US09968020B2

Provided is a flip chip mounting apparatus for mounting chips (400) to a substrate (200), and the apparatus includes at least one sectionalized mounting stage (45) divided into a heating section (452) and a non-heating section (456), the heating section being for heating a substrate (200) fixed to a front surface of the heating section, the non-heating section not heating the substrate (200) suctioned to a front surface of the non-heating section. With this, it is possible to provide an electronic-component mounting apparatus that is simple and capable of efficiently mounting a large number of electronic components.
US09968019B2

A component feeding device transports a tape (a component feeding tape) in which electronic components are stored with some transportation device, and exposes the components. Transportation of the component feeding tape may be performed by fitting a sprocket with a feed hole of the component feeding tape. It has been found that sprocket does not necessarily fit with the feed hole of the component feeding tape. It has been found that this phenomenon takes place in a case of driving at least two or more sprockets with a driving device. When the sprocket does not fit with the feed hole, transportation of the tape is not correctly performed, but exerts an undesirable influence such as reduction of mounting efficiency on feeding of the components and subsequent mounting of the components. One feature resides in rendering a backlash of an upstream-side sprocket larger than a backlash of a downstream-side sprocket.
US09968016B2

A magnetic field shield having a plurality of tunable resonant loops arranged on a planar support medium. The resonant loops are loaded with a lumped component such as a capacitor or variable capacitor and produce magnetic null points. The location of the magnetic null points may be moved three dimensionally about the planar support medium.
US09968015B2

Device cases with selectable RF shielding are described. Some implementations can include a case for an electronic device. The case can include selectable radio frequency (RF) shielding, such as a Faraday cage. The shielding can be selectable via a mechanically activated switch (e.g., slidable or rotatable), or an electrically activated switch.
US09967986B2

In one embodiment, a semiconductor package may be formed having a first side and a second side that is substantially opposite to the first side. An embodiment may include forming an attachment clip extending substantially laterally between the first and second sides wherein the attachment clip is positioned near a distal end of the first and second sides. An embodiment may also include forming the attachment clip to have a flexible main portion that can bend away from a plane of the main portion toward a bottom side of the semiconductor package.
US09967985B2

A display device includes a backplate and a supporting member. The backplate has a positioning hole formed thereon. The positioning hole includes a first area and a second area arranged along a first direction; an average width of the second area in a direction perpendicular to the first direction is smaller than an average width of the first area in the direction perpendicular to the first direction. The supporting member includes a base, a positioning shaft and an engaging protrusion disposed on a bottom face of the base, wherein the positioning shaft includes an axle and a flange portion connected to an end of the axle. The flange portion passes through the first area so that the axle extends into the positioning hole; when the axle moves along the first direction to the second area, the flange portion interferes with a periphery of the second area, the engaging protrusion contacts against an inner wall of the first area to prevent the axle from moving back to the first area.
US09967981B2

Provided is a light source unit including a base unit formed on a front surface thereof with a first circuit pattern by irradiating laser light to a resin molded article, and a light emitting element mounted on the base unit and electrically connected to the first circuit pattern. The base unit includes a mounting surface portion directed in a prescribed direction such that the light emitting element is mounted thereon, and a sidewall surface portion connected to the mounting surface portion in a plane intersection state, and the sidewall surface portion is formed as an inclined surface intersecting with the mounting surface portion at an obtuse angle.
US09967976B2

A substrate for a printed circuit board according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a base film having an insulating property, and a conductive layer formed on at least one of surfaces of the base film. In the substrate for a printed circuit board, at least the conductive layer contains titanium in a dispersed manner. The conductive layer preferably contains copper or a copper alloy as a main component. A mass ratio of titanium in the conductive layer is preferably 10 ppm or more and 1,000 ppm or less. The conductive layer is preferably formed by application and heating of a conductive ink containing metal particles. The conductive ink preferably contains titanium or a titanium ion. The metal particles are preferably obtained by a titanium redox process including reducing metal ions using trivalent titanium ions as a reducing agent in an aqueous solution by an action of the reducing agent.
US09967974B2

The present invention relates to a composition for forming a conductive pattern, which is able to form a fine conductive pattern onto a variety of polymer resin products or resin layers by a very simple process, a method for forming the conductive pattern using the same, and a resin structure having the conductive pattern. The composition for forming the conductive pattern, including a polymer resin; and a non-conductive metal compound containing a first metal and a second metal, in which the non-conductive metal compound has a three-dimensional structure containing a plurality of first layers that contains at least one metal of the first and second metals and has edge-shared octahedrons two-dimensionally connected to each other and a second layer that contains a metal different from that of the first layer and is arranged between the neighboring first layers; and a metal core containing the first or second metal or an ion thereof is formed from the non-conductive metal compound by electromagnetic irradiation.
US09967968B2

A 3D Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) suppression structure and an electronic device having the same, wherein a coplanar waveguide structure, an isolation layer, and a resonance layer may be installed. Furthermore, under the coplanar waveguide structure, the 3D EMI structure may be installed to connect to a conductor part of the resonance layer through a conductive connection part of the isolation layer, thereby further improving the EMI suppression effect and producing an excellent EMI suppression effect.
US09967966B2

A method for determining the temperature of a heat source and an electronic unit, including a printed-circuit board equipped with a sensor and a heat sink, the sensor being connected to the heat sink in a heat-conducting manner.
US09967962B2

A signal relay device comprises a first connection I/F, to which an emission switch is connected, a second connection I/F, to which an emission signal I/F of an electronic cassette is connected, and a third connection I/F, to which a switch I/F of a source control device is connected, and a signal processing unit. The signal processing unit generates an emission execution signal during a time period in which an emission command signal from the emission switch and an emission enable signal from the electronic cassette are inputted. The source control device drives an X-ray tube to allow X-ray emission while the emission execution signal is inputted.
US09967961B2

A system for providing a simulated spatial live viewing of an object includes a cathode arrangement configured to generate an electron beam towards a target area of an anode, and a processor configured to control the electron beam to hit the anode at a moving focal spot that moves at least in a first moving direction transverse to a viewing direction. Thus, X-ray radiation is generated by the electron beam impinging on the moving focal spot. Further, the system includes a detector configured to detect X-ray radiation at least partially passing an object and to generate respective X-ray detection signals. The processor is further configured to generate monoscopic 2D images based on the detection signals, where the monoscopic 2D images relate to different view-points as defined by the moving focal spot. A display is configured to display the monoscopic 2D images are from the different view-points.
US09967960B2

A lighting device having an AC/DC or DC/DC power converter, a controller/processor electrically connected to the power converter, a LED current control circuit communicably coupled to the controller/processor and electrically connected to the power converter, and two or more LEDs communicably coupled to the LED current control circuit. The controller/processor determines a first and second number of counts for the LEDs to be ON to produce a blended light having a specified color, and generates control signal(s) based on the first and second number of counts. The LED current control circuit generates a first and second on/off signals having an on/off cycle time and first and second ON times corresponding to the first and second number of counts for the LEDs in response to the one or more control signals. The LEDs produce the blended light having the specified color in response to the first and second on/off signals.
US09967957B2

A lighting system is disclosed which provides dynamic lighting control of each light on a rail lighting system. The lighting system is able to change settings of each light within a track lighting or rail lighting system based on motion, user preferences, lighting conditions, or security parameters. Light intensity and color can be set and scheduled based on user control and programming. Optical sensors may also be used to provide control input for the track lighting or rail lighting.
US09967956B2

A lighting control system and method is provided. A first electronic device for lighting control detects wirelessly one or more available network messages corresponding to one or more other electronic devices within wireless range of the first electronic device. The first electronic device connects wirelessly to a next electronic device of the one or more other electronic devices. The first electronic device sends a first device ID wirelessly to the next electronic device. The connection to the next electronic device is maintained if a registering handshake message is received via the next electronic device. The first electronic device disconnects from the next electronic device if the registering handshake message is not received within a predetermined timeout amount of time.
US09967952B2

The invention relates to a method for managing light settings of a luminaire communicatively connected to a local coordinator. The method, performed by the luminaire, includes steps of providing to the local coordinator a control state of the luminaire (e.g. occupancy status), receiving from the local coordinator a power reduction factor for the luminaire, the factor being based on the control state of the luminaire and on control states provided to the local coordinator by one or more additional luminaires, determining new illuminance settings for the luminaire by applying the received factor to current illuminance settings, measuring luminance within a sensing region of a light sensor of the luminaire while one or more light sources of the luminaire emit light according to one or more operating parameters, and, based on the measured luminance, adjusting the operating parameters to achieve the new illuminance settings.
US09967942B1

A light emitting diode driving system includes an infrared ray burning device and a light emitting diode driving device. The light emitting diode driving device includes an infrared ray receiving unit, a signal transforming unit, a storage unit, a pulse width modulating unit and a diode driving unit. The infrared ray receiving unit receives a burning signal transmitted by the infrared ray burning device; the signal transforming unit transforms the burning signal into a current control command and transmits it to the storage unit. The signal transforming unit generates a current control signal in accordance with the current control command in the storage unit. The pulse width modulating unit generates a pulse width modulation output current control signal according to the current control signal. The diode driving unit drives the light emitting diode by the pulse width modulation output current control signal.
US09967933B2

Apparatus and methods to regulate an input power applied to a plurality of light emitters are provided. A regulator device includes a plurality of switches and a control circuit that controls the plurality of switches. The plurality of switches selectively couple respective strings of the light emitters in series to the input power to emit light when deactivated. The control circuit may deactivate a number of the switches to couple the respective light emitters to the input power in response to a sensed operational parameter of the input power. The control circuit may adjust the number of the switches deactivated in response to a change in the sensed operational parameter of the input power. A number of the light emitters may be coupled to the input power regardless of the sensed operational parameter of the input power.
US09967926B2

There is provided a display device including a light-emitting element body part, a low refractive index layer part which is provided over a light output surface of the light-emitting element body part and has a first refractive index, and a packaging member which is provided to seal the light-emitting element body part and the low refractive index layer part inside the packaging member, has a planar light output surface, and has a second refractive index which is greater than the first refractive index.
US09967924B2

A system for heating a consumable product includes a package and a heating apparatus. The package includes a container body including a cavity at least partially bounded by a side wall and one or more inductively heatable elements disposed within the cavity. The side wall includes a non-inductively heatable portion. The cavity is configured to contain the consumable product. The heating apparatus includes: a housing, which defines a package-receiving cavity configured to position the package in an operative position; one or more induction coils disposed within the housing, a controller; and one or more temperature sensing devices disposed in proximity to the non-inductively heatable portion of the side wall when the package is in the operative position. The controller is configured to control one or more operating parameters of the heating apparatus based at least partially on one or more signals received from the one or more temperature sensing devices.
US09967923B2

A cooker, a method for controlling power of a cooker, and a power control system including the same are provided. A high power cooking device can be used without making an additional power construction work or causing a power circuit breaker installed in an input terminal of a household power source to be opened. Driving power of a burner is controlled or distributed by using a current flowing in a power circuit breaker or an overcurrent breaker installed in a load end, whereby power operation efficiency of an input power source can be enhanced and the input power source cannot be broken.
US09967921B2

In order to provide a heating body where the occurrence of excessive surface temperatures in certain spots or also in large areas is avoided, a heating body is suggested wherein the heat source and the body element are connected with each other by lamellae arranged between them.
US09967914B2

The present invention relates to a method and a device that control signals for a plurality of terminals possessed by the same user. More particularly, a method of controlling signals for a plurality of terminals using a mobility management entity (MME) according to an embodiment of the present invention is characterized by including the steps of: setting terminals with the same subscriber codes and the same mobility as grouping terminals; and transmitting group signals on the grouping terminals to a base station. According to the present invention, the following advantages are realized: of enabling the prevention of waste in having to report mobility-related information on each terminal and being able to simultaneously transmit grouping or other signals to all terminals that are in a group in a network.
US09967907B2

A communication control method is applied to a mobile communication system that includes a base station, a user terminal configured to establish a connection with the base station, and a network including the base station and a network device configured to be an upper device of the base station, and that supports D2D communication that is direct device-to-device communication. The communication control method comprises: a step of acquiring, by the network, a load level of the base station; and a step of determining, by the network, whether to permit the D2D communication of the user terminal on a basis of the load level.
US09967905B2

The present invention relates to a wireless communication system, and more particularly, to a method and a device for cancelling a device trigger. The method for cancelling a device trigger in a wireless communication system, according to one embodiment of the present invention, can comprise the steps of: receiving a cancellation request for a first trigger message in a network node; and transmitting a second trigger message to the terminal if the first trigger message has been transmitted to the terminal and the cancellation request indicates a replacement request. The second trigger message can include information which indicates that the cancellation of the first trigger message has been requested.
US09967904B2

The present document presents a method and device for transmitting and receiving a signal by using direct communication (D2D communication) between terminals by using a pseudo-RACH procedure in a wireless communication system. A transmission terminal performing the method randomly selects one of a certain number of D2D communication signatures to transmit a first message through a resource randomly selected from among predetermined time-frequency resources to a base station, and receives a second message including control information for a D2D broadcast or groupcast signal transmission from the base station, wherein the transmission terminal uses control information received through the second message to transmit a third message including a groupcast signal or the D2D broadcast to one or more reception terminals.
US09967902B2

A user equipment (UE) for transmitting signals in a Licensed-Assisted Access (LAA) serving cell is described. The UE includes a processor and memory in electronic communication with the processor. Instructions stored in the memory are executable to receive an uplink (UL) grant from a downlink control information. The instructions are also executable to determine a UL contention access region based on the UL grant. The instructions are further executable to determine clear channel assessment (CCA) timeslots in the UL contention access region. The instructions are additionally executable to perform UL contention access in the UL contention access region with a backoff process.
US09967898B2

An inter-UE priority scheduling method is disclosed, where the method includes: generating an enhanced buffer status report BSR according to buffered data information of multiple benefitted user equipments B-UEs, and reporting the enhanced BSR to a base station eNB, where the enhanced BSR carries buffer data status information of the multiple B-UEs, so that the eNB determines, according to the buffer data status information, priorities of performing data transmission on the multiple B-UEs; receiving uplink scheduling information delivered by the eNB, where the uplink scheduling information carries the priorities of performing data transmission on the multiple B-UEs; and encapsulating some or all of currently buffered data of the multiple B-UEs into one MAC PDU according to the priorities of performing data transmission on the multiple B-UEs, and transmitting the MAC PDU to the eNB.
US09967890B2

A method, an apparatus, and a computer program product for wireless communication are provided. The apparatus determines a subset of subchannels for a first cell, the subset of subchannels configured to reduce interference to at least a second UE in a second cell, determines whether a first UE in the first cell is interfering with a second UE in a second cell, and allocates at least one subchannel to the first UE from the subset of subchannels when the first UE in the first cell is interfering with the second UE in the second cell.
US09967881B1

Disclosed is a method and system to facilitate management of resources in a scenario where a base station has an established radio-link-layer connection for serving a device on multiple component carriers. Rather than providing all bearer data transmission to the device by rote on the multiple component carriers, the base station dynamically decides per data whether to transmit the data to the device on the multiple component carriers or rather on just one of the component carriers. For instance, when the base station receives data for transmission over the radio-link-layer connection to the device, the base station determines based on at least one characteristic of the data whether to transmit the data to the UE on the multiple component carriers or rather on just one of the component carriers, and the base station then schedules and engages in the transmission in accordance with that determination.
US09967877B2

A frame exchange in a High Efficiency WLAN (HEW) includes a method for exchanging frames implemented by an access point in a wireless local area network. The method further includes transmitting to one or more stations (STAs) a first frame eliciting a second frame from the one or more STAs in a downlink (DL) Physical layer Protocol Data Unit (PPDU), wherein the DL PPDU carrying the first frame includes information indicating a type of a PPDU carrying the second frame from PPDU types including a Single User (SU) PPDU and a Multiple User (MU) PPDU; and receiving from the one or more STAs the second frame in an uplink (UL) PPDU having a type determined based on the information indicating the type of the PPDU.
US09967863B2

