unit (106) and the boundaries of the allocations of respective RIVs output from allocation boundary setting unit (107), transmission bandwidth determination unit (108) determines, as allocated bandwidths, the bandwidths that are indicated by a plurality of RIVs and are not overlapped with each other.
US09271267B2

In an embodiment, a system includes a resource. The system also includes a first processor having a load/store functional unit. The load/store functional unit is to attempt to access the resource based on access requests. The first processor includes a congestion detection logic to detect congestion of access of the resource based on a consecutive number of negative acknowledgements received in response to the access requests prior to receipt of a positive acknowledgment in response to one of the access requests within a first time period.
US09271263B2

Provided is a method of transmitting and receiving data using a persistent allocation scheme in order to effectively support a voice service between a base station and a mobile terminal in a packet based mobile communication system. When an error occurs in transmitting a control information that indicates whether to use a radio resource using the persistent allocation scheme, the base station may retransmit the control information and thereby maintain a communication quality.
US09271261B1

A method of operating a communication system comprises, in a wireless communication device, acquiring a packet address from a communication network, wherein the communication network assigns the packet address to the wireless communication device, and transmitting the packet address, a device identifier, and a location of the wireless communication device for delivery to a database in the communication network. The method further comprises, in a packet router, receiving a data packet with a destination address of the packet address assigned to the wireless communication device, querying the database with the packet address to determine the device identifier and the location of the wireless communication device, processing the location to select a plurality of output ports of the packet router, and broadcasting the data packet over the plurality of output ports.
US09271257B2

A radio affiliates, via a first channel, with at least one talk group the radio is interested in receiving calls from, sends a request to transmit location information on a separate revert channel, and receives a first grant time period to transmit location information on a particular revert channel. The radio moves at substantially the first grant time period, away from the first channel to the revert channel to transmit location information or request a second grant time period on the revert channel, receives an announcement on the revert channel during the first grant time period that a call of interest associated with the at least one talk group started while the radio was on the revert channel, determines an assigned traffic channel for the call of interest, and switches from the revert channel to the assigned traffic channel in order to receive the call of interest.
US09271251B2

An enhanced Session Initiation Protocol (“SIP”) registration message having extended header information that is used by an Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (“IMS”) core to determine the registration status of a mobile device and the physical location of the mobile device. The extended header information includes hardware and subscriber identifiers, such as an International Mobile Equipment Identity (“IMEI”) and International Mobile Subscriber Identity (“IMSI”). The IMS core queries an equipment identity register to validate IMEI/IMSI identifiers in the header to determine whether to deny registration to a mobile device. The IMS core also queries a capability database using an IMEI to determine which location determination techniques are supported by or suitable for the associated mobile device.
US09271245B2

There is a provided a method for deciding transmission power in order to transmit at least one of secret data and non-secret data. The method may comprise: determining whether data to be transmitted by a transmitting device is sensitive to a delay; determining whether both the secret data and the non-secret data are required to be simultaneously transmitted when the data to be transmitted is sensitive to the delay; and applying different weights to the secret data and the non-secret data and deciding transmission power to maximize a total channel capacity according to the application, when it is determined that both the secret data and the non-secret data are required to be transmitted.
US09271243B2

The device for controlling a wireless access point comprises: a grouping unit which groups wireless access points which use the same channel, by using channel use information received from the wireless access points; a map generator which computes each received signal strength value of the grouped wireless access points and each output strength value of the grouped wireless access points; an extractor which extracts a wireless access point having the highest received signal strength value among the grouped wireless access points, if interference occurs between said grouped wireless access points; and an optimal output strength value-calculator which computes a corrected output strength value by using the received signal strength value of the extracted wireless access point, a threshold value of predetermined received signal strength, and a currently used output strength value between said grouped wireless access points.
US09271242B2

Embodiments of the present disclosure describe communication techniques and configurations for energy-harvesting devices in a wireless communication network. An apparatus may include circuitry to receive, by a network device of a wireless communication network, a message from user equipment, the message including an indication that the user equipment is an energy-harvesting device and circuitry to differentiate the energy-harvesting device from other non-energy-harvesting devices in the wireless communication network based on the indication. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.
US09271241B2

Embodiments of a system and methods for distinguishing high-efficiency Wi-Fi (HEW) packets from legacy packets are generally described herein. In some embodiments, an access point may select a value for the length field of a legacy signal field (L-SIG) that is non-divisible by three for communicating with HEW stations and may select a value for the length field that is divisible by three for communicating with legacy stations. In some embodiments, the access point may select a phase rotation for application to the BPSK modulation of at least one of the first and second symbols of a subsequent signal field to distinguish a high-throughput (HT) PPDU, a very-high throughput (VHT) PPDU and an HEW PPDU.
US09271238B2

Systems and methods for improving battery life and transmission efficiency of mobile devices are disclosed. Some embodiments provide for application and/or context aware fast dormancy on a mobile device or user equipment (UE) and/or via a proxy server. By incorporating application and context information, e.g., when an application opens a connection, what kind of applications are present, how the application normally behaves and whether the application is running in background or transmitting background data, embodiments provide for an improved and enhanced fast dormancy operation.
US09271232B2

A mobile terminal and a method are provided for power saving. The mobile terminal monitors changes of data on a UART bus, acquires current operating states of a Bluetooth chip and a main control chip on the mobile terminal, and when detecting that there is no data on the UART bus, the main control chip controls a Bluetooth module to enter into a power saving mode. By adopting the technical scheme described, once it is detected that there is no data on the bus, the Bluetooth module will be enabled to enter into a state of power saving mode immediately, which ensures that the Bluetooth module is always in the state of power saving mode when there is no service ongoing, thereby increasing the standby time of the mobile terminal to the maximum extent, and improving the level of the user experience.
US09271220B2

A policy control method and system are disclosed. The method includes: a 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) network entity sending outer Internet Protocol (IP) packet header information to a Broadband Forum (BBF) access network entity; and the BBF access network entity scheduling a data packet matching the outer IP packet header information according to a Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) of the data packet. With the above technical scheme, service data flows without going through admission control will not occupy resources of other service data flows going through the admission control.
US09271208B2

A rule server detects a condition pertaining to a switch of a user device to a preferred wireless carrier, and sends a message to the user device indicating a switch to the preferred wireless carrier.
US09271206B2

A multiservice communication device includes a plurality of transceivers that wirelessly transceive data with a corresponding plurality of networks in accordance with a corresponding plurality of network protocols. A control channel transceiver transceives control channel data with a remote management unit including local control data sent to the management unit and remote control data received from the management unit. A processing module processes the remote control data and generates a least one control signal in response thereto, the at least one control signal for adapting at least one of the plurality of transceivers based on the remote control data.
US09271184B2

A wireless end-user device has a wireless wide-area network (WWAN) modem. One or more processors classify whether an application is interacting with a user in a user interface foreground of the device. At a time when Internet service activities are communicated through the WWAN modem, the processors use a differential traffic control policy list to determine whether or not to apply a differential traffic control policy to an application requesting Internet service access. When the policy is applicable, and the application is not classified as interacting with a user in the device user interface foreground, the Internet service access request is blocked. Even when an application access is allowed, a separate control provided a wireless data usage limit for that application.
US09271180B2

A method for limiting a transmission rate is provided. The method includes receiving a pause management message comprising pause scheduling information including a pause time at which an uplink transmission of a data frame is to be paused and a paused duration indicating a duration during which transmission of the data frame is to be paused, and pause station information indicating a station which is to pause transmission the data frame, from an access point (AP); and pausing transmission of the data frame during the paused duration starting from the pause time according to the pause management message, and then resuming transmission. According to exemplary embodiments of the present invention, a transmission rate limiting mechanism suitable for a VHT WLAN can be provided.
US09271176B2

A system and method for backhaul based explicit sounding feedback of 802.11 AP to AP channel state information (CSI) so that inter AP interference can be reduced and multiple APs transmissions that can occur simultaneously on the same radio channel. A modification may be made to APs such that they can accurately measure the CSI between them that in turn enables their respective beamformer to create pattern nulls toward each other while simultaneously developing pattern enhancements toward their intended station. An AP may send a sounding packet to its associated STAs, poll explicit feedbacks from STAs and receive backhaul CSI feedbacks from neighboring APs. There is no additional Wi-Fi overhead in physical layer. Backhaul feedback link is established through direct peer-to-peer (P2P) link which bypassed the sounding controller to reduce CSI feedback delay.
US09271167B2

Existing criteria for analyzing radio link failure conditions may not satisfactorily address the conditions between cells that support cooperative resource coordination. Generally, when the UE declares radio link failure, the UE discontinues communication with a serving base station and searches for a new base station. When the UE lies in a region with severe interference, where the interference is coordinated between base stations by the interfering cell yielding part of its resources, the UE measurements for determining radio link failure (RLF) may vary considerably, depending on whether the measured resources were yielded by the interfering cell. When the UE measures resources which were not yielded by the interfering cell, the UE can erroneously declare RLF (e.g., due to high interference), although the UE can still access the serving cell using resources yielded by the interfering cell. Accordingly, disclosed are aspects for determining RLF based by accounting for cooperative resource coordination employing yielded resources.
US09271165B2

The method for establishing a connection by a HNB comprising steps of: the HNB transmitting an “attachment request” message to an operation and maintenance center (OMC); the OMC transmitting an “attachment response” message to the HNB; the HNB establishing a connection with an MME indicated by the “attachment response” message. With the method proposed in the present invention, a UE can switch between HNBs in the same CSG through interface X2. Meanwhile, such information as the radio resource management and so on can be exchanged between two HNBs.
US09271155B2

A combination of cooperative and non-cooperative sensing methods improves spectrum utilization by switching network nodes not interfering with both primary system and cooperative secondary users to non-cooperative mode. The method then keeps record of the number of times the result of spectrum sensing of a network node matches or differs from the result of cooperative sensing. Also, the method sets thresholds to shift register values to determine when to switch back and forth between cooperative and non cooperative sensing modes, and sending control messages to let a non cooperative user access the spectrum. In the present disclosure two antenna are considered for each network node to separate the two types of control messages or broadcast and reply messages.
US09271153B2

A network configurator can dynamically configure a device to couple network data between other devices in a wireless network. The devices can include two independent wireless transceivers that can each operate within different frequency bands, such as the 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz frequency bands. The configuration of the independent wireless transceivers can be based, at least in part, on device capabilities of the wireless transceivers, channel conditions, and a quality of service associated with the other wireless stations in the wireless network.
US09271149B2

A device determines whether a PTT application is authenticated to access a first API and a second API, and prevents the PTT application from accessing the first and second APIs when the PTT application is not authenticated. The device permits the PTT application to access the first and second APIs when the PTT application is authenticated, and modifies, via the first API, a timer that dictates when the device checks for traffic received from a network. The device establishes, via the second API, a data connection with the network, and determines, based on the data connection, a QoS framework for the network. The device utilizes the PTT application and the timer to establish a PTT session with another device via the network, and prioritizes, based on the QoS framework, PTT traffic provided in the PTT session with the other device.
US09271147B2

In one embodiment, a method includes: receiving, at a mobile device, a first service command and a second service command; sending the first service command from the mobile device to a server; sending the second service command from the mobile device to a server; receiving, at the mobile device, first service results corresponding to the first service command; receiving, at the mobile device, second service results corresponding to the second service command; combining the first service results with the second service results; and displaying the combined service results on the mobile device.
US09271144B2

When a mobile station requests circuit services notifications through a packet switched network, a mobile switching center sets a forwarding indicator. When the MSC detects an event indicative of a change in the status of the mobile station, the MSC sends an event notification to the packet switched network if the forwarding indicator is set to true. In the packet switched network, the base station can use the event notifications to manage communication resources used for packet data communications with the mobile station.
US09271143B2

A method of operating a personal electronic device and an in-vehicle infotainment system includes running an application on one of the personal electronic device and the in-vehicle infotainment system. It is sensed that the personal electronic device has been, or soon will be, moved into or out of a proximity of the in-vehicle infotainment system. Information regarding a state of the one of the personal electronic device and the in-vehicle infotainment system is transferred to the other of the personal electronic device and the in-vehicle infotainment system. An application is selected for the other of the personal electronic device and the in-vehicle infotainment system. The selected application is used to replicate the state of the one of the personal electronic device and the in-vehicle infotainment system on the other of the personal electronic device and the in-vehicle infotainment system.
US09271141B1

A computer includes a processor, a network communication interface controlled by the processor, and a memory accessible by the processor. Programming is stored in the memory which configures the computer as a network server to support configuration of a user interface on a mobile device for control of an appliance. The network server: 1) receives and stores registration information from the appliance, which includes an identification of the appliance and information for configuring the user interface to control the appliance, 2) receives, over a cellular network, a request from a mobile device which includes the identification of the appliance, and 3) transmits, over the cellular network, the configuration information to the mobile device which is used to configure the mobile device to display the user interface for wirelessly controlling the appliance on the mobile device.
US09271139B2

Embodiments of the present invention disclose a session management method and system based on an M2M application and an apparatus. In one embodiment, a session management method is based on a machine-to-machine application. Gateway equipment information and group number information of a group user device are acquired and it is determined that group information of the group user device has changed. A gateway equipment is instructed to execute bearer change processing on the group user device. The instructing is based on the gateway equipment information and the group number information of the group user device. The bearer change processing is executed on the group user device.
US09271136B2

There lies a challenge to develop a technique of effectively establishing a direct communication link between client devices in a communication network. In some implementations, an associated STA is a client device which is associated with a particular access point (AP). A non-associated STA is a client device which is not associated with the AP. A tunneled probe request may be transmitted by an associated STA through the AP to be broadcast to other associated STAs. In some implementations, an active scan may be combined with a tunneled probe request in order to establish a communication link between an associated STA and a non-associated STA.
US09271131B2

Electronic communications are managed across multiple identities. A user is able to create an account as well as any desired, required, or appropriate number of profiles under the account. Text messages are exchanged between users using specific profiles. For example, some text messages can be exchanged using a personal profile while other text messages need to be exchanged using a professional profile. In some instances, exchanged text messages are saved to a centralized archive. As such, one or both of the users involved in an exchange can request to retrieve some or all of the exchanged messages at a later time.
US09271127B2

A communication method for automatically switching between cellular networks and IP networks includes following steps. A mobile phone number is used as an user account. A sending user inputs or selects the user account or the mobile phone number of a receiving user on a sending client to send a message to the receiving user. If there is an user account corresponding to the mobile phone number of the receiving user registered on a server and the user account is on line, the sending client sends a message to the server via the IP networks, and the server transfers the message to a receiving client via the IP networks. If there is no user account corresponding to the mobile phone number of the receiving user registered on the server, the sending client directly sends a short message to the mobile phone number of the receiving user via the cellular networks.
US09271114B2

There is provided a method for updating an AR target of a terminal, the method comprises: receiving an AR target, a boundary distance for a coverage area of the AR target, and the at least one area ID list from a server; if precise positioning is possible, determining whether or not the location of the terminal satisfies a boundary condition on the basis of the boundary distance; if precise positioning is impossible, determining whether or not the serving cell ID of the terminal satisfies the boundary condition on the basis of said the at least one area ID list; and, if it is determined that the boundary condition is satisfied, transmitting an update request from the AR target to the server.
US09271111B2

A computing system has multiple endpoint computing devices in local environments to receive verbal requests from various users and a central or remote system to process the requests. The remote system generates responses and uses a variety of techniques to determine where and when to return responses audibly to the users. For each request, the remote system understands who is making the request, determines when to provide the response to the user, ascertains where the user is when it is time to deliver the response, discovers which of the endpoint devices are available to deliver the response, and evaluates which of the available devices is best to deliver the response. The system then delivers the response to the best endpoint device for audible emission or other form of presentation to the user.
US09271106B2

An exemplary method includes a machine-to-machine (“M2M”) solutions provider subsystem 1) maintaining data representative of a plurality of distinct data processing schemes associated with a plurality of network services, 2) receiving a plurality of data streams from a single M2M gateway device, 3) identifying a data stream included in the plurality of data streams as corresponding to a network service included in the plurality of network services, and 4) processing, in response to the identifying, the data stream in accordance with a data processing scheme associated with the network service and included in the plurality of distinct data processing schemes. Corresponding methods and systems are also disclosed.
US09271097B2

A testing method or apparatus utilizes filter banks to measure time varying or dynamic harmonic distortion or intermodulation distortion. With a stairstep signal and filter banks, Nth order harmonic and or intermodulation distortion is measured via the filter banks at different offsets provided by an arbitrary low frequency signal. An amplifier with crossover distortion will show increased harmonic and or intermodulation distortion near the zero crossing while providing less distortion in other portions of the transfer curve of the amplifier.
US09271083B2

A yoke includes a disk-like base end portion and a columnar center pole protruding from a center portion of the base end portion. An annular magnet is arranged on the base end portion. An annular top plate is arranged on the magnet so that an inner circumferential surface thereof is opposite to an outer circumferential surface of the center pole. A non-magnetic ring member is arranged on an inner circumferential surface side of the magnet, the non-magnetic ring member having a same inner circumferential diameter as an inner circumferential diameter of the top plate.
US09271080B2

Methods are disclosed for improving sound localization of the human ear. In some embodiments, the method may include creating virtual movement of a plurality of localized sources by applying a periodic function to one or more location parameters of a head related transfer function (HRTF).
US09271071B2

A magnetic assembly and a loudspeaker a magnetic assembly. The magnetic assembly has a pole piece that is designed to form an outer air gap and an inner air gap for coaxial voice coils of the loudspeaker. The same magnet is used for the magnetic circuits of the two voice coils. The pole piece is shaped to split the magnetic circuits into a low frequency magnetic circuit and a high frequency magnetic circuit. A convex dome is attached to the high frequency voice coil.
US09271065B2

An audio headset includes a support structure, one or more audio feed wires, one or more ear buds or other single ear speakers coupled thereto, and one or more ear guides adapted to be worn about the ear(s) of an individual user. The ear guide(s) include groove(s) running therethrough that contain the audio feed wire(s) for the speaker(s), such that each respective speaker dangles from its ear guide thereby. Groove(s) can also contain part of the support structure, and the ear guide(s) may extend beyond the ear regions to the point of meeting each other. Each speaker can be removed from and replaced to the ear of the user independently while the headset is being worn without requiring movement or adjustment of the support structure or ear guide. Each groove can include a plurality of openings that allow adjustment where the wire exits, and each wire and respective speaker are readily separable, removable, and replaceable from the headset without requiring disassembly of or disturbance to the remainder of the headset.
US09271064B2

Herein provided is a method for acoustical switching suitable for use with a microphone enabled electronic device. The method includes capturing a first microphone signal from a first microphone on a device, analyzing the first microphone signal for a contact event versus a non-contact event, and directing the electronic device to switch a processing state responsive to detection of either the contact event or non-contact event. In another configuration, additional microphone can be added for performing coherence analysis between at least two microphone signals mounted on or in the device. At least one parameter settings of the device can be changed in response to at least one detected physical contact on the device. Other embodiments are disclosed.
US09271062B2

An electronic device includes an electronic component and a fixing structure. The electronic component includes a fixing portion, and a fixing hole is formed on the fixing portion. The fixing structure is for fixing the electronic component on a base plate. The fixing structure includes a main body, a fastening portion, a fixing pillar and an engaging component. A supporting plane is formed on an end of the main body. The fastening portion is connected to the other end of the main body and for fastening the main body on the base plate. The fixing pillar is disposed on the supporting plane. The fixing pillar is inserted into the fixing hole for constraining the electronic component. The engaging component is connected to a side of the main body, and the engaging component presses the electronic component so as to engage the electronic component on the supporting plane.
US09271053B2

A method and apparatus for receiving an application for providing an Internet protocol television (IPTV) communication service. The method includes: acquiring IP address information for initiating an IPTV service provider discovery at an entry point for searching for a service provider; receiving information regarding an IPTV service provider from an IPTV service provider discovery entity apparatus by using the IP address information; and acquiring information regarding the application for providing the IPTV communication service based on the information regarding the IPTV service provider.
US09271047B2

A method of providing information regarding a service to a client includes receiving, at a first search server, first information regarding a plurality of service providers including a first service provider, receiving, at a second search server, second information regarding at least one service which is to be received from a first server of the first service provider, and providing the first information and the second information to a client, wherein the first search server and second search server are separate physical devices, and wherein the first search server and the second search server are separate from at least one server belonging to the plurality of service providers including the first server.
US09271042B2

Systems and methods for rewinding a video to a point before the video was first viewed. Video transmitted by a media source is cached by a remote server. Upon a trick-play request for the video, the server generates a rewind stream that includes the video that was transmitted by the media source before the user started to view the video. Upon receiving the rewind stream, the user's equipment may cache the rewind stream in a rewind buffer and rewind or play from the rewind buffer. The server may also generate and transmit a forward stream of the video that the media source has not yet transmitted. The user's equipment may cache the forward stream in a forward buffer. To perform trick-play operations with the video, the user's equipment may migrate the playback of the video to the rewind and forward buffers and rewind or fast-forward the video from the buffers.
US09271039B2

An intelligent television and methods for user interaction between the intelligent television and the user are provided. In general, a user is provided with navigation, notification, and setup options which enable one or more functions associated with the intelligent television. The presentation of options is based on input received by the intelligent television. As a user provides input to the intelligent television via a remote control or other input device, the intelligent television is configured to interpret the input and provide interactive functionality in the form of content presented to the display of the intelligent television.
US09271037B2

A playing device and a play method are provided. The playing device includes a playing module configured to play a first media stream currently being received; a first monitoring module configured to monitor whether the first media stream contains a content a user does not want to watch and generate a monitor result; and a first controlling module configured to control the playing module to play a second media stream in response to the monitor result indicating that the first media stream contains the content the user does not want to watch, the second media stream being different from the first media stream and containing a content the user wants to watch.
US09271035B2

Tools and techniques for acquiring key roles and their relationships from a video independent of metadata, such as cast lists and scripts, are described herein. These techniques include discovering key roles and their relationships by treating a video (e.g., a movie, television program, music video, and personal video, etc.) as a community. For instance, a video is segmented into a hierarchical structure that includes levels for scenes, shots, and key frames. In some implementations, the techniques include performing face detection and grouping on the detected key frames. In some implementations, the techniques include exploiting the key roles and their correlations in this video to discover a community. The discovered community provides for a wide variety of applications, including the automatic generation of visual summaries or video posters including acquired key roles.
US09271034B2

A device is provided for use with extended content data on a first data stream and second content data on a second data stream. The device includes a processing portion, an acquisition portion and a buffer. The acquisition portion is in communication with the processing portion. The acquisition portion can acquire the first data stream, can transition to the second data stream to receive the second content data and can provide the second content data to the processing portion. The buffer can receive the extended content data. The processing portion can instruct the acquisition portion to transition from the first data stream to the second data stream to receive the second content data. The buffer can further provide the extended content data to the processing portion based on the acquisition portion transitioning from the first data stream to the second data stream. The processing portion can further process the extended content data portion as received from the buffer.
US09271031B2

A method is disclosed for distributed recording of content in a client system having a home network connecting a content broker and a plurality of set-top boxes (STBs) with digital video recording capability. In a requesting STB, a command is received from a user to begin recording a content item. A query is sent from the requesting STB to the content broker to determine whether the content item is being recorded by any other STB of the plurality of STBs. A response is received from the content broker. If the response indicates that none of the plurality of STBs is then currently recording the content item, the content item is recorded in the requesting STB. If the response identifies a recording STB that is then currently recording the requested content, an internal content list is updated in the requesting STB to identify the recording STB.
US09271024B2

A profile provider: (i) associates a primary online device (OD1) with a set-top box (STB); (ii) a location of OD1 at some point in time is estimated to be “near” the STB, thereby establishing a STB proxy location; (iii) one or more secondary online devices (OD2s) are observed to be located “near” the STB proxy location and are associated with the STB; and (iv) a television advertisement is selected to be directed to the STB, which selection is based at least in part on profile information linked to one of the associated OD2s. The method can be particularly advantageous in situations wherein: the STB is not connected to any computer network; the STB is not ever connected to the same local area network as OD1 or OD2; or television service (used by the STB) and online access (used by OD1 and OD2s) are provided by different service providers.
US09271023B2

A system for presenting targeted search results to a mobile communication facility, the system configured to perform the steps of (a) receiving information relating to a viewing history of television content including a plurality of episodes from a series viewed by a user; (b) receiving from the mobile communication facility a search request containing a word; (c) determining that the word is more contextually relevant to the series than search results unrelated to the series, wherein the determination is based on the received viewing history of television content; and (d) transmitting to the mobile communication facility information corresponding to a viewing source for one or more episodes of the series not yet viewed by the user, wherein display of the information corresponding to the viewing source is prioritized over display of the search results unrelated to the series.
US09271020B2

In one embodiment, a system for providing social interaction opportunities for people watching television is presented. The system includes: a television data source which transmits television data streams for reception by end devices, each end device being represented by an equipment code; a plurality of end devices, including a first user's end device and a second user's end device, each end device configured to receive a television data streams, and each user represented by an identifier code; and an interactive-information server configured to: store, at the first user's behest, the identifier code of the second user; monitor which of the television data streams is being received by the first end device; monitor which of the television data streams is being received by the second end device; and notify the first user when the first end device and the second end device are receiving the same television data stream.
US09271016B2

Reformatting a media stream to include auxiliary data, the method including: receiving the auxiliary data to be inserted into the media stream; determining the amount of data in the auxiliary data; identifying media data in the media stream to be reduced in size; reformatting the media stream to reduce the amount of data in the media data such that the amount of data removed from the media data is at least equal to the amount of data in the auxiliary data while providing minimal impact to the quality of the media data; and adding the auxiliary data to the media stream which maintains a consistent size.
US09271014B2

An image coding method for performing compression-coding on image data includes: binarizing a signal to be coded of the image data, to generate a binary signal; determining a low-order context which is a context associated with a type of the signal to be coded, and a high-order context that is common to the low-order context and a context associated with another type; calculating coding probability information to be used in arithmetic coding of the binary signal, using (i) high-order probability information corresponding to the determined high-order context and (ii) low-order probability information corresponding to the determined low-order context; performing the arithmetic coding on the binary signal using the coding probability information; and updating the high-order probability information and the low-order probability information based on the binary signal.
US09271011B2

Techniques are provided to encode and decode image data comprising a tone mapped (TM) image with HDR reconstruction data in the form of luminance ratios and color residual values. In an example embodiment, luminance ratio values and residual values in color channels of a color space are generated on an individual pixel basis based on a high dynamic range (HDR) image and a derivative tone-mapped (TM) image that comprises one or more color alterations that would not be recoverable from the TM image with a luminance ratio image. The TM image with HDR reconstruction data derived from the luminance ratio values and the color-channel residual values may be outputted in an image file to a downstream device, for example, for decoding, rendering, and/or storing. The image file may be decoded to generate a restored HDR image free of the color alterations.
US09271010B2

A method and apparatus are disclosed for providing motion estimation (ME) for large-size blocks of image data during image processing using small-size block processing logic. An embodiment method includes obtaining a large-size block for ME processing and dividing the large-size block into a plurality of small-size blocks. The large-size block comprises an integer multiple of the small-size blocks. The small-size blocks are then processed in parallel using a small-size block ME processing algorithm. An embodiment apparatus includes a processor configured to implement the method for large-size block ME processing using small-size block ME processing logic, and a shared memory register for storing at different times the 16×16 blocks.
US09271000B2

A video encoding apparatus includes an intra prediction error collector; a transform base generator; an intra predictor; and a transform encoder, the intra prediction error collector collecting prediction errors of blocks having an equal intra prediction mode from macroblocks in a regular unit, which are encoded prior to a current macroblock, the transform base generator generating transform bases for respective intra prediction modes based on the prediction errors collected by the intra prediction error collector. Accordingly, the intra prediction encoding performance can be significantly improved with adding no addition information by adaptively generating a transform base according to an image characteristic change and transform-encoding an intra prediction error. As a result, the compression efficiency of a video compression apparatus or the picture quality of a reconstructed image can be greatly improved.
US09270983B1

Methods, systems, and computer readable media can provide diagnosis of service-affecting issues in CPE devices. The diagnostic process can include retrieving a testing hierarchy associated with a received diagnostic command, executing the lowest-level diagnostic in the testing hierarchy, successively executing the remaining diagnostics in the testing hierarchy in the order implicated by the hierarchy until the commanded diagnostic is executed, and identifying the service-affecting issues found.
US09270980B2

An autostereoscopic display system includes a three-dimensional (3D) image converter configured to arrange a multiplicity of views, and a display device being coupled to receive the multiple arranged views. The arranged views include views arranged in forward order of view angle and views arranged in reverse order of view angle, the views in forward order and the views in reverse order being alternately arranged on each line of the display device.
US09270979B2

An apparatus and method for measuring 3-dimensional (3D) interocular crosstalk is disclosed. A light sensor detects luminance of a stereoscopic image displayed in a display and outputs a luminance value indicating the detected luminance. A controller calculates 3D interocular crosstalk based on a gray difference and a residual luminance ratio.
US09270977B2

The present application is directed to a 3D photo creation system and method, wherein the 3D photo creation system including: a stereo image input module configurated to input a stereo image; wherein the stereo image comprises a left eye image and a right eye image; a depth estimation module configurated to estimate a depth information of the stereo image and create a depthmap; a multi-view angle image reconstructing module configurated to create a multi-view angle image according to the depthmap and the stereo image; and an image spaced scanning module configurated to adjust the multi-view angle image and form a mixed image. The system and method outstandingly simplified the process of 3D photo creation and enhanced the quality of 3D photo. The system and method can be widely used in various theme parks, tourists attraction spots and photo galleries and bring about pleasure to more consumers with the 3D photos.
US09270969B2

A method, an apparatus, and a non-transitory computer readable medium for performing 2D to 3D conversion are presented. A 2D input source is extracted into left and right 3D images. Motion vectors are calculated for the left and right 3D images. Frame rate conversion is performed on the left 3D image and the right 3D image, using the respective calculated motion vectors, to produce motion compensated left and right 3D images. The left and right 3D images and the motion compensated left and right 3D images are reordered for display.
US09270965B2

Multi-stage production pipeline system that may be utilized in conjunction with a motion picture project management system. The multi-stage production pipeline system includes a computer and a database. The database includes metadata associated with at least one shot or associated with regions within the plurality of images in the at least one shot, or both. The computer includes a grouping tool interface for presenting user interface elements and accepting input of the metadata associated with the at least one shot or regions within the plurality of images in the at least one shot, or both. The system enables a large studio workforce to work non-linearly on a film while maintaining a unified vision driven by key creative figures, allowing for more consistent, higher quality, faster, less expensive work product and more efficient project management techniques. The system also enables reuse of project files, masks and other production elements across projects.
US09270963B2

Techniques are described that allow DVR users to create program shortcuts to different types of media content from content providers. A program shortcut comprises a reference to another media content. A user may generate a shortcut so that the user may easily find and return to media content without performing a new search. In addition, techniques may be used to automatically generate program shortcuts for a user based at least in part to user-indicated preferences or actions. Shortcuts may be generated to media content that is related to a preferred genre or media type specified by a user. Shortcuts may also be generated to content that is determined to be similar to content that is often viewed or recorded by the user.
US09270954B2

An imaging device has an intra-plane pixel summation unit and an inter-plane pixel summation unit. In the frame of interest, the intra-plane pixel summation unit sums the signals of the pixel of interest and selected highly correlated neighboring pixels to generate an intra-plane sensitized signal and a code indicating the pattern formed by the pixel of interest and the selected pixels. The inter-plane pixel summation unit selects pixels for summation from among the pixels positioned identically to the pixel of interest and pixels in the neighborhood of the identically positioned pixels in one or more frames neighboring the frame of interest on the basis of the agreement or disagreement of their pixel summing pattern codes and correlation of their intra-plane sensitized signals. In a Bayer array imaging device, enhanced sensitivity is obtained without causing color mixing.
US09270939B2

Systems and methods for error resilient transmission, rate control, and random access in video communication systems that use scalable video coding are provided. Error resilience is obtained by using information from low resolution layers to conceal or compensate loss of high resolution layer information. The same mechanism is used for rate control by selectively eliminating high resolution layer information from transmitted signals, which elimination can be compensated at the receiver using information from low resolution layers. Further, random access or switching between low and high resolutions is also achieved by using information from low resolution layers to compensate for high resolution spatial layer packets that may have not been received prior to the switching time.
US09270935B2

A wireless entertainment hub may receive an indication of user relocation. The wireless entertainment hub may analyze a profile with a history of program content requested by and presented to the user. The wireless entertainment hub may cause, based on the indication and the analysis, presentation of the program content from a registered source device to a plurality of sink devices.
US09270931B2

Responsive to a processor of a first intercom unit establishing a wireless data channel with one or more second intercom units of a plurality of intercom units in a wireless network, and responsive to an encoder of the first intercom unit repeatedly encoding, during a repeated time interval, data to be transmitted to the one or more second intercom units over the wireless data channel while pausing the wireless data channel such that the first intercom unit does not transmit the encoded data during the repeated time interval, the processor may receive an indication to un-pause the wireless data channel. A network controller of the first intercom unit may wirelessly transmit the data last encoded by the encoder during the repeated time interval to the one or more second intercom units.
US09270927B2

A method of generating edited video, the method comprises displaying, at a user device, information related to one or more video tags, the video tags representing options for generating an edited version of an unedited video; receiving, at the user device, a selection of one of the one or more video tags; and transmitting, from the user device, the unedited video, the selection of the one of the one or more video tags, and an indication of a video sharing website where the edited version of the unedited video is to be published to a remote server.
US09270923B2

According to at least one embodiment, a television receiver includes: a display; a casing comprising an opening, the casing being configured house the display; a board configured to be housed in the casing; a connector configured to be mounted on the board and exposed from the opening; an elastic member between the connector and the casing, the elastic member being configured to touch the connector; a cover configured to be at least partially positioned at a side of the connector opposite to the elastic member and cover a part of the connector; and a restriction portion configured to be positioned at the side of the connector opposite to the elastic member and restrict movement of the connector.
US09270916B2

A method for improving quality of video beaming of any content by a beaming application that is running on a computerized mobile device is provided herein. The method comprising the steps of: (iii) selecting content for beaming; (ii) beaming by utilizing a beaming application; (iii) identifying in real time a pattern change in beamed video, wherein the pattern change signifies transition from a previous rate of a predefined size of chunk of delivered data to a higher rate of currently delivered data in content displaying pattern by the application which starts a set of critical frames; (iv) performing quality improvement of the video beaming of the set of critical frames based on the identified pattern changes; and (v) identifying in real time a second pattern change in display video to a lower delivered data rate which ends the set of critical frames.
US09270908B2

Among other things, techniques and systems are provided for identifying when a pixel of an image sensor is in an idle period. A flag is utilized to differentiate when the pixel is in an idle period and when the pixel is in an integration period. When the flag indicates that the pixel is in an idle period, a blooming operation is performed on the pixel to reduce an amount of electrical charge that has accumulated at the pixel or to mitigate electrical charge from accumulating at the pixel. In this way, the blooming operation reduces a probability that the photosensitive sensor becomes saturated during an idle period of the pixel, and thus reduces the likelihood of electrical charge from a pixel that is not intended contribute to an image from spilling over and potentially contaminating a pixel that is intended to contribute to the image.
US09270898B2

A spectroscopic analysis apparatus includes a light source section that radiates light toward an object being imaged, an imaging section that captures light reflected off the object being imaged to acquire an image, a pixel detector that detects an abnormal pixel in the image which is a pixel where a reflectance ratio is greater than or equal to 1 and detects normal pixels in the image each of which is a pixel where the reflectance ratio is smaller than 1, and a light amount corrector that calculates a light amount correction value based on the amounts of light at normal pixels in a pixel area including the abnormal pixel in the image and replaces the amount of light at the abnormal pixel with the light amount correction value.
US09270895B2

When imaging bright objects, a conventional detector array can saturate, making it difficult to produce an image with a dynamic range that equals the scene's dynamic range. Conversely, a digital focal plane array (DFPA) with one or more m-bit counters can produce an image whose dynamic range is greater than the native dynamic range. In one example, the DFPA acquires a first image over a relatively brief integration period at a relatively low gain setting. The DFPA then acquires a second image over longer integration period and/or a higher gain setting. During this second integration period, counters may roll over, possibly several times, to capture a residue modulus m of the number of counts (as opposed to the actual number of counts). A processor in or coupled to the DFPA generates a high-dynamic range image based on the first image and the residues modulus m.
US09270894B2

An imaging apparatus disclosed herein includes: a solid-state imaging device in which pixels are arranged in a matrix; a mechanical shutter; and a signal processing unit, wherein the signal processing unit: resets charge stored in all the pixels by closing the mechanical shutter and applying a voltage V2 to a photoelectric conversion unit; starts first exposure by opening the mechanical shutter and applying a voltage V1 to the photoelectric conversion unit; finishes the first exposure by applying the voltage V2 to the photoelectric conversion unit with the mechanical shutter open; reads pixel signals to obtain a first still image; resets all the pixels; starts second exposure by applying the voltage V1 to the photoelectric conversion unit with the mechanical shutter open; finishes the second exposure by applying the voltage V2 to the photoelectric conversion unit with the mechanical shutter open; reads pixel signals to obtain a second still image.
US09270890B2

An apparatus for managing a medicine administering process to enable inspection of the medicine administering process, includes a video recording unit that generates video recorded image data by video recording the medicine administering process, and a data addition unit that adds controlling data that enables the recorded video of the medicine administering process to be displayed with display elements that depict transition events of the medicine administering process.
US09270885B2

Systems, methods, and computer readable mediums are provided to generate a number of targets for a panoramic image, each of the targets defining a portion of the panoramic image, monitor a position of a user device with respect to a current target, responsive to determining that the user device is properly positioned with respect to the current target, capture a first image for the current target using a camera of the user device, monitor the position of the user device with respect to a next target, responsive to determining that the user device is properly positioned with respect to the next target, capture a second image for the next target using the camera of the user device; and generate the panoramic image using the first image and the second image.
US09270882B2

A digital camera having a plurality of photography modes, comprising: an image sensor; an optical system for imaging a scene onto the image sensor; an image capture control for initiating an image capture operation; a photography mode user interface for selecting between a plurality of photography modes, the photography modes having associated image capture and image processing settings; a power control for turning the digital camera on or off, wherein when the camera is in an off state and the power control is activated with a first activation pattern the digital camera is turned on and set to operate in a default photography mode and when the power control is activated with a second activation pattern the digital camera is turned on and set to operate in a previously selected photography mode.
US09270875B2

Embodiments of imaging devices of the present disclosure automatically utilize simultaneous image captures in an image processing pipeline. In one embodiment, control processing circuitry initiates simultaneous capture of the first image by the first image sensor and the second image by the second image sensor; and image processing circuitry generates an enhanced monoscopic image comprising at least portions of the first image and the second image.
US09270864B2

To provide a color mixing inspection method, a color mixing inspection apparatus and a print apparatus capable of carrying out a color mixing inspection at low cost for the inspection with high detection ability. To that end, an evaluation pattern is irradiated with light having a color complementary to color mixed into the evaluation pattern to emphasize the color mixing and measure lightness, thereby determining the presence of color mixing.
US09270862B2

A non-transitory storage medium storing a scan program executable by a computer of an image processing device including a communication portion communicable with a scanning device and a storage portion storing a certain program, the scan program, when executed by the computer, causing the image processing device to execute: determining processing in which it is determined whether a pseudo image file is read by the certain program; scan-command transmission processing in which, when the image processing device determines that the pseudo image file is read by the certain program, a scan command is transmitted to the scanning device via the communication portion; scanned-data receiving processing in which the image processing device receives scanned data from the scanning device via the communication portion as a reply to the scan command; and scanned-data writing processing in which the received scanned data is written to the pseudo image file.
US09270858B2

Computer readable instructions, when executed by a processor, may cause an information processing apparatus to determine whether one or more of status information including specific apparatus identification information are received during a first time period around the time of receiving a reading instruction. The computer readable instructions, when executed by the processor, may cause the information processing apparatus to determine whether one or more of specific image reading apparatuses identified by one or more of specific apparatus identification information can execute a reading operation represented by acquired setting information from a memory, using one or more of a plurality of function information associated with the one or more of specific apparatus identification information, and transmit a determination result to an operation apparatus based on determining whether the one or more of specific image reading apparatuses can execute the reading operation.
US09270852B2

This image processing apparatus includes an additional-object registration unit and a read-image processing unit. A setting form contains: (a) an additional-object specification field used to present an additional object that is placed onto a document in order to specify an extract area to be extracted from an image read from the document; and (b) a processing specification field used to select processing to be performed on information obtained from the extract area. The additional-object registration unit identifies an image of the additional object presented in the additional-object specification field and the processing selected in the processing specification field, and registers the image and the process associated therewith. The read-image processing unit searches the read image of the document for the image of the additional object and performs the processing associated with the additional object image on the information obtained from the extract area specified by the additional object image.
US09270851B2

An image forming apparatus which includes a reading unit and allows an external memory device to be attached the apparatus, displays, on a display unit, a screen for performing a function using the reading unit and the external memory device when the image forming apparatus returns to the active state from the power-saving state depending on a cause for returning, if the cause for returning is that an original document is placed on the reading unit, and the external memory device is attached. The image forming apparatus also displays a default screen on the display unit when the image forming apparatus returns to the active state from the power-saving state, if the cause for returning is that an original document is placed on the reading unit, and the external memory device is not attached.
US09270849B2

A sheet post-processing apparatus includes a first conveying unit configured to convey a sheet; a holding unit configured to hold the sheet conveyed by the first conveying unit; a first post-processing unit configured to perform a post-process on the sheet conveyed by the first conveying unit; a second post-processing unit configured to perform a post-process on the sheet conveyed by the first conveying unit, the second post-processing unit being arranged below the first post-processing unit; a moving unit configured to move the holding unit from the first post-processing unit to the second post-processing unit; a second conveying unit configured to convey the sheet subjected to the post-processed by the first post-processing unit or the second post-processing unit in a direction orthogonal to a direction in which the sheet is conveyed by the first conveying unit; and a stacking unit configured to stack the sheet conveyed by the second conveying unit.
US09270848B2

An aspect of the invention is an information processing device. The information processing device includes a setting part configured to set an attribute of a folder, and a restriction part configured to restrict storage of a file into the folder based on the set attribute and an attribute of a file.
US09270846B2

A content encoder for encoding content into a source image for display on a display device includes inputs for receiving data representing content to be encoded into the source image; a processor arranged to encode the content into a sequence of display frames each including the source image, the content encoded as a time varying two-dimensional pattern of luminosity modulations of portions of the source image to form a sequence of encoded images of the source image; and outputs arranged to output the sequence of encoded images to the display device.
US09270829B2

Methods, devices, signals, and systems are provided in a message routing architecture which provides improved capabilities for integrating “digital” communication through email messages with “analog” communication through voice and/or fax or pager messages. Email can be addressed using nothing more than a standard telephone or fax number. If the registered owner of the telephone or fax number has a corresponding email address, then the invention converts the telephone or fax number to the email address for delivery and uses standard email delivery systems to deliver the message. If no conventional delivery email address is known, or if the message sender or recipient specify multiple delivery modes, then the email message content is transformed into voice, pager and/or fax content and delivered to the recipient using the telephone or fax number which was specified as the email address. Familiar telecommunications services such as call forwarding and selective call blocking can also be used with messages that originate as email. The invention also supports use of telecommunications numbers as indexes into databases which contain public key certificates, to make it unnecessary for a proposed message recipient to provide its public key expressly in advance to each particular proposed message originator.
US09270824B2

A computer aided prioritization (CAP) system may receive, from the emergency event reporter device, an emergency event including a priority selected from a set of event priorities and a type of event selected from a set of event types associated with the selected event priority; determine, based on the emergency event and without querying the emergency event reporter device for additional information, whether the emergency event indicates a higher priority emergency event to be handled by a computer aided dispatch (CAD) system or a lower priority emergency event to be handled automatically by a computer aided event module (CAEM); and selectively route the emergency event report to at least one of the CAD system and the CAEM according to the determination.
US09270816B2

In embodiments of the disclosed technology, devices and methods for redirecting a telephone call from a public-switched telephone to a packet-switched data network. The phone call is initially received via the public-switched telephone network having a dialed number associated with a hand-held wireless device of a called party. Upon initialization of the phone call, a route is determined from the telecommunications switch to the hand-held wireless device of the called party via a packet-switched network. The bandwidth of the packet-switched network is then detected to determine the ability of the network to handle the call. If the packet-switched network is determined to be capable of handling the call, the call is forwarded over the packet-switched data, thereby reducing or eliminating charges for wireless minutes.
US09270814B2

Agencies issue multiple devices to personnel for maintaining distinct identities over the course of assigned investigations. To provide flexible capabilities to agencies, a phone is converted for use with multiple attached telephone numbers. Accordingly, a single phone may be used to manage multiple identities over the course of one or more investigations. Using a multiple attached number, a given device can place and receive calls over the network to and from contacts. In addition to providing multiple attached numbers, calls using the multiple attached numbers may be monitored live and recorded to establish evidence.
US09270812B2

Methods and apparatuses are provided for providing information. Phone numbers are stored in an address book in a memory of the portable electronic device. Call history information for a phone number is displayed on a display of the portable electronic device together with a first option for editing of information associated with the phone number if the phone number is in the address book.
US09270808B2

A computerized method of customizing hardware for a mobile phone is provided. The method includes receiving shell selection information from a user input device, identifying a set of hardware components, the set of hardware components generated based on a compatibility between the hardware components and the shell selection information, and outputting the identified set of compatible hardware components.
US09270801B2

Systems and methods may provide for using an audio front end of a mobile device to sampled audio from an audio signal during a first portion of a periodic detection window, and reducing a power consumption of one or more components of the audio front end during a second portion of the periodic detection window. Additionally, a determination may be made as to whether voice activity is present in the audio signal based at least in part on the sampled audio. In one example, the length of the first portion and the length of the second portion are defined by a duty cycle of the periodic detection window.
US09270800B2

A system and method for providing a user interface that allows users to change the active line on which an outgoing call may be placed. In example embodiments, upon detecting call screen interaction a line selection menu is displayed. The line selection menu contains a plurality of line identifiers, each line identifier uniquely identifying a corresponding one of the multiple communication lines accessible at the mobile device. A system and method is also presented for providing a call log for identifying call activity associated with a plurality of communication lines.
US09270796B2

A handheld electronic device includes a housing, a display screen and a keypad assembly. The keypad assembly includes a FPC board, a number of press keys and a light guiding module. The press keys are held on the FPC board. The light guiding module includes a light guiding plate and a light source. The light guiding plate is mounted on the press keys. The light source is coupled to the FPC board and provides input light for the light guiding plate. The keypad structure further includes a receiving coil and a shielding layer. The receiving coil surrounds a periphery of the press keys. The receiving coil transfers electromagnetic waves into power, and charges the handheld electronic device. The shielding layer is laid on and adhered to the press keys. The light guiding plate is laid on and adhered to the shielding layers.
US09270794B2

A handheld electronic apparatus including an upper base module is provided. The upper base module includes a proximity/light sensor and a touch controller. The proximity/light sensor detects a distance between the proximity/light detector and an external object according to a light. The touch controller is coupled to the proximity/light detector for controlling a touch control action on a touch sensor of the handheld electronic apparatus.
US09270775B2

An exemplary content engine includes a content gateway configured to analyze and route content requests to a content server. The content server can be a cache server or a mobile content server. The cache server can be configured to receive and store cacheable web content from a controller that is configured to receive the cacheable web content from at least one cacheable web content provider, such as a web server, and route the content to the cache server. The mobile content server can be configured to receive, from the controller, and store the digital media content. The controller can be further configured to receive the digital media content from at least one external content server and route the content to the mobile content server. The content gateway can be further configured to receive non-cacheable web content from at least one non-cacheable web content provider.
US09270768B2

One or more interactions between a first user and a second user of a social networking system are identified. Each respective interaction of the one or more interactions is scored based on a group score and a time penalty. The group score is based on the number of users in the respective interaction and the time penalty is based on a time between a current time and a time of a last interaction between the first user and the second user. A relationship ranking that measures the first user's affinity towards the second user is determined, where the relationship ranking comprises one or more interaction scores. An indicator representing the relationship ranking is sent to a client for display.
US09270766B2

A method, non-transitory computer readable medium, and device that identifies network traffic characteristics to correlate and manage one or more subsequent flows includes transmitting a monitoring request comprising one or more attributes extracted from an HTTP request received from a client computing device and a timestamp to a monitoring server to correlate one or more subsequent flows associated with the HTTP request. The HTTP request is transmitted to an application server after receiving an acknowledgement response to the monitoring request from the monitoring server. An HTTP response to the HTTP request is received from the application server. An operation with respect to the HTTP response is performed.
US09270765B2

A computer-implemented method for accessing a hosted service on client devices is described. The client devices include client software that uses a remotely delivered policy to redirect network requests for hosted services to a server to enforce visibility, policy and data security for network delivered services. The method can be used in conjunction with existing VPN and proxy solutions, but provides distinct additional functionality, particularly suited to corporate needs. Policies allow entities to centralize enforcement of service-specific restrictions across networks and communication channels, e.g. only certain users can download client records from a service—irrespective of the network used to access the service.
US09270762B2

A communication network containing components which use and provide services in the communication network, a plurality of components capable of providing the identical service. In one embodiment, one component determines the services provided by other components in the communication network. If the same services are provided by two components, information relating to the output state of the software controlling the services is compared by one of the components. A software update is initialized if the output states differ. If a defined service is activated in a second component by means of a first component, but the service cannot be provided by means of the software of the second component although the second component has the necessary hardware requirements therefore, said service is made available by downloading or updating the software of the second component.
US09270760B2

A system and machine-implemented method for processing data associated with an application running on an electronic device. A server receives an HTTP header from the electronic device. The HTTP header is associated with an application running on the electronic device and specifies a content mode for the application. The content mode identifies a type of server content for a user of the application, and corresponds to at least one of plural modes including a child mode in which the type of server content is for a child user. The server receives a request for content from the electronic device, the request being associated with the application, and accesses content for the application based on the received request. The accessed content is provided for the application running on the electronic device. At least one of the accessing or the providing is based on the identified type of server content.
US09270759B2

Presented are systems and methods for distributing server-based services using a service development platform. The service development platform acquires server-based service data associated with a first server-based service, and parses the server-based service data. The service development platform catalogs the parsed server-based service data into a server-based service catalog that contains one or more server-based services different from the first server-based service. Additionally, the service development platform receives a request from a client device for the first server-based service indexed in the server-based service catalog, and provides the first server-based service to the client device.
US09270758B2

An example of a system that provides notary services on behalf of an application client running on a mobile device is described. The application client requests a notarization token from an application notary service client running on the same mobile device. The application notary service client utilizes a SIM card of the mobile device to generate a notarization token request which is sent to an application notary service server. The application notary service server utilizes a SIM signature validator server to validate the notarization token request and generates the notarization token for delivery to the application client via the application notary service client. The application client includes the notarization token in a request to an application server, which uses the notarization token to validate the application client for access to a function or data of the server.
US09270752B2

Methods, systems, and configured storage media are provided for flexible data mirroring. In particular, the invention provides many-to-one data mirroring, including mirroring from local servers running the same or different operating systems and/or file systems at two or more geographically dispersed locations. The invention also provides one-to-many data mirroring, mirroring with or without a dedicated private telecommunications link, and mirroring with or without a dedicated server or another server at the destination(s) to assist the remote mirroring unit(s). In addition, the invention provides flexibility by permitting the use of various combinations of one or more external storage units and/or RAID units to hold mirrored data. Spoofing, SCSI and other bus emulations, and further tools and techniques are used in various embodiments of the invention.
US09270747B2

A method and apparatus of monitoring active data communication sessions and potential new connections is disclosed. One example method of operation may include identifying a data communications requirement of a first network device currently communicating via the first communications connection with a second network device, an transmitting a data test message over at least one of the existing first communications connection and the second communications connection. The method may also include receiving a response to the data test message, and determining a change-over from the first communications connection to the second communications connection would provide a more optimal data connection based on the identified data communications requirements of the first network device. Active data sessions are constantly being considered for a change-over by potential new data connections which may provide increased optimal data performance.
US09270737B1

The invention provides systems and methods for automatically delivering a file from an originating computer system including a processor and memory to a destination computer system including a processor and memory. The method includes creating at least one master file delivery application and at least two file delivery agents running on the at least one originating computer system. A first file delivery agent of the at least two file delivery agents is controlled by a first master file delivery application of the at least one master file delivery application. A second file delivery agent of the at least two file delivery agents is run either by a second master file application. The method also includes dynamically balancing loads by the one master file delivery application, between the first file delivery agent controlled by the first master file delivery application and the second file delivery agent. The balancing is based on a number of files retrieved by the first file delivery agent and a number of files retrieved by the second file delivery agent; and transmitting at least one file according to at least one destination parameter associated with the at least one file.
US09270735B2

The present invention discloses improved systems and methods for multisite management of computer server systems and in particular converged communication systems based on a decentralized architecture. Certain and various aspects relating to atomic error handling, transaction-based authentication/security, intelligent bandwidth management, decoupled data/configuration messaging, improved scalability, auto-detection functions, business metrics, etc., also are disclosed. A console is disclosed that communicates with each of a plurality of converged communications systems, e.g., preferably through the use of sockets. The actual traffic load is decentralized among the computer server systems, as each one uses direct connections (e.g., via an enhanced file transfer protocol) to access update/configuration data as needed. In addition, an improved communication protocol is disclosed that is optimized for the multisite management architecture of the present invention. An improved set of graphical user interface (GUI) features are described that improve the efficiency of the management of multiple systems.
US09270734B2

The disclosure provides a download method and system based on a Management Data Input/Output (MDIO) interface, wherein the download method based on the MDIO interface comprises: a master device informing a slave device of using the MDIO interface to start downloading data packets in batches; the master device transmitting data packets in batches to the slave device by using an MDIO frame, wherein the MDIO frame comprises: a data packet address field and/or a data packet serial number field, wherein the data packet address field is used to indicate a relative address of one data packet in the slave device, and the data packet serial number field is used to indicate a location of said one data packet in multiple data packets; the slave device judging that a received data packet is a last data packet of a current batch transmission from the master device, and finishing a current batch download. The invention enables the master device and the slave device to perform the batch data download effectively, and solves the problem in the related art that large batch data transmission cannot be performed for download based on the MDIO interface.
US09270726B2

An approach is presented for facilitating communications for browser-based applications. A data communication platform determines to associate a communication identifier with a browser session. The browser session hosts, at least in part, a web application. The communication identifier facilitates addressing of the browser session, the web application, or a combination thereof via a process that is not specific to the browser session, the web application, or a combination thereof.
US09270713B2

In an example embodiment disclosed herein, there is described methods and a system for sharing of content in collaborative computing sessions. The methods and the system are operable to initiate a collaborative computing session between a plurality of participant devices, wherein at least one participant device operates as a presenter device to share data with at least one other participant viewer device. The methods and system are further operable to designate data to be shared with at least one viewer device. The methods and system are also operable to transmit the designated shared data to the at least one viewer device, render the shared data for display on at least one viewer device, wherein the shared data is rendered in accordance with display capabilities of the at least one viewer device, and display the rendered shared data on the at least one viewer device.
US09270710B2

Various embodiments provide a Peer-to-Peer (P2P, Internet Protocol (IP) telephone system. The telephone system includes a plurality of terminals coupled together via an IP network. The terminals cooperate with one another to provide telephony features without a dedicated central controller such as a PBX and/or a KSU controller. The terminals may further receive requests for configuration data residing on other terminals, relay the requests to such other terminals to obtain the request configuration, and return the requested configuration data to the requesting device.
US09270708B2

A contactability of a user can be maintained by identifying a secondary device and causing a contact device to establish a communication session with the secondary device when a primary device becomes unavailable. In some embodiments, when a power level of a primary device falls below a threshold, the primary device can identify a secondary device previously associated with the primary device. The secondary device can receive a signal periodically from the primary device. In response to ceasing to receive the signal that is being sent periodically from the primary device, the secondary device in some embodiments can send a notification to a contact device to inform the contact device to send a communication request to the secondary device. The secondary device can receive the communication request from the contact device and establish a communication session with the contact device.
US09270705B1

Applying a security policy to an application session, includes: recognizing the application session between a network and an application via a security gateway; determining by the security gateway a user identity of the application session using information about the application session; obtaining by the security gateway the security policy comprising network parameters mapped to the user identity; and applying the security policy to the application session by the security gateway. The user identity may be a network user identity or an application user identity recognized from packets of the application session. The security policy may comprise a network traffic policy mapped and/or a document access policy mapped to the user identity, where the network traffic policy is applied to the application session. The security gateway may further generate a security report concerning the application of the security policy to the application session.
US09270704B2

Implementations of the present disclosure involve a system and/or method for modeling a firewall function and operation such that software based analysis and other formal analysis methods may be used with the model. In one embodiment, the system and/or method includes modeling the function of a firewall as a set of links, ingress/egress interfaces, interface switches and behaviors chained together into a spanning graph. The spanning graph may then be used in conjunction with data structures, such as a Firewall Policy Diagram, to illustrate pathways through a network for a communication packet. This system and/or method allows for the understanding of a firewall policy such that the policy can be replicated among various firewalls in the network at issue.
US09270702B2

The present invention relates to a method of implementing a security system for preemptively preventing a decrease in work efficiency due to leaked confidential secrets or the browsing of non work-related sites through a mobile terminal. A security manager implements an environment for allowing, blocking, or recording Internet usage in an independent mobile communication network in an area requiring security, uses a security system server to preregister information on mobile terminals of users who are expected to use the Internet, makes agreements on how personal information will be handled when outside visitors visit the network, registers information on mobile terminals of outside visitors with the security system server, and oversees the installation of a security app whenever necessary.
US09270698B2