A user equipment (UE) is described that includes a processor. The UE is configured with a secondary cell group (SCG). The UE is also configured with a licensed-assisted access (LAA) serving cell as a primary secondary cell (pSCell) of the SCG. The UE receives a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) on at least one LAA serving cell in the SCG. The UE determines a channel to carry uplink control information (UCI), the channel being on any one of the serving cell(s) in the SCG. The UE also determines transmission timing of the channel based on reception timing of the PDSCH. The UE further determines one or more PDSCHs of which HARQ-ACK bits are included in the UCI, the one or more PDSCHs including the PDSCH. The UE additionally determines content of the HARQ-ACK bits. The UE also performs a channel access procedure for the transmission of the channel.
US09967856B2

A method of determining a location of a mobile device includes: detecting, at the mobile device, at least one Radio Frequency transmitter; receiving information associated with a number of Radio Frequency transmitters located within a geographical area, the number of Radio Frequency transmitters being a subset of all Radio Frequency transmitters located within the geographical area, the information being decodable to provide global locations and identifiers of the number of Radio Frequency transmitters; comparing an identifier associated with the at least one detected Radio Frequency transmitter with the global locations and identifiers of the number of Radio Frequency transmitters; and determining the location of the mobile device within the geographical area; wherein the information is received in a reduced format.
US09967851B2

A method at a user equipment including a mobile equipment and a smartcard, the method receiving from a remote server a plurality of subscriber identities and a roaming policy; storing the plurality of subscriber identities and roaming policy on the smartcard; selecting, based on the roaming policy, a subscriber identity; and attaching to a network based on the selected subscriber identity.
US09967847B2

Embodiments are provided for syncing multiple electronic devices for collective audio playback. According to certain aspects, a master device connects (218) to a slave device via a wireless connection. The master device calculates (224) a network latency via a series of network latency pings with the slave device and sends (225) the network latency to the slave device. Further, the master devices sends (232) a portion of an audio file as well as a timing instruction including a system time to the slave device. The master device initiates (234) playback of the portion of the audio file and the slave devices initiates (236) playback of the portion of the audio file according to the timing instruction and a calculated system clock offset value.
US09967846B2

Provided through the present application are a method and an apparatus for use in a radio communication system, which supports carrier aggregation and carries out communication in subframe units. More specifically, user equipment operating in a first type carrier for receiving from a base station, a first piece of control information, which is related to the first type carrier and a second type carrier that support the carrier aggregation, can measure a radio signal to carry out radio resource management with respect to the first type carrier by using a first reference signal, which is included in the first type carrier, and/or a second reference signal, which is included in the second type carrier.
US09967837B2

There is provided a communication control device including an acquisition unit configured to acquire synchronization relation information indicating which frequency bands are mutually synchronized among a plurality of frequency bands used for radio communication, and a control unit configured to control transmission of the synchronization relation information to a terminal device. The plurality of frequency bands include one or more frequency bands with which a common reference signal is not transmitted in at least one subframe among subframes which are units of time in the radio communication.
US09967834B2

A method receiving a control message at an apparatus of a base station of a first smaller cell, said control message being provided by a control apparatus of a second larger cell, said first cell at least partially overlying said second cell, said control message being provided dependent on a speed of at least one user equipment; and causing, in response to said control message, said base station of said first cell to be in a first power and/or interference mode.
US09967833B2

Adaption of a Basic Service Set (BSS) Basic Rate Set for a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) Access Point (AP) may be achieved by, for example, determining a transmission power metric for one or more Subscriber Stations (STAs) associated with the AP, modifying one or more data rates in the BSS Basic Rate Set for the AP based on the transmission power metric, and transmitting the modified BSS Basic Rate Set to the one or more STAs.
US09967831B2

A terminal apparatus communicates with a base station apparatus by using a plurality of cells including at least a primary cell and a secondary cell. The terminal apparatus decodes a PDCCH with downlink control information format in which at least a transmission power control command field is included, transmits a PUCCH on the primary cell, and determines transmission power of the PUCCH on the primary cell based on at least a PUCCH power control adjustment parameter. The PUCCH power control adjustment parameter is calculated by accumulating at least a value indicated by the transmission power control command field, and in a case where the terminal apparatus receives a random access response message for the primary cell, the transmission power control circuitry is configured to and/or programmed to reset the PUCCH power control adjustment parameter.
US09967825B2

The present disclosure relates to mobile computing devices and, more particularly, to environmentally aware mobile computing devices and methods of use. The method is implemented in a computer infrastructure which has computer executable code tangibly embodied on a computer readable storage medium having programming instructions operable to: place a mobile computing device into a power savings mode when a environmental condition is below a sensor threshold value for a predetermined time period; and place the mobile computing device into a powered up state when the environmental condition exceeds the sensor threshold value.
US09967824B2

Provided are a mobile terminal management method, a mobile terminal management system, and a mobile terminal. Said mobile terminal management method comprises: acquiring a desired endurance time length; predicting an endurance time length according to a current power consumption rate and a current state of charge of a battery; judging whether a power consumption rate needs to be reduced according to the desired endurance time length and the predicted endurance time length; when it is judged that the power consumption rate needs to be reduced, determining a power consumption reducing scheme according to the desired endurance time length and the predicted endurance time length; and managing a mobile terminal according to the determined power consumption reducing scheme. In this disclosure, the user can set a desired endurance time length; using requirements of the user on the mobile terminal are satisfied as much as possible while saving power.
US09967818B2

A method and a system that uses standard cell-phone sensors to provide accurate and energy-efficient outdoor localization suitable for mobile navigation design. System and method employs a dead-reckoning localization approach and leverages these road landmarks, among others such as virtual landmarks, to reset the accumulated error and achieve accurate localization. For consuming low energy the system and method uses only energy-efficient sensors or sensors that are already running for other purposes. We present the design of System and method of leveraging crowd-sourcing to automatically learn virtual landmarks and their locations. Tests of the system and method on android devices in both city and highway driving show the accuracy of results for local cell phones to within 8.4 m median error in city roads and 16.6 m on highways. Moreover, compared to GPS and other systems, the battery lifetime was extended by 347%, achieving even better localization results than GPS.
US09967803B2

Methods and apparatus relating to use of actual and/or virtual beacons are described. Virtual beacons are virtual in that an actual beacon need not be transmitted but a rather a virtual beacon transmitter at a desired location may be considered to transmit virtual beacons. Beacon transmitter information indicates transmission power and location of actual and virtual beacon transmitters as well as information to be communicated by virtual beacons and is dynamically updated based on device movement, a schedule and/or the locations of devices in a group. Virtual personal beacons, virtual group beacons and virtual scheduled beacons are supported. A virtual personal beacon transmitter location is updated as the location of a device corresponding to the person moves. Reception of a virtual beacon is reported in a message sent to a wireless terminal or a component of the wireless terminal which acts upon receiving an indication of beacon reception.
US09967793B2

The embodiments set forth techniques for avoiding network connectivity stalls at a mobile computing device. In an idle state, a performance analyzer executing on the mobile computing device is configured to passively analyze high-level network connectivity information to detect any minor issues with the network connectivity being provided by a primary interface (e.g., WiFi). When minor issues are detected, the mobile computing device transitions into an alerted state, where high emphasis is placed on using the WiFi interface and low emphasis is placed on using a secondary interface (e.g., Cellular). In the alerted state, the mobile computing device actively analyzes low-level connectivity information to detect any major issues with the WiFi interface. When major issues are detected, the mobile computing device transitions into a fallback state, where high emphasis is placed on using the Cellular interface and low emphasis is placed on using the WiFi interface.
US09967790B2

Provided is a method and device for moving a User Equipment (UE). The method includes that: a Radio Network Controller (RNC) receives a first message; according to a decision rule, the RNC decides whether a target RNC Cluster corresponding to the first message is the RNC Cluster where the RNC is located, wherein the RNC Cluster is composed of one or more RNCs; if the decision result is yes, the RNC sends a second message to perform internal processing of the RNC Cluster; or, if the decision result is no, the RNC sends the second message to the target RNC Cluster. The disclosure can avoid call drop when the UE moves between the RNCs, thereby guaranteeing the continuous reception of a service.
US09967787B2

An apparatus for enabling transfer of mobile terminal inter-RAT capabilities in a multi-RAT environment from the perspective of the capability provider may include at least one processor and at least one memory including computer program code. The at least one memory and the computer program code may be configured, with the processor, to cause the apparatus to perform at least receiving an indication of a request for mobile terminal inter-RAT capability information relative to a particular RAT, acquiring the inter-RAT capability information in response to receipt of the indication of the request for inter-RAT capability information, and providing the inter-RAT capability information to a target base station.
US09967779B2

A method and a network node for obtaining a required latency for transmissions between a wireless device and a controller node are disclosed. The network node receives at least one parameter relating to a context of at least one of the wireless device and the controller node. The parameter is detectable by a set of sensor modules. The network node determines, based on the parameter, the required latency for the transmissions. The context comprises one or more of: a surrounding of the at least one of the wireless device and the controller node; an operational ability of the at least one of the wireless device and the controller node; and a sensitivity of operation of the at least one of the wireless device and the controller node. The surrounding, operational ability and/or the sensitivity is/are detectable by at least one sensor module of the set of sensor modules.
US09967772B1

Receiving devices and methods for suppressing interference from a data signal received at a receiving device are provided. The receiving device has m receive antennas. A training signal set transmitted from a first transmitting device is received at the receiving device. The training signal set includes (i) data for each transmit antenna of n transmit antennas included on the first transmitting device and (ii) information sufficient to determine a channel estimate corresponding to a communication channel between the first transmitting device and the receiving device. The channel estimate is determined based on the training signal set. The channel estimate includes an m-by-n description of the communication channel. The data signal received at the receiving device is filtered based on the channel estimate to suppress the interference in the data signal. The data signal is transmitted from a second transmitting device different from the first transmitting device.
US09967763B2

There are provided measures for evaluation of throughput of carrier aggregated user equipments. Such measures exemplarily include determining, per communication endpoint implementing carrier aggregation aggregating one primary connection and at least one secondary connection, a transmission volume with at least one activated secondary connection, determining, per communication endpoint implementing carrier aggregation aggregating one primary connection and at least one secondary connection, a time with transmission data in a transmission buffer and at least one activated secondary connection, and obtaining, per communication endpoint, a transmission throughput with at least one activated secondary connection, based on said transmission volume and said time.
US09967762B2

A system and method for evaluating the interactivity of RF devices in a virtual RF environment having selective virtual spectrum users remotely controlled by a web browser, where the virtual spectrum users have selectable interactivity parameters, and the virtual RF spectrum can be selectively changed, and the performance of the virtual spectrum users is evaluated and assigned scores as a function of the evaluation to determine which virtual spectrum user receives the highest amount of points.
US09967759B2

Information handling system maintenance is aided by sending maintenance codes with a management processor of the information handling system to a mobile telephone with a NFC communication. The maintenance code and an identifier of the information handling system are provided to an administrative station to confirm that the proper maintenance is taking place at the proper system before the maintenance is authorized.
US09967752B2

Methods, systems, and apparatuses are described for wireless communications, in which transmission of common information to two or more receivers over unlicensed spectrum may be provided. The common information may be transmitted over a number (e.g., a set) of different carrier frequencies of the unlicensed spectrum. A staggering pattern may be employed to transmit all or a part of the common information across each of the carrier frequencies in the set of carrier frequencies. The detection of the information on one of the carrier frequencies may provide information that may be used to derive the staggering pattern. The duration of the common information transmission on each of the carrier frequencies may be selected such that a clear channel assessment (CCA) to determine availability of the unlicensed spectrum is not required.
US09967748B2

A method includes receiving a token at a first device via a second device. The token is received by the second device from a computing system responsive to a request for access to a first wireless network secured with a network encryption key. The request is sent from the second device via a second wireless network. The computing system generates and sends the token to the second device and to a registration device in response to a determination that a user account associated with the second device permits access to the first wireless network. The method includes sending, from the first device to the registration device via the first wireless network, a hash value based on the token. Responsive to the hash value matching a second hash value generated by the registration device, the method includes receiving configuration data to enable the first device to access the first wireless network.
US09967735B2

Within a mobile station data message, the mobile transceiver reads an observed country code of a visited wireless network to determine a country of operation of the mobile transceiver. The mobile transceiver determines if the observed country code is equal to a stored country code in a subscriber identity module of the mobile transceiver. If the observed country code differs from the stored country code, the mobile transceiver transmits an inquiry data message to a central server via the wireless network to inquire as to whether or not the mobile transceiver is authorized to operate within the observed country. In response to the inquiry, the mobile transceiver may receive mobile profile data related to wireless access or authorized features of the mobile transceiver.
US09967731B2

Embodiments relate to a User Equipment (UE) device and associated method performing improved data roaming with reduced cost. The UE may comprise at least one radio, one or more processors, a first SIM entity and a second SIM entity. The first SIM entity may be configured to implement subscriber identity module (SIM) functionality for a subscribed voice and/or data plan of a first carrier. The second SIM entity may be configured to facilitate dynamic subscription to a local data plan of a second carrier when the UE is data roaming outside of a network of the first carrier. As one example, the UE, using the second SIM entity, may be configured to dynamically subscribe to a pay-as-you-go data plan of a second carrier, to which the user is not subscribed, when the user is data roaming outside of the first carrier's network. This dynamic subscribing may operate to reduce cost to the user, since the local data plan of the second carrier likely has less expensive data rates than those available during normal data roaming.
US09967725B2

A mobile application including a computer program designed to run on smartphones, tablet computers, and other mobile devices and allow the user to be directly connected to 911 with exact location information. In use, the user would download an application and be prompted to set-up locations where they are most commonly located. In an emergency, the user would select the “call 911” button, which would pop up the pre-programmed locations. The user would select their location and then the address/phone number information would be transmitted to 911. A button for non-programmed locations would be tied to a GPS system and give a general location of the user. Every 30 days the user would be asked to confirm their pre-programmed locations.
US09967720B2

The present disclosure relates to a mobile terminal for transmitting and receiving messages and a control method thereof. A mobile terminal according to an embodiment of the present disclosure may include a display unit configured to display at least one message transmitted to and received from at least one user terminal and receive a touch input for selecting one of the at least one message; a controller configured to control the display unit that displays icons corresponding to the at least one user terminal, respectively, to distinguish whether or not the selected message has been checked for each of the at least one user terminal; and a wireless communication unit configured to transmit a check request message of the selected message to a user terminal corresponding to the selected one of the displayed icons.
US09967714B2

Systems and methods including computing patterns of visitation to predefined regions by converting coordinates of mobile devices to cell identifiers and searching a database to find matches between cell identifiers representing regions and the cell identifiers of the device locations. Devices having similar visitation patterns are divided into two groups, based on status data of whether or not information about a region has been transmitted to respective users. The visitation patterns after the transmission are compared by a system between the two groups to measure a difference. Identifiers of devices, users, or households are initially provided to the system without the status data to obtain attributes associated individually with the identifiers. In return, the system is provided with the status data associated with the attributes individually for the devices, users, or households but without sufficient information to map the status data individually to the identifiers of the devices, users, or households.
US09967709B2

A logical mapping of a plurality of access points is automatically generated. Each of the plurality of access points is plotted on a logical map. Lengths of connection lines between access points pairs are determined for each of the plurality of access points on the logical map. Connection lines are oriented in combination with adjustments to the plotted access points on the logical map to run connection lines between each of the access point pairs. Some of the access points are part of more than one access point pair as represented by more than one connection line connected to the at least one access point.
US09967696B2

A system for monitoring the characteristics of a material by measuring electrical properties of a material uses a material monitoring device and a cloud database that relates electrical properties of a material to characteristics of that material. The aging and fermentation processes of wine and other alcohols can be monitored. The status and decomposition of foodstuffs can be monitored. The progress of chemical reactions in a vessel can be monitored. Water quality of water from a water conduit can be monitored. These characteristics can be indicated on a product monitoring device or can be communicated to an external computing device.
US09967689B1