Methods and apparatus to perform string matching for network packet inspection are disclosed. In some embodiments there is a set of string matching slice circuits, each slice circuit of the set being configured to perform string matching steps in parallel with other slice circuits. Each slice circuit may include an input window storing some number of bytes of data from an input data steam. The input window of data may be padded if necessary, and then multiplied by a polynomial modulo an irreducible Galois-field polynomial to generate a hash index. A storage location of a memory corresponding to the hash index may be accessed to generate a slice-hit signal of a set of H slice-hit signals. The slice-hit signal may be provided to an AND-OR logic array where the set of H slice-hit signals is logically combined into a match result.
US09270696B2

Methods and systems for Sustained Testing and Awareness Refresh against Phishing threats (STAR*Phish™) are disclosed. In an embodiment, a method assigns schemes and unique identifiers to target e-mail addresses associated with a user accounts. The method delivers e-mail messages to the targeted e-mail addresses, the e-mail messages comprising an HTTP request and a unique identifier associated with each of the user accounts. The method then receives, at a Phishing Metric Tool (PMT), a response including the unique identifier. The PMT logs training requirements for the user accounts, tracks response metrics for the training requirements, and redirects the respective HTTP requests to a phishing training tool (PTT). The PTT sends a notification of the user account identities and the unique identifiers to the PMT and returns a status for the training requirements for the user accounts. Upon completion of the training, the PMT sends completion notifications for the user accounts.
US09270694B2

A security assessment tool can determine computer assets in a network and provide an overall security score for the network. The overall security score can represent an objective measure of the security of the network that considers potential security threats to the computer assets, counter measures deployed in the network to address the potential security threats, and the effectiveness of the counter measures. Based on the overall security assessment, the security assessment tool can provide recommendations for improving the security of the network.
US09270687B2

A system and method for providing a sensor overlay network is disclosed. The system may comprise a control module configured to receive and respond to data requests; a forwarding module configured to receive a data request from at least one network element and forward a response to the data request to the at least one network element, wherein the data request is directed to a control module; and a sensor module, communicatively coupled to the forwarding module and control module, configured to emulate the control module by receiving and responding to the data request from the forwarding module and handle data traffic received from the forwarding module.
US09270682B2

Systems and methods are described for providing a administration mechanism for wireless systems. In an embodiment, a mobile wireless server including a plurality of parameters that may be set to configure a mobile wireless client. The mobile wireless server also includes at least one computer program to set one or more of the parameters. The computer programs permit a user of at least one of the wireless clients to select a desired mode of operation for one or more of the wireless clients. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US09270679B2

Disclosed are methods and apparatus for creating and managing dynamic access control lists (ACL's). In a specific embodiment, a method of creating or modifying a dynamic access control policy (ACP) is disclosed. A current ACP for one or more specified resources is defined based on one or more membership rules for specifying users who can access the one or more specified resources based on user information that was or will be collected for a plurality of users. The collected user information includes at least user presence information or user communication data. The current ACP is retained for the one or more specified resources, wherein the current ACP is accessibly usable so as to dynamically allow a selected set of users, who each have corresponding collected user information which meets the one or more membership rules of the current ACP, to access the one or more specified resources. The selected set of users is changeable over time as different user information is collected over time.
US09270677B1

A method, system, and computer program product for detecting and enforcing compliance with access requirements for a computer system in a restricted computer network. A compliance validation configuration file is created for the computer system. A maintenance service utility is configured to launch a compliance validation executable file at a specified time during operation of the computer system. A digital hash is generated for the compliance validation executable file and for the compliance validation configuration file. A determination is made if the computer system or a computer system user is a member of a configured restricted group. If the computer system or the computer system user is a member of a configured restricted group, a determination is made if a directory site code for a subnet of the restricted computer network to which the computer system is connected corresponds to a configured and allowed site. If the directory site code does not correspond to a configured and allowed site, compliance with access requirements are enforced. Enforcement actions can include a forced logoff of the computer system user, and/or a forced shutdown of the computer system.
US09270676B2

A method of enabling a real entity to access a service on a communication network using a virtual entity, the method including the steps of establishing a user account including at least first data corresponding to the identity of the real entity and second data corresponding to the virtual entity and not identifying the real entity, storing the first and second data in a first database, linking between the first and second data in the first database, storing the second data at a second database, associating the second database with a communication network site, connecting the communication network site to the communication network, receiving the second data from an unidentified user on the communication network site, identifying the unidentified user as the virtual entity based on receiving the second data, and allowing the virtual entity to access the service.
US09270671B2

According to one aspect of the present disclosure a system and technique for refreshing memory topology in virtual machine operating systems is disclosed. The system includes a processor and logic executable by the processor to: receive biometric data corresponding to a user of the data processing system; create a certificate based on the biometric data; discover a wireless device able to communicate with the data processing system; responsive to discovering the wireless device, automatically request a certificate from the wireless device; and responsive to the certificate from the wireless device matching the certificate created by the data processing system, automatically associate the wireless device with the data processing system.
US09270669B2

Managing sharing of wireless network login passwords is disclosed, including: receiving from a terminal an authentication request to authenticate a wireless network, wherein the authentication request includes a first identifying information; sending an authentication code to the terminal, wherein the authentication code is to be configured as a newly configured login password associated with the wireless network; receiving a feedback response from the terminal, wherein the feedback response includes a second identifying information and the newly configured login password associated with the wireless network; in the event that the first identifying information matches the second identifying information and the authentication code matches the newly configured login password, determining that the terminal is an administrative terminal associated with the wireless network; and storing at least one of the first identifying information and the second identifying information as authentication identifying information with the newly configured login password.
US09270666B2

Disclosed are various embodiments for performing stateless verification of communication addresses. Encrypted verification data is generated for a user account, including a communication address and a first verification code, and a timestamp. The encrypted verification data is sent to a client, and the verification code is transmitted to the communication address. The encrypted verification data and a second verification code are received from the client. The communication address is verified in response to observing that the first verification code from the encrypted verification data matches the second verification code.
US09270662B1

Source information for requests submitted to a system are classified to enable differential handling of requests over a session whose source information changes over the session. For source information (e.g., an IP address) classified as fixed, stronger authentication may be required to fulfill requests when the source information changes during the session. Similarly, for source information classified as dynamic, source information may be allowed to change without requiring the stronger authentication.
US09270661B2

This invention relates to provide a communication network system, a gateway, and a data communication method, in which the gateway has an advanced functionality. A person who issues an access request can retrieve a desired access destination easily by the following configuration: functions of routing information providing and authentication processing are added to a gateway that performs protocol conversion between two different communication networks; when an access request is issued from a public communication network such as Internet to a terminal in a local (private) communication network connected to the gateway, a request terminal is authenticated to enable prevention of unauthorized data writing and reading; and an access request user who succeeded in the authentication is provided with an active terminal list comprising accessible terminal information, or with a user condition table.
US09270648B2

A system and method are provided for initiating protected instant messaging conversations. The method includes enabling a shared secret to be sent to a contact to initiate a key exchange to protect messages exchanged in an instant messaging conversation, the shared secret being sent using a communication medium other than instant messaging. After the shared secret has been sent, the method includes displaying a pending protected instant messaging conversation user interface prior to receiving a confirmation associated with receipt of the shared secret by the contact, the pending protected instant messaging conversation user interface comprising an option to resend the shared secret.
US09270645B2

Low resource internet devices such as consumer electronics products connect to web service by means of a proxy method where the connected device does not need to maintain the expensive and fragile web service interface itself, but rather uses simple low level protocols to communicate through a gateway that executes software to translate a low level proprietary wireless protocol to a proprietary low level internet protocol that can pass through a firewall to proxy servers that translate the low level protocols thus presenting an interface that makes the internet device appear to have a full web service interface to enable communication between the internet devices and the web server.
US09270641B1

Methods and systems are provided for using keyword preprocessing, Boyer-Moore analysis, and hybrids thereof, in intrusion-prevention systems. In one embodiment, a state-transition table representative of a data pattern is provided. The table has a plurality of states, each having egress events that define transitions to other states. The data pattern is parsed to identify character strings. A subject is received for evaluation, and preprocessed to find any instances of those character strings. A keyword table is populated with the character strings found during preprocessing. While using the table to evaluate the subject, a first state having a first one of the character strings as an egress event is transitioned into. The keyword table is checked for the first character string, and, responsive to finding the first character string in the keyword table, a transition is taken from the first state to the second state.
US09270637B2

A method, an apparatus, and a multimode terminal for implementing network switching. The method includes: sending a network access request to a second modem module and receiving a network parameter including at least an IP (Internet Protocol) address fed back by the second modem module, where the IP address fed back by the second modem module is the same as an IP address acquired by a first modem module that has accessed a network; disconnecting a communication connection between a NAT (Network Address Translation) module performing address translation and the first modem module; and updating network configuration of the second modem module and establishing a communication connection between the NAT module and the second modem module. The method, apparatus, and multimode terminal disclosed herein can ensure that a service is not interrupted during network switching, thereby improving the user experience and satisfaction.
US09270635B2

Loading an operating system of a diskless compute node using a single Virtual Protocol Interconnect (VPI) adapter, including: setting, by a VPI firmware module during startup of the compute node, an operational mode of the VPI adapter to operate in accordance with a first data communications protocol, the VPI adapter including a preboot execution environment module that supports the first data communications protocol prior to loading an operating system and a driver for the first data communications protocol; retrieving, by the VPI firmware module from a network source via the VPI adapter in accordance with the first data communications protocol, the operating system and a driver for the second data communications protocol; and responsive to loading the operating system and the driver for the second data communications protocol, switching the operational mode of the VPI adapter to operate in accordance with the second data communications protocol.
US09270633B2

In one embodiment, a computer system determines a wireless transmit cost for each of one or more outgoing messages for a first user, and transmits to the first user's mobile device at least one of the one or more outgoing messages based on the mobile device's power state and respective wireless transmit costs of the one or more outgoing messages.
US09270630B1

Systems, methods and computer readable media for persistent conversations are described. In some implementations, a method can include receiving a communication message sent from a first user to at least one other user and generating a persistent conversation object having a conversation content section and conversation state information. The method can also include storing the communication message in the conversation content section of the persistent conversation object and forwarding the communication message to the at least one other user. The method can further include updating the conversation state information to reflect the receiving, storing and forwarding of the communication message.
US09270623B2

Subscription status notification techniques are provided. A request is received by at least one server from a user equipment (UE) to attach to a wireless packet data communication network. The server determines whether the UE is associated with an enterprise identified by a service provider of the network as a sponsor of a data service through the network, based on an account of the UE stored on the server. Upon determining that the UE is associated with the enterprise, a notification message is sent from the server to the UE, through an information element field within an existing message in a bearer channel of the network. The UE is configured to control access to the network responsive to the subscription status in the notification message. The UE permits access to a sponsored data service associated with the enterprise sponsor regardless of the UE's ability to access non-enterprise associated data services.
US09270620B2

Mechanisms are provided, in a data processing system comprising a host system and a network adapter, for processing received frames of data over a network connection. The mechanisms receive, in the host system from the network adapter, a plurality of frames of data. The mechanisms record, by the host system, for each frame in the plurality of frames, a header size associated with the frame over a current predetermined interval. The mechanisms determine, by the host system, a receive buffer address offset for receive buffers in the host system for a next predetermined interval based on the recorded header sizes of the plurality of frames over the current predetermined interval. In addition, the mechanisms configure, by the host system, the network adapter to utilize the receive buffer address offset to perform data transfers with the host system.
US09270618B2

In one embodiment, a system includes a network fabric having a plurality of fabric switches interconnected in the network fabric and a switch controller having logic adapted to configure the network fabric, determine one or more paths through the network fabric between any two hosts connected thereto, and create a source-routing table to store the one or more paths through the network fabric between any two hosts connected thereto. In another embodiment, a method includes receiving or creating a packet using a NIC of a host connected to a network fabric having a plurality of fabric switches interconnected therein, determining a path through the network fabric by consulting a source-routing table stored to the host, storing source-routing information to a packet header for the packet, the source-routing information including the path, and sending the packet to a first device or hop indicated by the path in the source-routing information.
US09270615B2

A method for automatically generating a limited set of spectrum and service profiles for use in an operator's telecommunication network includes collecting physical layer parameter values for individual lines, determining a set of optimized parameter values for each one of the individual lines, estimating a probability density function for each optimized parameter based on optimized parameter values for multiples lines, sampling the probability density function for each optimized parameter and selecting and combining according to parameter and profile policies a set of optimized parameter values to generate the limited set of spectrum and service profiles.
US09270596B2

A server may be configured to: receive a network selection query, associated with a user device. The network selection query may include information relating to a geographic location of the user device. The server may also select, based on information included in the network selection query, a virtual network element that services the geographic location of the user device and functions as a physical network element of an evolved packet core (EPC) network or an internet protocol (IP) multimedia subsystem (IMS) network. The server may also enable use of the selected virtual network element by the user device; receive a data packet destined for the selected virtual network element; provide the data packet to the selected virtual network element; and prevent the data packet from being sent to a non-selected virtual network element.
US09270591B2

Method and media gateway (4) for providing network connectivity functionality in a combination of a first network connection formed by the media gateway (4) and a second network connection formed by a generic gateway (2). A first group of IP clients (5) is connected to the media gateway (4), and a second group of IP clients (3) is connected to the generic gateway (2). The media gateway (4) is arranged to receive from the generic gateway (2) local IP addresses associated with the first group of IP clients (5). An attachment link (6) is provided between the media gateway (4) and the generic gateway (2).
US09270583B2

An apparatus can include a connection manager adapter that is configured to maintain presence for each of the plurality of non-IP endpoints in an IP messaging and presence protocol based on the endpoint presence data. The endpoint presence data includes a unique identifier and attribute data received for each of a plurality of non-internet protocol (IP) endpoints. The connection manager adapter can be configured to access the endpoint presence data and convert a message between the IP messaging and presence protocol and different protocol for communication with a given non-IP endpoint of the plurality of endpoints.
US09270576B2

In one embodiment, the present invention includes a method for receiving a request in a router from a first endpoint coupled to the router, where the request is for an aggregated completion. In turn, the router can forward the request to multiple target agents, receive a response from each of the target agents, and consolidate the responses into an aggregated completion. Then, the router can send the aggregated completion to the first endpoint. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US09270574B2

A method, apparatus and computer program product for providing delayed path calculations based on service type is presented. A first network device sends to at least one of a plurality of other network devices in a network, link state information directing receivers of the link state information, when computing routes transiting though the first network device, to refrain from using the first network device on at least one of the group consisting of per Network Layer Protocol Identifier (NLPID), per address family, and per service within an address family.
US09270571B2

A router system is disclosed. The router system comprises a wireless router and a cradle comprising a router interface configured to receive the router. One or more connections are positioned at the router interface for communicating with the router. Methods and systems for communicating between a router and the internet are also disclosed.
US09270570B2

A message routing method includes receiving a plurality of messages at a routing node. The routing node is configured to route each received message based on the message type. Accordingly, the routing node is able to establish a peer-to-peer connection between the message source and a destination node for a designated message type, while establishing a server-client connection between the message source and a server for other message types. The routing node can also route messages to different groups of destination nodes depending on the message type, thereby providing a flexible way to route messages over a network.
US09270569B2

Provided are transmitting side and receiving side terminals and a method of monitoring a network using the terminals. The transmitting side terminal includes a packet classifier configured to classify an input service packet as a probing packet or a non-probing packet according to a feature of the service packet, and a packet transmitter configured to transmit the probing packet or the non-probing packet.
US09270568B2

A method and device for determining the presence of a rate limiting mechanism arranged between a sending and a receiving data communication node in a data transfer path of a communication network is presented. The method includes determining time difference values for probe packets in a train of probe packets sent from the sending node and received in the receiving node after having traversed the data transfer path during real-time operation of the data transfer path. The method further includes determining the presence of a rate limiting mechanism in the data transfer path upon detecting that an increase in the time difference value between received probe packets in the train of probe packets exceeds a threshold criterion. Other methods and devices for determining the absence of a rate limiting mechanism and corresponding computer program products are further disclosed.
US09270566B2

Embodiments described herein discuss an approach to implementing load-balancing across multiple monitoring servers. One such embodiment describes a network monitoring device. The network monitoring device includes an ingress port, for receiving mirrored network packets, and a number of egress ports. The egress ports are associated with a number of monitoring servers, and used to forward the mirrored network packets to the monitoring servers. A packet classifier, coupled to the ingress port, examines the mirrored network packets, and determines which of the monitoring servers should receive the packets.
US09270562B2

Transaction storm detection includes receiving a series of transactions in a data stream for an authenticated network session. A detection engine determines whether the transactions form a transaction storm. In response to determining that the transactions are a transaction storm, metrics associated with the transaction storm are presented. One or more actions may be specified to be applied in a subsequently detected transaction storm.
US09270548B2

A system, method, and computer readable medium. A method includes monitoring calls from a client system to a server system for properties associated with an object, each call having a context. The method includes storing call data related to the calls as a property-retrieval history, including storing the context of each call. The method includes analyzing a policy associated with at least one context based on the property-retrieval history. The method includes updating the policy associated with the at least one context based on the analysis, and transferring data corresponding to the at least one context based on the policy.
US09270546B2

Certain example embodiments relate to techniques for dynamically bootstrapping repositories or databases for newly created tenants at runtime in scalable, distributed multi-tenant environments. Repositories are maintained for respective application-tenant combinations. If there is an existing repository for the application and tenant combination involved in an incoming request, the request is responded to using that existing repository. However, if this is not the case, a new repository is created dynamically and at runtime. Bootstrapping is triggered dynamically the first time a client application tries to access the newly created tenant at runtime. This approach advantageously is flexible when it comes to enabling tenant- and application-specific repositories with optional search index mapping (e.g., for searching and/or other purposes).
US09270544B2

A method and apparatus to analyze real-time data transmissions across a network is described. The method may comprise transmitting a sample data stream between source and destination endpoints across a test data path which includes network devices. The method may then compare a measured quality of the received sample data stream with pre-defined quality criteria associated with the network. If the measured quality fails to meet the pre-defined quality criteria, the network devices in the test data path may be identified, device performance data may be obtained, and a network report may be generated based on the device performance data. The device performance data may comprise processor utilization, memory utilization, bandwidth over subscription, buffer over run, and/or a number of non-error packets that are discarded at the network device.
US09270543B1

Methods, systems and computer program products for application centered node selection are provided. A plurality of nodes of a network having node attributes for executing applications are identified. Each node of the plurality of nodes is linked to an application based on a node attribute identified for the respective node. Each node linked to a linked application has a corresponding node attribute for executing the linked application. A node request is received for a target application. The node request may be independent of a node configuration, such as an IP address or DNS name. A node linked to the target application is selected and provided. The target application is executed by the selected node.
US09270542B2

In one embodiment, packet forwarding apparatus includes a data packet receiving interface, a data packet forwarding interface, and a configuration interface. The apparatus also includes circuitry that defines a plurality of data packet forwarding paths between the data packet receiving interface and the data packet forwarding interface. The circuitry defines at least one of the plurality of data packet forwarding paths in response to input received via the configuration interface, and the circuitry adaptively reconfigures at least one of the plurality of data packet forwarding paths i) in response to input received via the configuration interface, and ii) while data packets are being received by the packet forwarding apparatus.
US09270532B2

Resource command messages comprise commands and command urgency or importance information that is interpreted by a resource device and is coupled with information relating to the resource device to determine when to process the command within the resource command message. Resource devices comprising a plurality of resource nodes provide increased performance, responsiveness, and load balancing by multiple resource nodes processing the same resource command message in parallel.
US09270524B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method and a device for link aggregation control protocol (LACP) link switch. The method includes: monitoring state changes of interfaces in an LACP link aggregation group; when monitoring a state change occurs on an active interface in the aggregation group, determining whether the number of active interfaces in the aggregation group is smaller than a preset minimum active link number, if yes, keeping states of N interfaces among the interfaces on which a state change occurs being an active state, so that the number of active interfaces in the aggregation group is greater than or equal to the preset minimum active link number; and when monitoring a state change occurs on an inactive interface in the aggregation group, adjusting states of M interfaces among the N interfaces kept in the active state into an inactive state M being smaller than or equal to N.
US09270523B2

Embodiments of the present invention relate to an approach for reconfiguring interrelationships between components of virtual computing networks (e.g., a grid computing network, a local area network (LAN), a cloud computing network, etc.). In a typical embodiment, a set of information pertaining to a set of components associated with a virtual computing network is received in a computer memory medium or the like. Based on the set of information, a graphical representation (e.g., hierarchical tree) depicting the set of interrelationships between the set of components is generated. When a failure in the virtual computing network is detected, at least one of the set of interrelationships between the set of components is reconfigured based on the graphical representation and the set of rules to address the failure.
US09270509B1

Methods and devices for “shaping” a slope of the phase component of OFDM data symbols in order to decrease an accumulation of phase error are provided. By way of example, a method includes receiving an incoming data signal via a processor of a transmitter. The method further includes computing one or more roots of a first function representing a phase component of the data signal, computing a second function representing the phase component based on the one or more roots, deriving a periodicity of the phase component based on the second function, and deriving a value of a slope of the phase component based at least in part on the periodicity of the phase component to reduce or eliminate an error of the phase component.
US09270507B2

A system and method for detecting signal levels in a multi-level signaling receiver. In one embodiment, a plurality of comparators, each including a differential pair, such as a differential pair of field-effect transistors (FETs) are assembled in a stacked configuration so that in some states current flows through FETs of the plurality of differential pairs in series, resulting in a reduction in power consumption.
US09270503B2

A method may comprise receiving and sampling a signal. The signal may encode a data packet. A slice may be generated and stored comprising a pair of values for each of a selected number of samples of the signal representing a correlation of the signal to reference functions in the receiver. The presence of the data packet may then be detected and the detected packet decoded from the stored slices. The generating and storing slices may be carried out as the received signal is sampled. The sampled values of the signal may be discarded as the slices are generated and stored. The slice representation of the signal can be manipulated to generate filters with flexible bandwidth and center frequency.
US09270494B2

A channel estimation method and an associated device for estimating a data channel of a data resource element are provided. The channel estimation method includes obtaining a plurality of pilot channels for pilot resource elements in a time-frequency domain, respectively; utilizing a processing circuit to apply a transformation matrix to the pilot channels, to obtain a plurality of transformed pilot channels corresponding to the pilot resource elements, respectively; and estimating the data channel of the data resource element by performing a plurality of one-dimensional channel estimations according to the transformed pilot channels.
US09270489B1

Systems and methods are provided for congestion notification in mixed-fabric InfiniBand networks. In one aspect, a system and apparatus is provided wherein a receiving endpoint receives, from a sending endpoint, InfiniBand messages over a mixed-fabric network. The mixed-fabric network may include an InfiniBand transport layer and a non-InfiniBand messaging fabric. The non-InfiniBand massaging fabric may be any type of non-InfiniBand data-link-layer and network-layer network (e.g. Ethernet, IP). For example, the receiving endpoint may receive a non-InfiniBand protocol data unit (PDU) that contains at least a part of a first InfiniBand PDU as payload. The receiving endpoint may extract signaling from the received non-InfiniBand PDU that indicates whether congestion has been detected in the non-InfiniBand layers of the mixed-fabric network. The receiving endpoint may include the same or similar signaling in the header portion of a second InfiniBand PDU, and transmit the second InfiniBand PDU to the sending endpoint.
US09270484B2

A circuit-based digital communications network is provided for a large data center environment that utilizes circuit switching in lieu of packet switching in order to lower the cost of the network and to gain performance efficiencies. A method for transmitting data in such a network comprises sending a setup request for a path for transmitting the data to a destination node and then speculatively sending the data to the destination node before the setup request is completed.
US09270480B1

The present disclosure pertains to systems and methods for Ethernet-based management of optical networks using ONT management interface (OMCI). In one exemplary embodiment, an Ethernet-based protocol, such as Active Ethernet, is used to implement an ONT management interface (OMCI) between an optical line terminal (OLT) and a plurality of ONTs of a MON. Further, virtual local area networks (VLANs) are used to separate the traffic carried by the MON. Various techniques are described that permit ONT registration and creation of VLANs for the MON without requiring the use of gigabit PON (GPON) constructs, such as traffic containers (TCONTs) and dedicated GPON encapsulation method (GEM) ports.
US09270475B2

A system and method are disclosed for the repair of IP multicast sessions. A repair server polls multiple transmit servers to accumulate as many of the packets missing from the multicast session as possible. A network includes a source of multicast packets in a multicast session and a plurality of multicast recipients in that session. A repair server in the network provides the packets it receives to the recipients. The repair server includes a missing packet detector. There is a plurality of retransmit servers in the network buffering portions of the packets they respectively receive during the session. The repair server maintains an ordered list of the retransmit servers that are most likely to have buffered copies of packets missing from the session. When the repair server detects that there are packets missing from the session it has received, it uses the ordered list to sequentially request the missing packets from respective ones of the plurality of retransmit servers.
US09270473B2

A method and apparatus for transferring a user data profile from a user's home terminal to a visiting terminal is disclosed. User or network configuration settings are transferred from a home telephony adapter to a visiting telephony adapter. In accordance with one embodiment, a computer readable medium, such as a flash drive is inserted into the home telephony adapter and, either with or without authentication, user or network configuration settings are transferred from the home telephony adapter to the medium. In another embodiment, the medium is then inserted into the visiting telephony adapter.
US09270467B1

A computer-implemented method for trust propagation of signed files across devices may include identifying a signed file on a device, calculating, on the device, a hash based at least in part on the signed file, querying, with the hash, a server which has verified that the signed file is trustworthy based on a digital signature of the signed file having been verified by an additional device capable of verifying digital signatures, receiving on the device, in response to querying the server, a trust indicator indicating that the digital signature of the signed file has been verified and trusting the signed file on the device, based on the trust indicator indicating that the digital signature of the signed file has been verified. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.
US09270465B2

A method for securely obtaining a control word in a chip set of a receiver, said control word for descrambling scrambled content received by the receiver, the method comprising, at the chip set: receiving a secured version of a virtual control word from a conditional access/digital rights management client communicably connected to the chip set; obtaining the virtual control word from the secured version of the virtual control word; and using a first cryptographic function to produce a given output from an input that comprises the virtual control word and either a plurality of signature verification keys or one or more values derived from a plurality of signature verification keys, each signature verification key being associated with a conditional access/digital rights management system, the given output comprising at least one control word, wherein the first cryptographic function has the property that it is infeasible to determine a key pair including a signature key and a signature verification key and an input for the first cryptographic function comprising the determined signature verification key or one or more values derived, at least in part, from the determined signature verification key, such that the first cryptographic function produces the given output from the determined input.
US09270463B2

An unauthorized connection detecting device, which detects whether or not a power storage device is an unauthorized power storage device, includes: a communications unit receiving first charge/discharge information in which first identification information and first connection information are associated each other, the first identification information identifying an encryption key of the power storage device used for mutual authentication between a charge/discharge device and the power storage device, and the first connection information being on the power storage device and obtained when the power storage device is connected to the charge/discharge device; and an unauthorization detecting unit detecting whether or not the power storage device is the unauthorized power storage device, by determining, using the first identification information and the first connection information, whether or not two or more power storage devices associated with a single first identification information item are present.
US09270444B2

In a signal detection apparatus, power detection section 101 detects power of an inputted received signal, and upon detection of power exceeding a power detection threshold, outputs a trigger to storage section 102. Storage section 102 stores a first received signal upon reception of the trigger and outputs the stored first received signal to multiplier 103 and newly stores a second received signal upon receipt of the next trigger. Multiplier 103 multiplies the second received signal by the first received signal, integrator 104 integrates the multiplication result from multiplier 103 during a predetermined duration to obtain a correlation value of the second and first received signals, and absolute value calculation section 105 calculates an absolute value of the correlation value from integrator 104. Determination section 106 determines the presence/absence of a detection-target signal based on the absolute value of the correlation value from absolute value calculation section 105.
US09270438B2

A method, performed by a transceiver, is described. The transceiver receives a null data packet announcement (NDPA) frame to initiate channel sounding and a null data packet (NDP), the NDP following the NDPA frame. A first report field including beamforming information and a second report field including signal to noise ratio (SNR) information is configured. First feedback data including the first report field and a second report field is split into a plurality of segments. The plurality of segments is transmitted in a single aggregated medium access control protocol data unit (A-MPDU) including MPDUs. A retransmission request including a segment retransmission bitmap field indicating at least one segment of the plurality of segments for retransmission is received. In response to the retransmission request, second feedback data including the at least one segment indicated by the segment retransmission bitmap field is transmitted.
US09270434B2

The present invention is directed to a wireless communication system. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a method and an apparatus of controlling uplink transmission at a user equipment in a wireless communication system, wherein the user equipment is connected to multiple component carriers, which includes receiving configuration information for transmitting an uplink signal from a base station; and identifying a time for transmitting the uplink signal to the base station on a corresponding uplink component carrier in use of the configuration information, wherein if the corresponding uplink component carrier is in a non-available state at the time for transmitting the uplink signal, the uplink signal is not transmitted.
US09270426B1

A network device computes a set of maximally redundant trees from an ingress network device to a plurality of egress network devices based on a network graph, in which each of the set of maximally redundant trees comprises a spanning tree to the plurality of egress network devices rooted at the network device. The network device computes the maximally redundant trees such that each of the links along each of the set of maximally redundant trees satisfies a specified traffic-engineering constraint. The ingress network device establishes a plurality of point to multipoint (P2MP) label switched paths (LSPs) from the network device as an ingress network device to the plurality of egress network devices along the set of maximally redundant trees, wherein each of the P2MP LSPs corresponds to a different one of the maximally redundant trees.
US09270423B2

Techniques, apparatuses, and systems can include mechanisms for transmitting and receiving data on one or more reverse link acknowledgement channels.
US09270410B2

A method of transmitting a wireless signal (FIGS. 3A-3C) is disclosed. A data stream is divided (306) into a first data stream and a second data stream. The first data stream is encoded (300) at a first data rate. The second data stream is encoded (320) at a second data rate different from the first data rate. A first part of the encoded first data stream is transmitted from a first transmit antenna (308). A second part of the encoded first data stream is transmitted from a second transmit antenna (312).
US09270406B2

A communication method of an optical communication system in which a user-side optical-line terminal apparatus (ONU) is connected to a station-side optical-line terminal apparatus (OLT) by an optical fiber includes allocating by the OLT to the ONY a transmission bandwidth for transmitting a response signal in a tentative wake-up period in a sleep mode in which a transmission function of the ONU is activated in the tentative wake-up period and deactivated in a sleep period. The method also includes transmitting a transmission bandwidth notification to the ONU, and transmitting, to the ONU, a notification of the sleep period in which deactivation of the transmission function is allowed.
US09270393B2

A computer-implemented method for reducing a noise signal added to an amplitude modulated (AM) broadcast signal while travelling from a broadcasting antenna to a receiving antenna is provided. The method includes capturing a signal representative of the AM broadcast signal corrupted by the noise signal via the receiving antenna, inverting the captured signal, and determining a carrying frequency of the AM broadcast signal and delaying the inverted waveform by a fraction of a cycle of the carrying frequency. The method further includes generating a difference signal by subtractively combining the captured signal and the delayed inverted signal, generating an estimate noise signal by reducing an amplitude of the generated difference signal using a noise-reduction control multiplier, and minimizing the corrupting noise signal component of the captured signal by subtractively combining the captured signal and the generated estimate noise signal.
US09270381B2

Disclosed are a method and an apparatus for transmitting and receiving coherent optical OFDM. The apparatus includes: a transmitted OFDM digital signal processing unit outputting an in-phase (I) component digital signal and a quadrature phase (Q) component digital signal; a digital-analog converter converting the in-phase (I)-component digital signal and the quadrature-phase (Q)-component digital signal into an in-phase (I)-component analog signal and a quadrature-phase (Q)-component analog signal, respectively; an adder adding an additional pilot tone signal to each of the in-phase (I)-component analog signal and the quadrature-phase (Q)-component analog signal outputted from the digital-analog converter; and an optical I/Q modulator up-converting the in-phase (I)-component analog signal added with the additional pilot tone signal and the quadrature-phase (Q)-component analog signal added with the additional pilot tone signal to an optical domain to output a coherent optical OFDM signal including the additional pilot tone signal.
US09270377B2

The present invention provides a high-speed 100 G optical transceiver for InfiniBand and Ethernet with associated mapping to frame InfiniBand and Ethernet into GFP-T. The optical transceiver utilizes an architecture which relies on standards-compliant (i.e., multi-sourced) physical client interfaces. These client interfaces are back-ended with flexible, programmable Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) modules to accomplish either InfiniBand or Ethernet protocol control, processing, re-framing, and the like. Next, signals are encoded with Forward Error Correction (FEC) and can include additional Optical Transport Unit (OTU) compliant framing structures. The resulting data is processed appropriately for the subsequent optical re-transmission, such as, for example, with differential encoding, Gray encoding, I/Q Quadrature encoding, and the like. The data is sent to an optical transmitter block and modulated onto an optical carrier. Also, the same process proceeds in reverse on the receive side.
US09270375B2

A lossless bandwidth adjustment method is provided, includes: A downstream node of an ODUflex path receives a request message from an upstream node of the ODUflex path, where the request message is used for requesting lossless adjustment of a bandwidth of the ODUflex path; the downstream node searches according to the tunnel identifier to obtain bandwidth information before adjustment of the ODUflex path, compares the bandwidth information before adjustment with the bandwidth information after adjustment, determines the number of tributary slots that need to be adjusted for a link between the downstream node and an adjacent upstream node, and selects a tributary slot that needs to be adjusted; indicates, through a label, a tributary slot after adjustment of the adjacent upstream node or the selected tributary slot that needs to be adjusted, and sends a tributary slot adjustment command to a data plane.
US09270372B2

The disclosure provides a practical system and methods for implementing an adaptive free-space optical network with a high-connectivity, dynamic mesh topology. The network can have operational characteristics similar to those of RF mobile ad-hock networks. Each node has one or more optical terminals that may utilize space-time division multiplexing, which entails rapid spatial hopping of optical beams to provide a high dynamic node degree without incurring high cost or high size, weight, and power requirements. As a consequence the network rapidly sequences through a series of topologies, during each of which connected nodes communicate. Each optical terminal may include a plurality of dedicated acquisition and tracking apertures which can be used to increase the speed at which traffic links can be switched between nodes and change the network topology. An RF overlay network may be provided to act as a control plane and be used to provide node discovery and adaptive route planning for the optical network.
US09270360B2

Disclosed are signal transmitting apparatus and method capable of generating polarizations that can be controlled in real time by allocating weights to signals. A signal transmitting method for generating variable polarizations having any vector through a plurality of radiating elements vertical to each other includes: receiving an input signal and separating the input signal into a plurality of separated signals according to the number of radiating elements; and allocating weights for controlling vectors of the variable polarizations to each of the plurality of separated signals, wherein the vectors of the variable polarizations are represented by a vector sum of the plurality of separated signals allocated with weights.
US09270359B2

Controlling the polarization state of signals to be transmitted from a MIMO capable radio base station node to a plurality of user equipment, which radio base station node comprises a precoder unit connecting a first and a second virtual antenna port to a respective first and second transmit antenna port, by the steps of controlling (S10) a relative phase between transmitted signals from the first and second transmit antenna port to provide a predetermined pair of orthogonal polarization states for signals transmitted on the first and second virtual antenna ports, and interchanging (S20) the polarization states of the first and second virtual antenna ports, to provide transmitted polarized signals with alternating polarization states.
US09270357B2

A method for selecting a multi-antenna transmission mode of an electronic device is provided. The method includes determining, by using a detection signal from a sensor, whether there is a contact with a human body, changing a second transmission mode to a first transmission mode when there is a contact with a human body that affects the electromagnetic field around an antenna, and transmitting the same data stream through at least two antennas according to the first transmission mode.
US09270354B1

Described is system and method for blind beamforming using knowledge embedded in transmitted signals. Initial antenna weights are assigned for antenna elements of emitters of a beamforming system to generate a set of weighted radio-frequency (RF) signals at an output of each antenna element. The set of weighted RF signals are combined to form RF signal mixtures. Then, each RF signal mixture is processed to extract embedded information within signals of the emitters. The extracted embedded information is sent to an optimization module, where the extracted embedded information is used to perform simultaneous signal extractions for emitters in the beamforming system. Furthermore, feedback from the optimization module is used to modify antenna weights toward optimal beamforming.
US09270350B2

An OFDM communication system, a method and a device for transceiving signal are provided. The method includes: dividing M transmitting antennas into one or more groups to form U transmitting ports, wherein transmitting antennas in different groups are uncorrelated, and M is greater than or equal to U; forming P data flows using a Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) mode, wherein P=U/2, and P is less than or equal to a number of receiving ports; and mapping a group of 2P modulation symbols, including two modulation symbols of each data flow, to a resource element pair to form Space Frequency Block Code (SFBC) coding relationships with each other, and transmitting the group of 2P modulation symbols on the U transmitting ports. The data transmission performance can be improved.
US09270338B2

A first user instruction for turning on a communication unit of a communication apparatus is detected. An instruction which is performed firstly, out of the first user instruction and a second user instruction for turning on a communication unit of the other communication apparatus, is determined. Based on this determination result, data designated by a user is transmitted from the communication apparatus to another communication apparatus.
US09270336B2

A mobile computing device hosts an operating system and mobile applications. A provisioning application communicates with a secure element and near field communication (NFC) subsystem. It causes display of an interface for users to enter personal attributes for storage in the secure element. Users discriminately select items from their personal attributes for transmission to a third party recipient so only attributes relative to the third party are sent. Software, interfaces, methods, and apparatus typify the embodiments.
US09270317B2

A chip card ejecting mechanism includes a main body, a tray assembled in the main body and configured to receive a chip card, and a door. The door includes a rotating end rotatably mounted on the main body and a push pole protruding from the rotating end. A resisting portion is located on an end of the push pole away from the rotating end. When the door is opened and the rotating end is rotated relative to the main body, the resisting portion resists against the chip card and drives the chip card to move out from the main body.
US09270312B2

A signal reception apparatus in a communication system supporting a beam forming scheme is provided. The signal reception apparatus includes a Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) configured to generate a second signal by amplifying a first signal according to a first gain value, a Variable Gain Amplifier (VGA) configured to generate a third signal by amplifying the second signal according to a second gain value, and an Automatic Gain Controller (AGC) configured to control the first gain value and the second gain value by considering a plurality of beam types supported in a signal transmission apparatus.
US09270311B2

Devices and methods capable of addressing filter responses are disclosed. For example, a method for compensating a first low-pass filter and a second low-pass filter is disclosed. The method includes injecting a reference tone fR and a cutoff tone fC into the first low-pass filter, and measuring respective filter responses of the reference tone fR and the cutoff tone fC while changing capacitor codes that control a cutoff frequency of the first low-pass filter until a first capacitor code ICODE is determined that most accurately causes the first low-pass filter to utilize a desired cutoff frequency f0, performing a similar operation for the second low-pass filter until a second capacitor code QCODE is determined, and calibrating for mismatch between the first low-pass filter and the second low-pass filter.
US09270309B2

There is described a receiver of at least one radiofrequency modulated signal deriving from an antenna external to the receiver; the receiver comprises a first stage for the low noise amplification of the radiofrequency modulated signal and a demodulation stage of the above-mentioned signal. The receiver comprises a SAW filter adapted to act as a pass band filter about a predetermined frequency for the signal deriving from the first stage, a logarithmic amplifier adapted to amplify the signal deriving from the SAW filter, a peak detector of the output signal of the logarithmic amplifier, means adapted to control the gain of the first stage for the amplification of the radiofrequency modulated signal as a function of the output signal (Vopeak) of the peak detector.
US09270299B2

Data can be encoded by assigning source symbols to base blocks, assigning base blocks to source blocks and encoding each source block into encoding symbols, where at least one pair of source blocks is such they have at least one base block in common with both source blocks of the pair and at least one base block not in common with the other source block of the pair. The encoding of a source block can be independent of content of other source blocks. Decoding to recover all of a desired set of the original source symbols can be done from a set of encoding symbols from a plurality of source blocks wherein the amount of encoding symbols from the first source block is less than the amount of source data in the first source block and likewise for the second source block.
US09270283B2

A frequency generation device is provided. The frequency generation device includes a voltage generation unit configured to receive an input signal having an input frequency and to generate a feedback voltage based on the input signal, wherein the feedback voltage is proportional to the input frequency; and a feedback unit connected to the voltage generation unit and a reference voltage source, wherein the feedback unit is configured to receive a reference voltage from the reference voltage source and the feedback voltage from the voltage generation unit, so as to generate a feedback signal having a feedback frequency.
US09270271B2

The method relates to a method for the radiation hardening of an electronic circuit by partitioning, said circuit including an odd number K of parallel branches connected to a same primary input I and each including a same series of N modules and N−1 nodes linking two consecutive modules, the K branches together forming a series of N−1 gates respectively consisting of parallel K nodes, and a primary arbiter forming a majority vote from the output signal of the K branches, the method being characterized in that it includes the following steps which are repeated for each one of the gates: determining a reliability of a subcircuit upstream from the gate consisting of the portions of the K branches located between the primary input and the gate, and the insertion of at least one arbiter at the gate forming a majority vote from the output signals of said portions of branches constituting the scanned subcircuit and outputting at least one majority signal to the respective inputs of an additional subcircuit formed by the branch portions downstream from the gate, if the reliability of the scanned subcircuit is less than a reliability set point.
US09270268B2

Aspects of the invention provide for compensating impedance calibration circuits. In one embodiment, a compensated impedance calibration circuit, includes: a variable resistor network including a tunable resistor and a fixed resistor; and an external resistance network including a target external precision resistor and a parasitic distribution resistance; wherein a resistance of the variable resistor network is proportional to a resistance of the external resistance network, such that a ratio of an output voltage of the variable resistor network to a power supply voltage is constant.
US09270265B2

A power on reset circuit including: a startup circuit keeping an operation signal in an operating state during a power supply rises; a bias circuit keeping the operation signal in the operating state; a BGR circuit being activated during the operating state, and outputting a fixed voltage after a predetermined time elapses; a power supply divided voltage generation circuit outputting a reference voltage; an activation detection circuit generating a control signal which becomes inactive when a power supply rises and becomes active when the fixed voltage reaches a predetermined level; a comparator circuit outputting a power on signal and detecting as the power on signal when the reference voltage is greater than the fixed voltage; and a switch turning on and fixing an output of the comparator circuit to an inactive logical value while the control signal is inactive, and turning off while the control signal is active.
US09270263B2

A switching device includes: a switch that selects and connects one of at least three terminals including a first terminal, a second terminal, and a third terminal to a common terminal; and a compensating circuit that shifts a phase of at least one of a first signal transmitted through the second terminal and a second signal transmitted through the third terminal so that the first signal and the second signal compensate each other and unifies and outputs the first signal and the second signal to a fourth terminal as a third signal, or that branches a third signal input to the fourth terminal into the first signal and the second signal.
US09270259B2

A trimming method for a voltage generator is provided. The voltage generator generates an output voltage according to a reference voltage. The trimming method includes the following steps. Firstly, in a step (a), an initial value of a trimming code is provided. Then, in a step (b), the reference voltage is generated to the voltage generator according to the trimming code, so that the output voltage is correspondingly generated by the voltage generator. Then, in a step (c), an average voltage of the output voltage is compared with a target voltage. If the average voltage does not reach the target voltage, the trimming code is gradually changed, and the step (b) is repeatedly done. If the average voltage reaches the target voltage, the trimming code is locked.
US09270254B2

Electromechanical systems dilation mode resonator (DMR) structures are disclosed. The DMR includes a first electrode layer, a second electrode layer, and a piezoelectric layer formed of a piezoelectric material. The piezoelectric layer has dimensions including a lateral distance (D), in a plane of an X axis and a Y axis perpendicular to the X axis, and a thickness (T), along a Z axis perpendicular to the X axis and the Y axis. A numerical ratio of the thickness and the lateral distance, T/D, is configured to provide a mode of vibration of the piezoelectric layer with displacement along the Z axis and along the plane of the X axis and the Y axis responsive to a signal provided to one or more of the electrodes. Ladder filter circuits can be constructed with DMRs as series and/or shunt elements, and the resonators can have spiral configurations.
US09270253B2

A hybrid acoustic absorption and reflection resonator can includes a rigid structure defining a cell, a membrane with at least one orifice attached to the rigid structure, and a back sheet attached to the rigid structure and covering the cell. The membrane is configured to reflect acoustic waves in a predetermined range of frequencies. The rigid structure, the membrane, and the back sheet define a Helmholtz cavity; the Helmholtz cavity is configured to absorb acoustic energy at a frequency within the predetermined range of frequencies.
US09270252B2

A SAW device (1) has a substrate (3) configured to propagate acoustic waves; an IDT electrode (15) on a first main surface (3a) of a substrate (3); and an electrode pad (13) on the first main surface (3a) electrically connected to the IDT electrode (15). The SAW device (1) also has a terminal with a pillar-shape (column part (7z)) setted up on the electrode pad (13); a third conductive layer (39) extending from a side surface of the column part (7z); and a cover (5) forming a vibration space (S) above the IDT electrode (15) and covering the side surface of the column part (7z), and the third conductive layer (39).
US09270248B2

An impedance matching network comprises a first and a second signal terminal and a reference potential terminal. The network further comprises a first shunt branch between the first signal terminal and the reference potential terminal, the first shunt branch comprising a variable inductive element and a first capacitive element. The impedance matching network also comprises a second shunt branch between the second signal terminal and the reference potential terminal and comprising a second capacitive element. A series branch between the first signal terminal and the second signal terminal comprises a third capacitive element. Optionally, the first, second, and/or third capacitive element may be implemented as a variable capacitive element. The variable capacitive element comprises a plurality of transistors, wherein a combination of off-capacitances Coff of the transistors provide an overall capacitance of the variable capacitive element as a function of at least two independent transistor control signals.
US09270245B2

An information processing apparatus generates a signal of a first sound to be output to a first output device, and a signal of a second sound which is a sound to be output to a second output device and whose content is different from that of the first sound. The second output device is capable of setting a volume, and outputs a sound based on the signal of the second sound at a set volume. In addition, the second output device notifies an information processing apparatus of information about the set volume. When the set volume is small, the information processing apparatus generates the signal of the first sound so that at least a part of sounds included in the second sound is included in the first sound.
US09270238B2

Provided are a digital condenser microphone having a preamplifier with variable input impedance and a method of controlling the variable input impedance of the preamplifier. The preamplifier includes a bias terminal for applying a bias voltage to an input signal when the input signal is output from a microphone condenser. An impedance unit includes at least one variable input impedance element which is connected to the bias terminal and to which the bias voltage is applied via the bias terminal. An operational amplifier receives the input signal, converts the input signal into an output signal, and outputs the output signal. A control block determines whether a DC voltage level of the output signal output from the operational amplifier has reached a reference value, and controls a total impedance of the impedance unit based on a result of the determination.
US09270228B2

A technique for implementing an clock tree distribution network having a clock buffer and a plurality of LC tanks that each take into \consideration local capacitance distributions and conductor resistances. An AC-based sizing formulation is applied to the buffer and to the LC tanks so as to reduce the total buffer area. The technique is iterative and can be fully automated while also reducing clock distribution power consumption.
US09270227B2

Systems and apparatus are provided for solid-state oscillators and related resonant circuitry. An exemplary oscillator system includes an amplifier having an amplifier input and an amplifier output and resonant circuitry coupled between the amplifier output and the amplifier input. In exemplary embodiments, the resonant circuitry includes an annular resonance structure that is substantially symmetrical and includes a pair of arcuate inductive elements. In accordance with one or more embodiments, the resonant circuitry includes an additional inductive element that is capacitively coupled to the annular resonance structure via an air gap to improve the quality factor of the resonant circuitry.
US09270212B2

An electric motor has a control circuit that enables an operational speed of the electric motor to be selected with reference to multiple ranges of speeds and the input voltage to the motor. Switching between speed ranges occurs in response to activation of a switch or in response to expiration of a time period set by a selector switch.
US09270211B2

An electric power tool includes a power supply, a motor capable of being driven in a forward rotation mode or a reverse rotation mode, and a voltage step-up unit capable of performing a voltage step-up operation to raise a voltage supplied from the power supply and supply a raised voltage to the motor. The voltage step-up unit is configured to change the voltage step-up operation in accordance with whether a rotation mode of the motor is the forward rotation mode or the reverse rotation mode.
US09270194B2

A controller is provided for controlling a power converter that converts electrical input power of a wind turbine into electrical output power provided to a grid. The power converter includes grid-side and turbine-side converter parts. The controller comprises an input terminal for receiving a voltage reference signal associated with a predefined grid voltage and a frequency reference signal associated with a predefined grid frequency, and a network bridge controller adapted to control power conversion of the grid-side converter part. The network bridge controller includes a modulator for modulating gate drive command signals in the grid-side converter part based on a reference voltage and a reference angle derived from the voltage reference signal and the frequency reference signal. The modulator is adapted to modulate the gate drive command signals to maintain the predefined grid voltage and the predefined grid frequency in the power converter in case of failure within the grid.
US09270193B2

A power semiconductor module includes an element pair formed by connecting, in anti-parallel to each other, an IGBT and an FWD group in which an FWD, a voltage drop characteristic of which during conduction has a negative temperature coefficient, and an FED, a voltage drop characteristic of which during conduction has a positive temperature coefficient, are connected in series and an element pair formed by connecting, in anti-parallel to each other, an IGBT and an FWD group in which a FWD, a voltage drop characteristic of which during conduction has a negative temperature coefficient, and an FWD, a voltage drop characteristic of which during conduction has a positive temperature coefficient, are connected in series. The element pairs are connected in parallel.
US09270190B2

A forward converter has a primary side containing a PWM controller for controlling switching of a power switch and has a secondary side coupled to the primary side via a transformer. The secondary side includes a forward transistor and a catch transistor. A secondary side switch controller controls switching of the forward transistor and the catch transistor without communication from the primary side. The secondary side switch controller detects the rising and falling of the voltages at the ends of the secondary winding to control the switching of the forward and catch transistors. A delay locked loop (DLL) is provided in the secondary side switch controller that turns on the catch transistor when the power switch is turned off and turns off the catch transistor at a predetermined time before the power switch is turned on. A separate circuit controls the catch transistor during a discontinuous mode.
US09270183B2

Power converters, such as switched-mode power converters comprise a reduced number of sensing pins. A power converter is configured to convert electrical energy at an input voltage into electrical energy at an output voltage. The power converter comprises a power switch configured to be switched between on- and off-states; and a controller configured to generate a control signal for putting the power switch into the on-state and off-state, respectively; wherein the control signal is generated based on a first and second measurement signal from the power converter external to the controller. The controller comprises a sensing pin configured to sense the first measurement signal, when the power switch is in on-state, and configured to sense the second measurement signal, when the power switch is in off-state.
US09270182B2

The electric conversion stage according to the invention can be connected on one hand to intermediate terminals of a DC voltage electric bus, and on the other hand to output terminals. It comprises P switching branches, P≧2, the switching branches being connected in parallel between the intermediate terminals, each switching branch including first and second controllable electronic switches connected serially and connected to each other by a midpoint, each switch including a semiconductor switching element and a diode connected in anti-parallel to the semiconductor element, and means for controlling the electronic switches according to a control law.It also comprises a capacitor connected between the two output terminals and, for each switching branch, an electromagnetic coil connected between a terminal of the capacitor and the midpoint of the corresponding switching branch, and the control law is selected from among a first control law and a second control law, the first control law being such that the semiconductor element of each first switch is always off, and the second control law being such that the semiconductor element of each second switch is always off.
US09270178B2

A method for controlling a multi-phase switching converter with a plurality of switching circuits, including: sensing the output current of the switching circuit and generating a current sensing signal; generating a digital phase current signal based on the current sensing signal; subtracting the digital phase current signal from a current reference signal and generating a current error signal; proportionally integrating the current error signal and generating a first bias signal; conducting a sigma-delta modulation of the first bias signal and generating a second bias signal, wherein the first bias signal is a P-bit digital signal, the second bias signal is a Q-bit digital signal, and P is larger than Q; and adjusting a control signal controlling the switching circuit based on the second bias signal.
US09270176B1

A switching converter includes a main transistor, an inductor coupled to the main transistor, a feedback circuit configured to generate a feedback signal indicative of the output voltage and a controller configured to generate a control signal to control the main transistor. The controller has an on timer, a ramp generator, a comparing circuit and a logic circuit. The on timer is configured to generate an on-time control signal. The ramp generator is configured to generate a ramp signal, wherein the level of the ramp signal is regulated to be equal to the level of a common mode voltage when the status of the main transistor is changed from OFF to ON. The comparing circuit generates a comparison signal based on the ramp signal, the common mode voltage, a reference signal and the feedback signal. The logic circuit generates the control signal based on the on-time control signal and the comparison signal.
US09270165B2

There are provided a phase shift circuit and a power factor correction circuit including the same. The phase shift circuit includes a switching circuit unit charging power in or discharging power from a capacitor through a plurality of switching devices and comparing a voltage of the capacitor with a predetermined reference voltage, and a clock generating unit generating a reference clock signal based on an output of the switching circuit unit, wherein the switching circuit unit turns the plurality of switching devices on or off, based on currents from inductors respectively included in a main circuit and a sub-circuit of a power factor correction circuit to determine a polarity of the voltage of the capacitor.
US09270156B2

A linear motor includes a stator and an armature that faces the stator with a gap therebetween. The stator has an elongated shape extending so as to cross a direction in which the stator faces the armature, and includes a plurality of salient poles that are arranged along a longitudinal direction of the stator and protrude toward the armature. The armature includes an armature core including a tooth that protrudes toward the stator, an armature winding wound around the tooth, a plurality of permanent magnets disposed on an end side of the tooth so as to be arranged along the longitudinal direction of the stator, and a magnetic-field sensor that detects a magnetic field which is generated by the plurality of permanent magnets and which passes through the plurality of salient poles.
US09270155B2

An electric linear displacement motor for use in a testing apparatus includes a stator assembly having a stator housing and a plurality of coils within the stator housing. An armature is positioned within the stator housing and includes a plurality of magnets along a length of the armature. A bearing assembly is attached to the first end of the stator housing and includes a bearing housing containing a bearing. A first end portion of the armature engages and is carried by the bearing. A brake assembly is coupled to the first end of the armature and the bearing housing. The brake assembly includes a moving portion coupled to the armature and a non-moving portion coupled to the bearing housing wherein the moving portion has less mass than the non-moving portion and therefore reduces the moving mass of the armature.
US09270154B2

In one possible embodiment, a magnet array for a motor is provided which has an array of permanent magnets being arranged such that flux from the permanent magnets reinforce on one side of the array and substantially cancel on an opposite side of the array, the array further includes flux concentrators located at poles on the reinforcing side of the array.
US09270152B2

An electric auger including an auger assembly with a coupling assembly at a proximal end, a cutting assembly having at least one cutting blade located at a distal end, and a helical flight located between the proximal end and the distal end. The electric power head includes an A/C motor with a drive shaft configured to mechanically couple with the proximal end of the auger assembly. An on-board 36-volt DC battery pack powers the A/C motor. A controller includes an inverter that converts DC power to A/C power for the A/C motor. The ratio of cubic inches of ice cut per battery ampere-hour per weight in pounds of the electric auger is at least about 900 (inches3/ampere-hour/pounds).
US09270151B2

A starter which includes a shift piece that is relatively rotatably fitted to a groove (6) of a clutch and is also relatively rotatably coupled with a straddle portion of a shift lever (9), for joining the clutch and the shift lever together, so that a pinion gear is engaged with or released from a ring gear by a reciprocal movement of the clutch that is in conjunction with pivotal seesaw motion of the shift lever (9), wherein the shift piece is configured separately by a ring-like shift piece (7) mounting to the groove (6) of the clutch and a shift piece B (8) mounting to the shift lever, which are mounted in a form coupled together.
US09270145B2

An electric power steering device includes a first housing 6 and a second housing 7, which are respectively provided at both end portions in an axial direction of a stator 2 of the motor 1, for sandwiching the stator 2; and a movement suppressing means 22 that prevents the sandwiched stator 2 from moving in a circumference direction of the stator 2 with respect to the first housing 6 and the second housing 7; wherein at least one of the first housing 6 and the second housing 7 is fitted to a portion of the stator 2, and the movement suppressing means 22 is provided at the portion for fitting.
US09270141B2

A method for operating a photovoltaic system provides, with the turning off of the otherwise adjusted regulation to the maximum power point MPP, to make a selective mismatching at the inverter, in order to cause a battery current, which is added to the system current. As a result, an additional energy source to maintain a minimum feed power is achieved during a rapidly changing cloud pattern.
US09270140B2

There is disclosed a dynamic boost charging system having a monitoring component configured to measure total DC current and/or battery current and a reporting component configured to transmit output data of the total DC current and/or battery current measured. A battery charger control system in operable connection with the monitoring component receives the data of the total DC current and/or battery current measured by the monitoring component, and is configured to: obtain an initial time and/or charge measurement; determine a time and/or charge to complete a recharge cycle based on the time and/or charge measurement; selectively use at least two preset DC output voltage settings, one of the at least two preset DC voltage settings being a float voltage, and another of the at least two preset DC voltage settings being a boost voltage; and maintain the boost voltage until the time has passed the charge has been provided.
US09270139B2