An example playback device may identify a first version of audio content for play back from a first source, and further identify a first value of an audio characteristic of the first version of the audio content, where the playback device includes a capability corresponding to the audio characteristic. The playback device may determine that the first value of the audio characteristic of the first version of the audio content does not match the capability of the playback device. The playback device may then identify a second version of the audio content from a second source, where the second version of the audio content includes the audio characteristic having a second value that is closer to the capability of the playback device. The playback device may then cause playback of the second version of the audio content.
US09967687B2

To maintain favorable sound reproduction. In a car audio apparatus 6 which includes an inter-equipment communication unit 51 configured to perform communication according to each of a plurality of sound communication protocols Pv for transmitting a sound signal A3 of audio, and a reproduction processing unit 52 configured to reproduce the sound signal A3 received through the communication, and which receives the sound signal A3 from a smartphone 8 through communication according to any of the sound communication protocols Pv, the car audio apparatus 6 includes a priority storing unit 62 configured to store a priority of the sound communication protocols Pv in advance, and a sound signal input controlling unit 53 configured to, in the case where a sound communication request for transmitting the sound signal A3 is received from the smartphone 8, accept the sound communication request according to the priority of a sound communication protocol Pv of requested communication.
US09967685B2

A skin interface apparatus configured as an interface of a prosthesis with skin of a recipient, including a first portion configured for direct contact with skin of the recipient, and a second portion configured for direct contact with skin of the recipient, wherein the portions have different material properties. In an exemplary embodiment, the first portion is a part of a holding plate pad of a hearing prosthesis and the second portion is part of a driving plate pad of the hearing prosthesis.
US09967681B2

Presented herein are techniques for detecting sensory outcome issues through an analysis of data representing the direction of incidence/arrival of a sensory input and inertial data representing movement of the recipient's head following detection of the sensory input. By correlating recipient head movement (including lack of movement) with the arrival direction of the sensory input, a sensory prosthesis system can determine whether or not the recipient acted as expected and, if not, whether a sensory outcome problem is present.
US09967670B2

The present invention is applicable to the field of audio recording and provides an audio collection apparatus. Multiple fixed apparatuses are stacked and have ear structures and face contours, and audio collectors are disposed at ear canal openings of the ear structures to collect audio information. During audio collection, faces of the fixed apparatuses have different horizontal orientations, so that the audio collectors obtain the audio information at the ear canal openings of the ear structures towards horizontal directions. Therefore, rich sound sources and sound authenticity are ensured, sounds are rich in quality, a stereo field perception effect is achieved, a real sound field relationship can be restored, an in-head effect is avoided, and a requirement for real synchronization between a sound and an image in a virtual reality (VR) panoramic video technology is met.
US09967665B2

An analog signal path portion of a signal path may have: (i) an audio input for receiving an analog signal, an audio output for providing an output signal, and a selectable analog gain, and may be configured to generate the output signal based on the analog signal and in conformity with the selectable analog gain; and (ii) a digital path portion having a selectable digital gain and configured to receive a digital input signal and convert the digital input signal into the analog signal in conformity with the selectable digital gain. A control circuit may be configured to modify the digital and analog gains in response to an indication to switch between gain modes of the signal path, determine a noise floor of an audio signal comprising the digital input signal or a signal derived therefrom, and control modification of the digital and analog gains based on the noise floor.
US09967663B2

Systems and methods for loudspeaker protection against excessive excursion are described. In an illustrative, non limiting embodiment, a method may include splitting an input signal into two or more signals, each of the two or more signals within a given frequency band; independently selecting between a power attenuation or an excursion attenuation for each of the two or more signals; independently applying the selected power attenuation or excursion attenuation to each of the two or more signals; combining the attenuated two or more signals into an output signal; and providing the output signal to a loudspeaker.
US09967662B2

A microphone device is provided, including first and second chambers, first and second acoustic sensors, and a sound transmission device. The first and second chambers include the first and second acoustic ports, respectively. The first and second acoustic sensors are arranged in the first chamber and the second chamber, respectively. The sound transmission device coupled to the first and second chambers includes third and fourth acoustic ports, a first acoustic tube, and a second acoustic tube. The first acoustic tube communicates with the first acoustic port and the third acoustic port. The second acoustic tube communicates with the second acoustic port and the fourth acoustic port. The sensitivity difference between the first acoustic sensor and the second acoustic sensor is determined based on the length difference or the cross-sectional area difference between the first acoustic tube and the second acoustic tube.
US09967660B2

A signal processing apparatus is provided. The apparatus includes an obtaining unit configured to obtain direction sounds in respective directivity directions from audio signals picked up by a plurality of sound pickup units, and a control unit configured to control, in accordance with a frequency of the direction sounds obtained by the obtaining unit, a directivity direction count indicating the number of directivity directions corresponding to the direction sounds obtained by the obtaining unit.
US09967655B2

Example techniques may involve controlling a passive radiator. An implementation may include a device buffering successive samples of audio content. For sets of buffered samples, the device predicts excursion of the passive radiator caused by playback of the respective set of buffered samples by active speakers via a model. The device limits excursion of the passive radiator to less than an excursion limit when certain sets of buffered samples are predicted to cause the passive radiator to move beyond the excursion limit. The device plays back the successive samples of the modified audio content via the active speakers. The device measures excursion of the passive radiator when sets of buffered samples are played back via the active speakers. For sets of samples, the device determines respective differences between the predicted excursion and the measured excursion and adjusts the model to offset determined differences between the predicted and measured excursion.
US09967654B2

A modular speaker includes at least an active vibrator, at least a passive vibrator, and a module housing, wherein the active vibrator and the passive vibrator are coupled to the module housing to form a vibration cavity therewithin to share with the active vibrator and the passive vibrator. When the active vibrator is operated for sound generation in response to an audio signal input, the passive vibrator is driven to vibrate through the vibration cavity for auxiliary sound generation so as to produce a point sound with full range of frequencies. The point sound with full range of frequencies produced by the modular speaker includes treble region and bass region, such that the modular speaker is able to completely restore the audio signal input as the original form to enable the listener to hear the sound quality of original raw audio signal.
US09967650B2

A case for a portable listening device includes a rechargeable battery and a first and a second charging system. The first charging system is configured to charge the portable listening device and the second charging system is configured to wirelessly charge a portable electronic device positioned outside of the case adjacent to an exterior charging surface.
US09967646B2

An in-ear hearing device having an ear interfacing portion integrally formed with an elongated stem portion, wherein the ear interfacing portion extends away from the elongated stem portion; a first acoustic port formed in the ear interfacing portion; a speaker disposed in the ear interfacing portion and aligned to emit sound from the acoustic port; a plurality of electrical contacts disposed at an end of the stem portion, the plurality of electrical contacts including first and second contacts; a second acoustic port formed at the end of the elongated stem portion between the first and second contacts; a microphone disposed in the stem portion; and a channel that fluidically couples the microphone to the second acoustic port.
US09967636B2

A system, method and API for processing and providing a unified list of the content offerings of multiple content sources.
US09967633B1

Systems and methods for effectively and efficiently receiving, analyzing, and using subscriber content choice information are described. One embodiment of the present invention includes a subscriber-action database, such as a clickstream database, a media-content database, and a merge processor electronically connected to the two databases for merging data in the subscriber-action database with data in the media-content database to create a subscriber content-choice database. The media-content database may include programming and/or advertising data. The media-content database may also include category and context information to provide the capability to comprehensively analyze data in the subscriber content-choice database.
US09967628B2

Systems and methods for rating videos based on parental feedback axe presented. In an aspect, a method is provided that includes providing supervisory users respectively having a supervisory role over other users access to watch histories of respective ones of the other users and receiving feedback from the supervisory users regarding appropriateness of a video for the other users, respectively. The method further includes determining an age rating for the media item based on an average age of the other users that the feedback indicates the video is appropriate for, and recommending the video to a user for watching based on the user having an age that satisfies the age rating.
US09967625B2

A recommender engine for recommending content items to a user comprises a profile generation unit having a pre-profile input unit, which is configured to receive pre-profile data comprising pre-profile text data suitable for identifying entities of interest to a given user, and having a pre-profile analysis unit, the entities of interest and to generate an initial user profile data set for the given user from the extracted identification data; a query generation unit, to generate at least two queries semantically different from each other to be directed to at least one content repository; a content retrieval unit, to issue the generated queries to the content repository and to receive in response to the queries, content-related response data comprising respective hit lists and an interleaver unit to generate from the different hit lists a single recommendation list.
US09967620B2

In one embodiment, a computer system is described as including a receiver to receive selection data, the selection data relating to a number of times a particular portion of digital content has been accessed, and an updating module to update selection data contained in a database record relating to digital content, the database record containing a sum of selection data. Further, a Graphical User Interface (GUI) is described as including a display and a selection device, a method of providing and selecting from a pane on the display, the method comprising retrieving a set of data to be displayed in the pane, displaying the data in the pane, receiving a selection input signal indicative of the selection device pointing at a selected position within the pane, and in response to the input signal, playing a portion of a data file.
US09967619B2

An audience measurement service may monitor broadcasts in a region, ingesting closed captioning data, metadata, displayed text or logos, performing facial recognition on people, and/or generating audio/video fingerprints of broadcast content to create a database of content and associated keywords, along with times at which the content was broadcast. The audience measurement service may receive user search queries from a search provider and detect “spiking” queries. The audience measurement service may determine whether the spiking queries are related, contextually and temporally, to an item of content identified in the database, and infer that users generating the queries likely viewed the item of content. In some implementations, the audience measurement service may also infer that the users likely viewed other items of content (e.g. advertisements) displayed during the prior or subsequent few minutes on the same broadcast channel as the query-triggering item.
US09967608B2

A method and system for distributing multimedia content includes a unified storefront (USF) application providing access portals to a multimedia content distribution network, including an Internet-protocol television access portal, a web access portal and a mobile access portal. The USF application may further communicate with a media agent to access a portable media player (PMP), allowing multimedia content to be sent to the PMP from any of the access portals.
US09967604B2

A hospitality media system includes a media system controller and a plurality of media devices located in a plurality of rooms and coupled to the media system controller. Each room has one or more in-room media devices located therein for performing a media function. A connection port allows a user of a room to establish data communications between the media system controller and a guest device. The media system controller is coupled to the connection port and configured to catalog guest content available on the guest device to thereby form a guest content list, associate the guest content with one or more associated rooms at least including the user's room, and perform the media function utilizing content selected from the guest content list only on the in-room media devices located within the one or more associated rooms.
US09967602B2

Provided is a method for transmitting a broadcasting content and a line content, the broadcasting content and the line content being synchronously displayed, the method including: generating a line parity packet from a plurality of line data packets in each of which the line content is stored; transmitting the line data packet and the line parity packet through a communication line; and transmitting a plurality of broadcasting data packets in each of which the broadcasting content is stored, from a base station using a broadcasting wave, a transfer clock time of the broadcasting content being delayed by a predetermined time compared with a transfer clock time of the line content. At this point, video quality can be improved when the real-time broadcasting program content and the real-time line content are simultaneously displayed.
US09967601B2

Interleaving multiple streams of data using a universal services multiplexer is followed by conveying a time interleaved multiplexer stream to a remote QAM module. A universal services multiplexer interleaves multiple streams of data into a time interleaved multiplexer stream.
US09967585B2

An encoding device and method are provided for encoding at least one image split into partitions. The method implements, for a current partition to be encoded, steps of: selecting at least one causal partition already encoded and then decoded; calculating at least one optimal encoding parameter associated with the selected causal partition, according to a predetermined criterion of encoding performance, by comparing a plurality of encoding parameters applied to the selected causal partition; and encoding the current partition by using the calculated optimum encoding parameter.
US09967583B2

In one example, a device for presenting video data includes a processor configured to determine an integer value for the video data, determine a difference value between a presentation time of a first picture and a presentation time of a second picture, wherein the difference value is equal to the integer value multiplied by a clock tick value, and present the first picture and the second picture according to the determined difference value.
US09967581B2

During video coding, frame rate conversion (FRC) capabilities of a decoder may be estimated. Based on the estimated FRC capabilities, an encoder may select a frame rate for a video coding session and may alter a frame rate of source video to match the selected frame rate. Thereafter, the resultant video may be coded and output to a channel. By incorporating knowledge of a decoder's FRC capabilities as source video is being coded, an encoder may reduce the frame rate of source video opportunistically. Bandwidth that is conserved by avoiding coding of video data in excess of the selected frame rate may be directed to coding of the remaining video at a higher bitrate, which can lead to increased quality of the coding session as a whole.
US09967578B2

Provided is an image processing device including a control section configured to set based on a first quantization parameter offset set for a chroma component of a first layer, a second quantization parameter offset for a chroma component of a second layer decoded with reference to the first layer, and an inverse quantization section configured to inversely quantize transform coefficient data of the chroma component of the second layer using a quantization parameter computed using the second quantization parameter offset set by the control section.
US09967576B2

A scalable video signal decoding method according to the present invention is characterized in that whether or not a corresponding picture in a lower layer is being used as an inter layer reference picture for a current picture in an upper layer is determined on the basis of a time level identifier for the lower layer, and if the corresponding picture in the lower layer is being used as an inter layer reference picture for the current picture in the upper layer, inter layer prediction of the current picture is carried out using the corresponding picture, and the current picture is restored using a prediction sample obtained by means of inter layer prediction and a residual sample of the current picture.
US09967564B2

An image processing device including an acquiring section configured to acquire quantization matrix parameters from an encoded stream in which the quantization matrix parameters defining a quantization matrix are set within a parameter set which is different from a sequence parameter set and a picture parameter set, a setting section configured to set, based on the quantization matrix parameters acquired by the acquiring section, a quantization matrix which is used when inversely quantizing data decoded from the encoded stream, and an inverse quantization section configured to inversely quantize the data decoded from the encoded stream using the quantization matrix set by the setting section.
US09967560B2

A moving picture coding method includes: performing context adaptive binary arithmetic coding in which a variable probability value is used, on first information among multiple types of sample adaptive offset (SAO) information used for SAO that is a process of assigning an offset value to a pixel value of a pixel included in an image generated by coding the input image; and continuously performing bypass arithmetic coding in which a fixed probability value is used, on second information and third information among the multiple types of the SAO information, wherein the coded second and third information are placed after the coded first information in the bit stream.
US09967556B2

One video coding method includes at least the following steps: utilizing a visual quality evaluation module for evaluating visual quality based on data involved in a coding loop; and referring to at least the evaluated visual quality for performing sample adaptive offset (SAO) filtering. Another video coding method includes at least the following steps: utilizing a visual quality evaluation module for evaluating visual quality based on data involved in a coding loop; and referring to at least the evaluated visual quality for deciding a target coding parameter associated with sample adaptive offset (SAO) filtering.
US09967552B2

A display apparatus includes a display panel configured to display an image frame that includes a right-eye image and a left-eye image, and a touch panel configured to sense a user touch, wherein the touch panel includes a polarizing switch panel configured to switch a direction of polarization of light emitted from the display panel, and a parallax realization layer which is formed on one side of the polarizing switch panel and is configured to provide a binocular disparity image by using light emitted from the polarizing switch panel.
US09967546B2

A method for converting a 2D images and videos to 3D includes applying a set of pre-defined heuristic rules to assign a depth value for each pixel of a two-dimensional (2D) image source based on pixel attributes to generate an initial default depth map, refining the pre-defined heuristic rules to produce customized heuristic rules, applying the customized heuristic rules to the initial default depth map to produce a refined depth map, and rendering a three-dimensional (3D) image in a predefined format using the refined depth map.
US09967540B2

The invention discloses an ultra high definition 3D conversion device and an ultra high definition 3D display system, which may convert the received full high definition video signal or ultra high definition video signal into a 3D signal corresponding to the type of 3D display after performing an image quality process, according to the type of 3D display chosen by a user. This may achieve the Active Shutter type, Film-type Patterned Retarder (FPR) type and naked-eye type of 3D display for the ultra high definition video signal.
US09967538B2