A core module for a portable computing device includes wireless power receiver circuitry, battery power circuitry, power supply circuitry, a processor, and an RF link interface. The wireless power receiver module, when operable, receives a wireless power transmit signal and converts it into a supply voltage. The battery power circuitry, when operable, outputs a battery voltage. The power supply circuitry, when operable, converts the supply voltage or the battery voltage into one or more power supply voltages. The processor is operable to select one of the battery voltage, the supply voltage, and one of the one or more power supply voltages to produce a selected voltage. The RF link interface outputs the selected voltage on to an RF link of the portable computing device for providing power to one or more multi mode RF units within the portable computing device.
US09270132B2

According to an example embodiment, a battery system includes: a plurality of modules, each including a plurality of cells connected to each other in series and a cell balancing circuit performing a balancing operation between the plurality of the cells based on voltages of the plurality of the cells; and a module balancing circuit performing a balancing operation between the modules based on voltages of the modules.
US09270115B2

A domestic appliance includes an internal electrical load, a controller for controlling the internal electrical load, and a communication device coupled with the controller. The controller is configured for transmitting via the communication device data to additional domestic appliances, wherein the received data include information about a time of an impending startup of the internal electrical load, and/or for receiving via the communication device data from additional domestic appliances, wherein the received data include information about a time of an impending startup of an electrical load of an additional domestic appliance. The internal electrical load is controlled based on the received information, preventing an overload of the power supply system.
US09270111B2

The load drive device of the present invention comprises a load drive unit for switching on/off output current that flows to an inductive load; and an overcurrent protection circuit for detecting whether the output current is in an overcurrent state, wherein the load drive unit has an output transistor connected to one end of the inductive load; and a pre-driver for generating a control signal of the output transistor in accordance with an input signal, and the pre-driver has a first drive unit for switching on/off the output transistor during normal operation; and a second drive unit for switching off the output transistor more slowly than the first drive unit during overcurrent protection operation.
US09270105B2

A semiconductor apparatus that includes: a first high-voltage transistor having a gate and a first electrode, wherein the first electrode is connected to a first pad and a parasitic capacitance forms between the gate and the first electrode; and a clamping circuit that is connected to the gate of the first high-voltage transistor, wherein the clamping circuit detects a change in a level of a gate voltage of the first high-voltage transistor due to electrostatic discharge, and clamps the gate voltage of the first high-voltage transistor according to a result of the detection.
US09270104B2

The power supply control device of the present invention includes: a set of power reception conductors; a set of power supply conductors; a set of intermediate conductors electrically connected to the set of power reception conductors, respectively; a set of relays configured to make and break electrical connections between the set of intermediate conductors and the set of power supply conductors, respectively; a zero-phase current transformer positioned to allow the set of intermediate conductors to pass through an inside of the zero-phase current transformer; a control circuit for controlling the set of relays responding to a detection result of the zero-phase current transformer; and a body block including a first block and a second block fixed to the first block. The set of power reception conductors and the set of power supply conductors are fixed to the first block. The set of intermediate conductors is fixed to the second block.
US09270093B2

A switchgear includes a housing having a wall separating a circuit breaker compartment from a bus/cable compartment. A plurality of bushings is provided. Each bushing has first and second portions. Each bushing extends through the wall so that the first portion is disposed in the circuit breaker compartment and the second portion is disposed in the bus/cable compartment. Each second portion has an extension. At least one current transformer is mounted on the extension of the second portion of each bushing. The extensions are constructed and arranged so that a phase to phase distance is 180 mm or less. Such a configuration also decreased the overall size of the switchgear.
US09270091B2

Disclosed in this specification is a multilayer, laminated busbar and a method for making the same. Two or more elongated conductors are stacked on top of each other to align their long and short edges. Portions of the surfaces of each conductor are covered with a continuous sheet of insulating material.
US09270088B2

A method for inspecting a spark plug that includes a tubular insulator having an axial hole, a center electrode inserted into the axial hole at a front end side thereof, a tubular metallic shell disposed around the insulator, an annular space defined by an outer circumferential surface of the insulator, and an inner circumferential surface of the metallic shell and opened frontward. The method includes steps of: inspecting insulation performance of the insulator based on whether dielectric breakdown is caused in the insulator when a voltage is applied to the center electrode; photographing an area including at least the center electrode, the insulator, and the annular space from a front end side in the direction of the axis when the voltage is applied to the center electrode; and determining whether the dielectric breakdown has occurred based on the photographed image.
US09270085B1

A multi-wavelength semiconductor diode laser device includes a semiconductor diode gain medium including one or more quantum well structures, each of the quantum well structures having an associated gain peak, the semiconductor gain medium further including a back facet configured for high reflection of laser light therein and a front facet configured for coupling a laser beam therefrom, one or more collimation optics configured to receive the laser beam, and an external volume Bragg grating configured to reflect a portion of the laser beam and narrow the wavelength of at least a portion of the light generated by the semiconductor gain medium to a selected wavelength corresponding to at least one of the gain peaks, wherein an output beam is coupled out of the external volume Bragg grating, the output beam having a plurality of output wavelengths.
US09270081B2

A semiconductor laser device that enables flip-chip assembly by having an embedding section around a mesa section, and that has an improved emission lifetime, as well as a photoelectric converter and an optical information processing unit each having such a semiconductor laser device. The semiconductor laser device includes: a mesa section including an active layer, and having a first electrode on a top surface; an embedding section covering the mesa section, and having a first connection aperture that reaches the first electrode; and a first wiring provided on the embedding section overlaying the first connection aperture, the first wiring being electrically connected to the first electrode through the first connection aperture.
US09270080B1

A broadband light source (e.g., an optical supercontinuum apparatus), can comprise a pump laser; a non-linear optical element configured for generating spectrally broadened light generated responsive to receiving pump laser pulses and one or more non-linear processes; an optical output for delivering spectrally broadened light to a target; a length of optical waveguide optically upstream of the output and in optical communication therewith; and a sensor apparatus. The length of optical waveguide can comprise at least a first waveguiding region configured for propagating spectrally broadened light in a forward direction toward the output and can be further configured for receiving backward propagating light responsive to the forward propagating light. The sensor apparatus can be configured for optical communication with the length of optical waveguide so as to sense the backward propagating light propagated by the length of optical waveguide. Methods for operating and using such broadband light source are disclosed, as are applications of the methods and apparatus.
US09270070B2

A method of making a lead for a stimulation device includes forming at least one pre-electrode in the shape of a ring, the at least one pre-electrode comprises at least two thin-walled portions separated by at least two thick-walled portions; disposing the at least one pre-electrode near a distal end of a lead body; joining at least one conductor to each thick-walled portion of the at least one pre-electrode; and grinding the lead body and the at least one pre-electrode to remove the thin-walled portions of the at least one pre-electrode to form segmented electrodes from the thick-walled portions of the at least one pre-electrode.
US09270063B2

A card edge connector for mating with a memory card includes a longitudinal insulative housing, a plurality of contact terminals received in the insulative housing, at least one pair of ejectors and two detect pins having spring and being moveable relatively each other. The ejectors are moveable between locking station and release station. One of the detect pins defines an engaging portion protruding into an inserting slot of the insulative housing for engaging with a bottom edge of the memory card and pushing the detect pins to connect disconnect with each other. Furthermore LED is combined with the detect pins for testing if the memory card is inserted into the connector.
US09270053B2

An electrical connector assembly comprises an insulating housing defining a cavity and a pocket beside the cavity, a bracket located at the outside of the insulating housing, and a jumper element assembled into the pocket. The bracket comprises a latch extending into the pocket while the jumper element comprises an elastic member elastically received in the pocket and urging the jumper element to move upwardly. The latch of the bracket engages the jumper element to retain the jumper element into the pocket, when releasing the latch, the elastic member ejects the jumper element upwardly out from the pocket.
US09270047B2

A liquid spill resistant electrical receptacle includes a main body and a front portion. The front portion includes a front surface and rear surface. Terminals are recessed rearwardly from openings formed in the front surface, and are connected to wires extending rearwardly from the main body. The front surface includes a first surface portion, in the vicinity of the openings, which is positioned forwardly from a second surface portion that is located generally outboard of the first surface portion. Optionally, the first surface portion may be in the form of outwardly-extending ridges around the terminal openings, and configured to direct water or other liquids away from the terminal openings associated with the terminals.
US09270043B2

A connector includes: a first terminal that is electrically conductive and includes a first contact portion being plate shaped and including a first teeth portion with one of surfaces thereof forming a plurality of continuous concavo-convex shapes, and a first base portion joined to the first contact portion and connected to one of connection targets; and a second terminal that is electrically conductive and includes a second contact portion including a second teeth portion with one of surfaces thereof forming a plurality of continuous concavo-convex shapes, the second teeth portion being engageable with the first teeth portion, and a second base portion that is joined to the second contact portion and connected to the other one of the connection targets, wherein the first terminal and the second terminal are electrically connected to each other by engagement between the first teeth portion and the second teeth portion.
US09270042B2

A card connector includes a housing that houses a card provided with a terminal member, a connecting terminal and a cover member. The connecting member is attached to the housing that connects with the terminal member of the card. The cover member is connected to the housing and forms a card housing space between the housing, and is attached to a substrate.
US09270041B2

A stacked connector component includes a housing, connectors at a front opening of the housing and arranged in a stacked formation within one or more columns, and a for and exposed at the connectors. The pins include high-speed pins routed within the housing to a bottom side thereof and low-speed pins routed within the housing to a back side or a top side thereof. A circuit board includes pin pads connectable to the pins and disposed on a substrate. The pin pads include high-speed signal pin pads for the high-speed signal pins. The substrate includes contiguous high-speed areas in which the high-speed signal pin pads for the high-speed pins are located, between which no pin pads are located.
US09270037B2

A method and crimping tool for creating a crimp connection between a coaxial cable having an inner conductor, an outer conductor, a dielectric between the outer conductor and inner conductor, a jacket made of an electrically insulating material surrounding the outer conductor, and a coaxial connector having an outer conductor part. A hollow cylindrical supporting sleeve is arranged on the jacket. A section of the outer conductor from which the jacket has been stripped is pulled over the supporting sleeve, so that this section of the outer conductor is at least in part arranged radially on the outside of the supporting sleeve, with the outer conductor part enclosing the supporting sleeve and lying on the outside, wherein a radial force is applied from outside on the outer conductor part over at least a part of the circumference of the outer conductor part, such that a cold weld is achieved.
US09270027B2

The notch-antenna array includes at least one notch-antenna array element that includes a first notch-antenna radiator, and a second notch-antenna radiator disposed at an angle to said first notch-antenna radiator. The angle is preferably 90 degrees and the element is either a slant antenna or an orthogonal antenna. The first notch-antenna radiator and the second notch-antenna radiator are formed integrally with one another. Each of the first and second notch-antenna radiators has substantially planar opposing surfaces and a flared notch formed therein. Each of the first and second notch-antenna radiators have substantially planar opposing surfaces and a slot configured to receive a printed circuit board therein formed between the substantially planar opposing surfaces. The printed circuit board includes a substrate with one or more dielectric layers, and a feedline.
US09270025B2

Deployable antennas for in-body devices, such as implantable and ingestible devices, are provided. Aspects of the in-body deployable antennas of the invention include antennas configured to go from a first configuration to a second configuration following placement in a living body, e.g., via ingestion or implantation. Embodiments of the in-body devices are configured to emit a detectable signal upon contact with a target physiological site. Also provided are methods of making and using the devices of the invention.
US09270024B2

A PDMA terminal (1000) establishes communication by forming a plurality of spatial paths to another single radio apparatus. A plurality of antennas constituting an array antenna are divided into a plurality of subarrays corresponding to the plurality of spatial paths respectively. An adaptive array processing unit (USP) can perform an adaptive array processing for each of the plurality of subarrays. A memory (MMU) stores in advance information on the number of antennas associated with the number of spatial paths that can be formed by the array antenna. A control unit (CNP) controls a processing to transmit possible multiplicity information to another radio apparatus at a prescribed timing.
US09270020B2

The invention provides an antenna arrangement for a radar system arranged for coverage of a surveillance area and comprising antenna elements. The antenna elements are arranged to receive a signal transmitted from a transmit antenna of a transmit antenna arrangement and reflected by a target towards the antenna arrangement wherein: • the antenna arrangement comprises at least two non-parallel line arrays, • each antenna element being connected to a receiver where each line array is arranged to create, by using digital beam forming, beams for instantaneous coverage of at least said surveillance area and • within the surveillance area said line arrays are arranged to allow the target position to be limited to one or two crossing areas between at least two beams from different line arrays from which target reflections have been received. The invention also provides a corresponding method and a radar system comprising the antenna arrangement.
US09270013B2

A reflector arrangement is configured for attachment to a wireless communications terminal having a patch antenna. The patch antenna includes a patch radiator in a substantially parallel relationship with a ground plane, and the patch antenna produces a radiation beam of a predetermined beamwidth. The reflector arrangement is configured, when attached to the terminal, to produce a radiation beam of reduced beamwidth relative to the predetermined beamwidth. The reflector arrangement comprises a main reflector and a sub-reflector for reflecting radiation towards the main reflector, and the reflector arrangement is configured such that, when attached to the terminal, the patch antenna acts as a feed antenna for the sub-reflector. The sub-reflector is arranged to collect the radiation from the patch antenna and to reflect the beam towards the main reflector such that the main reflector produces the radiated beam of reduced beamwidth.
US09270003B2

The present invention is directed to a stripline assembly that includes a first pre-fired ceramic substrate including a ground plane disposed on a first surface of the first pre-fired ceramic substrate. A second pre-fired ceramic substrate includes a ground plane disposed on a first surface thereof and a circuit disposed on a second surface of the second pre-fired ceramic substrate opposite the first surface. The circuit is disposed between the first pre-fired ceramic substrate and the second pre-fired ceramic substrate. A conductive bonding layer is disposed around the periphery of the circuit and between the first pre-fired ceramic substrate and the second pre-fired ceramic substrate.
US09270001B2

A flexible circuit board includes: an insulative substrate having a first surface and a second surface opposite to the first surface; a microstrip line having a first signal line formed on the first surface and a first ground pattern formed on the second surface and located in an area opposite to the first signal line; a coplanar line having a second signal line formed on the first surface, and second ground patterns that are formed on the first surface and are spaced apart from both sides of the second signal line; a connection line that is formed on the first surface and connects the first signal line and the second signal line together, the connection line having an opening; and third ground patterns formed on the second surface and arranged in areas located at both sides of an area opposite to the connection line including the opening.
US09269999B2

A structural body of the invention includes a first conductor plane (1), a plurality of second conductor planes (4) of which at least a portion is provided facing the first conductor plane (1), and a transmission line (6), having an open end, which is disposed between the first conductor plane (1) and the second conductor plane (4), electrically connected to any one conductor plane of the first conductor plane (1) or the second conductor plane (4) through a conductor connection portion (5) and provided facing the other conductor plane. A unit structure including at least the second conductor plane (4), the transmission line (6), and the conductor connection portion (5) is repeatedly disposed.
US09269995B2

An electrochemical cell includes a fuel electrode configured to operate as an anode to consume a fuel when the fuel electrode and an associated cathode are connected to a load. An ionically conductive medium either present or flowing through the electrochemical cell is configured to conduct ions and participate in electrochemical reactions between the anode and the cathode. The cell further includes a catch tray containing catalyst material to induce the ionization of precipitates of fuel and/or fuel additives that may separate in solid form from the fuel electrode. The catch tray may be positioned to prevent a congestion of the precipitates in the ionically conductive medium, or the waste of electrically disconnected fuel and/or additives.
US09269958B2

A positive electrode for an all-solid battery including a positive active material; a conductive material; and a binder, wherein the positive electrode further includes a cyano compound represented by Formula 1: M[A(CN)x]  Formula 1 wherein in Formula 1, A is at least one selected from boron, gallium, aluminum, fluorine, phosphorus, and carbon, M is at least one alkali metal, and x is an integer of 1 to 4.
US09269949B2

Embodiments provide a method of producing micro-sized Si—C composites or doped Si—C and Si alloy-C with interconnected nanoscle Si and C building blocks through converting commercially available SiOx (0
US09269944B2

A battery module is provided, including: a plurality of battery packs teach being provided with an anode terminal and a cathode terminal; a plurality of coupling units each having ends coupled to the anode terminal and the cathode terminal of an adjacent battery pack, respectively, to couple the plurality of battery packs in series; an operation unit that is provided on one end of the coupling unit and ascends in accordance with an increasing internal pressure of the battery pack to open a coupling between the one end of the coupling unit and the terminals of the battery pack by raising the one end of the coupling unit; and a bypass unit having one end disposed over the one end of the coupling unit and the other end coupled to the other end of an adjacent coupling unit to maintain the other battery packs coupled in series, except for the battery packs the internal pressures of which have increased, when the one end of the coupling unit ascends by the operation unit.
US09269939B2

An insulating device for an electrochemical energy storage unit is provided, wherein the insulating device includes a cooling plate that comprises at least one opening. A contact rail is provided for dissipating heat and a retaining element for fixing an arrangement between the cooling plate and the contact rail and has a shaft extending through the opening of the cooling plate, and a first intermediate space is defined by a distance between a wall of the opening and the shaft and/or a second intermediate space is defined by a distance between an edge of the contact rail and the shaft. A connecting element having a surface including an electrically insulating material is disposed between a main surface of the cooling plate and a surface of the contact rail, and a partial region thereof protrudes into the first and/or the second intermediate space.
US09269938B2

An object of the invention is to provide a separator for a nonaqueous secondary battery, which has good adhesion to electrodes and is also capable of ensuring sufficient ion permeability even after attachment to an electrode. The separator for a nonaqueous secondary battery of the invention includes a porous substrate and an adhesive porous layer formed on at least one side of the porous substrate and containing a polyvinylidene-fluoride-based resin. The separator for a nonaqueous secondary battery is characterized in that the adhesive porous layer has a crystallinity of 20 to 35%.
US09269930B2

A rechargeable battery including an electrode assembly including a positive electrode and a negative electrode; a case including a space receiving the electrode assembly; a cap plate coupled with the case; and a terminal electrically connected to the electrode assembly, the terminal protruding outside of the cap plate, wherein a top of the cap plate has a slanted surface.
US09269914B2

A lightweight flexible light-emitting device that is less likely to be broken is provided. The light-emitting device includes a first flexible substrate, a second flexible substrate, an element layer, a first bonding layer, and a second bonding layer. The element layer includes a light-emitting element. The element layer is provided between the first flexible substrate and the second flexible substrate. The first bonding layer is provided between the first flexible substrate and the element layer. The second bonding layer is provided between the second flexible substrate and the element layer. The first and second bonding layers are in contact with each other on the outer side of an end portion of the element layer. The first and second flexible substrates are in contact with each other on the outer side of the end portions of the element layer, the first bonding layer, and the second bonding layer.
US09269911B2

An organic light-emitting device that achieves highly efficient emission and low-voltage operation is provided. The organic light-emitting device contains a 9H-xanthen-9-one derivative.
US09269908B2

The present invention provides a bipolar compound represented by formula (I) and the derivatives thereof as a host material having excellent bipolar transporting properties for organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). The present invention also relates to a device including at least a layer of the bipolar compound and/or the derivatives thereof as a host material and a method of making the same.
US09269900B2

A method of forming a phase change material which having germanium and tellurium therein includes depositing a germanium-containing material over a substrate. Such material includes elemental-form germanium. A gaseous tellurium-comprising precursor is flowed to the germanium-comprising material and tellurium is removed from the gaseous precursor to react with the elemental-form germanium in the germanium-comprising material to form a germanium and tellurium-comprising compound of a phase change material over the substrate. Other implementations are disclosed.
US09269895B2

A semiconductor device and a fabrication method thereof are provided. The semiconductor device includes a local silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate in which a portion of a line-shaped active region is connected to a semiconductor substrate, and a remaining portion thereof is insulated from the semiconductor substrate, gate structures formed in a line shape to be substantially perpendicular to the active region on the active region insulated from the semiconductor substrate, and to surround a side and an upper surface of the active region, and having a stacking structure of a gate insulating layer, a liner conductive layer, a gate conductive layer, and a hard mask layer, a source region formed in the active region connected to the semiconductor substrate, and a drain region formed in the active region insulated from the semiconductor substrate between the gate structures.
US09269887B1

Embodiments include but are not limited to apparatuses and systems including microelectronic devices including a package substrate, a plurality of electronic components disposed on and electrically coupled with the package substrate at one or more sides of the package substrate, one or more hollow cavity sheet molds surrounding the plurality of electronic components and coupled with one or more sides of the package substrate, and a plurality of through-mold vias to couple the package substrate with an external surface of at least one of the one or more hollow cavity sheet molds. The microelectronic device may be a chip-scale package or module. Methods and systems for making the same also are described.
US09269878B2

A light emitting device may be provided that includes a substrate, a light emitting structure, a first electrode under the first semiconductor layer, a reflective electrode layer under the second conductive semiconductor layer, a second electrode under the reflective electrode layer, and a support member under the first semiconductor layer and the reflective electrode layer around the first and second electrodes. A first connection electrode may be provided under the first electrode. At least a part of the first connection electrode is provided in the support member. A second connection electrode may be provided under the second electrode At least a part of the second connection electrode may be provided in the support member.
US09269877B2

Provided are a method of fabricating a light-emitting apparatus with improved light extraction efficiency and a light-emitting apparatus fabricated using the method. The method includes: preparing a monocrystalline substrate; forming an intermediate structure on the substrate, the intermediate structure comprising a light-emitting structure which comprises a first conductive pattern of a first conductivity type, a light-emitting pattern, and a second conductive pattern of a second conductivity type stacked sequentially, a first electrode which is electrically connected to the first conductive pattern, and a second electrode which is electrically connected to the second conductive pattern; forming a polycrystalline region, which extends in a horizontal direction, by irradiating a laser beam to the substrate in the horizontal direction such that the laser beam is focused on a beam-focusing point within the substrate; and cutting the substrate in the horizontal direction along the polycrystalline region.
US09269873B2

A method for manufacturing a semiconductor light emitting device comprises steps of: arraying semiconductor light emitting elements on an adhesive sheet so that electrodes of the semiconductor light emitting elements face the adhesive sheet; forming a wafer thereof by filling spaces between side surfaces of the semiconductor light emitting elements arrayed on the adhesive sheet with a resin and curing the resin; peeling the adhesive sheet from the wafer; overlaying the wafer on a substrate from which numerous substrates can be obtained by subdivision into individual pieces and the electrodes of the semiconductor light emitting elements and electrodes formed on the large circuit substrate are joined; and subdividing the large circuit substrate, to which the wafer has been joined, into individual semiconductor light emitting devices so that the planar size of the semiconductor light emitting element and that of the circuit substrate are roughly equal.
US09269867B2

A light-emitting device according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention includes a first conductivity-type semiconductor layer disposed on a substrate; an active layer disposed on the first conductivity-type semiconductor layer; a second conductivity-type semiconductor layer disposed on the active layer; and an irregular convex-concave pattern disposed on a surface of the first conductivity-type semiconductor layer. The irregular convex-concave pattern includes convex portions and concave portions, and the convex portions have irregular heights and the concave portions have irregular depths. The first conductivity-type semiconductor layer including the irregular convex-concave pattern is exposed from the active layer and the second conductivity-type semiconductor layer.
US09269857B2

Disclosed are a method and system for eliminating yellow ring phenomenon occurring on the white light emitting diode (LED) based on a blue light chip exciting yellow phosphor powders and having a packaging surface enclosing thereon. Lightspot images are repeatedly acquired outside the white LED, and then each analyzed to see if the yellow ring still exists on a lightspot. If yes, a further atomization process is performed on the packaging surface of white LED, until the acquired and analyzed image shows no yellow ring exists. A lightspot-by-lightspot basis is used in the yellow ring elimination task. In the image analysis, a look up table may be provided in advanced or established at the same time simultaneously with the yellow ring elimination task. The atomization performed on the lightspot may also consider a width issue.
US09269852B2

A semiconductor light-emitting diode, including: an n-GaN layer, a quantum well layer, an electron blocking layer, and a p-GaN layer, which are sequentially stacked on a substrate. The electron blocking layer includes at least one first AlGaN layer and at least one second AlGaN layer. The first AlGaN layer and the second AlGaN layer are alternately stacked. The adjacent first and second AlGaN layers have different Al component.
US09269846B2

Disclosed herein is a phototransistor (PT) comprising an emitter, a collector, a floating base, wherein the PT is configured to detect a photon flux incident on the PT and the photon flux being lower than one single photon within f, or wherein the PT is configured to detect a photon flux incident on the PT and the photon flux being below a photon shot noise of the photon flux within f, or wherein the PT is configured to detect a photon flux incident on the PT and the photon flux is 1/√{square root over (β)} of a photon shot noise of the photon flux within f, or wherein the PT is capable of detecting a photon flux incident on the PT and the photon flux being below 2f, or wherein the PT is capable of detecting a photon flux incident on the PT and the photon flux being 2f/β, wherein f is an electrical bandwidth of the PT and β is a current amplification gain of the PT.
US09269839B2

A solar cell is discussed. The solar cell includes a semiconductor substrate, a p-type conductive region formed at the semiconductor substrate and including a p-type impurity, and a passivation film formed on the p-type conductive region and including aluminum oxide. The passivation film has a thickness of 7 to 17 Å.
US09269836B2

A method is proposed for coating an optoelectronic chip-on-board module including a flat substrate populated with one or more optoelectronic components having at least one primary optical arrangement and optionally at least one secondary optical arrangement. The optoelectronic chip-on-board module is coated with a transparent, UV-resistant, and temperature-resistant coating made of silicone by the following steps: (a) casting a liquid silicone into a mold open towards the top and having outer dimensions corresponding to or exceeding outer dimensions of the substrate; (b) inserting the substrate into the mold, wherein the optoelectronic component(s) are immersed completely into the silicone and a surface of the substrate contacts the silicone completely or the substrate immerses into the silicone at least partially with full surface contact; (c) curing and cross-linking the silicone with the optoelectronic component(s) and the substrate; and (d) removing the substrate from the mold with the coating of cured silicone.
US09269834B2

In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a plurality of photovoltaic units having respective pairs of first and second power terminals connected in series. Each photovoltaic unit in the series includes a bypass switch connected in parallel with the photovoltaic current source of the photovoltaic unit. The bypass switch is configured to provide a bypass of the photovoltaic current source in response to a respective switch control signal. A control circuit determines electrical characteristics of the one or more of the plurality of photovoltaic units by operating the bypass switches of one or more of the photovoltaic units in an open state and operating the bypass switches of the other ones of the photovoltaic units in a closed state. Electrical characteristics exhibited by the series connection of the plurality of photovoltaic units are measured using a detection circuit.
US09269831B2

A micromechanical functional apparatus, particularly a loudspeaker apparatus, includes a substrate having a top and an underside and at least one circuit chip mounted on the underside in a first cavity. The apparatus further includes a micromechanical functional arrangement, particularly a loudspeaker arrangement, having a plurality of micromechanical loudspeakers mounted on the top in a second cavity. A covering device is mounted above the micromechanical functional arrangement on the top. An appropriate method is implemented to manufacture the micromechanical functional apparatus.
US09269828B2

Devices and methods for forming charge storage regions are disclosed. In one embodiment, a semiconductor device comprises a semiconductor layer having a trench, charge storage layers formed at both side surfaces of the trench, a wordline buried in the trench in contact with the charge storage layers, and source-drain regions formed in the semiconductor layer at both sides of the trench.
US09269825B2

A semiconductor device which is miniaturized and has sufficient electrical characteristics to function as a transistor is provided. In a semiconductor device including a transistor in which a semiconductor layer, a gate insulating layer, and a gate electrode layer are stacked in that order, an oxide semiconductor film which contains at least four kinds of elements of indium, gallium, zinc, and oxygen, and in which the percentage of the indium is twice or more as large as each of the percentage of the gallium and the percentage of the zinc when the composition of the four elements is expressed in atomic percentage is used as the semiconductor layer. In the semiconductor device, the oxide semiconductor film is a film to which oxygen is introduced in the manufacturing process and contains a large amount of oxygen, and an insulating layer including an aluminum oxide film is provided to cover the transistor.
US09269824B1

A thin film transistor disposed on a substrate, includes a gate, a gate insulation layer, a first source/drain, a semiconductor layer and a second source/drain. The gate is disposed on the substrate. The gate insulation layer covers the gate and the substrate. The first source/drain is disposed on the gate insulation layer. The semiconductor layer is disposed above the gate, extends from the gate insulation layer to the first source/drain, and includes a first portion disposed on the first source/drain and a second portion connected to the first portion. An electrical conductivity of the first portion is higher than that of the second portion. The second source/drain covers and is in contact with the second portion. A manufacturing method of thin film transistor is further provided.
US09269797B2