Automultiscopic displays enable glasses-free 3D viewing by providing both binocular and motion parallax. Within the display field of view, different images are observed depending on the viewing direction. When moving outside the field of view, the observed images may repeat. Light fields produced by lenticular and parallax-barrier automultiscopic displays may have repetitive structure with significant discontinuities between the fields of view. This repetitive structure induces visual artifacts in the form of view discontinuities, depth reversals, and extensive disparities. To overcome this problem, a method modifies the presented light field image content and makes it more repetitive. In the method, a light field is refined using global and local shearing and then the repeating fragments are stitched. The method reduces the discontinuities in the displayed light field and leads to visual quality improvements. Benefits of the method are shown using an automultiscopic display with a parallax barrier and lenticular prints.
US09967526B2

An image processing device includes an image input section inputting images taken by a vehicle camera, a calibration target specifying section specifying a calibration target included both in a first image and in a second image, a vehicle information input section inputting information indicating travel distance and orientation change of the vehicle, a calculation section, and a storing control section. The calculation section converts the first and the second images to the first and second bird's-eye view images, respectively, arranges the first and the second birds-eye view images on common coordinate system with consideration of corresponding image taking positions and image taking orientations, and calculates at least one orientation parameter of the camera which minimizes position difference and rotation angle difference between the two calibration targets included in the first and second birds-eye view images. The storing control section stores the orientation parameter in storage.
US09967522B2

A driver monitoring camera system for a vehicle includes a camera system and an optical beam shaper. The camera system has an exit field of view central axis oriented more vertical than horizontal with respect to a set of orthogonal x, y and z axes, where the z-axis defines a direction line indicative of a vertical direction. The optical beam shaper is disposed in optical communication with the camera system and optically between the camera system and an operator of the vehicle. The optical beam shaper is structurally configured to direct an image of a face of an operator of the vehicle toward the exit field of view of the camera system, and is structurally configured to compress the image in the vertical direction to define a compressed image having a height to width aspect ratio of less an uncompressed height to width aspect ratio of the image.
US09967521B2

Methods and apparatus to provide content on demand in content broadcast systems are disclosed. An example method comprises receiving a first portion of a program via broadcast signal and receiving a second portion of the program via an Internet protocol (IP) based signal. The example method may further comprise combining the first and the second portions and at least one of store the combined first and second portions in a file or playback the combined first and second portions.
US09967519B1

A video conference control method operable to be executed in a video conference control apparatus. A request to speak from a mobile terminal on or near to a person or other source of speech is received. The mobile terminal is controlled to make a preset sound according to the request to speak. The preset sound is received and recognized. The position of the mobile terminal is determined according to the preset sound using a preset sound positioning method. A monitoring lens is controlled to align with the mobile terminal, and the sound source is displayed for the benefit of other conference attendees.
US09967518B2

In a video conference system in which at least a pair of terminal devices transmits and receives an image through a network, each of the terminal devices includes a face detection unit that detects a face from a first image which is a image captured by a camera, and a generation unit that generates a image in which a image of the face detected by the face detection unit is arranged around a image region of a second image, which is a image of a material used for a conference, in accordance with a relative position of the face in the first image.
US09967516B2

There are provided a stereo matching method capable of increasing a resolution and precision of an object and a device for performing the method. The method includes investigating a pattern according to a predetermined period; obtaining left and right stereo images in which the investigated pattern is included or not included; determining whether each of the stereo image obtained according to the predetermined period and a buffering image that is a previous frame image of the stereo image includes the pattern; and generating a final cost volume by performing different image processing according to whether each of the stereo image and the buffering image includes the pattern. Therefore, it is possible to increase precision of a disparity of a thin object and increase accuracy and precision of an object at a long distance.
US09967515B1

Electronic information defining visual content within video frames may be accessed. Video frames may be ordered in a source sequence. Positions in the source sequence may be associated with playback directions. Video frames may be ordered in a playback sequence based on the playback directions. The playback sequence may characterize a playback order in which video frames are displayed during playback. Video frames in the playback sequence may be associated with playback speeds. The playback speeds may determine perceived speeds with which visual content is displayed during playback. Speed ramped video frames may be determined based on the playback sequence and the playback speeds. A speed ramped video may be generated based on the speed ramped video frames.
US09967511B2

Devices and methods for routing cables through a printed circuit board (PCB) include an enclosure having at least one cable guide and a cable duct. A PCB is mounted in the enclosure, such that the cable duct penetrates the PCB through a hole in the PCB. At least one additional component is mounted in the enclosure and connected to at least one cable that is attached to the at least one cable guide and the cable duct. The at least one cable enters the duct on a first side of the PCB and exits the duct on a second side of the PCB.
US09967508B2

The present invention relates to a device for remotely controlling electric equipment. For example, the device has a plurality of buttons, the plurality of buttons are configured to make one closed loop. A plurality of outside colored portions extend along outside of at least two adjacent buttons, the color of each outside colored portion is different from each other. A plurality of inside colored portions extend along inside of at least two adjacent buttons, the color of each inside colored portion is different from each other. A predetermined function is allocated to a series of buttons indicated by the corresponding inside or outside colored portion. In addition, the device may have a controller to recognize a command and sends the command to the electric equipment, wherein the controller recognizes the allocated function as the command when the buttons corresponding to the colored portion for the allocated function are stroked in predetermined direction in series.
US09967506B2

An image module comprising: (a) an imaging device that graphically or pictorially captures images of underwater sea life (b) a module housing including one or more components that processing an image generated by the imaging device; wherein the image module is discrete from a marine display and is capable of being connected to the marine display so that the graphic or pictorial images of underwater seal life captured by the imaging device are displayed.
US09967503B2

Each pixel region PX includes a photoelectric conversion region S1, a resistive gate electrode R, a first transfer electrode T1, a second transfer electrode T2, a barrier region B positioned directly beneath the first transfer electrode T1 in a semiconductor substrate 10, and a charge accumulation region S2 positioned directly beneath the second transfer electrode T2 in the semiconductor substrate 10. An impurity concentration of the barrier region B is lower than an impurity concentration of the charge accumulation region S2, and the first transfer electrode T1 and the second transfer electrode T2 are electrically connected to each other.
US09967499B2

The present description relates to a readout circuit for digitizing an analog input signal of an imaging device into a digital output. The readout circuit comprises a pixel signal input for providing an analog signal from at least one imaging pixel element, a variable gain amplifier for providing an amplified signal of the analog signal by a gain factor, and a first analog to digital conversion means for quantizing the analog signal into a first digital signal. The circuit further comprises a control means for setting the gain factor of the variable gain amplifier by taking into account the first digital signal, and a second analog to digital conversion means for quantizing the amplified signal into a second digital signal. The circuit also comprises a digital output for outputting a signal determined as function of at least the second digital signal.
US09967495B2

An image sensing device includes a plurality of pixel groups, each pixel group including two or more neighboring pixels, and a controller suitable for controlling the pixel groups on a basis of a frame unit, wherein a readout order of the pixels in each of the pixel groups is different between present and next frames.
US09967485B2

A radiation image capturing apparatus includes scan lines, signal lines, radiation detection elements, bias lines, a readout IC, a control unit and a noise detection unit. The detection elements generate electric charges by receiving radiation. The readout IC reads respective image data based on the respective electric charges. The control unit controls at least the readout IC. At the time when each image data is read, the detection unit outputs data based on voltage noise in reverse bias voltage applied to the detection elements via the bias lines and/or voltage noise in off voltage applied to the scan lines. The control unit estimates an offset component in the output data, calculates noise data based on the output data and the offset component and subtracts the noise data from the image data, thereby generating corrected image data.
US09967482B2

An image processing apparatus to execute noise reduction processing on image data includes a setting unit, a determination unit, and an output unit. The setting unit sets a pixel group from among a plurality of pixel group candidates. The plurality of pixel group candidates includes at least a first pixel group having a plurality of pixels being a first number of pixels or a second pixel group having a plurality of pixels being a second number of pixels which is different from the first number of pixels. The determination unit determines, based on a similarity between a target pixel and a reference pixel that is obtained according to the set pixel group, a weight corresponding to the reference pixel. The output unit outputs a value, calculated based on a pixel value of the reference pixel and the weight, as a noise-reduced pixel value of the target pixel.
US09967480B2

When the amplification ratio is low and strong incident light causes a large charge, the signal retrieved from regions where the incident light is weak is also weak, but when the amplification ratio is high in regions where the incident light is weak, the signal retrieved from regions where the incident light is strong becomes saturated. Therefore, the dynamic range of the imaging unit is narrow. Provided is an imaging unit comprising an imaging section that includes a first group having one or more pixels and a second group having one or more pixels different from those of the first group; and a control section that, while a single charge accumulation is performed in the first group, causes pixel signals to be output by performing charge accumulation in the second group a number of times differing from a number of times charge accumulation is performed in the first group.
US09967479B2

The invention relates to pixel circuit and an operating method thereof, comprising a front-end circuit comprising a single photodiode and having an output, said front-end circuit being configured for delivering on said output a photoreceptor signal derived from a light exposure of said single photodiode; a transient detector circuit configured for detecting a change in said photoreceptor signal delivered on said output; an exposure measurement circuit configured for measuring said photoreceptor signal delivered on said output upon detection by the transient detector circuit of a change in the photoreceptor signal. The invention also relates to an image sensor comprising a plurality of pixel circuits.
US09967477B2

Imaging systems having multiple optical modules are provided. The FOVs, focal lengths, and/or sensors of the multiple optical modules may be designed to generate high quality images and images with arbitrary magnifications.
US09967473B2

The present invention relates to appropriate notification of whether an adjustment item in image processing is available to a user when an information processing apparatus separately acquires a first image and a second image paired with the first image.The information processing apparatus displays the adjustment item in the image processing on a screen in order to set a parameter of each adjustment item for a sub image. The information processing apparatus performs an acquisition process to acquire a main image paired with the sub image. Among the multiple adjustment items displayed on the screen, adjustment items achieving only insufficient adjustment results with the sub image and main image adjustment items achieving more appropriate adjustment results with the main image are updated to a display mode corresponding to an acquisition status of the main image to display the adjustment items on the screen in the updated display mode.
US09967445B2

A wearable apparatus is provided for securing a wearable apparatus to an article of clothing. In one implementation, an apparatus securable to an article of clothing may include a capturing unit including at least one image sensor configured to capture images of an environment of a user and a power unit configured to house a power source. The apparatus may further include a connector configured to connect the capturing unit and the power unit. The connector is configured to secure the apparatus to the article of clothing such that the capturing unit is positioned over an outer surface of the article of clothing and the powering unit is positioned under an inner surface of the article of clothing.
US09967442B2

An endoscope apparatus includes a first optical system, a second optical system, a light-blocking shutter, a magnet rotor, drive coils, detection coils, and a CPU, the CPU performs control to provide direct current to the drive coils and control to provide alternating current to the detection coils, and where the alternating current is provided to the detection coils, the CPU detects a pivotal position of the light-blocking shutter by detecting variation of an inductance when a magnetic field generated in each of hollow portions of the detection coils is blocked by a magnetic body, from a value of the alternating current.
US09967430B2

A non-transitory recording medium storing a computer readable program causes a computer incorporated in a mobile terminal to execute the steps of: a) acquiring apparatus specifying information in order for a user to determine whether an information processing apparatus to cooperate with the mobile terminal is a desired information processing apparatus using a proximity wireless communication with the information processing apparatus; b) displaying, on an operation unit of the mobile terminal, a confirmation message which is a confirmation message to confirm execution of a cooperative action with the information processing apparatus and includes the apparatus specifying information; and c) executing the cooperative action in response to a confirmation operation to the confirmation message by the user.
US09967426B2

An information distribution system includes a reception unit to receive first data from an application; plug-ins respectively corresponding to types of the devices; a determination unit to determine, for each of one or more devices specified by one or more pieces of selected address specification information, whether the first data relates to the first data which is a conversion source of one or more pieces of second data having been transmitted; and a distribution unit to transmit, to the devices using the plug-ins, the one or more pieces of second data each obtained by conversion into a data format specified by the data format information a and information for identifying whether the first data which is a conversion source of the one or more pieces of second data relates to the first data which is the conversion source of the one or more pieces of second data having been transmitted.
US09967425B2

A multifunction peripheral includes an answerer identifying unit, a character data extracting unit, a correct/incorrect determining unit, a question data extracting unit, a question sheet image data creating unit, and an image formation control unit. The correct/incorrect determining unit determines answers on a question sheet as correct or incorrect based on characters extracted by the character data extracting unit. The question data extracting unit extracts a plurality of questions from question data stored in a storage unit in accordance with the ratio of correct answers determined by the correct/incorrect determining unit, for each of answerers identified by the answerer identifying unit. The question sheet image data creating unit creates image data of the question sheet with the questions, which are extracted from the question data by the question data extracting unit, arranged thereon.
US09967420B2

An apparatus and method for thermal imaging of an interior space of a high temperature furnace through an opening in a wall of the furnace. An outer housing houses at least a portion of a rigid borescope. The outer housing has a port for aspirating ambient air through the outer housing to cool the rigid borescope and passing the air through a hole at the end of the outer housing and into the furnace. A camera is operatively connected to a rigid borescope but is located such that it is isolated from the air passing through the outer housing.
US09967408B2

A camera generates a main image and a sub image of which data size is smaller than that of the main image, and stores them in association with an image ID. The camera transmits the image ID and the sub image to a tablet device, and transmits the image ID and the main image to the PC. The tablet device executes a development process on the sub image and generates an adjustment value, and transmits the adjustment value together with the image ID to a server. The PC receives the adjustment value based on the image ID from the server and uses the adjustment value for a development process on the main image.
US09967402B2

A system comprises a plurality of user devices and a conference call bridge connected to the plurality of end user devices via one or more networks. The conference call bridge is configured to connect to a given one of the plurality of user devices, receive a passcode from the given user device, and authenticate the given user device using the passcode. The passcode is personal to the given user.
US09967399B2

Embodiments of the invention provide systems and methods for providing a co-browsing preview of a queued contact. According to one embodiment, providing a co-browsing preview of a queued contact can comprise receiving a contact from a customer, selecting an agent from a plurality of agents based at least in part on the contact and a defined set of skills for each of the agents, and assigning the contact to the selected agent. Assigning the contact to the selected agent can comprise placing the contact into a queue for the selected agent. A live, real-time co-browsing preview of a current user interface of the customer can be provided to the selected agent while the contact is assigned to the selected agent's queue and before the customer is connected to the selected agent.
US09967394B2

Disclosed are a method and apparatus for sharing contacts entries at a Telephony Server (TS), the method including receiving a request from a Telephony Control Point coupled to the TS in a Universal Plug and Play home network to share at least one contact element associated with a contact entry with at least one recipient, retrieving the at least one contact element from a network address book in a Wide Area Network server connected to the TS or from a local address book in the TS, and sharing the at least one contact element with the at least one recipient.
US09967393B2

A mobile electronic apparatus, a method for controlling a mobile electronic apparatus, and a non-transitory computer readable recording medium are disclosed. A wireless communication unit receives an incoming call signal. A movement detector detects a user's movement. A proximity sensor detects the proximity of an object. At least one processor outputs as a voice, through a sound output unit, information on a party that has transmitted the incoming call signal when the user's movement and the proximity of the object are detected during the receipt of the incoming call signal.
US09967391B2

A mobile device having location services may store information pertaining to a geo-fence that is associated with a user of the mobile device and assigned to a location. The mobile device may identify a current location of the mobile device and store data pertaining to the location of the mobile device. The mobile device determines a current geo-fence state of the mobile device based on the location data in response to an internal stimuli or an external stimuli. The geo-fence state is selected from at least an inside geo-fence state in which the mobile device is deemed to be inside the geo-fence and an outside geo-fence state in which the mobile device is deemed to be outside of the geo-fence. The mobile device may notify a remote server of the current geo-fence state.
US09967390B2

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, relating to changing device settings based on an orientation or motion of a mobile device. The method includes receiving a user input, determining that the mobile device was oriented in a first orientation when the user input was received, selecting a first device setting or service request parameter that affects a mobile phone application or a web service experience and that are associated with the first orientation, providing, for output at the mobile device, a first response to the user input based on the first device setting, after providing the first response to the user input, determining that the mobile device has been reoriented in a different, second orientation, selecting a second device setting, and providing a second response to the user input, or to a revision of the user input, based on the second device setting.
US09967389B2