A semiconductor device using an oxide semiconductor is provided with stable electric characteristics to improve the reliability. In a manufacturing process of a transistor including an oxide semiconductor film, an oxide semiconductor film containing a crystal having a c-axis which is substantially perpendicular to a top surface thereof (also called a first crystalline oxide semiconductor film) is formed; oxygen is added to the oxide semiconductor film to amorphize at least part of the oxide semiconductor film, so that an amorphous oxide semiconductor film containing an excess of oxygen is formed; an aluminum oxide film is formed over the amorphous oxide semiconductor film; and heat treatment is performed thereon to crystallize at least part of the amorphous oxide semiconductor film, so that an oxide semiconductor film containing a crystal having a c-axis which is substantially perpendicular to a top surface thereof (also called a second crystalline oxide semiconductor film) is formed.
US09269786B2

Standard High-K metal gate (HKMG) CMOS technologies fabricated using the replacement metal gate (RMG), also known as gate-last, integration flow, are susceptible to oxygen ingress into the high-K gate dielectric layer and oxygen diffusion into the gate dielectric and semiconductor channel region. The oxygen at the gate dielectric and semiconductor channel interface induces unwanted oxide regrowth that results in an effective oxide thickness increase, and transistor threshold voltage shifts, both of which are highly variable and degrade semiconductor chip performance. By introducing silicon nitride deposited at low temperature, after the metal gate formation, the oxygen ingress and gate dielectric regrowth can be avoided, and a high semiconductor chip performance is maintained.
US09269783B2

A body contacted semiconductor-on-insulator (SOI) metal gate containing transistor that has a reduced parasitic gate capacitance is provided in which a metal portion of a gate stack is removed over the body contact region and a silicon-containing material is formed that contacts the gate dielectric in the body contact region of an SOI substrate. This causes an increase of the effective gate dielectric thickness on the body contact region by greater than 5 angstroms (Å). This results in a lower parasitic capacitance at the body contact region.
US09269772B2

A semiconductor device and a method for fabricating the same are disclosed. In the method, a substrate structure is provided, including a substrate and a fin-shaped buffer layer formed on the surface of the substrate. A QW material layer is formed on the surface of the fin-shaped buffer layer. A barrier material layer is formed on the QW material layer. The QW material layer is suitable for forming an electron gas therein. Thereby the short-channel effect is improved, while high mobility of the semiconductor device is guaranteed. In addition, according to the present disclosure, thermal dissipation of the semiconductor device may be improved, and thus performance and stability of the device may be improved.
US09269767B2

A semiconductor device which solves the following problem of a super junction structure: due to a relatively high concentration in the body cell region (active region), in peripheral areas (peripheral regions or junction end regions), it is difficult to achieve a breakdown voltage equivalent to or higher than in the cell region through a conventional junction edge terminal structure or resurf structure. The semiconductor device includes a power MOSFET having a super junction structure formed in the cell region by a trench fill technique. Also, super junction structures having orientations parallel to the sides of the cell region are provided in a drift region around the cell region.
US09269766B2

A device and a method for forming a device are presented. The method includes providing a substrate having an array region in which memory cells are to be formed. Storage gates of the memory cells are formed in the array region. A guard ring surrounding the array region is formed. A gate electrode layer is formed on the substrate. The gate electrode layer fills gaps between the storage gates and guard ring. The gate electrode layer is planarized to produce a planar surface between the gate electrode layer, storage gates and guard ring. The guard ring maintains thickness of the gate electrode layer in the array region such that thickness of the storage gates across center and edge regions of the array region is uniform.
US09269758B2

The present disclosure involves a method. The method includes providing a substrate including a top surface. The method also includes forming a gate over the top surface of the substrate. The formed gate has a first height measured from the top surface of the substrate. The method also includes etching the gate to reduce the gate to a second height. This second height is substantially less than the first height. The present disclosure also involves a semiconductor device. The semiconductor device includes a substrate. The substrate includes a top surface. The semiconductor device also includes a first gate formed over the top surface of the substrate. The first gate has a first height. The semiconductor device also includes a second gate formed over the top surface of the substrate. The second gate has a second height. The first height is substantially less than the second height.
US09269756B2

An organic light emitting display apparatus capable of reducing a dead space for arranging wirings in a panel. The organic light emitting display apparatus includes: a panel including a screen portion on which images are displayed and a non-screen portion surrounding the screen portion; a first wiring portion and a second wiring portion formed on different locations of the non-screen portion to be connected to pixel wirings on the screen portion; and a film substrate including a plurality of connection portions connected to the first wiring portion and the second wiring portion. Thus, the dead space that is formed on the non-screen portion of the panel for forming the wirings may be effectively reduced.
US09269752B2

A display includes a substrate; an electrode layer formed on the substrate and having an electrode pattern; and an organic material layer formed on the electrode layer, wherein a plurality of pixel units are configured by the combination of the electrode pattern and the organic material layer. At least one of pixel units includes plural different colored sub-pixels arranged in delta. In one embodiment, the same colored sub-pixels of adjacent pixel units are arranged in delta. In another embodiment, the same colored sub-pixels of adjacent pixel units are arranged as a stripe. According to the embodiment, an opening of the shadow mask is corresponding to at least three sub-pixels with same color when the material is evaporated through the shadow mask.
US09269745B2

Exemplary embodiments of the present invention provide a light emitting diode including light emitting units disposed on a substrate, and wires connecting the light emitting units to each other, wherein the light emitting units each include a parallelogram-shaped light emitting unit having two acute angles and two obtuse angles, or a triangular light emitting unit having three acute angles.
US09269738B2

At least one exemplary embodiment is directed to a solid state image sensor including at least one antireflective layer and/or non rectangular shaped wiring layer cross section to reduce dark currents and 1/f noise.
US09269724B2

An embodiment of the present disclosure is directed to a semiconductor device. The semiconductor devise comprises a substrate. An epitaxially grown semiconductor material is disposed over at least a portion of the substrate. A nanotemplate structure is disposed at least partially within the semiconductor material. The nanotemplate structure comprises a plurality of dielectric nanoscale features defining a plurality of nanoscale windows. An air gap is disposed between at least a portion of one or more of the nanoscale features and the semiconductor material.
US09269723B2

A method of making a logic gate array includes providing a substrate; forming an array of first conductive lines with plurality of first pads disposed on each of the first conductive lines on the substrate wherein the array of first conductive lines is disposed in a first direction; forming an array of isolation lines over the first conductive lines wherein the isolation lines are not disposed on the first pads; forming an array of second conductive lines with plurality of second pads disposed on each of the second conductive lines on the substrate wherein the array of second conductive lines is disposed in a second direction and wherein orientation of the second direction is different than the orientation of the first direction; and printing one or more conductive ink dots at least one intersection of the first conductive lines and the second conductive lines by connecting the corresponding first pads and corresponding second pads.
US09269720B1

A method of fabricating a semiconductor device includes providing a substrate having a cell region and a peripheral circuit region. A plurality of bit line structures are formed on the substrate in the cell region, and a gate structure having the same structure as each of the bit line structures is formed on the substrate in the peripheral circuit region. A spacer is formed on sidewalls of the bit line structures and the gate structure. The bit line structures extend in a first direction and are spaced apart from each other in a second direction that is perpendicular to the first direction by first grooves that extend in the first direction. A sacrificial layer is formed to fill the first grooves and to cover top surfaces of the bit line structures and the gate structure. The sacrificial layer is planarized until the top surfaces of the bit line structures and the gate structure are exposed.
US09269712B2

A method for making a semiconductor device may include forming a first semiconductor layer on a substrate comprising a first semiconductor material, forming a second semiconductor layer on the first semiconductor layer comprising a second semiconductor material, and forming mask regions on the second semiconductor layer and etching through the first and second semiconductor layers to define a plurality of spaced apart pillars on the substrate. The method may further include forming an oxide layer laterally surrounding the pillars and mask regions, and removing the mask regions and forming inner spacers on laterally adjacent corresponding oxide layer portions atop each pillar. The method may additionally include etching through the second semiconductor layer between respective inner spacers to define a pair of semiconductor fins of the second semiconductor material from each pillar, and removing the inner spacers and forming an oxide beneath each semiconductor fin.
US09269699B2

The present invention discloses a new embedded package comprising: a pre-mold lead frame with a plurality of chips attached thereon, where the molding material fills the voids of the lead frame, so that the lead frame is entirely solid; a plurality of pins arranged around the lead frame; a metal clip attached on and electrically connecting the chips together; first laminate layer which covers the chips, the lead frame, a metal clip and pins; conductive plug and extension formed to connect an electrode of a chip to a corresponding pin or to connect the chips together. The new embedded package of the invention with a three-dimensional stack capacity improves the thickness, thermal and electrical properties and the flexible power and logic hybrid design.
US09269697B2

An LED light emitter includes a single emitter structure having a substrate with a plurality of light emitting diodes (LEDs) arranged thereon, wherein the plurality of LEDs includes at least one first LED die that produces a first color light, and at least one second LED die that produces a second color light. The LED light emitter also includes a total internal reflection (TIR) lens positioned to collect light emitted from the single emitter structure and adapted to mix the light from the plurality of LEDs to produce a uniform light. The plurality of LEDs are selected such that the light output by the LED light emitter has a desired color temperature when an equal current is supplied to all of the plurality of LEDs.
US09269696B2

A light-emitting device includes a support substrate; a light-emitting stacked layer; transparent-conductive bonding layer; and a semiconductor contact layer. The light-emitting stacked layer includes a first semiconductor layer; an active layer; and a second semiconductor layer, wherein a polarity of the first semiconductor layer is different from that of the semiconductor layer. A first pad is formed on an exposed portion of the first semiconductor layer and a second pad is formed on the semiconductor contact layer. A polarity of the semiconductor contact layer is different from that of the second semiconductor layer.
US09269691B2

A semiconductor device has a semiconductor die. The semiconductor die is disposed over a conductive substrate. An encapsulant is deposited over the semiconductor die. A first interconnect structure is formed over the encapsulant. An opening is formed through the substrate to isolate a portion of the substrate electrically connected to the first interconnect structure. A bump is formed over the first interconnect structure. Conductive vias are formed through the encapsulant and electrically connected to the portion of the substrate. A plurality of bumps is formed over the semiconductor die. A first conductive layer is formed over the encapsulant. A first insulating layer is formed over the first conductive layer. A second conductive layer is formed over the first insulating layer and first conductive layer. A second insulating layer is formed over the first insulating layer and second conductive layer. Protrusions extend above the substrate.
US09269690B2

Embodiments of a packaged semiconductor device with interior polygon pads are disclosed. One embodiment includes a semiconductor chip and a package structure defining a rectangular boundary and having a bottom surface that includes interior polygonal pads exposed at the bottom surface of the package structure and located on a centerline of the bottom surface of the package structure and edge polygonal pads exposed at the bottom surface of the package structure, located at an edge of the rectangular boundary, and including one edge polygonal pad in the vicinity of each corner of the rectangular boundary. The interior polygonal pads are configured such that a line running between at least one vertex of each of the interior polygonal pads is parallel to an edge of the rectangular boundary of the package structure.
US09269689B1

An integrated circuit package comprising an enclosure including a dielectric housing, a first electrical contact, and a second electrical contact. The dielectric housing, the first electrical contact, and the second electrical contact are configured to form a contact side of the enclosure. In addition, the first and second electrical contacts are sized to be substantially alignment insensitive for electro-mechanical connection to corresponding contacts of an end-use equipment. The enclosure encapsulates an integrated circuit die which is electrically coupled to the first and second electrical contacts. The alignment insensitive first and second electrical contacts may be electro-mechanically connected to corresponding contacts of an end-use equipment (e.g., a printer). Further, the integrated circuit package may be hosted by a peripheral device (e.g., a printer cartridge).
US09269685B2

An integrated circuit package includes a package module formed from successive build-up layers which define circuit interconnections, a cavity formed on a top-side of the package module, a chip having a front side with forward contacts and having a back-side, the chip disposed such that in the cavity such that at least one forward contact is electrically connected to at least one of the circuit interconnections of the package module, and a top layer coupled to the back-side of the chip covering at least a part of the chip and the top-side of the package module.
US09269678B2

A method of manufacturing a bond pad structure, comprising the steps of forming a pad material layer on a passivation layer, forming a protection layer on the pad material layer, performing an etching process to pattern the protection layer and the pad material layer into a bond pad structure, and removing the protection layer on the bond pad structure.
US09269671B2

There is provided a technology by which the position of 1 pin in a tabless package can be recognized easily. The rear surfaces of plural leads are exposed on a rear surface of a resin-sealed body which seals a semiconductor chip etc., a image recognition area is further provided adjacent to 1 pin (lead with index 1), and a rear surface of an identification mark is exposed from the rear surface of the resin-sealed body of the image recognition area. This identification mark is made of the same conductive member as the plural leads.
US09269667B2

A semiconductor apparatus includes a first power supply pad configured to supply a first power; a second power supply pad configured to supply a second power; a first power line configured to be directly electrically coupled to the first power supply pad; and a second power line configured to be directly electrically coupled to the second power supply pad.
US09269665B2

A semiconductor device according to one embodiment includes: a semiconductor substrate provided with a semiconductor element; a first conductive member formed on the semiconductor substrate; a first insulating film formed on the same layer as the first conductive member; a second conductive member formed so as to contact with a portion of an upper surface of the first conductive member; a second insulating film formed on the first insulating film so as to contact with a portion of the upper surface of the first conductive member, and including at least one type of element among elements contained in the first insulating film except Si; and an etching stopper film formed on the second insulating film so as to contact with a portion of a side surface of the second conductive member, and having an upper edge located below the upper surface of the second conductive member.
US09269664B2

The invention provides a semiconductor package with a through silicon via (TSV) interconnect and a method for fabricating the same. An exemplary embodiment of the semiconductor package with a TSV interconnect includes a semiconductor substrate. A through hole is formed through the semiconductor substrate. A TSV interconnect is disposed in a through hole. A conductive layer lines a sidewall of the through hole, surrounding the TSV interconnect.
US09269658B2

An integrated circuit structure includes a semiconductor substrate, a metal pad over the semiconductor substrate, a passivation layer including a portion over the metal pad, a polymer layer over the passivation layer, and a Post-Passivation Interconnect (PPI) over the polymer layer. The PPI is electrically connected to the metal pad. The PPI includes a PPI line have a first width, and a PPI pad having a second width greater than the first width. The PPI pad is connected to the PPI line. The PPI pad includes an inner portion having a first thickness, and an edge portion having a second thickness smaller than the first thickness.
US09269654B2

A semiconductor device, a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device and a method for transmitting a signal are disclosed. In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the semiconductor device comprises a first semiconductor chip comprising a first coil, a second semiconductor chip comprising a second coil inductively coupled to the first coil, and an isolating intermediate layer between the first semiconductor chip and the second semiconductor chip.
US09269645B1

A fan-out wafer level package is provided. The fan-out wafer level package includes a semiconductor element, a molding compound, a first fan-out structure, a conductive heat spreader, and a plurality of solder balls. The semiconductor element includes a plurality of bonding pads. The molding compound covers the semiconductor element. The first fan-out structure is formed on the semiconductor element, wherein the first fan-out structure has a plurality of fan-out contacts electrically connected to the bonding pads. The conductive heat spreader is formed on the first fan-out structure, wherein the conductive heat spreader has a plurality of through holes filled with a conductive material. The solder balls are formed on the conductive heat spreader, wherein the solder balls are electrically connected to the first fan-out structure via the through holes filled with the conductive material.
US09269635B2

A CMOS device with transistors having different gate dielectric materials and a method of manufacture thereof. A CMOS device is formed on a workpiece having a first region and a second region. A first gate dielectric material is deposited over the second region. A first gate material is deposited over the first gate dielectric material. A second gate dielectric material comprising a different material than the first gate dielectric material is deposited over the first region of the workpiece. A second gate material is deposited over the second gate dielectric material. The first gate material, the first gate dielectric material, the second gate material, and the second gate dielectric material are then patterned to form a CMOS device having a symmetric Vt for the PMOS and NMOS FETs.
US09269633B2

Semiconductor device performance is improved via a gate structure having a tunable effective workfunction and reduced gate depletion effects. According to an example embodiment, the design threshold voltage of a semiconductor device is adjusted in a manner that includes providing a gate having a workfunction that enables operation of the semiconductor device at a selected voltage. The gate is formed having two different conductive materials with different electric workfunctions that both significantly contribute to the overall workfunction of the gate. The relative composition, thickness, and arrangement of each of the two conductive materials is selected to attain a gate electrode workfunction that is different than the workfunctions of each of the two layers and that sets the threshold voltage of the semiconductor device. The adjustability of the effective workfunction of the gate electrode can be applied to a variety of semiconductor devices. The ability to reduce gate depletion effects also provides enhanced device current drive.
US09269622B2

A semiconductor device and method of making a semiconductor device is described. An embedded die panel comprising a plurality of semiconductor die separated by saw streets is provided. A conductive layer is formed by an electroless plating process, the conductive layer comprising bussing lines disposed in the saw streets and a redistribution layer (RDL) coupled to the semiconductor die and bussing lines. An insulating layer is formed over the conductive layer and embedded die panel, the insulating layer comprising openings disposed over the conductive layer outside a footprint of the semiconductor die. Interconnect structures are formed in the openings in the insulating layer by using the conductive layer as part of an electroplating process. The embedded die panel is singulated through the saw streets after forming the interconnect structures to remove the bussing lines and to from individual fan-out wafer level packages (FOWLPs).
US09269617B2

A circuit device is configured with robust circuit connectors. In connection with various example embodiments, an integrated circuit device includes one or more via network layers below a bond pad contact, connecting the bond pad contact with one or more underlying metal layers. Each via network layer includes a plurality of via strips extending about parallel to the bond pad contact and in different directions to structurally support the bond pad contact.
US09269606B2

A method for forming an active isolation structure in a semiconductor integrated circuit die is disclosed. A first hard mask layer is deposited over a semiconductor substrate. Portions of the first hard mask layer are removed to form at least one trench. A spacer layer is deposited over the first hard mask and extends into each trench to cover exposed portions of the semiconductor substrate surface in each trench. Portions of the spacer layer are removed such that remaining portions define spacer layer walls covering the side walls of each trench. A second hard mask layer is deposited and extends into each trench between opposing spacer layer walls. The spacer layer walls are removed such that remaining portions of the first and second hard mask layers define a mask pattern, which is then transferred to the substrate to form openings in the substrate, which are filled with an isolation material.
US09269595B2

A semiconductor wafer has a plurality of first semiconductor die. A second semiconductor die is mounted to the first semiconductor die. The active surface of the first semiconductor die is oriented toward an active surface of the second semiconductor die. An encapsulant is deposited over the first and second semiconductor die. A portion of a back surface of the second semiconductor die opposite the active surface is removed. Conductive pillars are formed around the second semiconductor die. TSVs can be formed through the first semiconductor die. An interconnect structure is formed over the back surface of the second semiconductor die, encapsulant, and conductive pillars. The interconnect structure is electrically connected to the conductive pillars. A portion of a back surface of the first semiconductor die opposite the active surface is removed. A heat sink or shielding layer can be formed over the back surface of the first semiconductor die.
US09269591B2

The present disclosure relates to a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate having a trap-rich layer, with crystal defects, which is disposed within a handle wafer, and an associated method of formation. In some embodiments, the SOI substrate has a handle wafer. A trap-rich layer, having a plurality of crystal defects that act to trap carriers, is disposed within the handle wafer at a position abutting a top surface of the handle wafer. An insulating layer is disposed onto the handle wafer. The insulating layer has a first side abutting the top surface of the handle wafer and an opposing second side abutting a thin layer of active silicon. By forming the trap-rich layer within the handle wafer, fabrication costs associated with depositing a trap-rich material (e.g., polysilicon) onto a handle wafer are reduced and thermal instability issues are prevented.
US09269589B2

A method for fabricating the device includes patterning a first structure and a second structure on a semiconductor device. A first angled ion implantation is applied to the second structure such that the first structure is protected and a second angled ion implantation is applied to the first structure such that the second structure is protected, wherein exposed portions of the first and second structures have an altered rate of oxidation. Oxidation is performed to form thicker or thinner oxide portions on the exposed portions of the first and second structures relative to unexposed portions of the first and second structures. Oxide portions are removed to an underlying layer of the first and second structures. The first and second structures are removed. Spacers are formed about a periphery of remaining oxide portions. The remaining oxide portions are removed. A layer below the spacers is patterned to form integrated circuit features.
US09269586B2

Selective deposition of metal over dielectric layers in a manner that minimizes or eliminates keyhole formation is provided. According to one embodiment, a dielectric target layer is formed over a substrate layer, wherein the target layer may be configured to allow conformal metal deposition, and a dielectric second layer is formed over the target layer, wherein the second layer may be configured to allow bottom-up metal deposition. An opening may then be formed in the second layer and metal may be selectively deposited over substrate layer.
US09269581B2

A method of producing a solar cell, including: a first coating step in which a pre-wet composition is spin-coated on a surface of a semiconductor substrate; a second coating step in which a diffusing material including a solvent and a diffusing agent containing a first impurity element is spin-coated on the surface where the pre-wet composition has been spin-coated, so as to form a coating film of the diffusing agent; and a first impurity diffusion layer forming step in which the semiconductor substrate having the coating film formed thereon is heated, so as to form a first impurity diffusion layer in which the impurity element contained in the diffusing agent is diffused.
US09269574B2

Described are methods for atomic layer deposition of films comprising mixed metal oxides using metal amidinate precursors. The mixed metal oxide films may comprise a lanthanide and a transition metal such as hafnium, zirconium or titanium. Such mixed metal oxide films may be used as dielectric layers in capacitors, transistors, dynamic random access memory cells, resistive random access memory cells, flash memory cells and display panels.
US09269570B2

A method is provided for producing a microelectronic device with plural zones made of a metal and semiconductor compound, from semiconductor zones made of different semiconductor materials, and on which a thin semiconductor layer is formed prior to the deposition of a metal layer so as to lower the nucleation barrier of the semiconductor zones when reacting with the metal layer.
US09269559B1

Phosphor-containing coating compositions and methods capable of changing the lumen maintenance characteristics of phosphor-containing coatings and fluorescent lamps that utilize such coatings. Lumen maintenance of a fluorescent lamp can be modified by forming a phosphor-containing coating to contain at least a first phosphor that depreciates during operation of the fluorescent lamp, and forming the phosphor-containing coating to further contain an additive composition in a sufficient amount and sufficiently uniformly distributed in the phosphor-containing coating to inhibit depreciation of the first phosphor during operation of the fluorescent lamp.
US09269555B2

Systems and methods are used to band-pass filter ions from a mass range. A full spectrum is received for a full scan of a mass range using a tandem mass spectrometer. A mass selection window of the full spectrum is selected and a set of tuning parameter values is selected. The tandem mass spectrometer is instructed to perform a scan of the mass selection window using the set of tuning parameter values. A spectrum is received for the scan from the tandem mass spectrometer. A band-pass filtered spectrum is created for the mass range that includes values from the spectrum for the mass selection window of the mass range. Systems and methods are also used to band-pass filter ions from two or more mass selection windows across the mass range and to filter out ions from a mass selection window between two band-pass mass selection windows.
US09269554B2

A mass spectrometer is disclosed comprising a cooling cell for cooling ions so as to reduce their kinetic energy. The cooling cell comprises: a chamber for receiving the ions or for generating the ions therein, wherein said chamber is formed from walls defining a substantially enclosed region; and a cooling jacket surrounding said chamber, wherein said cooling jacket is arranged and configured to contain a cooling fluid and so as to remove heat from one or more walls of the chamber. The mass spectrometer further comprises a mass analyzer for receiving ions from the cooling cell after they have been cooled. The present invention reduced the kinetic energy of the ions prior to mass analysis and hence improves the resolution of the mass analyzer. The mass analyzer is preferably a time of flight mass analyzer.
US09269552B2

Certain embodiments described herein are directed to ion detectors and systems. In some examples, the ion detector can include a plurality of dynodes, in which one or more of the dynodes are coupled to an electrometer. In other configurations, each dynode can be coupled to a respective electrometer. Methods using the ion detectors are also described.
US09269547B2

Semiconductor equipment is disclosed in this invention. The semiconductor equipment includes a reaction chamber, a wafer susceptor, and a liner device. The reaction chamber includes an opening and a circular inner wall. The wafer susceptor is capable of carrying at least one wafer. The liner device is disposed between the wafer susceptor and the circular inner wall of the reaction chamber. The liner device is capable of moving vertically between a first position and a second position. The liner device includes at least one venting opening, wherein the venting opening is connected with a venting device. Particles which are accumulated within the liner device can be removed by the venting device.
US09269540B2

An ion implantation apparatus according to an embodiment includes an ion implantation unit, a position detection unit, a charge supply unit, a current value detection unit, and a determination unit. The ion implantation unit scans the surface of a substrate with an ion beam containing positively charged ions and implants the ions into the substrate. The position detection unit detects the scan position of the ion beam on the substrate. The charge supply unit generates a plasma, emits electrons contained in the plasma, and supplies the electrons to the substrate. The current value detection unit detects a current value that changes in accordance with the amount of electrons emitted by the charge supply unit. The determination unit determines the charge build-up state of the substrate based on a change in the current value, the change being accompanied by a change in the scan position.
US09269538B2

A method of achieving ion beam uniformity control using ion beam blockers. The method includes generating an ion beam, detecting a current profile of said ion beam with an ion beam blocker unit, wherein said detected current profile is an initial current profile, blocking a portion of said ion beam with said ion beam blocker unit to achieve a second current profile that is different from the initial current profile, and implanting said ion beam into a workpiece after said blocking.
US09269537B2

The present disclosure provides one embodiment of a reflective electron-beam (e-beam) lithography system. The reflective e-beam lithography system includes an e-beam source to generate an e-beam; a digital pattern generator (DPG) having a plurality of pixels that are dynamically and individually controllable to reflect the e-beam; a substrate stage designed to secure a substrate and being operable to move the substrate; an e-beam lens module configured to project the e-beam from the DPG to the substrate; and an alignment gate configured between the e-beam source and the DPG, wherein the alignment gate is operable to modulate an intensity of the e-beam.
US09269526B2

An X-ray tube includes a vacuum-filled housing and an anode contained in the vacuum-filled housing. The anode is operable to produce an X-ray beam based on electrons emitted from a cathode and attracted by a high voltage applied to the anode. The X-ray tube also includes a high-voltage power line introduced from an external side of the housing for supplying the anode with a high-voltage potential. The X-ray tube includes an electrical feed for electrically insulating the high-voltage power line from the housing. The electrical feed in the X-ray tube includes at least two insulating layers radially between the high-voltage power line and the housing. The at least two insulating layers are separated from one another by a metallic coating.
US09269523B2

An electron emission device includes a number of first electrodes and a number of second electrodes intersected with each other to define a number of intersections. An electron emission unit is sandwiched between the first electrode and the second electrode at each of the number of intersections, wherein the electron emission unit includes a semiconductor layer and an insulating layer stacked together, the semiconductor layer defines a number of holes, the carbon nanotube layer covers the number of holes, and a portion of the carbon nanotube layer is suspended on the number of holes.
US09269511B2

Communication means allowing a hand controlled toy play set to communicate data with another play set article or a joystick through hand contact or hand shake motion. Said toy play set comprises memory means and identity means to represent the performance parameters and personality of a toy member.
US09269507B2

A contact device includes: fixed terminals; a movable contact maker; a pressing spring; an adjustment plate that comes into contact with an upper face of the movable contact maker; a holding portion; a movable shaft; and an electromagnet block. The holding portion is divided into first and second holding portions that are separated from each other. The first and second holding portions are electrically connected to each other via only the adjustment plate, due to the adjustment plate being sandwiched by a first side plate of the first holding portion and a second side plate of the second holding portion. The adjustment plate is moved in extending and contracting directions of the pressing spring, and the adjustment plate and each of the first and second side plates are subjected to resistance welding at a position at which pressing force of the pressing spring is a predetermined value.
US09269506B2

The present disclosure is to provide a movable contact arm capable of securing a revolution radius to a closed position of the movable contact arm such that adhesive materials on the shaft due to arc scattering materials can be removed with no installation of additional elements, and a movable contact arm according to the present disclosure may comprise an adhesive material removal portion formed on a lateral surface at which a contact of the movable contact arm is located, and configured to minimize a contact area with adhesive materials so as to remove the adhesive materials due to an arc.
US09269499B2

A capacitor containing a solid electrolytic capacitor element including a sintered porous anode body, a first anode lead, and a second anode lead is provided. The first anode lead has a thickness that is larger than a thickness of the second anode lead. A portion of the first anode lead is embedded in the porous anode body, and a second portion of the first anode lead extends from a surface thereof in a longitudinal direction. Meanwhile, the second anode lead is electrically connected to the anode body for connection to an anode termination. In one embodiment, the second anode lead can be directly connected to a surface of the anode body. In another embodiment, the second anode lead can be indirectly connected to the anode body such as via attachment at an end of the second portion of the first anode lead.
US09269483B2