The disclosure relates to systems, methods and devices for secure routing and recording of network data streams passing through a network switch. Specifically, the disclosure relates to systems, methods and devices for reversibly deconstructing networks' OSI L2/L3/L4/L7 in time and space, in the process of selectively recording network data streams for secure access.
US09967387B2

Notifications for an accessory device are received at a mobile companion device. The notifications are directed to a notification processing application of the companion device that processes notifications intended for accessory device applications. The notification processing application determines an identifier of the accessory application for which the notification is intended, and provides the identifier to a notification display application at the accessory device, which determines user interface and display properties for the notification. The accessory device requests external (dynamic) user interface and display properties from the companion device, as needed, and upon receipt generates a notification display at the accessory device.
US09967385B2

The present application is directed to a communication apparatus, a communication control method and a non-transitory computer medium that enable a user to more effectively prohibit unauthorized communications. By way of example, a communication apparatus is disclosed that includes a controller provided with a Connectivity Manager function configured to perform data communication with a plurality of communication methods and select an optimal communication method. In various embodiments, the controller is configured to receive a request for data communication, and regulate the data communication, when the request is received while cellular communication is on, even when a unique user identifier (UID) of the request is a UID of the Connectivity Manager function, by preventing cellular communication by the Connectivity Manager function.
US09967380B2

A communication system including a hard of hearing user's captioned device, the captioned device including a display screen and a processor. The processor in the captioned device is configured to: establish communication with a hard of hearing user's phone device that is independent of the hard of hearing user's captioned device, receive a text communication originating at a relay, the text communication corresponding to a transcription of the hearing user's voice signal, and display a text caption corresponding to the text communication on the display of the hard of hearing user's captioned device.
US09967379B1

A mobile electronic device holder includes a backing configured to support a rear surface of a mobile electronic device, according to one embodiment. The mobile electronic device holder includes a plurality of corner fasteners attached to the backing and configured to at least partially enclose a plurality of corners of the mobile electronic device, according to one embodiment. The mobile electronic device holder includes a mobile electronic device holder spine attached to the backing and configured to couple the backing to one of a plurality of multi-ring binders, according to one embodiment. The mobile electronic device holder includes nine grommets spaced and inserted into the mobile electronic device holder spine to selectively couple the backing to the plurality of multi-ring binders, the plurality of multi-ring binders including a 3-ring binder, a 5-ring binder, and a 7-ring binder, according to one embodiment.
US09967373B2

Disclosed herein is a specialized integrated circuit for a Test and Training Enabling Architecture (TENA) gateway. The specialized integrated circuit comprises a packet parser, a TCP packet handler, generic TENA packet generator(s), and object model specific TENA packet generator(s). The packet parser parses an incoming MAC layer packet and conditionally provides a TCP packet to the TCP packet handier, depending on header(s) in the MAC layer packet. The TCP packet handler parses the TCP packet to reveal a TENA message, and determines whether the TENA message involves object model specific data and selectively provides the TENA message to the generic TENA packet generator(s) or to the object model specific TENA packet generator(s). The selection is based on the object model specific data determination. The selected TENA packet generator constructs an outgoing TENA message in response to the provided TENA message.
US09967371B2

A method of operation for a provider edge device of a core network includes receiving a customer frame from an access network; the customer frame having a first Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) tag of a first predetermined bit length. The first VLAN tag including a service instance identifier. The service instance identifier of the first VLAN tag is then mapped into a second VLAN tag of a second predetermined bit length greater than the first predetermined bit length. It is emphasized that this abstract is provided to comply with the rules requiring an abstract that will allow a searcher or other reader to quickly ascertain the subject matter of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. 37 CFR 1.72(b).
US09967370B2

A system and a method for accessing data objects provided through an OData service involve receiving, at an application server, a data access request from a client computing device. The data access request specifies in a platform-independent manner an access operation to be performed on a first data object. The application server translates the data access request into an OData compliant request. The OData compliant request is then transmitted to the OData service to perform the access operation.
US09967364B2

Methods, computer-readable media and apparatuses for predicting an amount of network infrastructure needed for a new neighborhood are disclosed. A processor generates a plurality of different user profiles based upon demographic data of existing customers, historical utilization data and historical usage data, determines a demographic of a new neighborhood, correlates one of the plurality of different user profiles to the new neighborhood based upon the demographic of the new neighborhood and predicts the amount of network infrastructure to be deployed in the new neighborhood based upon the one of the plurality of different user profiles that is correlated to the demographic of the new neighborhood.
US09967346B2

Passing data over virtual links is disclosed, including: encapsulating a layer three data packet as an inner payload of a network data packet; and generating an outer header of the network data packet with a layer two header and a layer three header, wherein the network data packet is configured to communicate over a virtual link between a first interface of a first network appliance and a first interface of a second network appliance.
US09967339B2

Shared content items are migrated between accounts on a content management system. Users store content items synchronized between one or more client devices and the content management system. A user may have multiple accounts including personal and organization accounts. Content items may be shared with accounts belonging to other users to enable those other users to view or manipulate the content items. A user initiates a migration of content items between accounts of different categories via a user interface, e.g., by dragging and dropping a folder from one account to another. The content management system recognizes that the user has deleted the folder from the user's first account and determines that an identical folder has been created in another account belonging to the same user. In response the content management system joins the second account to the shared folder, and removes the first account from the shared folder.
US09967332B1

An example peer-to-peer file sharing and collaboration method includes providing a user of a computing device with access to an electronic file via a sharing application, the electronic file being stored in a memory of the computing device. The method also includes receiving an input from the user indicative of a desire to share the electronic file using the sharing application and via a peer-to-peer communication protocol. The method further includes providing, via the communication protocol, a first transformed file generated by the first computing device based on the electronic file, and receiving, via the communication protocol, a second transformed file generated based on the electronic file. In such a method, the second transformed file is different from the first transformed file.
US09967327B2

Provided are systems and methods for simplifying cloud compute markets. A compute marketplace can be configured to determine, automatically, attributes and/or constraints associated with a job without requiring the consumer to provide them. The compute marketplace provides a clearing house for excess compute resources which can be offered privately or publically. The compute environment can be further configured to optimize job completion across multiple providers with different execution formats, and can also factor operating expense of the compute environment into the optimization. The compute marketplace can also be configured to monitor jobs and/or individual job partitions while their execution is in progress. The compute marketplace can be configured to dynamically redistribute jobs/job partitions across providers when, for example, cycle pricing changes during execution, providers fail to meet defined constraints, excess capacity becomes available, compute capacity becomes unavailable, among other options.
US09967326B2

A cloud application management infrastructure models biological swarm behaviors to assign application resources to physical processing resources in a decentralized manner. A balanced and highly automated management of cloud infrastructure has a predictable and reliable response to changing resource loads by using a limited local rule set to define how application instances interact with available resources. Digital pheromone signals at physical resources are applied locally by a swarm module to determine if the physical resources provide an acceptable environment for an application and, if not, the application swarms to other environments until a suitable environment is found.
US09967322B2

A system executes services by a “server” for a “client”. A preliminary step establishes a list of available services of the server, set up for the client, in which a processing time is determined releasable by the server for the client per code execution cycle minor frame (“MIF”). The system creates on start-up: NT execution tasks for the client, each having a priority of execution level and an allocated average duration of execution, a number of execution tasks (NT) being at least 1, the sum of durations of the tasks being at most the releasable processing time; execution rules associating each of the tasks with at least one service of the list; then, during each MIF cycle, the system executes the services on their associated tasks, a task executed by priority and for at most its allocated average time of execution, the non-executed part of a service being executed on its associated task in the next cycle.
US09967318B2

Embodiments disclosed facilitate obtaining a cloud agnostic representation of a multi-tier application. Cloud specific implementations of the cloud agnostic representation may be deployed on a plurality of clouds. In some embodiments, dependency information for each component service in a multi-tier application is obtained, wherein the dependency information for a component service indicates prerequisites for starting the component service; and a cloud agnostic representation of the multi-tier application is derived, wherein the cloud agnostic representation of the multi-tier application comprises metadata for obtaining each of the component services for a plurality of clouds, and a sequence for starting each of the component services, the sequence based, in part, on the dependency information.
US09967314B2

An iOS device-based webpage blocking method, being applied to an iOS device comprising application programs and system components, the method comprising: an application program conducts sub-classing on a system default uniform resource locator (URL) caching object to obtain control of a network request; matching the URL character string parsed from the request message with a link character string; if the matching is successful, then generating pseudo response data and displaying according to the pseudo response data, thus blocking webpage advertisements or malicious webpages, reducing occupying of system resources and network resources, improving system operation speed and speed and smoothness of user network access, and lowering device power consumption. The present invention solves the problem in the prior art of resources being occupied by webpage advertisements or malicious webpages.
US09967307B2

A method is provided for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) devices to communicate over an Internet Protocol (IP) network. The method includes synchronizing the VoIP devices using one or more dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) codes over a telephone network, retransmissions of voice packets in bursts, retransmissions of voice packets following a time lag, adjusting the number of retransmissions based on quality of service, retransmission of a missing voice packet identified in a list received from a peer device, discarding low energy voice frames in a jitter buffer to prevent overflow, stopping playout at a low energy voice frame when the jitter buffer is below a minimum buffer size, and selective transmission and retransmission of voice packets based on their energy levels.
US09967302B2

A method includes calculating a complexity value for each segment or version of multimedia content. The multimedia content has multiple versions associated with common content and different encoding parameters, and each version is divided into segments. The method also includes adaptively streaming the multimedia content to a client device based on at least some of the calculated complexity values. The complexity value for each segment or version is calculated by summing multiple operation complexity values defining complexities of operations for decoding the segment or version. The operation complexity values could include values for a bit parsing operation, a buffer initialization operation, an intra-prediction operation, an inverse quantization and transform operation, a reference block fetch operation, a fractional interpolation operation, and in-loop deblocking operation, a sample adaptive offset correction operation, an adaptive loop filtering operation, and a de-ringing filtering operation.
US09967293B2

A method, apparatus, and computer readable medium for managing a voice call in a wireless communication network. The method comprises collecting crowd-sourced data for a voice over long-term evolution (VoLTE) call quality metrics and contexts associated with a VoLTE call. The VoLTE call quality metrics and contexts comprise non-device information and device information. The method further comprises identifying accessible information based on the device information and the non-device information, predicting VoLTE call quality using the collected crowd-sourced data and the accessible information, and determining whether to place the voice call as or switch the voice call to a VoLTE call or a circuit-switched voice call based on comparison of the predicted VoLTE quality to a predetermined threshold.
US09967292B1

Embodiments are directed to monitoring communication between computers using network monitoring computers (NMCs). NMCs identify a secure communication session established between two of the computers based on an exchange of handshake information associated with the secure communication session. Key information that corresponds to the secure communication session may be obtained from a key provider such that the key information may be encrypted by the key provider. NMCs may decrypt the key information. NMCs may derive the session key based on the decrypted key information and the handshake information. NMCs may decrypt network packets included in the secure communication session. NMCs may be employed to inspect the one or more decrypted network packets to execute one or more rule-based policies.
US09967288B2

A common security policy for a heterogeneous computer architecture environment is provided. A configuration of a security policy of a heterogeneous computer architecture is received from a management console. The security policy is stored on a policy server that is communicatively connected, by a management network, to a plurality of hardware platforms of the of the heterogeneous computer architecture. The security policy is distributed to a plurality of policy agents of the heterogeneous computer architecture over the management network. The security policy includes a security policy administrator role that permits management of (i) one or more subjects in a plurality of security zones and (ii) one or more objects in the plurality of security zones. The security policy also includes security zone administrator roles, wherein each security zone administrator role (i) is associated with a respective security zone and (ii) permits management of object(s) in the respective security zone.
US09967284B2

A processing device (10) includes a policy evaluation module (131) for evaluating policies associated with an item of data or an application and a dynamic context determination module (133) for determining contextual information associated with the current context of operation of the device and for providing the thus determined contextual information to the policy evaluation module. The device (10) further includes a policy enforcement module (135) for enforcing the evaluation specified by the policy evaluation module (131), wherein the device is operable to cause the policy evaluation module to evaluate a policy associated with an item of data or an application whenever the associated item of data or application is invoked and, additionally, whilst the associated item of data or application is active on the device and a notification of a change in the determined contextual information is received by the policy evaluation module.
US09967278B2

Systems and methods for analyzing applications for risk are provided. In the example method, the applications reside on a mobile device that is configurable to access an enterprise system. The example method includes evaluating each of a plurality of applications variously for privacy, data leakage, and malicious behavior. The example method also includes calculating a risk score for each of the plurality of applications based on the evaluating; and automatically remediating (e.g., quarantining) the applications, of the plurality of applications, for which the risk score meets or exceeds a risk score threshold. The method may evaluate all of the applications residing on a mobile device. The method may include grouping application behaviors, for each of the applications, that indicate an increased risk into groups comprising various combinations of a privacy risk, a data leakage risk, an account takeover risk, a device takeover risk, and a malware risk.
US09967272B1

Upon receiving malware detection rules that are to be identified with respect to an input traffic stream, a sequence of state definitions are generated for each of the rules. The state definitions for each rule correspond to respective segments of the rule and specify conditions under which a state machine is to transition between search states corresponding to those segments, at least one of the segments corresponding to multiple characters within the input traffic stream. A state machine transitions between search states corresponding to one or more of the rules in accordance with contents of the input traffic stream and the conditions specified by the sequence of state definitions.
US09967269B2

The invention provides a method, device and system for processing DNS behavior. The method comprises: resolving received network data packet; judging a DNS behavior type corresponding to the network data packet according to the resolution result; determining a processing body according to the DNS behavior type, wherein the processing body comprises a kernel and/or an application layer; and transferring the network data packet to the determined processing body, and processing the network data packet by the determined processing body. The method in the disclosure can improve the DNS defense capability, while improving the service processing capability of a single machine.
US09967264B2

Threat detection instrumentation is simplified by providing and updating labels for computing objects in a context-sensitive manner. This may include simple labeling schemes to distinguish between objects, e.g., trusted/untrusted processes or corporate/private data. This may also include more granular labeling schemes such as a three-tiered scheme that identifies a category (e.g., financial, e-mail, game), static threat detection attributes (e.g., signatures, hashes, API calls), and explicit identification (e.g., what a file or process calls itself). By tracking such data for various computing objects and correlating these labels to malware occurrences, rules can be written for distribution to endpoints to facilitate threat detection based on, e.g., interactions of labeled objects, changes to object labels, and so forth. In this manner, threat detection based on complex interactions of computing objects can be characterized in a platform independent manner and pre-processed on endpoints without requiring significant communications overhead with a remote threat management facility.
US09967262B1

This disclosure is directed to a platform for providing automated verification of a service provider account based on content provided in relation to the account. In some embodiments, a code is generated by the service provider and transmitted to an account holder. The code is then embedded in a media file, which is received at the service provider. Once received, the service provider identifies the account based on the embedded code and subjects the media file to a series of verification processes. Each verification process to which the image is subjected may contribute to a total confidence level associated with the account. In some embodiments, the media file continues to be subjected to verification processes until the total confidence level exceeds a minimum confidence threshold.
US09967260B1

Systems, methods, and apparatus, including computer-readable storage media storing executable instructions, for enhanced authentication security. In some implementations, an authentication request associated with a first communication session is received. A second communication session having parameter values derived from parameter values for the first communication session. An authorization code corresponding to the second communication session is generated. The first communication session as closed. The authentication code is provided to the device in response to the authentication request.
US09967257B2

A Software-Defined Network (SDN) authorizes Application Programming Interface (API) calls from user SDN applications to user SDN controllers. A user SDN application transfers an embedded code to an authorization SDN controller. The authorization SDN controller translates the embedded code into an SDN controller network address and an SDN application privilege data set. The authorization SDN controller transfers the SDN controller network address to the user SDN application. The authorization SDN controller transfers the SDN application privilege data set to the user SDN controller. The user SDN application transfers an SDN API call to the user SDN controller using the SDN controller network address. The user SDN controller determines if the SDN API call is authorized by the SDN application privilege data set. The user SDN controller services the API call if the SDN API call is authorized and inhibits an unauthorized API call.
US09967255B2

A method for building and managing send jobs with restricted information, the method comprising constructing at least one email with at least one reference to a restricted information and injecting each of the at least one emails to one or more send centers, wherein each of the one or more send centers is authorized to receive the restricted information.
US09967253B2

There is provided an authority delegation system capable of issuing, in a case where an identifier of a user is associated with an identifier of a client, authority information indicating that an authority of the user has been delegated to the client without receiving an instruction for authorizing the authority of the user on the service to be delegated to the client.
US09967250B2

Disclosed are various embodiments that perform confidence-based authentication of a user. An identification of a user account is obtained from a user, and a minimum confidence threshold is determined. Multiple authentication challenges are presented to the user. Responses are obtained from the user to a subset of the challenges, with each response having a corresponding authentication point value. A confidence score is generated for the user, where the confidence score is increased by the respective authentication point values of the correct responses. The user is authenticated as being associated with the user account in response to determining that the confidence score meets the minimum confidence threshold.
US09967243B2

Disclosed are a method and a system for accessing data by a client device in a distributed network system having a central server system, at least one client device, and at least one business object server. The client device and business object server are coupled to the central server system via a communication network. In the business object server, a number of business objects are stored. Each business object server includes a number of offices; each business object is assigned to an office in the respective business object server. The central server system receives an access request message, which includes at least one unique client identifier; the central server system determines at least one access authorization by means of the client identifier, and generates access instructions for the business objects, which the client device is allowed to access. The business objects are read and are transmitted to the client device.
US09967236B1

Techniques for credentials enforcement using a firewall are disclosed. In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for enforcement using a firewall includes storing a plurality of user credentials at a network device; monitoring network traffic at the network device to determine if there is a match with one or more of the plurality of user credentials; and performing an action if the match is determined.
US09967231B2

An example method for to inter-pod traffic redirection and handling in a multi-pod network environment is provided and includes receiving a packet with an overlay header outgoing from a first pod, identifying the packet as redirected based on a source address in the overlay header indicating a second pod and a destination address in the overlay header indicating a third pod, the first pod being distinct from the second pod and the third pod, setting a redirection bit in the overlay header tagging the packet as redirected, and transmitting the packet to the third pod.
US09967226B2

Techniques for optimizing a delivery time for the delivery of messages are described. According to various embodiments, a system determines, for each of a plurality of time intervals, a likelihood of a particular member of an online social network service performing a particular member user action on a particular message content item during the corresponding time interval. The plurality of time intervals are then ranked, based on the determined likelihoods corresponding to the plurality of time intervals. Thereafter, a particular time interval is identified from among the plurality of time intervals that is associated with a highest ranking. The particular time interval is then classified as an optimum personalized message delivery time for the particular member.
US09967225B2

A method for connecting a seeker group member to one or more target entities through a network server is provided. The method includes the following steps: (a) receiving a requirement from the seeker group member, (b) obtaining a group associated with the seeker group member, (c) obtaining a list of group members associated with the group, (d) querying contacts of the group members based on the requirement to obtain one or more matching target entities, (e) identifying one or more connected members who are already connected to the one or more matching target entities, (f) communicating a search result to each of the one or more connected members, (g) receiving a response selected from an acceptance or a rejection, (h) communicating referrals from the one or more connected members to the seeker group member, and (i) communicating introductory messages for connecting the matching target entities and the seeker group member through the connected members.
US09967224B2

A method and system for real-time eventing including interacting with at least one configuration attribute according to instructions specified through an application programming interface (API); adding subscribers for an event channel; generating an event from operation of an application; publishing the event message to the event channel on an event router; processing the event message according to the at least one configuration attribute; identifying a subscriber to the event channel; and sending the event from the event router to the subscriber.
US09967218B2

Software for online active learning receives content posted to an online stream at a website. The software converts the content into an elemental representation and inputs the elemental representation into a probit model to obtain a predictive probability that the content is abusive. The software also calculates an importance weight based on the elemental representation. And the software updates the probit model using the content, the importance weight, and an acquired label if a condition is met. The condition depends on an instrumental distribution. The software removes the content from the online stream if a condition is met. The condition depends on the predictive probability, if an acquired label is unavailable.
US09967196B2

Certain example embodiments relate to techniques for dynamic resource use limitations in a cloud computing environment. A service request from a user is received, in connection with a first application process of the application processes executing in the environment. A resource strategy based on the received service request is generated in connection with the first application process. The resource strategy specifies at least one resource shared by the application processes and an amount of the at least one resource for use by the first application process to subsequently perform a service requested. In connection with a resource controller process different from the first application process, a determination is made regarding whether the generated resource strategy is feasible. Either the service is performed (e.g., when the resource strategy is feasible), or the resource strategy is revised and re-submitted to the resource controller process (e.g., when the resource strategy is infeasible).
US09967189B2

A system and a method determine network conditions. The system includes a server computer and a client computer. The server computer is configured to transmit data packets comprising a data object from the server computer to the client computer. The client computer includes a transmission latency detector and a transmission bandwidth detector. The transmission latency detector uses transmission time and receipt time values to determine the changes in time it takes selected portions of the data object to be transmitted from the server computer to the client computer. The transmission bandwidth detector uses identified back-to-back data packets to determine the transmission bandwidth between the server computer and the client computer.
US09967188B2

A system and method for management of network traffic flow for one or more networks of interconnected computing devices, including predicting one or more types of network traffic data flows using a Machine Learning (ML) classifier, and updating the ML classifier according to identified changes in the network traffic data flows. Using software-defined-networking (SDN) tools and an updated ML classifier, training data is generated to formulate accurate new predictions of the one or more types of network traffic data flows. Network traffic flow is regulated based on the generated new predictions.
US09967184B2

A method implemented by a network device acting as a border gateway protocol (BGP) speaker, of exposing a maximum segment identifier depth (MSD) value of the network device is described. The method comprises encoding the MSD value into a BGP Link State (BGP-LS) extension message. The BGP-LS extension message includes a type, a length and a MSD value. The type indicates the type of the MSD value, the length indicates the length of the MSD value and the MSD value indicates a lowest MSD value supported by the network device for enabling segment routing. The method continues with transmitting the BGP-LS extension message including the type, the length, and the MSD value to a network controller, where the network controller is to use the MSD value to compute a segment routing path including the network device.
US09967183B2

A method implemented for providing a source of entropy in source routing, the method comprising receiving a source routing packet that comprises an entropy-header, wherein the entropy-header comprises an entropy field and a list of identifiers (IDs), determining a next hop ID from the list of IDs, determining whether the next hop ID identifies a plurality of routes used to reach a next hop node, selecting a first route from the plurality of routes using the entropy field, and transmitting the source routing packet via the first route, wherein the list of IDs indicates the route used to transport the source routing packet from a source to a destination.
US09967182B2

A managed hardware forwarding element (MHFE) that performs packet forwarding operations for a logical network is described. The MHFE receives configuration data for the logical network that defines a logical router and a set of logical switches for logically connecting several end machines that operate on different host machines to several physical machines that are connected to the MHFE. The logical router also includes multiple routing components. The MHFE also receives a first forwarding table and a second forwarding table. The first forwarding table stores linking data for each logical port of each logical switch in the set of logical switches that identifies a corresponding routing component in the logical router. The second forwarding table stores a set of routes for each routing component of the logical router. The MHFE uses the first and second forwarding tables to perform packet forwarding operations at the MHFE.
US09967173B2

Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, a network device that accesses internet protocol addresses associated with a group of end point devices where the network device is a closest network device to the group of end point devices, and transmitting data to another network device responsive to a determination that an internet protocol address associated with the data from an end point device is one of the internet protocol addresses associated with the group of end point devices. Other embodiments are disclosed.
US09967171B2

A method of communication by a first device is provided. The method includes selecting, by the first device, one path of a plurality of paths to a destination device by each device including the first device within a network, the one path being selected based on information of available links, generating link setting information needed to transmit a packet to the destination device through a second device based on information of a second device included in the selected path, generating a first packet by inserting path information into the packet based on the link setting information, and transmitting the first packet to the destination device through the second device.
US09967167B2

In one embodiment, a processor-readable medium storing code representing instructions that when executed by a processor cause the processor to update, at a memory location, a first flow state value associated with a data flow to a second flow state value when at least one of a packet from the data flow is received or the memory location is selected after a time period has expired. At least a portion of the packet is analyzed when the second flow state value represents a flow rate of a network data flow anomaly.
US09967166B2

In one embodiment, a method includes obtaining a request to route traffic from a source to a destination in a network, where the request is associated with a setup bandwidth criterion. The method includes: identifying a plurality of candidate tunnel paths from the source to the destination; and, for each of the plurality of candidate tunnel paths, determining whether or not at least one of the candidate tunnel paths satisfies the setup bandwidth criterion. In response to determining that the plurality of candidate tunnel paths fail to satisfy the setup bandwidth criterion, the method includes: determining a congestion metric for each of a plurality of candidate tunnel paths from the source to the destination; and instantiating a tunnel from the source to the destination according to a candidate tunnel path with the lowest congestion metric.
US09967162B2

A generic discovery methodology collects data pertaining to components of a computer network using various discovery technologies. From the collected data, the methodology identifies, filters and analyzes information related to inter-component communications. Using the communication and application information, the methodology determines reliable relationships for those components having sufficient information available. To qualify more components, the methodology implements a decision service to generate hypothetical relationships between components that are known and components that are unqualified or unknown. The hypothetical relationships are presented to a user for selection, and each hypothetical relationship is preferably associated with an indication of its reliability.
US09967153B2

In some embodiments, an apparatus and a system, as well as a method and an article, may operate to retrieve a parsing instructions file and a binary configuration file stored in a housing, parse the binary configuration file according to the parsing instructions file to determine configuration information, display at least some of the configuration information as part of a graphical user interface, receive a selection of some of the configuration information and corresponding changed parameter values of the configuration information, transform the binary configuration file into a transformed version of the binary configuration file, and transmit the transformed version of the binary configuration file to the housing as a replacement for the binary configuration file. Additional apparatus, systems, and methods are described.
US09967151B2

A secure remote actuation system may comprise a remote input receptor and a central signal switch. The remote input receptor may comprise a user interface for receiving user inputs from a user. The central signal switch may comprise acceptable inputs. The central signal switch may further comprise a microcontroller for obtaining and comparing the user inputs to the acceptable inputs. In the present invention, the microcontroller obtains the user inputs from the remote input receptor while the user is using the user interface.
US09967150B2

A visibility infrastructure network or monitoring a switching network is disclosed. There are included a plurality of network infrastructure visibility elements implementing forwarding hardware for forwarding packets to monitoring tools. There is also included an abstracted operating system shared by said plurality of network infrastructure visibility elements. There are further included at least one application executing on said abstracted operating system and a common logical architecture having common protocols for enabling the plurality of network infrastructure visibility elements and the applications to communicate with the abstracted operating system.
US09967147B2

Wireless networking methodologies and related apparatus are presented here. An embodiment of a wireless coordinator device is operated to monitor and control other wireless devices in a network. The coordinator device maintains a record that includes information related to a network topology and wireless connectivity of the wireless network. The coordinator device detects a change to the network topology or wireless connectivity of the wireless network, and analyzes the record to determine an event that caused the change to the network topology or wireless connectivity of the wireless network. Next, a diagnostic notification (that identifies the event) is communicated to a user or administrator of the wireless network.
US09967139B2

Various examples of the present technology provide a method for remotely controlling zone management of a storage system that comprises generating and initializing a network service for a remote device and a new thread for handing commands from the remote device, determining, for each port of a plurality of ports associated with storage devices of a storage system, a corresponding zone group based at least upon zone IDs of the plurality of ports, setting a zoning configuration parameter corresponding to each group of the plurality of zoning groups using a serial protocol (e.g., SAS management protocol (SMP)), and configuring a zone and port mapping table and a zone permission table based at least upon the zoning configuration parameter.
US09967128B2

The present invention claims a TR069 protocol management method oriented to a WIA-PA network, where a traditional TR069 network management system architecture is improved to extend a TR069 protocol only oriented to Internet terminal device management in an initial design from the Internet to a WIA-PA wireless sensor network; a session connection interaction process between an ACS and a CPE is expanded to establish a session connection between the ACS and a WIA-PA network node; a virtual device mechanism is designed by taking a WIA-PA network gateway as the CPE to store a TR069 data model and proxy device information corresponding to a WIA-PA data model and implement the TR069 protocol to manage the WIA-PA network node in a manner as simple and transparent as that for an interaction between the ACS and the common CPE; a management data model mapping mechanism is designed to establish a correlation from the WIA-PA data model described in TR069 to a standard WIA-PA data model; and a protocol conversion interlace is designed to implement the conversion between a TR069 RPC method and a WIA-PA network management command frame. The TR069 protocol management method has a good reference value for the implementation of the M2M management of the whole network as well as the application and development of the TR069 protocol oriented to the wireless sensor network.
US09967126B2

A method to generate a wireless waveform for use in a wireless communication system, a wireless communication system and computer program product thereofThe method comprises the generation of a waveform for application in the wireless communication system characterized by significant phase noise, Doppler spread, multipath, frequency instability, and/or low power efficiency by at the transmitter side: creating a discrete-time instantaneous frequency signal {tilde over (f)}[n]; appending a cyclic prefix with length LCP to the beginning of the discrete-time instantaneous frequency signal {tilde over (f)}[n]; constructing a discrete-time unwrapped instantaneous phase φ[n]; constructing a discrete-time complex baseband signal, and appending at the beginning a Constant Amplitude Zero Autocorrelation, CAZAC, signal of length LCP for multipath detection; and passing the constructed discrete-time complex baseband signal through a digital-to-analog, DAC, converter to yield the continuous-time radio frequency signal s(t) after conversion to the carrier frequency.
US09967124B2

An example technique may include: receiving, by a mobile station from a base station, a plurality of copies of a broadcast information including a broadcast control message, wherein a copy of the broadcast information is transmitted via each of a plurality of basis function beams; determining, by the mobile station, a gain and phase value for each copy of at least a subset of the plurality of the received copies of the broadcast control message transmitted via different basis function beams. The technique may also include, for example, determining, by the mobile station, a combined broadcast control message based on at least the subset of the plurality of the received copies of the broadcast control message and the gain and phase value for each copy of at least the subset of the plurality of the received copies of the broadcast control message.
US09967114B2

A method and a transmitter for transmitting a pay load sequence are provided. The transmitter includes a ternary sequence mapper configured to map a binary data sequence to a ternary sequence stored in the transmitter, and a pulse shaping filter configured to generate a first signal based on the mapped ternary sequence. The ternary sequence includes elements of −1, 0, and 1.
US09967111B2

An example system for bridging between networks includes a first server that launches a first virtual machine in a first network. The system includes a first network controller that is coupled to the first network and sends a request for a bridge between the first network and a second network. The system also includes a second server that launches a second virtual machine in the second network. The system further includes a second network controller that is coupled to the second network, receives the request for the bridge, and in response to the request, creates the bridge between the first and second networks. The bridge enables the first virtual machine in the first network to communicate with the second virtual machine in the second network.
US09967110B2

A method and apparatus for registering a remote network device with a control device is disclosed. In one embodiment, a registration information message is received by a bridge device from an unregistered remote network device using a first communication protocol. Identification information within the registration information message is stored in a record in a memory. A second registration information message is transmitted to the control device using the second communication protocol, the second registration information message comprising at least some of the identification information. In response, an acknowledgement message is received from the control device, the acknowledgement message comprising an identification code. When subsequent messages are received from the remote network device, the bridge associates these messages with the identification code, then re-transmits the messages to the control device using the identification code.
US09967106B2

Certain embodiments of the present invention provide techniques that enable messages to be sent to a processing entity within a computing device without knowing the network address of the processing entity. In certain embodiments, instead of using the network address of the processing entity, a message can be communicated to the processing entity using information indicative of a role or state or function performed by the processing entity.
US09967105B2