Numerous arrangements for permanent magnets are disclosed that can focus the flux produced by the magnets. Depending on the particular application in which the disclosed designs and techniques are used, efficiency and reliability may be increased by minimizing flux leakage, increasing peak flux density, and shaping the flux fields to improve the effective coercivity of the flux focusing permanent magnet arrangement when loaded, and to achieve customized voltage and current waveforms. The disclosed magnet assemblies may be incorporated into a machine, such as a motor/generator, having windings and may be disposed for movement relative to the windings. The magnet assembly may be mounted on a support formed of one or more ferromagnetic materials, such as a back iron. The disclosed flux focusing magnet assemblies may be formed using a variety of manufacturing methods.
US09269464B2

An apparatus, system and method for storing high level radioactive waste. In one aspect, the invention is a specially designed ring structure for providing neutron and gamma radiation shielding for high level radioactive materials that produce residual heat. A plurality of the ring structures may be arranged in a stacked assembly that completely surrounds an internal containment boundary. Collars may be provided at the ring-to-ring interfaces. The ring structures may have voids which are configured for receiving neutron absorbing material that completely surrounds the containment boundary.
US09269457B2

A memory device capable of rescuing defective characteristics that occur after packaging includes a memory cell array including a plurality of memory cells and an antifuse circuit unit including at least one antifuse. The antifuse circuit unit stores a defective cell address of the memory cell array in the at least one antifuse and reads the defective cell address to an external source. The antifuse circuit unit stores a defective characteristic code in the at least one antifuse, wherein the defective characteristic code is related to at least one of a timing parameter spec., a refresh spec., an input/output (I/O) trigger voltage spec., and a data training spec. of the memory device, and outputs the defective characteristic code to an external source.
US09269456B2

A first erase test is performed by applying an erase pulse to series of memory cells which are included in a memory cell array and which are divided into a plurality of groups until the appearance of a group for which the determination that erase is completed is made. A second erase test is performed on other series of memory cells including the series of memory cells on the basis of the number of erase pulses at the time of detecting a group for which the determination that erase is completed is made first.
US09269455B2

A shift register unit, a gate driving circuit, an array substrate and a display apparatus are disclosed to reduce noises generated at an output of a next stage shift register unit caused by an output of a pervious stage shift register unit. The shift register unit at each stage comprises at least a signal inputting terminal INPUT, a signal outputting terminal OUTPUT and a capacitor CAP connected with the outputting terminal OUTPUT so as to provide an output signal to the outputting terminal OUTPUT, wherein the shift register unit further comprises a switch located between the capacitor CAP and the outputting terminal OUTPUT, and the switch is in a turned-off state when the capacitor CAP is charged.
US09269451B2

A storage device and method for performing a self-refresh operation are disclosed. In one embodiment, a storage device determines that the self-refresh operation needs to be performed. In response to that determination, the storage device performs the self-refresh operation by reading data from the memory and writing the data back to the memory without transferring the data outside of the storage device.
US09269450B2

The present disclosure includes methods, devices, and systems for adjusting sensing voltages in devices. One or more embodiments include memory cells, and a controller configured to perform a sense operation on the memory cells using a sensing voltage to determine a quantity of the memory cells having a threshold voltage (Vt) greater than the sensing voltage and adjust a sensing voltage used to determine a state of the memory cells based, at least partially, on the determined quantity of memory cells.
US09269437B2

Certain embodiments described herein include a memory system having a volatile memory subsystem, a non-volatile memory subsystem, a controller coupled to the non-volatile memory subsystem, and a circuit coupled to the volatile memory subsystem, to the controller, and to a host system. In a first mode of operation, the circuit is operable to selectively isolate the controller from the volatile memory subsystem, and to selectively couple the volatile memory subsystem to the host system to allow data to be communicated between the volatile memory subsystem and the host system. In a second mode of operation, the circuit is operable to selectively couple the controller to the volatile memory subsystem to allow data to be communicated between the volatile memory subsystem and the nonvolatile memory subsystem using the controller, and the circuit is operable to selectively isolate the volatile memory subsystem from the host system.
US09269433B2

A method writes data in a resistive memory device in which paths for performing write operations to record first-state data and second-state data are controlled to cause current to flow in opposing directions in a resistive memory cell whose switching type has been determined. The method includes performing a write operation in a predetermined direction when writing the first-state data and second-state data, making a determination with respect to success in target data through verification, and attempting an additional write operation through a path reversed from a write path of corresponding data according to a result of the determination.
US09269427B2

A resistive memory device. Implementations may include an array of memory cells including resistive memory elements which are coupled to isolation transistors and which may include a magnetic tunnel junction. A decoder decodes input address information to select a row of the array. A binarizer coupled to the memory array assigns binary weights to outputs of the memory array output through bit lines coupled to the memory cells. A summer sums the binary weighted outputs, and a quantizer generates an output digital code corresponding to data stored in a plurality of memory cells during a prior program cycle. The outputs of the memory array may be currents or voltages. In implementations multiple arrays of memory cells may be utilized and their respective outputs combined to form higher bit outputs, such as eight bit, twelve bit, sixteen bit, and so forth.
US09269423B2

The invention concerns a memory array having memory cells arranged in columns and rows, the memory cells of each column being coupled to at least one common write line of their column, the memory cells of each row being coupled to a common selection line of their row, wherein each of the memory cells includes a latch formed of a pair of inverters cross-coupled between first and second storage nodes; a first transistor coupled between the first storage node and a first test data input; and a second transistor coupled between the second storage node and a second test data input.
US09269420B2

A semiconductor memory device is provided. A cell array includes a DRAM cell connected to one of a pair of bit lines. A bit line sense amplifier is coupled to the pair of bit lines. The bit line sense amplifier discharges a low-level bit line of the pair of bit lines toward a ground level and clamps the low-level bit line to a boosted sense ground voltage in response to a control signal. A sense amplifier control logic generates the control signal having a pulse interval. The low-level bit line is discharged toward the ground level for the pulse interval and after the pulse interval ends, the low-level bit line is clamped to the boosted sense ground voltage.
US09269417B2

Apparatus, systems, and methods to manage memory refresh operations are described. In one embodiment, an electronic device comprises a processor and memory controller logic to determine a memory refresh frequency for a memory system and transmit refresh commands to a refresh control logic in at least one memory bank coupled to the memory controller according to the memory refresh frequency. Other embodiments are also disclosed and claimed.
US09269416B2

A counter that can include a plurality of count stages is disclosed. Each count stage includes a ferroelectric capacitor characterized by first and second polarization states, a variable impedance element, reset and count ports and a detector. The variable impedance element has an impedance between first and second switch terminals that is determined by a signal on a control terminal, the ferroelectric capacitor being connected between the control terminal and the first switch terminal. A reset signal coupled to the control terminal causes the ferroelectric capacitor to be polarized in the first polarization state. The count port is configured to receive pulses to be counted, the count port being connected to the first switch terminal by a conductive load. The detector generates a count complete signal if a potential on the first terminal exceeds a threshold value while the count port is receiving one of the pulses.
US09269407B1

Disclosed is a system that periodically increases the supply voltage applied to a power rail of an integrated circuit chip that is incorporated into a product, thereby compensating for age-dependent changes in a performance parameter sensitivity (e.g., in a delay sensitivity). In this system, the chip comprises at least a memory, an age monitor, a voltage selector and a power rail. The memory stores an age/voltage table. The age monitor automatically measures the age of the chip. Based on the age and using the age/voltage table, the voltage selector selects a specific supply voltage and outputs a voltage selection signal to an adjustable voltage regulator, which can apply (e.g., automatically or on-demand) that specific supply voltage to the power rail. Also disclosed is a method for regulating the power supplied to an integrated circuit chip, which is incorporated into a product, and a method for generating an age/voltage table.
US09269399B2

A capture device includes a microphone, a camera, a memory, and a processor. The microphone is configured to record audio data, the camera is configured to capture image data, the memory is configured to store the recorded audio data and the captured image data, and the processor is configured to link the recorded audio data with the captured image data based on a timestamp of the image data, and store the linked audio data and image data in a same record in the memory.
US09269397B2

Various arrangements are presented that may involve receiving from a television service provider, timers that are used to record a managed channel array. Each of these timers define a television channel, a time period, and a date. The received timers may be set at a television receiver. User input may be received that specifies an undesired television channel that is not to be recorded according to the received plurality of timers, the undesired television channel being part of the managed channel array. An amount of storage space for the managed channel array excluding the undesired television channel may be calculated. Storage space may be allocated based upon the calculated amount of storage space for the managed channel array excluding the undesired television channel.
US09269392B2

An apparatus and method for applying anti-copy protection to a raster-scanned video signal are described. A square waveform 52 is added to the vertical synchronization pulses 50 of the video signal. The effect of the waveform is not apparent until it has been recorded by a video cassette recorder. The anti-copy protected video signal can therefore be viewed normally on a display device at or near to the picture quality intended by the originator of the video signal, but once recorded, exhibits a reduction in picture quality which makes the video signal quite unattractive to view.
US09269387B2

In one embodiment, there are provided: a substrate; a data area disposed on the substrate and having a plurality of first magnetic dots arrayed in lines in mutually different first, second, and third directions; and a boundary magnetic part having a plurality of first magnetic portions arrayed in a line in the third direction and each having a length longer than that of the first magnetic dot in the third direction, and a second magnetic dot disposed between the first magnetic portions and disposed on extensions in the first and second directions of the first magnetic dots, and disposed along with the data area on the substrate.
US09269383B1

According to one embodiment, a magnetic head includes a lower magnetic shield positioned at a media facing surface of the head, a lower sensor positioned above the lower magnetic shield, the lower sensor including a lower free layer, a middle magnetic shield positioned above the lower sensor at the media facing surface of the head, and a back side antiferromagnetic (AFM) layer positioned behind the lower free layer in an element height direction, the back side AFM layer being configured to provide magnetic stabilization for the middle magnetic shield. In another embodiment, a method includes forming a lower sensor including a lower free layer, forming a back side AFM layer behind the lower free layer in an element height direction, and forming a middle magnetic shield above the lower sensor, wherein the back side AFM layer is configured to provide magnetic stabilization for the middle magnetic shield.
US09269376B1

To provide enhanced operation of data storage devices and systems, various systems, apparatuses, methods, and software are provided herein. In a first example, a data storage device is presented with storage media comprising a cache storage region and a shingled magnetic recording (SMR) storage region that is divided into burst zones. A storage control system receives write operations and accumulates write data in the cache storage region until a commit threshold condition. Responsively, the storage control system transfers the write data into a burst zone of the SMR storage region, and verifies the write data written into the burst zone once the burst transfer is complete. Responsive to data verify errors in the write data written into the burst zone, the storage control system writes data associated with the data verify errors into an exception location associated with the burst zone.
US09269369B2

The present invention relates to a method and device for dereverberation of single-channel speech. The method includes the following steps of framing an input single channel speech signal, and processing the frame signals as follows according to a time sequence: performing short-time Fourier transform on a current frame to obtain a power spectrum and a phase spectrum of the current frame; selecting several frames previous to the current frame and having a distance from the current frame within a set duration range, and performing linear superposition on the power spectra of these frames to estimate the power spectrum of a late reflection sound of the current frame; removing the estimated power spectrum of the late reflection sound of the current frame from the power spectrum of the current frame by a spectral subtraction method to obtain the power spectra of a direct sound and an early reflection sound of the current frame; and performing inverse short-time Fourier transform on the power spectra of the direct sound and the early reflection sound of the current frame and the phase spectrum of the current frame together to obtain a signal of the current frame after dereverberation. The dereverberation method and device can solve the problem that the estimation of a transfer function of a reverberation environment or the estimation of reverberation time is difficult in the dereverberation of single-channel speech.
US09269368B2

Methods, systems, and apparatuses are described for performing speaker-identification-assisted speech processing in an uplink path of a communication device. In accordance with certain embodiments, a communication device includes speaker identification (SID) logic that is configured to identify the identity of a near-end speaker. Knowledge of the identity of the near-end speaker is then used to improve the performance of one or more uplink speech processing algorithms implemented on the communication device.
US09269363B2

A spread spectrum data hiding for audio signals is described. A set of pseudo-random noise sequences is added to an audio signal according to a data to be embedded. A masking curve is used to shape the added noise. A transient detection step can be used to control whether a shaped noise sequence is to be added or not. Embedded information is detected by first performing a whitening step and then performing a phase-only correlation with a same set of pseudo-random noise sequences. A detection method that is based on correlation of multiplexed noise sequences with a noise sequence embedded in the audio is also described.
US09269362B2

A method and system for blind audio watermarking has been envisaged. The system embeds an in-audible watermark by modifying a predetermined singular value in the wavelet domain. The generated watermarked audio signals are robust again Gaussian noise and other watermark removal and compression attacks. Also, the system can perform watermark extraction/detection in real-time without requiring in advance, either the original audio signal or its processed parameters. Thereby, the method and system provide a real-time, efficient technique for blind audio watermarking.
US09269359B2

A system comprises: first and second base stations; and a plurality of relay nodes, each of said relay nodes connected to the first base station, each of said relay nodes being connected to at least one other relay node, whereby at least one relay node is configured to at least one of receive and send information for another of said relays nodes; wherein when at least one of the plurality of relay nodes is handed over to a second base station the at least one relay node is configured to receive and/or send information via another of the relay nodes connected to the first base station.
US09269352B2

At least first and second microphones with different frequency responses form part of a speech recognition system. The microphones are coupled to a processor that is configured to recognize a spoken word based on the microphone signals. The processor classifies the spoken word, and weights the signals from the microphones based on the classification of the spoken word.
US09269351B2

According to a voice recognition device of this invention, with respect to a keyword extracted by a voice recognition unit from a speech content by a user, display contents each displayed by an operation by the user and their respective numbers of display times are stored as history information, and a search level is set through determination of whether or not the same operations and displays have been made by a predetermined number of times or more. This makes it possible, at the next time the same keyword is extracted, to immediately present information of such a level that the user requires, and thus, detailed information necessary for the user can always be provided efficiently, so that the convenience of the user is enhanced.
US09269348B2

Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media for detecting and correcting abnormal stress patterns in unit-selection speech synthesis. A system practicing the method detects incorrect stress patterns in selected acoustic units representing speech to be synthesized, and corrects the incorrect stress patterns in the selected acoustic units to yield corrected stress patterns. The system can further synthesize speech based on the corrected stress patterns. In one aspect, the system also classifies the incorrect stress patterns using a machine learning algorithm such as a classification and regression tree, adaptive boosting, support vector machine, and maximum entropy. In this way a text-to-speech unit selection speech synthesizer can produce more natural sounding speech with suitable stress patterns regardless of the stress of units in a unit selection database.
US09269347B2

A text-to-speech method configured to output speech having a selected speaker voice and a selected speaker attribute, including: inputting text; dividing the inputted text into a sequence of acoustic units; selecting a speaker for the inputted text; selecting a speaker attribute for the inputted text; converting the sequence of acoustic units to a sequence of speech vectors using an acoustic model; and outputting the sequence of speech vectors as audio with the selected speaker voice and a selected speaker attribute. The acoustic model includes a first set of parameters relating to speaker voice and a second set of parameters relating to speaker attributes, which parameters do not overlap. The selecting a speaker voice includes selecting parameters from the first set of parameters and the selecting the speaker attribute includes selecting the parameters from the second set of parameters.
US09269338B2

A musical instrument accessory is configured to provide cushioning to a chest of a musician and to repel moisture from a musical instrument. The musical instrument accessory has a comfort layer configured to repel moisture. A transition layer is mechanically coupled to the comfort layer and provides cushioning. An attachment layer is mechanically coupled to the transition layer and configured to adhere to the musical instrument. The comfort layer, the transition layer and the attachment layer have a common profile shape that is configured to accommodate musical instruments of different sizes.
US09269336B2

A key (11) is supported by key supporting portions (32) so that the key (11) can pivot. A reaction force generation member (22) is shaped like a dome to be elastically deformed by a key-depression of the key (11). At the time of the elastic deformation, the reaction force generation member (22) increases a reaction force from the beginning with an increasing amount of elastic deformation. After the reaction force reaches its peak, the reaction force generation member (22) buckles to reduce the reaction force. A normal line of a plane (P1) including a pivot axis (C) of the key (11) and a depression point of a depression portion (11a) is designed to be roughly parallel to an axis line (Y1) of the reaction force generation member (22) at the point in time when the reaction force of the reaction force generation member (22) reaches its peak.
US09269335B2

An installation structure for an acoustic transducer configured to push and pull a vibrated body and having a magnetic-path forming portion; a vibrating unit; and a connector having at least one joint portion configured to connect two members such that axes of the two members are inclined relative to each other by bending at the at least one joint portion, the at least one joint portion having an urging portion configured to generate an urging force by which a pushing-side driving portion of a first member connected to one side of the at least one joint portion urges a pushing-side driven portion of a second member connected on another side of the at least one joint portion in a pushing direction and an urging force by which a pulling-side driving portion of the first member urges a pulling-side driven portion of the second member in a pulling direction.
US09269334B2

A display system comprises a processing device connected to a plurality of display devices, the processing device comprising a processor connected to a system memory and to a graphics processing unit, the graphics processing unit comprising a graphics processor connected to a video memory. A method of operating the system comprises the steps of maintaining a system frame buffer in system memory, creating a shared primary surface in video memory for an additional display device not controlled by the graphics processing unit, rendering the contents of the system frame buffer onto the shared primary surface, rendering any and all directly rendered applications onto the shared primary surface, maintaining a second frame buffer in system memory, copying at least some of the content of the shared primary surface to the second frame buffer, and outputting at least some of the content of the second frame buffer to the additional display device.
US09269326B2

A voltage compensation circuit and an operation method thereof are provided. The voltage compensation circuit is suitable for a display device. The display device includes a direct-current voltage converter, a voltage level shifter, a panel, and a gate driving circuit. The voltage compensation circuit includes a voltage divider providing a divided voltage form a gate pulse signal, a comparing unit, a time counting unit and a processing unit. The comparing unit receives the divided voltage to provide at least one comparison result. The time counting unit provides a plurality of timing control signals at different time points according to the divided voltage. The processing unit provides a voltage reference signal to the direct-current voltage converter according to the plurality of timing control signals and the comparing result, and accordingly, the direct-current voltage converter adjusts an output voltage relating to the gate driving circuit.
US09269317B2

A liquid crystal display apparatus including a gate driving circuit disposed on a liquid crystal display is provided. The apparatus further includes a data driving chip, disposed on the liquid crystal display panel, to apply data driving signals to data lines. The gate driving circuit includes a plurality of stages connected to one another in parallel. The odd-numbered stages of the stages each apply gate driving signals to odd-numbered gate lines of the gate lines, in response to a first clock signal and the even-numbered stages of the stages each apply the gate driving signals to even-numbered gate lines of the gate lines, in response to a second clock signal having an opposite phase from a phase of the first clock signal.
US09269315B2

A highly reliable semiconductor device and a method for driving the highly reliable semiconductor device is provided. In a semiconductor device in which a light-transmitting storage capacitor having a MOS capacitor structure is provided and a light-transmitting semiconductor film functioning as one electrode of the storage capacitor is electrically connected to a capacitor line, a shift of a threshold voltage of the storage capacitor in the positive direction is suppressed in a period during which an image is not displayed. For example, the shift of the threshold voltage of the storage capacitor in the positive direction is suppressed by application of a negative bias to a pixel electrode functioning as the other electrode of the storage capacitor.
US09269306B2

A backlight driving circuit includes a transformer, a controllable switch connected in series with a primary side of the transformer, a voltage collection unit receiving a voltage of the primary side of the transformer, and a comparing unit coupled to the voltage collection unit. When an output voltage of the voltage collection unit is less than a preset reference voltage, the comparing unit drives the controllable switch to turn on.
US09269299B2

Disclosed are a pixel circuit, a method for driving a pixel circuit, and a display panel, display apparatus and electronic product comprising the pixel circuit. The pixel circuit comprises at least two electroluminescence elements, wherein: an electrode in a first polarity of each of the at least two electroluminescence elements is coupled to a corresponding current control terminal; and an electrode in a second polarity of each of the at least two electroluminescence elements is coupled to a drive unit that supplies a drive current for the at least two electroluminescence elements.
US09269273B1

Computer-implemented methods can transform a corpus of meaningful text sequences into a generalized computer-usable repository of neurolinguistic information that can be applied by one or more computer systems. The computer system(s) can use the neurolinguistic information to neurolinguistically analyze meaningful text sequences to derive statistical information and identify dominant cognitive motivation orientations expressed in those text sequences. The identified dominant cognitive motivation orientations can be used to improve the efficacy of both human-generated and machine-generated communications. The computer system(s) thereby transform a meaningful text sequence into actionable information about the dominant cognitive motivation orientation(s) of the author of that text sequence within the context in which the text sequence was composed. Computer systems and computer-program products for implementing the methods are also described.
US09269269B2

The present invention relates to a blind spot warning system and method for sensing a vehicle in a blind spot of a vehicle and warning thereof in advance, the blind spot warning system comprising a line-to-line space-generating unit that generates, in real time, line-to-line space data, which changes when the host vehicle is driven; a distance-measuring unit, which measures the distance between the host vehicle and a target vehicle located in a blind spot of the host vehicle; an input unit, which receives the line-to-line space data and the distance measurement information; a comparison unit, which compares the target vehicle distance data with the line-to-line space data to decide whether the target vehicle is located within the threshold vehicle-to-vehicle distance; and a warning output unit for outputting a warning if the target vehicle is located within the threshold vehicle-to-vehicle distance in the blind spot.
US09269259B2

The disclosed embodiments illustrate methods and systems for processing crowd-sensed data. The method includes receiving the crowd-sensed data from a mobile device associated with a user. The crowd-sensed data corresponds to metadata of an event pertaining to an aberration in at least one of a public service, a public infrastructure, a private service, or a private infrastructure. Thereafter, the event may be prioritized based at least on a type of the event, a measure of impact of the event, or a measure of urgency to resolve the event. Further, a notification of the event may be transmitted to an organization responsible to at least resolve the event, based on the prioritizing, wherein the notification comprises at least the metadata.
US09269255B2

Systems and methods for warning of proximity in a worksite are disclosed. A second transceiver is detected at a first transceiver, wherein the first transceiver is a mobile wearable device, and wherein the first transceiver and the second transceiver are located at a worksite. An ad-hoc network is established, at the first transceiver, between the first transceiver and the second transceiver. A distance is calculated, at the first transceiver, in three dimensions between the first transceiver and the second transceiver based on the detecting the second transceiver. A first safety envelope is defined, at the first transceiver, about the first transceiver and a second safety envelope about the second transceiver. An alarm is issued, at the first transceiver, when the first safety envelope comes in contact with the second safety envelope.
US09269253B2

Disclosed herein is a method and system for managing the location of at least one object that includes providing an object having a communication structure and providing a device capable of communicating with the communication structure operatively associated with the object within a communication range, the device being capable of providing a warning notification. The method and system further include determining, by the device, that the object is not detected within a predetermined proximity distance threshold and determining, by the device, that the object that is not detected within the predetermined proximity distance threshold has permission to not be detected within the predetermined proximity distance threshold. The method include providing no warning notification when the at least one object is determined to have permission to not be detected within the predetermined proximity distance threshold.
US09269247B2

A programmable security system and method for protecting an item of merchandise includes a programming station, a programmable key and a security system. The programming station generates a security code and communicates the security code to a memory of the programmable key. The programmable key initially communicates the security code to a memory of the security device and subsequently operates the security device upon a matching of the security code in the memory of the security device with the security code in the memory of the programmable key. The programmable key may also transfer power via electrical contacts or inductive transfer from an internal battery to the security device to operate a lock mechanism. The security code may be communicated by wireless infrared (IR) systems, electrical contacts or inductive transfer. A timer inactivates the programmable key and/or the security device after a predetermine period of time. A counter inactivates the programmable key after a predetermined maximum number of activations.
US09269241B2

A security device comprises a mounting plate and a mounting device. The mounting plate, for being fixed to a surface, comprises a first electrical contact point and a second electrical contact point electrically connecting to the first electrical contact point. The mounting device is to be assembled to the mounting plate and comprises a third electrical contact point, a fourth electrical contact point and a detection circuit. The third electrical contact point is for contacting the first electrical contact point when the mounting device is assembled to the mounting plate. The fourth electrical contact point is for contacting the second electrical contact point when the mounting device is assembled to the mounting plate. The detection circuit is electrically connected to the fourth electrical contact point, for determining whether the fourth electrical contact point is electrically connected to the third electrical contact point.
US09269238B2

A novelty door knocker having an electronic sound effect or effects, the door knocker with mechanical arm, plate, switch or proximity sensor enabled to trigger a sound effect, and a battery-powered circuit for controlling and coordinating the acoustics with the trigger. The door knocker may be decorated with or shaped as a cartoon figure for use on a child's bedroom door, for example.
US09269232B2

Systems and methods for providing a secondary contest involving a plurality of players playing a primary wagering game on computing devices within a communication network in which players enter wagers and their results from the primary wagering game in the secondary contest and the highest ranking results will win the wagers placed in the secondary contest.
US09269230B2

Embodiments of the inventive subject matter include a method comprising determining, by a wagering game unit of a wagering game machine, a result of a wagering game. The method can also include requesting, over a network by an award system unit of the wagering game machine, awards of a first award type be added to an electronic player account based on the result of the wagering game. The method can include receiving, by the award system unit, electronic input requesting to exchange the awards of the first award type in the electronic player account for awards of a second award type. The method can include requesting, over the network by the award system unit, exchange of the awards of the first award type in the electronic player account for the awards of the second award type.
US09269226B2

A progressive prize method for a group of linked gaming machines includes maintaining both a respective local progressive pool for each respective gaming machine in the group and a group progressive pool shared among the group of gaming machines. A local progressive prize trigger is used to determine when a progressive prize is to be awarded from a local progressive pool and a separate group progressive trigger is used to determine when a progressive prize is to be awarded from the group progressive pool. The group progressive trigger may be based on a count of local progressive prizes that have been awarded. Thus a local progressive trigger may ultimately result in the award of a progressive prize from the group progressive pool rather than the respective local progressive pool.
US09269224B2

A computing device for gaming by patrons. An identification acceptor may scan an identification document into digital form. A biological sensor such as a camera may obtain biological data describing a human patron. Input-output device(s) mounted in the computing device may present information and accept registration/login information and gaming commands from a human patron. A currency acceptor and dispenser may accept money. The computing device may ask a patron to insert an identification document into the identification acceptor, and scan the document. The computing device may obtain biological data describing the patron. The computing device may verify the identity of the patron and acceptability of the patron for gaming based at least in part on the digital form of the patron's identification and the biological data. The computing device may accept currency for deposit into a wagering account. Once the patron is verified and the account is funded, the computing device may offer gaming activities to the verified patron out of the wagering account, and pay out gaming winnings at the currency dispenser.
US09269221B2

A system and method provides efficient and highly reliable customer and asset tracking. A Personal Digital Key (PDK) is associated with and carried by a user or fixed to an asset. The PDK wirelessly communicates with a receiver/decoder circuit (RDC) that can be coupled to a variety of electronic devices. The RDC authenticates the PDK based on received data and stores information to track customers and provide improved service. The RDC can be coupled to or integrated with a variety of electronic devices. The operation of the electronic device is determined based on an identification code of the detected PDK and an identification code of the RDC. The electronic device, the PDK or both can be configured with a personalized user interface and execute specific functions based on stored state information associated with the PDK and RDC identification codes.
US09269217B2

Gaming-related displays present text and graphics viewable with a special visual aid, e.g., a camera phone. The visual aid provides an interface allowing the player to interact with, and be engaged by, the gaming machine and the gaming environment. The text and graphics shown on the visual aid may provide information that adds to the player's experience. For example, a gaming system includes a gaming terminal for a wagering game. The gaming terminal includes a light-emitting area emitting a predetermined pattern of invisible light having wavelengths outside the visible electromagnetic spectrum. The gaming system also includes a visual aid including a sensor and a visual aid display. The visual aid detects, with the sensor, the pattern of invisible light, converts the pattern of invisible light into a pattern of visible light having wavelengths inside the visible electromagnetic spectrum, and displays the pattern of visible light on the visual aid display.
US09269214B2

A hitting game machine allows the successive input of coins. In the hitting game machine, each target which is to be rotated by a hit of a hitting member includes an eccentric shaft. The target is configured such that a rotating shaft integrally rotates along with a hit surface which is to be hit by the hitting member. Further, a longitudinal section of the hit surface has a plate shape, a longitudinal section of which is in a linear shape or a shape that is reduced in width from an upper end thereof to a lower end. Therefore, it is possible for several hitting members to successively hit the same one of targets of a circular plate that is rotating.
US09269212B2

A computerized wagering game system includes a gaming module comprising a processor and gaming code which is operable when executed on the processor to present a wagering game on which monetary value can be wagered. The system also comprises an interface to receive a nonvolatile storage device, which is operable to mount and unmount one or more hot pluggable mass storage devices. In a further embodiment, the interface is operable to prohibit write caching data to be written to the nonvolatile storage device, and to restrict mounting nonvolatile storage devices to authorized users.
US09269207B2