A system, and computer program product for leader device selection in a control cluster using a shared virtual local area network (VLAN) are provided in the illustrative embodiments. A broadcast Hello packet is received from a sender virtual device over the VLAN at a first virtual device. When the first virtual device satisfies a partnership criterion specified in the Hello packet, a first ranking of the first virtual device is evaluated to be higher than a ranking of a sender virtual device. A first Live packet is unicast over the VLAN to the sender virtual device and a leadership role in the control cluster is taken by the first virtual device. The sender virtual device is caused to stop a broadcasting operation at the sender virtual device. A second Hello packet is broadcasted from the first virtual device over the VLAN.
US09967099B2

A method for providing information includes acquiring modified access authentication information after detecting that access authentication information for accessing a gateway device is modified, determining a device to be notified corresponding to the modified access authentication information, and providing the modified access authentication information to the device to be notified.
US09967095B2

A method of communicating with a detonator assembly wherein an encryption key associated with the detonator assembly is stored in the detonator assembly and a message, intended for the detonator assembly, is encrypted at the control location using the encryption key whereupon the encrypted message is transmitted to each of a plurality of detonator assemblies and each received message is decrypted and validated.
US09967090B2

Systems and methods are provided for protecting identity in an authenticated data transmission. For example, a contactless transaction between a portable user device and an access device may be conducted without exposing the portable user device's public key in cleartext. In one embodiment, an access device may send an access device public key to a portable user device. The user device may return a blinded user device public key and encrypted user device data. The access device may determine a shared secret using the blinded user device public key and an access device private key. The access device may then decrypt the encrypted user device data using the shared secret.
US09967089B2

A secure and change-tolerant method for obtaining an identifier for a collection of assets associated with a computing environment. Each asset has an asset parameter and the computing environment has a fingerprint based on an original collection of assets and on a codeword generation algorithm on the original collection of assets. The method comprises: retrieving the asset parameters of the collection of assets and processing the retrieved asset parameters to obtain code symbols. An error-correction algorithm is applied to the code symbols to obtain the identifier. The method can be used in node-locking.
US09967088B2

A system includes circuitry for rewriting blockchains in a non-tamper-evident or tamper-evident operation using a key secret held by a trusted party. The blockchains may include a series of blocks secured integrity codes that may prevent non-tamper-evident rewrites by non-trusted parties that are not in possession of the key secret. In some cases, the key may allow valid but tamper-evident rewrites of the blockchain by trusted entities. Integrity outputs may be generated from the integrity codes based on the content of the previous blocks in the series such that attempts by untrusted parties to replace a block may be detected through coding-inconsistencies with other blocks.
US09967076B2

A wireless device receives at least one message comprising configuration parameters of a plurality of cells. The at least one message comprises a deactivation timer value for at least one deactivation timer of a plurality of secondary cells. The wireless device receives a scheduling packet for a group of cells and/or a group of subframes. The wireless device restarts one or more deactivation timers.
US09967075B2

A base station classifies at least some of radio communication apparatuses belonging to the same cell into a plurality of groups. The base station assigns to a first group a first signal sequence that is orthogonal to a cyclically shifted version thereof, and assigns to a second group a second signal sequence that is orthogonal to a cyclically shifted version thereof and that is different from the first signal sequence and from the cyclically shifted version of the first signal sequence. The radio communication apparatus belonging to the first group performs spread modulation on data using the first signal sequence or a signal sequence obtained by cyclically shifting the first signal sequence. The radio communication apparatus belonging to the second group performs spread modulation on data using the second signal sequence or a signal sequence obtained by cyclically shifting the second signal sequence.
US09967047B2

A method for transmitting digital data by a primary optical signal between a transmitter terminal and a receiver terminal, involves the following steps: determining a magnitude characterizing optical-wave degradation between the transmitter terminal and the receiver terminal, determining a number of transmission channels by a decreasing function of the magnitude characterizing optical-wave degradation, distributing the digital data over the transmission channels, modulating optical signals of different wavelengths using digital data distributed over the transmission channels, generating the primary optical signal by wavelength multiplexing of the optical signals, and sending a transmission configuration, including at least the number of transmission channels, from the transmitter terminal to the receiver terminal.
US09967038B2

Techniques are described for data transfer in spin-based systems where digital bit values are represented by magnetization states of magnetoresistive devices rather than voltages or currents. For data transmission, a spin-based signal is converted to an optical signal and transmitted via an optical transport. For data reception, the optical signal is received via the optical transport and converted back to a spin-based signal. Such data transfer may not require an intervening conversion of the spin-based signal to charge-based signal that relies on voltages or currents to represent digital bit values. In addition, techniques are described to use magnetoresistive devices to control the amount of current or voltage that is delivered, where the magnetization state of the magnetoresistive device is set by an optical signal.
US09967036B2

This disclosure describes techniques to sample electrical data streams in coherent receivers. For instance, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) samples the received electrical data stream at a sampling rate that is nominally twice or greater than twice the symbol rate of the electrical data stream that the ADC receives. A digital filter receives the digital data stream from the ADC, and digitally filters the digital data streams to output a filtered digital electrical data stream at an effective sampling rate that is less than the sampling rate and less than twice the symbol rate, and greater than or equal to the symbol rate.
US09967027B2

One or more operational parameters associated with pluggable optical transceivers are estimated to mitigate impairments to an optical signal caused by imperfections in the optical transceivers. A monitoring algorithm within a receiver signal processor may further use the estimated operational parameters associated with the pluggable optical transceivers to determine whether the transceivers are performing correctly. If the monitoring algorithm determines that either the transmitting or receiving optical transceiver is not functioning correctly, it may generate an alarm signal to notify a system administrator about the damaged device.
US09967023B2

A method of transmitting data for uplink coverage for improvement of a wireless communication system by a terminal improving uplink data transmission reliability so as to be capable of successful data transmission. A method for transmitting and receiving a signal of a terminal in a time division wireless communication system of the present invention includes receiving a TTI bundling setting command from a base station, confirming whether a TTI bundling number is included in the TTI bundling setting command, determining the time when a signal is transmitted and received according to the TTI bundling number, when the TTI bundling number is included and determining the time when a signal is transmitted and received according to a preset TTI bundling number, when the TTI bundling number is not included.
US09967014B1

Apparatuses, methods, and systems for beamforming in antenna systems are disclosed. A method includes determining an unconstrained analog precoding matrix (FRF,UC), wherein the unconstrained analog precoding matrix (FRF,UC) is determined based on M dominant eigenvectors of the sum of spatial channel covariance matrices of K users, and wherein K indicates a number of users communicating with a base station. The method further includes determining a constrained analog precoding matrix (FRF) based on the unconstrained analog precoding matrix (FRF,UC), determining a compensation matrix (FCM), digitally multiplying K inputs with a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) precoding matrix (FMU) generating M outputs, digitally multiplying the M outputs with the compensation matrix (FCM) generating M compensation outputs, generating M analog frequency-up-converted signals based on the M compensation outputs, and analog multiplying the M analog frequency-up-converted signals with the analog precoding matrix (FRF) generating N output signals for transmission, wherein N is greater than M.
US09967013B2

A method for transmitting feedback information to a base station by a user equipment, for massive antenna array based beamforming in a wireless communication system is disclosed. The method includes receiving information about a plurality of pilot patterns for a massive antenna array from the base station, estimating a plurality of channels corresponding to the plurality of pilot patterns by receiving a pilot signal based on the plurality of pilot patterns, and transmitting the feedback information for the plurality of channels to the base station, wherein the feedback information includes information about whether closed-loop beamforming or open-loop beamforming is applied to the plurality of channels and information about an effective antenna array for the plurality of channels.
US09967004B2

A method of operating a Mobile Station (MS) in a wireless communication system using beamforming includes receiving a reference signal over a plurality of downlink transmit (Tx) beams, measuring channel quality information of the received reference signal, and generating effective channel quality information by compensating for beamforming gain compensation information according to the channel quality information.
US09967000B2

A method for a mobile device in a wireless power system includes transmitting a request to a server of the wireless power system for acquiring operation state information of a first wireless power spot in the wireless power system, wherein the request at least comprises a required power threshold; and receiving a response comprising the operation state information of the first wireless power spot, wherein the operation state information at least comprises a capacity and an availability of the first wireless power spot.
US09966999B2

To provide a wireless power receiving device, and a wireless power transmission device capable of improving the reliability of a protection circuit while preventing breakage of a circuit element upon occurrence of any abnormality, such as overvoltage or overcurrent. A wireless power receiving device includes a power receiving coil; a rectifier unit that performs full-wave rectification of the power received by the power receiving coil and supplies the power to a load; power-receiving-side detecting unit that detects an output voltage value or an output current value from the rectifier unit; and switching unit that short-circuits one of two current paths through the rectifier unit if the value detected by the power-receiving-side detecting unit exceeds a predetermined reference value.
US09966984B2

This application relates to a computing device case that provides some amount of torsional force in order to cancel at least some static and dynamic loads experienced by the computing device when the case is arranged as a stand. By canceling out these loads, the computing device to be angled at an almost unlimited number of angles relative to a surface on which the computing device is resting. Flexible elements in the case can resist the static and dynamic loads of the computing device, thereby allowing the computing device to receive touch inputs at almost any angle without causing the case and the computing device to collapse.
US09966979B2

According to an embodiment, a transmission circuit is configured to transmit a signal to a reception circuit through a transmitting AC coupling element. The reception circuit receives a signal through a receiving AC coupling element. The transmitting AC coupling element is AC coupled to the receiving AC coupling element. The transmission circuit includes a drive signal generation circuit and a drive circuit. The drive signal generation circuit is configured to generate a drive signal in synchronization with a transmission signal to be transmitted. The drive circuit is configured to cause, in response to the drive signal, a drive current to flow through the transmitting AC coupling element in synchronization with a rising edge and a falling edge of the transmission signal during a driving period set in advance.
US09966959B2

A feedback control system may include a feedback controller for controlling a plant using pulse density signals. The feedback controller may include a pulse density signal generator and a controller logic circuit. The pulse density signal generator may receive input command signals and generate signed or unsigned pulse density input signals. The controller logic may receive the pulse density input signals from the pulse density signal generator and feedback pulse density signals from the plant and may generate corresponding pulse density control signals for controlling the plant based on the input command signals. The controller logic may include a sign change logic, an addition circuit, and an optional amplifier circuit. The pulse density signal generator may also include rate transition circuits for ensuring that the pulse density input signals and the feedback pulse density signals are uncorrelated.
US09966948B2

An explosion-proof electronic system. The system comprises a substantially explosion-proof enclosure, a substantially explosion-proof glass window forming a portion of the enclosure, an electrical coil located within the enclosure, an electrical excitation circuit located within the enclosure and connected to the electrical coil, where the excitation circuit is configured to cause the electrical coil to establish a magnetic field that extends through the explosion-proof glass window, and a processor located within the enclosure and coupled to the electrical excitation circuit. The processor is configured to monitor the electrical excitation circuit, determine an electrical inductance of the electrical coil based on monitoring the electrical excitation circuit, identify a fluctuation of the electrical inductance that exceeds a predetermined threshold as a control input, and transmit an output in response to the control input, whereby a human operator can provide the control input by bringing a finger proximate to the explosion-proof glass window.
US09966947B2

A gate driving circuit for an insulated gate-type power semiconductor element includes an Nch MOSFET which turns on the insulated gate-type power semiconductor element, a Pch MOSFET which turns off the insulated gate-type power semiconductor element, a control circuit which turns on the Nch MOSFET by applying a positive voltage to the gate electrode of the Nch MOSFET, and which turns on the Pch MOSFET by applying a negative voltage to the gate electrode of the Pch MOSFET, and a power supply which applies a negative voltage to the drain electrode of the Pch MOSFET and to a negative-side electrode of the control circuit, which applies a positive voltage to the drain electrode of the Nch MOSFET, and which applies to a positive-side electrode of the control circuit a positive voltage whose absolute value is larger than absolute value of the positive voltage applied to the drain electrode of the Nch MOSFET.
US09966935B2

A latch circuit includes a first input node, a second input node, a first output node, a second output node, a first switching device coupled between the first output node and the second output node, and a first amplification circuit coupled with the first input node, the second input node, the first output node, and the second output node. The first switching device is configured to be turned on in response to a first state of a clock signal and to be turned off in response to a second state of the clock signal. The first amplification circuit is configured to cause a voltage difference across the first switching device based on voltage levels of the first input node and the second input node in response to the first state of the clock signal.
US09966927B2

RF filtering circuitry includes a common node, a first input/output node, a second/input output node, a first filter coupled between the common node, the first input/output node, and the second input/output node, and a second filter coupled between the common node, the first input/output node, and the second input/output node. The first filter is configured to provide a first bandpass filter response between the common node and the first input/output node, where the first bandpass filter response is configured to pass RF signals within a first subset of the first frequency band while attenuating other signals. Further, the first filter is configured to provide a bandstop filter response between the common node and the second input/output node, where the bandstop filter response is configured to attenuate RF signals within the first subset of the first frequency band while passing other signals.
US09966923B2

There is disclosed herein integrated circuitry, comprising a signal path connected to a connection pad, for connection to external circuitry; and a termination circuit connected between the signal path and a voltage reference, wherein the termination circuit comprises a resistor and an inductor. The resistor and the inductor are connected together so as to compensate for parasitic capacitance associated with the connection pad. The signal path may carry an output signal from high-speed circuitry such as digital-to-analog converter circuitry.
US09966922B2

A magnetoresistive effect device includes a magnetoresistive effect element first and second ports, a signal line, an inductor, and a direct current input terminal. The first port, the magnetoresistive effect element, and the second port are connected in series in this order via the signal line. The inductor is connected to one of the signal line between the magnetoresistive effect element and the first port and the signal line between the magnetoresistive effect element and the second port and is capable of being connected to ground. The direct-current input terminal is connected to the other of the above signal lines. A closed circuit including the magnetoresistive effect element, the signal line, the inductor, the ground, and direct-current input terminal is capable of being formed. The magnetoresistive effect element is arranged so that direct current flows in a direction from a magnetization fixed layer to a magnetization free layer.
US09966919B2

A gain control circuit, having an attenuator including first to n-th (n>2) attenuator parts that attenuate an input signal respectively in accordance with first to n-th attenuation control signals to thereby generate an attenuated input signal, a signal amplifier configured to amplify the attenuated input signal, a detector circuit configured to conduct an envelope detection on the amplified attenuated input signal to thereby obtain an amplitude value, a comparator circuit configured to compare the amplitude value with a reference threshold value to thereby generate a comparison result signal, and an attenuator control circuit configured to generate the first to n-th attenuation control signals using the comparison result signal. The attenuation control signals indicate first to n-th attenuation amounts by which the first to n-th attenuator parts respectively attenuate the input signal, and first to n-th time periods during which the first to n-th attenuator parts respectively operate.
US09966917B2

A variable gain amplifier having stabilized frequency response for widened gain control range. A resistor-capacitor compensation network is provided between two differential current input ports and corresponding emitter nodes of cross-coupled four transistors in the variable gain amplifier to desensitize the gain control voltages to the system noise and provide compensation to the VGA frequency response when the differential gain control voltage varies the gain setting, yielding a substantially stabilized frequency response over a −3 dB bandwidth ranging from 1 GHz to 60 GHz with a widened gain control range up to 12 dB without increasing power consumption.
US09966914B2

A method of processing an audio signal is provided. The method includes receiving at least one digital audio stream from at least one audio source, applying at least one gain value to each of the at least one digital audio stream by a gain adjustment unit, mixing the at least one digital audio stream to which the at least one gain value has been applied, calculating a representative gain value from the at least one gain value, calculating an extra valid headroom based on the representative gain value for correction of the mixed at least one digital audio stream, and post-processing the mixed at least one digital audio stream using the extra valid headroom.
US09966909B2