A security system may include an access control device associated with a personnel access position. The access control device may include a first Near-Field Communication (NFC) sensor, and a first controller configured to selectively grant personnel access based upon receiving a valid security code from the first NFC sensor, and to deny personnel access and generate an access denial electronic message(s) based upon receiving an invalid security code from the first NFC sensor. The system may also include a mobile wireless communications device(s) including a second NFC sensor and a second controller, which may be configured to communicate a security code via the second NFC sensor to the first NFC sensor based upon proximity therewith, and to receive a corresponding access denial electronic message from the first controller based upon the security code being invalid.
US09269202B2

A method and apparatus for collecting and evaluating powered vehicle operation utilizing on-board diagnostic components and location determining components or systems. The invention creates one or more databases whereby identifiable behavior or evaluative characteristics can be analyzed or categorized. The evaluation can include predicting likely future events. The database can be correlated or evaluated with other databases for a wide variety of uses.
US09269198B2

The present invention relates to a system for generating an identifier for guiding the transport of a return product during shipment from an end user to one or more processing or collection centers, wherein the identification is suitable for use during transport in a number of countries or by means of a number of transport organizations each utilizing their own identification system, including means for generating an identifier comprising: first, identification data for identifying of the product by the transport organization during transport, and second, identification data for identifying the return product during storage and/or processing.
US09269193B2

A head-mount type display device adapted to allow a user to visually recognize a virtual image in a state of being worn on the head of the user includes an image display section having an image light generation section adapted to generate an image light representing an image, a light blocking section adapted to transmit external light at a predetermined transmittance, and a virtual image forming section adapted to transmit the external light transmitted through the light blocking section and to form the virtual image in an eye of the user with the image light, and configured to allow the user to visually recognize the virtual image and an external image, an imaging section for taking an image of the sight in a visual field direction of the user, and a control section adapted to perform control of changing the transmittance of the light blocking section.
US09269191B2

There is provided a server including a reception unit configured to receive, from a client terminal, position information indicating a position of the client terminal, and direction information indicating a direction in which the client terminal is directed, and a search unit configured to search for image data provided with position information indicating an opposite position across a target object present in the direction indicated by the direction information with respect to the position of the client terminal based on the position information.
US09269187B2

Various disclosed embodiments include methods, systems, and computer-readable media for generating a 3-dimensional (3D) panorama. A method includes receiving images of a 3D scene. The method includes reconstructing geometry of a plurality of 3D bubble-views from the images. Reconstructing includes using a structure from motion framework for camera localization, generating a 3D surface mesh model of the scene using multi-view stereo via cylindrical surface sweeping for each bubble-view, and registering multiple 3D bubble-views in a common coordinate system. The method includes displaying the surface mesh model.
US09269184B2

A computer readable storage medium stores one or more computer programs adapted to cause a processor based system to execute steps including: identifying one or more groups of objects in a frame of content, wherein each group of objects includes one or more shadow casters and corresponding shadow receivers; for visible shadow receivers in the identified groups of objects, establishing depth information in a small white buffer; for each of the identified groups of objects, rendering the shadow casters into a single depth map; blurring the small white buffer; and upsampling the small white buffer into a full sized white buffer, wherein the upsampling comprises using depth information as a metric. A method includes similar steps, and an apparatus includes a processor based system that is configured to execute similar steps.
US09269181B2

An area information generating unit generates plural pieces of area information each showing a partial area of a texture image. A polygon information generating unit generates polygon information including plural pieces of vertex information and an area ID. A rendering unit carries out interpolation on the texture coordinates of the vertices of a polygon on an output image to assign texture coordinates to each pixel located inside the polygon, and further acquires area information by referring to the area ID added to the polygon information and converts the texture coordinates assigned to each pixel of the output image in such a way that the texture coordinates fall within the area.
US09269178B2

Some embodiments provide a non-transitory machine-readable medium that stores a mapping application which when executed on a device by at least one processing unit provides automated animation of a three-dimensional (3D) map along a navigation route. The mapping application identifies a first set of attributes for determining a first position of a virtual camera in the 3D map at a first instance in time. Based on the identified first set of attributes, the mapping application determines the position of the virtual camera in the 3D map at the first instance in time. The mapping application identifies a second set of attributes for determining a second position of the virtual camera in the 3D map at a second instance in time. Based on the identified second set of attributes, the mapping application determines the position of the virtual camera in the 3D map at the second instance in time. The mapping application renders an animated 3D map view of the 3D map from the first instance in time to the second instance in time based on the first and second positions of the virtual camera in the 3D map.
US09269171B2

In one aspect, a method for displaying data from at least one sensor of a machine may include storing, in a memory coupled to a computing device, a data set based on measurement information from the sensor, separating the data set into a plurality of data samples based on at least one characteristic of the measurement information, and selecting a first visual format and a second visual format from a range of visual formats. The first visual format are different from the second visual format. The method may then include displaying, with a display device, a first visual representation of a first data sample of the plurality of data samples using the first visual format via a plot and displaying a second visual representation of a second data sample of the plurality of data samples using the second visual format via the same plot.
US09269162B1

A rapid anomaly detection approach with corresponding method and system to detect anomalies in scene pixels making up a hyperspectral scene, efficiently, is presented. The approach includes tailoring an approximation of an anomaly score for each scene pixel, individually, based on an “intermediate anomaly score.” The intermediate score is computed using a portion of the terms used to compute the anomaly score. Scene pixels with low intermediate anomaly scores are removed from further processing. The remaining scene pixels are further processed, including computing anomaly scores to detect anomalies in these pixels. Advantageously, examples of the RAND approach process a few terms of all scene pixels, eliminate most scene pixels, and calculate more terms on high anomaly scoring scene pixels as needed.
US09269160B2

A method is described for indicating an outcome of a sports action by determining a trajectory of a game-object. In football, the trajectory of the football determines the outcome of a field goal attempt. A television viewer has difficulty seeing if the ball passes between the uprights or not, especially if the ball is kicked higher than the uprights. By tracking the trajectory, virtual insertions such as extended goal posts, or goal posts colored to reflect the success or not of the attempt, can be inserted in a video feed. By tracking the flight of the ball from the time it is set in motion, the balls future trajectory is predicted after a short elapsed time, and the television audience is informed of the outcome before it has happened.
US09269155B2

An exemplary region growing method include at least the following steps: selecting a seed point of a current frame as an initial growing point of a region in the current frame; determining a background confidence value at a neighboring pixel around the seed point; and utilizing a processing unit for checking if the neighboring pixel is allowed to be included in the region according to at least the background confidence value.
US09269154B2

In an image processing method, an object is located within an image. An area around the object is determined and divided into at least first and second portions based upon image information within the area. The object can then be classified based upon both image information in the first portion of the area and image information in the second portion of the area.
US09269153B2

A method and an apparatus for generating a confidence map for a disparity map associated to a set of two or more images are described. Motion between at least two subsequent sets of two or more images is determined. Based on the determined motion information static and dynamic regions in the images of the sets of two or more images are detected and separated. A disparity change between a disparity value determined for a static region of a current image and a motion compensated disparity value of a previous image is determined. The result of the determination is taken into account for generating or refining a confidence map.
US09269152B1

Objects within a scene are modeled in two- or three-dimensions by acquiring slices of data from a distributed sensor array and generating the model of the object at least in part from those slices. The distributed sensor array may comprise optical transmitters and optical receivers configured such that they may be individually addressed and activated. The system described herein may be used to support an augmented reality environment.
US09269146B2

Systems, methods, and computer media for determining the angle of a target object with respect to a device are provided herein. Target object information captured at approximately the same time by at least two cameras can be received. The target object information can comprise images or distances from the target object to the corresponding camera. An angle between the target object and the device can be determined based on the target object information. When the target object information includes images, the angle can be determined based on a correlation between two images. When the target object information includes distances from the target object to the corresponding camera, the angle can be calculated geometrically.
US09269139B2

A method for rib suppression in a chest x-ray image of a patient. The method detects and labels one or more ribs in a region of interest in the x-ray image that includes a lung region. The method obtains a rib model for one or more ribs of the image and modifies detection results for the one or more ribs by applying the rib model in the region of interest. A conditioned x-ray image is formed by suppressing rib content according to the modified detection results. The conditioned x-ray image is stored, displayed, or transmitted.
US09269137B2

Embodiments of the invention provide systems and methods for evaluating treatment parameters for a patient undergoing radiotherapy. The method includes the step of generating a portal dosimetry image showing differences between a planning image obtained prior to a treatment session and a portal image obtained during the treatment session. A database of prior portal dosimetry results is accessed, and a processor is used to perform a similarity measurement between the portal dosimetry image and the prior portal dosimetry results. Based on the similarity measurement, the system determines whether radiation was delivered as planned during the treatment session.
US09269136B2

Embodiments relate to replicating a key from an image of the key when the key is unavailable to replicate the key from the key itself. In a first embodiment, a key blank of the key is generated when an end image of the end of the key is rotated to create a mirror image of the end image so that an outline of the mirror image is similar to a corresponding keyhole. A key blank generating machine generates a key blank of the key from the mirror image. In a second embodiment, a replica of the key is cut from the key blank when the maximum depths of cuts in the key image are measured. A bitting number database is queried for bitting numbers that correspond to the measured maximum depths. The bitting numbers are provided to a key machine to cut the key blank to generate a replica.
US09269135B2

Defect management systems and methods are disclosed. A system for managing defects on an object includes an automatic defect classification (ADC) module, a lithographic plane review (LPR) module, and a defect progression monitor (DPM) module in communication with the ADC module and the LPR module. The DPM module is adapted to obtain information regarding a defect disposed on the object from the ADC module and the LPR module and determine if a repair or cleaning is needed of the object.
US09269127B2

A hybrid filtering method called Karhunen Loeve Transform-Wavelet (KW) filtering is presented to de-noise dynamic cardiac magnetic resonance images that simultaneously takes advantage of the intrinsic spatial and temporal redundancies of real-time cardiac cine. This filtering technique combines a temporal Karhunen-Loeve transform (KLT) and spatial adaptive wavelet filtering. KW filtering has four steps. The first is applying the KLT along the temporal direction, generating a series of “eigenimages”. The second is applying Marcenko-Pastur (MP) law to identify and discard the noise-only eigenimages. The third applying a 2-D spatial wavelet filter with adaptive threshold to each eigenimage to define the wavelet filter strength for each of the eigenimages based on the noise variance and standard deviation of the signal. Lastly, the inverse KLT is applied to the filtered eigenimages to generate a new series of cine images with reduced image noise.
US09269126B2

A system and method are described for enhancing readability of scanned document images by operating on each document individually. Via principle component analysis, edge detection and local color contrast computation, an automated method removes image background noise and improves sharpness of the scripts and characters.
US09269113B2

A screen generation method of an energy management system according to the present disclosure may include performing system visualization modeling indicating a connection relationship between monitoring facilities in a power system to generate a first screen; generating a file containing information on a connection relationship between facilities used during the first screen generation; and generating a second screen for monitoring facilities during the real-time operation using the generated file.
US09269111B2

Methods, systems, and computer readable media for determining social compatibility using a selected group are disclosed. According to one method, the method occurs at a computing platform. The method includes receiving, via a communications interface, interaction information about a first person. The interaction information is associated with at least one member of a selected group. The method also includes determining, using the interaction information, whether the first person is compatible with a second person.
US09269099B2

The present disclosure provides methods and apparatus for sending content to a media player. In general, a user of the disclosed system consumes a plurality of media content (e.g., audio content, visual content, audiovisual content, etc.) distributed from a media server. The content preferably include advertising content and non-advertising content. Some or all of the content is selected by the system based on the user's specific requests, profile, preferences, and/or feedback, in conjunction with the profiles, preferences, requests, and feedback of other users, (e.g. using social media, social matching and/or collaborative filtering techniques). Preferably, the feedback includes statistical data indicative of partial experiences (e.g., user listened to 50%) of the content by one or more media consumers.
US09269092B2

A method for providing on-hold messaging, wherein the method receives a telephone call placed by a caller to a target, generates caller information, selects a first message based on that caller information, and recites the first message prior to the target answering the telephone call.
US09269089B2

Systems and methods have been developed for promoting media objects to users. More specifically, systems and methods have been developed for profiling a user media repository and delivering promotional media objects to the user's media repository based upon the profile.
US09269085B2

Aspects of the invention relate to a customer authentication system for authenticating a customer making a request related to a customer account. The customer authentication system may include multiple application level data receiving and processing mechanisms for receiving customer requests and collecting customer data. The customer authentication system may additionally include a central authentication system for receiving the customer requests and customer data from the multiple application level data receiving and processing mechanisms, the central authentication system determining, based on authentication policy, whether the collected customer data is sufficient to authenticate each customer in order to fulfill the customer request. The central authentication system may return its conclusions and instructions to the multiple application level data receiving and processing mechanisms. The customer authentication system may additionally include a fraud policy system for centrally managing authentication policy implemented by the central authentication system.
US09269078B2

An approach for enabling multiple tag associations to be used for classifying a contact identifier is described. A first tag is associated with a contact identifier for grouping into a first classification; and a second tag is associated with the contact identifier for grouping into a second classification. Storage of the first tag and the second tag is initiated along with the contact identifier as part of a contact list.
US09269070B2

In an embodiment, method(s) and system(s) for providing ephemeral communication is described herein. In an implementation, the method may include determining one or more request keywords associated with a request received from a requesting terminal. The request may be intended for initiating communication. The method may further include transmitting, based on the one or more request keywords, a notification to each of a plurality of target terminals over a communication network for joining a communication group. The method may also include initiating the communication between the requesting terminal and at least one target terminal from the plurality of target terminals. The communication may be initiated upon receiving an acceptance notification from the at least one target terminal to join the communication group.
US09269068B2

Methods and systems for monitoring consumer generated media are disclosed herein. Consumer generated media (CGM) is discovered using a plurality of keywords from a set of keywords configured to return consumer generated media embedded in a digital location. CGM is collected from a plurality of sources using a plurality of robots configured to collect media from the discovered CGM. CGM is normalized for statistical analysis. CGM is tested for conceptual relevance to the predetermined topic using the series of keywords. Sentiment is determined of the collected consumer generated media based on the semantics of the language in the collected CGM. A graphical user interface is generated having collected consumer generated media and statistical information related to at least one of the conceptual relevance and the determined sentiment. The graphical user interface is displayed and a reply is enabled to at least one of the collected consumer generated media, displayed within the graphical user interface, such that when selected a reply is posted to the source of the CGM.
US09269067B2

A reporting system provides users selective access to information, such as standard reports, custom reports, and ad hoc reports. Reports are represented as report objects that store characteristics that must be fulfilled prior to a user being granted access to a report. Upon a user request for a specific report, the characteristics of the user are compared with the characteristics stored in the corresponding report object. If the user characteristics match the report object, then the user is granted access to the corresponding report. If the user characteristics do not match the report object, then the user is denied access to the corresponding report. Accordingly, access to a report is verified twice, once upon presenting an indication of the available reports to the user and again when a selected report is accessed. Preferably, the reporting system comprises a report server connected to a network, such as the Internet.
US09269066B2

3D glasses having an RFID tag (embedded in one or more temples) are rented to theater or other venue operators. The glasses are shipped to a venue for distribution to patrons and collected from patrons in the trays. Inventory and other measures are implemented by RFID scanning while the glasses are in the trays (e.g., upon delivery to a theater, on collection from the theater, upon inspection at the 3D rental company, etc). Data gathered from RFID scanning and inspections allows the rental company to properly allocate rental costs to various venues based on shrinkage which includes, for example, extraordinary wear of the glasses, breakage or theft, which is attributable and traceable to the specific venues. The theater or venue may also independently scan the trays upon delivery and pick-up to maintain their own records. The invention includes 3D glasses with RFID, a washing rack, and rental systems.
US09269065B2

The present invention provides a method for shipping products that include (a) sending requests for quotations by electronic transmission to a plurality of selected carriers based upon customer order specifications, available delivery options and a carrier quality database; (b) selecting a carrier quotation based upon quotations received by electronic transmission and the carrier quality database and updating the carrier quality database with the selected carrier and quotation; (c) preparing the product shipment including using an optical scanner to measure shipment dimensions and a weight scale to measure shipment weight of the product shipment; and (d) if the measured dimensions and weight do not conform to the selected quotation, repeating steps (b) and (c) with measured shipment dimensions and weight or, if the measured dimensions and weight do conform to the selected quotation, notifying carrier to ship the product.
US09269060B2

Embodiments of the invention provide systems and methods for generating metadata describing dependencies for composable elements. The method includes maintaining a database of composable elements. Each composable element may have associated metadata to describe dependencies for the composable elements. The method may further include receiving a request to compose two or more of the composable elements into a new element. The method may then compare the dependencies of the two or more composable elements in order to determine dependencies common to the two or more composable elements and unique to the two or more composable elements. Further, the method may determine a level of restriction for each of the common dependencies and generate metadata for the new element to include each of the unique dependencies and each of the common dependencies, wherein the common dependencies are set to the highest level of restriction.
US09269059B2

Apparatus and methods for transport optimization for widget content delivery includes obtaining updated content corresponding to a mobile widget having a plurality of informational hierarchical depths, and obtaining user navigation pattern historical data corresponding to the mobile widget, wherein the user navigation pattern historical data corresponds to the plurality of informational hierarchical depths. The aspects also include obtaining a first informational hierarchical depth range for inclusion in a first content update message for delivery to a device, wherein the first informational hierarchical depth range is based on the user navigation pattern historical data. Further, the aspects include generating a content update message with a first portion of the updated content corresponding to the first informational hierarchical depth range. Optionally, the aspects further include reducing a size of the first portion of the updated content in the first content update message, thereby defining a first compressed portion of the updated content.
US09269043B2

An AHaH (Anti-Hebbian and Hebbian) apparatus for use in electronic circuits. Such an AHaH apparatus can include one or more meta-stable switches, and one or more differential pairs of output electrodes, wherein each electrode among each differential pair of output electrodes can include one or more input lines coupled thereto via one or more of the meta-stable switch.
US09269042B2

Embodiments of the invention relate to a neuromorphic network for producing spike-timing dependent plasticity. The neuromorphic network includes a plurality of electronic neurons and an interconnect circuit coupled for interconnecting the plurality of electronic neurons. The interconnect circuit includes plural synaptic devices for interconnecting the electronic neurons via axon paths, dendrite paths and membrane paths. Each synaptic device includes a variable state resistor and a transistor device with a gate terminal, a source terminal and a drain terminal, wherein the drain terminal is connected in series with a first terminal of the variable state resistor. The source terminal of the transistor device is connected to an axon path, the gate terminal of the transistor device is connected to a membrane path and a second terminal of the variable state resistor is connected to a dendrite path, such that each synaptic device is coupled between a first axon path and a first dendrite path, and between a first membrane path and said first dendrite path.
US09269035B2

Each black square within a two-dimensional code can be represented by a distribution of spots. Each spot can be made small enough to be invisible to the human eye so that the two-dimensional code can be invisible on or within transparent or nontransparent materials. The spots can be spaced at a large distance to increase the signal-to-noise ratio for an optical code reader. A laser can be used to produce the spots.
US09269030B2

To reduce the load of division position identification processing when executing job processing based on input job data that is divided into multiple parts, a job processing apparatus is configured to identify a division position indicating divisions of the parts in the input job data, and skip the identification of a division position in a processing data portion that is a job processing target among the job data.
US09269017B2

Cascaded object detection techniques are described. In one or more implementations, cascaded coarse-to-dense object detection techniques are utilized to detect objects in images. In a first stage, coarse features are extracted from an image, and non-object regions are rejected. Then, in one or more subsequent stages, dense features are extracted from the remaining non-rejected regions of the image to detect one or more objects in the image.
US09269001B2

The present application provides a robust, illumination invariant apparatus and method for detecting and recognizing various traffic signs. A robust method for detecting and recognizing the traffic signs using images captured by a digital color and night vision camera, the said method characterized in being illumination invariant comprising the processor implemented steps of: transforming RGB image into HSV color model and subsequently extracting desired color components by using color quantization; filtering the noise components in the HSV color model based on object symmetrical shape property; detecting edges of the objects and subsequently detecting the distinct objects in the noise components filtered image; classifying the shapes of the traffic signs based on shape of the determined distinct objects; and recognizing the classified shapes of the traffic signs by template matching. Further, the method provides the provision for warning the driver by use of the recognized data of the traffic signs.
US09268994B2

A unified framework detects and classifies people interactions in unconstrained user generated images. Previous approaches directly map people/face locations in two-dimensional image space into features for classification. Among other things, the disclosed framework estimates a camera viewpoint and people positions in 3D space and then extracts spatial configuration features from explicit three-dimensional people positions.
US09268985B2

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method and system for sharing information between a first computing device and a second computing device. In the described embodiments, an optical label, such as, for example a QR code, is generated on the first computing device. In embodiments, the optical label is color encoded and displayed in such a way that the optical label is not perceptible to a user. The second computing device may capture the encoded optical label and subject the captured images to a processing technique that decodes the encoded optical label.
US09268981B2

Systems and methods for reading RFID tags using joint beamforming and preamble detection in accordance with embodiments of the invention are disclosed. One embodiment includes an antenna array comprising a plurality of antenna elements, a joint beamformer and preamble detector configured to receive inputs from each of the antenna elements, and a decoder configured to receive a resampled signal from the joint beamformer and preamble detector and to decode data using the resampled signal. In addition, the joint beamformer and preamble detector is configured to correlate the inputs from the antenna elements against a correlation sequence at a plurality of starting sample positions and predetermined rates, use the correlations to select a starting sample position and rate for decoding the received signal, use the correlations to determine beamforming coefficients for combining the inputs, and resample the combined inputs based upon the selected starting sample position and rate.
US09268975B2

A contactless plastic-card encoding module (2) mounted on the frame of a plastic-card printer (1), the module comprising: an electronic card (23) that fulfills the function of plastic-card encoding, a hollow support (21) comprising fixations (211) for fixing the support to the frame of the printer, a piece (22) absorbing any reliefs on the electronic card, the piece (22) being positioned at the bottom of the hollow support (21) and receiving the electronic card (23), and a holder (24) for holding the electronic card in position on the piece.
US09268973B2

A sensor output correction circuit includes an analog-to-digital converter configured to receive an input voltage corresponding to a sensor output of a sensor and a reference voltage that are selectively input to the analog-to-digital converter; and an arithmetic unit configured to correct output data, which is output from the analog-to-digital converter when the input voltage is input to the analog-to-digital converter, based on an output value that is output from the analog-to-digital converter when the reference voltage is input to the analog-to-digital converter. The arithmetic unit includes a multiply adder and a non-restoring divider.
US09268968B2

A message to be signed and a base name point derived from a direct anonymous attestation (DAA) credential may be provided to a device. A signed version of the message and a public key value associated with the base name point may be received in response. Thereafter, the DAA credential may be determined to be valid based on the signed version of the message.
US09268965B2

Approaches for using the historical party reputation data to calculate an access decision rating are provided. Specifically, one or more approaches provide a method, including: collecting reputation information of a first user that is requesting access to one or more assets, the reputation information based on at least an association of the first user with an organization and an association of the first user with one or more other users associated with one or more other organizations; storing the requester's reputation information; determining a change in the requester's reputation information, wherein the change comprises at least one of: the first user forming a new association with another organization, and the first user forming a new association with a second user, wherein the second user is affiliated with another organization; and causing an access decision rating to be calculated based upon the determined change in the requester's reputation information.
US09268964B1

Techniques for multimedia metadata security are disclosed. In one particular embodiment, the techniques may be realized as a method for multimedia metadata security comprising receiving an indication that multimedia metadata has been created for a multimedia file, and encrypting, using at least one computer processor, the multimedia metadata stored in a body of the multimedia file.
US09268954B2

According to one embodiment, a method for role determination includes detecting access to sensitive data and determining user information related to the access to sensitive data in response to detecting the access to sensitive data. The method also includes modifying at least one role in response to determining the user information related to the access to sensitive data. In addition, the method includes storing the modified at least one role.
US09268947B1

The present invention provides a method and system for providing a view of sensitive information across an enterprise. The method includes finding locations of data stores across the enterprise and thereafter searching for sensitive information within the data stores, based on policies. Upon identifying the sensitive information, the sensitive information is optionally quarantined, masked, or encrypted, again based on policies. Information about the locations of the data stores, the sensitive information associated with the data stores, and the masking steps taken, is saved in a repository, and can be tagged. A user may then query the repository to retrieve one or more views of the sensitive information, gaining an overview of the compliance posture of the enterprise relative to one or more data compliance regulations, and for potential data exposure risk areas be able to drill down for actionable level of details.
US09268942B2

A data processing apparatus formed on an integrated circuit comprising: a plurality of processors; power control circuitry configured to control power up and power down of the processors; a read only memory for storing boot up software for booting up each of the processors. The power control circuitry is configured to respond to receipt of a check state request, to control one of the processors that is currently powered down to power up and to access the boot up software. The boot up software accessed in response to the check state request controls the processor to perform a measurement indicative of a current state of the data processing apparatus and to output a value indicative of the measurement.
US09268931B2

A method for sign-on and sign-out for a computer system. The method includes receiving a first sign-on request for the computer system and obtaining, from the first sign-on request, a first user identifier where the first user identifier corresponds to a first user for the computer system. The method then includes obtaining, from the first sign-on request, a first uniform resource locator (URL) and determining whether the first URL includes a first root name for the computer system. When a determination is made that the first URL includes the first root name for the computer system a first cookie associated with the first user is issued and a first sub-domain name is obtained from the first URL. Also, a second cookie may be issued associated with the first sub-domain name and, when the first cookie and the second cookie are issued, the first user may sign-on to the computer system. In one or more embodiments, the method may include receiving a sign-out request.
US09268921B2

A computing system selects a portion of data of an unknown work and detects each event in the portion of data of the unknown work. An event is a perceptual occurrence in a work successively positioned in time. The system determines an event metric between each successive event in the portion of data in the unknown work and generates a list of event metrics between the events for the unknown work. The system compares the list of event metrics for the unknown work to a list of event metrics for a known work and determines the unknown work is a copy of the known work responsive to a match between the list of event metrics of the unknown work and the list of event metrics for the known work.
US09268919B1

A system comprising a commerce module to offer a copy of a piece of media content for sale, a server module to immediately provide access to a digital copy of the piece of media content, a reservation module to reserve a hard copy of the piece of media content, and a delivery module to deliver the hard copy of the piece of media content. A method comprising offering a digital copy of a piece of media content for sale, reserving a hard copy of the piece of media content when a digital copy of the piece of media content is sold, allowing at least one user to order the hard copy after having purchased the digital copy, and denying access to the digital copy when the hard copy has been ordered.
US09268917B1

A method includes detecting an identity change instruction. The method also includes identifying a target account associated with the identity change instruction. The method also includes determining whether the target account is checked out. The method also includes passing the identity change instruction to a kernel in response to determining that the target account is checked out. The method also includes blocking the identity change instruction in response to determining that the target account is not checked out.
US09268915B2

Systems and methods are provided for sample processing. A device may be provided, capable of receiving the sample, and performing one or more of a sample preparation, sample assay, and detection step. The device may be capable of performing multiple assays. The device may comprise one or more modules that may be capable of performing one or more of a sample preparation, sample assay, and detection step. The device may be capable of performing the steps using a small volume of sample.
US09268913B2

A medication management system (100) comprises a portable device (10) attachable to a user (30) and a medication dispenser (20). The portable device comprises a lighting means (50) for providing a visual stimulus (55) to indicate an approaching medication intake moment or period. The medication dispenser (20) comprises further lighting means (40, 41) for providing a further visual stimulus (45) to draw the attention of the user. The visual stimulus and the further visual stimulus have a same predetermined color and the visual stimulus (55) is provided a predetermined time before the medication dispenser provides the further visual stimulus (45).
US09268912B2

A system and method for control of prescription drug packaging and dispensing machines located in an in-patient health care facility including centralized control and enhanced communication between system components. Delay and errors in processing item data in the prescription dispensing system are reduced by using concise ID data incorporated into each canister memory chip and storing canister contents data elsewhere. Canisters are configured in a pharmacy using interchangeable parts. Data being processed is synchronized by a combination of user tokens (who), data identifiers (what), and unique Ids for the entities in the system (where). The foregoing combination enables substantial efficiency improvements and error reduction.
US09268907B2

A system for automatically modifying source code to accommodate a software migration receives a software codebase a software codebase that supports international classification of diseases, ninth revision (ICD-9) codes and that contains a plurality of lines of source code, receives a codebase impact assessment report identifying each impacted line of the plurality of lines of source code in the codebase, each impacted line requiring modification in order to support migration from ICD-9 codes to international classification of diseases, tenth revision (ICD-10) codes, and automatically modifies the codebase by modifying each impacted line of source code identified in the codebase impact assessment report so that the modified codebase supports migration from ICD-9 codes to ICD-10 codes.
Patent Agency Ranking