In accordance with an embodiment, an amplification circuit includes an amplifier connected to a filter, wherein the amplifier has an input and an output and the filter has an input connected to the output of the amplifier. The amplification circuit includes a comparator that has an input connected to the output of the filter and an input coupled for receiving a reference voltage. The output of the comparator is connected to the input of the amplification circuit. In accordance with another embodiment, a method for generating an output signal is provided that includes generating an amplified signal by amplifying a signal that has an input portion and a feedback portion. A comparison signal is generated in response to comparing the signal with a reference signal and the comparison signal is used to set the output voltage to be substantially equal to the reference voltage.
US09966900B2

An apparatus includes a first oscillator to generate an output signal that has a first frequency. The apparatus further includes a second oscillator to generate an output signal that has a second frequency. The second frequency varies as a function of temperature. The apparatus further includes a controller that counts a number of cycles of the output signal of the second oscillator in order to determine whether to calibrate the first oscillator.
US09966896B2

A motor drive device assembly capable of suppressing differences in temperatures of motor drive devices depending on operational conditions. The motor drive device assembly includes a first motor drive device including a first heatsink, a second motor drive device located adjacent to the first motor drive device and including a second heatsink formed separately from the first heatsink, and a connection part connecting the first heatsink and the second heatsink to each other, to allow thermal conduction between the first heatsink and the second heatsink.
US09966892B2

An electronic magnetic bearing controller for controlling the position of a rotor of an electrical machine supported by an active magnetic bearing the position of which being measured by at least one inductive position sensor having an inductive coil, comprising an automatic reactive power compensation device for automatically compensating the reactive power consumed by the inductive position sensor.
US09966887B2

A back electromotive force (BEMF) zero cross may be detected in a brushless direct current (BLDC) motor that is controlled by pulse width modulation (PWM). A phase input of the BLDC motor is tri-stated during PWM periods in which the phase input conducts motor drive current, and the tri-stating of the phase input is used to determine whether a BEMF zero cross has occurred in the BLDC motor.
US09966886B2

A method for determining the rotor position of a synchronous machine operated in field-oriented manner, which has an effective inductivity that is dependent on the rotor position, the motor current being acquired, and the motor voltage being set with the aid of a pulse-width-modulation method, a signal which is in synchrony with the pulse-width-modulation frequency being superimposed on the motor voltage value to be set, values of the motor current being acquired in synchrony with the pulse-width modulation frequency, a current component induced by the superimposed voltage signal and a residual current component, i.e., fundamental wave component, being determined, the current component induced by the superimposed voltage signal being used for determining an estimated rotor angle position, whose phase error in relation to the actual rotor angle position is reduced by means of a flux model, the residual current component being supplied to a current controller.
US09966883B2

The present teaching relates to a method/apparatus for a magnetic sensor. The apparatus of the magnetic sensor resides in a housing and includes an input port and an output port, both extending from the housing. The apparatus also includes an electrical circuit which comprises a magnetic field detecting circuit, configured to detect an external magnetic field and output a magnetic induction signal that is indicative of information related to the external magnetic field, an output control circuit coupled between the magnetic field detecting circuit and the output port, and a state control circuit coupled with the output control circuit and configured to determine whether a predetermined condition is satisfied and signal the same to the output control circuit. When the predetermined condition is satisfied, the state control circuit is at least responsive to the magnetic induction signal to enable the output control circuit to control the magnetic sensor to operate in at least one of a first state and a second state. In the first state, a load current flows in a first direction from the output port to outside of the magnetic sensor. In the second state, a load current flows in a second direction opposite of the first direction from outside of the magnetic sensor into the magnetic sensor via the output port. When the predetermined condition is not satisfied, the state control circuit enables the output control circuit to control the magnetic sensor to operate in a third state.
US09966882B2

A control system for an electric motor comprises a current sensing means arranged to produce a current sensing output indicative of electric current in the motor, current control means arranged to receive the current sensing output and to output a voltage demand indicative of voltages to be applied to the motor, and current sensing correction means arranged to monitor the voltage demand to measure distortion in the current sensing output and to generate a correction signal which is arranged to correct the distortion.
US09966874B2

In a modular multi-level power converter, additional switching states are interleaved between main switching states that control output voltage or waveform. The additional switching states provide current from a DC-link to charge capacitors in respective modules or cells to an offset voltage from which the capacitor voltages are controlled toward a reference voltage during each switching cycle rather than being allowed to build up over a period of an output waveform of variable line frequency, possibly including zero frequency. Since the switching cycle is much shorter than the duration of a line frequency cycle and the capacitor voltages are balanced during each switching cycle, output voltage ripple can be limited as desired with a capacitor of much smaller value and size than would otherwise be required.
US09966871B2

A rectifier including an autonomous type synchronous-rectification MOSFET is provided, which prevents chattering and through-current caused by a malfunction when a noise is applied. The rectifier includes: a rectification MOSFET for performing synchronous rectification; a determination circuit configured to input a voltage between a pair of main terminals of the rectification MOSFET, and to determine whether the rectification MOSFET is in on or off state on the basis of the inputted voltage; and a gate drive circuit configured such that a gate of the rectification MOSFET is turned on and off by a comparison signal from the determination circuit, and such that a time required to boost a gate voltage when the rectification MOSFET is turned on is longer than a time required to lower the gate voltage when the rectification MOSFET is turned off.
US09966870B2

To reduce the number of mounted components in the power conversion device and drive device.Each high-side transistor and low-side transistor has an EGE-type structure of (emitter-gate-emitter type). A high-side driver includes a first pull-up transistor configured to apply a first positive voltage to a gate based on an emitter of the high-side transistor, and a first pull-down transistor configured to couple the gate to the emitter. A low-side driver includes a second pull-up transistor configured to apply a second positive voltage to the gate based on an emitter of the low-side transistor, and a second pull-down transistor configured to couple the gate to the emitter.
US09966868B2

An autotransformer for converting three-phase AC power to nine-phase AC power. The autotransformer includes three coils each having serial connected windings and non-serial connected windings. The combination of the serial and non-serial windings are interconnected to form a polygon for a total of six windings per phase, in an arrangement which reduces the power rating of an autotransformer suitable for 18-pulse AC to DC power converters. There are a plurality of direct outputs that are equal in magnitude and are out of phase with respect to the voltages at the input. The input is offset from the nine outputs to create the required phase magnitudes for DC power converters.
US09966865B2

The power supply apparatus includes a control unit that can perform intermittent operation of alternately repeating a switching period and a switching halt period, wherein the switching period is for performing switching operation of alternately turning on or turning off two switching elements across a turn-off period for turning off both of the two switching elements, and the switching halt period is for halting the switching operation. In a transition from the switching period to the switching halt period, the control unit makes the transition to the switching halt period after turning on a second switching element. In a transition from the switching halt period to the switching period, the control unit also makes the transition to the switching period after turning on the second switching element.
US09966863B2

A switching power-supply circuit includes a second rectifying/smoothing circuit arranged to generate a second output voltage by rectifying and smoothing the output of a second secondary winding, and the second rectifying/smoothing circuit includes a second rectifier circuit and a capacitor, connected to the second secondary winding. A second switching control circuit operates in response to an alternating-current winding voltage occurring in the second secondary winding, and includes a time constant circuit causing a switch mechanism connected to the control terminal of a rectifier switch element to operate, and a second feedback circuit arranged to detect and feed back the second output voltage to the time constant circuit.
US09966858B2

A DC-DC converting apparatus for obtaining a constant output voltage includes a DC voltage source that outputs a DC power voltage, a main circuit that converts an input voltage into an output voltage having a set value, an auxiliary circuit, coupled to the DC voltage source, that couples to the main circuit when the input voltage has a fluctuation exceeding a predetermined range so that an output voltage is maintained at the output voltage having the set value.
US09966855B2

A switching converter having a high-side switching transistor and a low-side switching transistor and an inductor, having a circuit for generating a simulated waveform representing a sawtooth inductor current waveform. A circuit for monitoring and voltage at a switch node between the high-side and low-side transistors to determine a time during which the inductor current is increasing and a time during which the inductor current is decreasing wherein voltage across the low-side transistor when it is conducting represents a first portion of the simulated sawtooth inductor current waveform. A circuit for utilizing the time when the inductor current is increasing, the time when the inductor current is decreasing and the voltage across the low-side transistor when it is conducting to generate a portion of the simulated inductor current waveform when the high-side transistor is conducting. A method and a power supply utilizing this circuit are also disclosed.
US09966827B2

A vibration motor includes a housing; a vibration unit accommodated and suspended in the housing, the vibration unit including a first vibrator having a first resonant frequency, and a second vibrator having a second resonant frequency; a first elastic member having one end fixed to the first vibrator and another end fixed to the housing for suspending the first vibrator in the housing; and a second elastic member having one end fixed to the second vibrator and another end fixed to the housing for suspending the second vibrator in the housing. By virtue of the configuration, the vibration motor is capable of working at two different resonant frequencies.
US09966820B2

A method of maintaining a high voltage bushing can comprise inspecting a high voltage bushing connection, the high voltage bushing connection comprising a tubular lead, a lower stud connector, and the high voltage bushing. A method of maintaining a high voltage bushing can also comprise restoring the high voltage bushing connection, which can further comprise applying conductive material to at least one of a mating portion of a tubular lead and a mating portion of a high voltage bushing, machining an outside diameter of at least one of the mating portion or the tubular lead and the mating portion of the high voltage bushing to a predetermined outer diameter, and machining a mating portion of a lower stud connector to a predetermined inner diameter. A high voltage bushing connection can comprise a restored mating portion of a tubular connector and a restored lower stud connector.
US09966807B2

A brushless motor includes a first rotor core, a second rotor core, and a field magnet member. The first rotor core includes primary projecting pieces arranged along a circumferential direction at equal intervals. The second rotor core has the same shape as the first rotor core, and includes secondary projecting pieces arranged along the circumferential direction at equal intervals. The secondary projecting pieces are positioned between the primary projecting pieces that are adjacent to one another in the circumferential direction. The field magnet member is arranged between the first rotor core and the second rotor core. The field magnet member is magnetized along an axial direction to generate primary magnetic poles in the primary projecting pieces, and generate secondary magnetic poles in the secondary projecting pieces. A rotor includes the first rotor core, the second rotor core, and the field magnet member.
US09966801B2

An antenna apparatus for harvesting ambient radio frequency, RF, energy, comprises one or more RF antenna components arranged to receive RF energy. The antenna components comprise a plurality of frequency filtering components, each filtering a respective frequency band of the received RF energy. A rectifying circuit is arranged to convert a variable electrical signal received at an input from an associated antenna, into a direct current electrical signal for supplying to an electrical energy storage unit. A power management module has an input arranged to receive the direct current and control supply of the direct current to the electrical energy storage unit. The rectifying circuit comprises a plurality of transmission lines, and the input of the rectifying circuit and the input of the power management module are connected via the transmission lines. The power management module is arranged at least partially within a boundary defined by the transmission lines.
US09966800B2

Embodiments provide a wireless power receiving device. The wireless power receiving device having a metal body, includes a hole formed in one side of the metal body, a plastic film having a logo displayed on a surface thereof so as to be exposed outward through the hole, a receiving coil attached to a remaining surface of the plastic film, a first magnetism-shielding material attached to a surface of the receiving coil, and a second magnetism-shielding material formed on a bonding plane of the receiving coil and the metal body. The wireless power receiving device may minimize heat emission and power consumption by preventing the generation of eddy current due to the metal body thereof.
US09966798B2

An automatic tuning assist circuit is coupled in series with a transmission antenna. A first switch and a second switch are arranged in series between a first terminal and a second terminal of the automatic tuning assist circuit. Furthermore, a third switch and a fourth switch are arranged in series between the first terminal and the second terminal. A first auxiliary capacitor is arranged between a connection node that connects the first switch and the second switch and a connection node that connects the third switch and the fourth switch. A control unit switches the first switch through the fourth switch with the same frequency as that of the driving voltage, and with a predetermined phase difference with respect to the driving voltage.
US09966793B2

A system for providing a first voltage generated by a main supply and a second voltage generated by a battery to an integrated circuit (IC) includes supply-selection, control logic and switching circuits. The supply-selection circuit includes first, second, and third transistors. The switching circuit includes fourth and fifth transistors that supply the first and second voltages to the IC when switched on. The supply-selection circuit selects and provides the higher of the first and second voltages to body terminals of the fourth and fifth transistors for maintaining required body-bias voltage conditions. The control logic circuit generates a first control signal as long as the first voltage is within a predetermined range for keeping the fourth transistor switched on and a second control signal when the first voltage is not within the predetermined range for switching on the fifth transistor to supply the second voltage.
US09966792B2

An uninterruptible power supply circuit is provided. The uninterruptible power supply circuit includes a first diode, a second diode, a bridge rectifier, and one or more electrical loads. The first diode, the second diode, the bridge rectifier, and the one or more electrical loads are electrically connected in the uninterruptible power supply circuit to drive the one or more electrical loads with a DC voltage or the intended AC supply voltage when the AC supply voltage is cutoff.
US09966790B2

A vehicle system includes a plurality of capacitors each forming a portion of a vehicle structure, and a parallel electrical link between a pair of the plurality of capacitors, such that the pair of capacitors act as an aggregate capacitor.
US09966787B2

Disclosed is an electronic device including a resonator that generates an induced current by electromagnetic coupling. The resonator includes a first conductor, a plurality of second conductors, a one end of each of the second conductors being electrically coupled to a first point of the first conductor, and an other end of each of the second conductors being electrically coupled to a second point of the first conductor, and at least one impedance load connected with the second conductors in series or in parallel. Thus, the resonator may generate current through the first and second conductors.
US09966784B2

The present disclosure provides a method for improving battery life of electronic devices such as Bluetooth headsets, smart-watches among others running on small batteries, for example coin batteries. The method may include wireless sound power transmission through suitable techniques such as pocket-forming, while including receivers and capacitors in the aforementioned devices. Wirelessly charged capacitors may provide sufficient power on which devices may run, and thus, battery life of such electronic devices may be enhanced.
US09966780B2

Methods and apparatuses are described for use in preserving and/or recovering the lifetime and charge storage capacity of batteries. The methods include pulse charging, energy juggling, energy leveling, all resulting in extended battery life. Methods of storing batteries for maintaining their capacity at their nominal level for extended periods of time are also presented.
US09966778B2

An electronic apparatus includes a first switch unit being connected between an electrical load and a battery, a second switch unit being connected between the electrical load and the battery, and being connected in parallel with the first switch unit, a first control unit that controls the first switch unit so as to control supplying power from an external apparatus to the electrical load and charging the battery with power supplied from the external apparatus to the electronic apparatus, and a second control unit that controls the second switch unit based on whether power is supplied from the external apparatus to the electronic apparatus. In a case where power is not supplied from the external apparatus to the electronic apparatus, the second control unit controls the second switch unit to supply power from the battery to the electrical load via the second switch unit.
US09966772B2

A battery-charge control device comprises an attachment-detecting unit, a temperature-obtaining unit, a voltage-obtaining unit, a threshold-value-determining unit, a determination unit, and a completion-processing unit. The threshold-value-determining unit determines, based on a battery temperature obtained by the temperature-obtaining unit, a completion-threshold-value corresponding to the battery temperature for determining necessity of charging when the attachment-detecting unit detects that the battery pack is attached to the battery charger. The determination unit performs a determination of whether a voltage obtained by the voltage-obtaining unit is equal to or greater than the completion-threshold-value determined by the threshold-value-determining unit when the attachment-detecting unit detects that the battery pack is attached to the battery charger. The completion-processing unit performs a specified battery-charge completion processing indicating unnecessity of charging of the battery by the battery charger when the determination unit determines that the obtained voltage is equal to or greater than the completion-threshold-value.
US09966771B2

Power bank system. In one embodiment, a power bank system includes a docking station and a power bank configured to dock with the docking station such that the power bank is configured to provide electrical power to the docking station while the power bank is docked with the docking station.
US09966769B2

A battery charging monitor is provided including a non-invasive sensor electrically connected to at least one battery cell of at least one battery, which is configured to measure an internal temperature of the at least one battery cell. The non-invasive internal temperature sensor is connected to the microcontroller that is configured to determine a rate of change of the internal temperature of the at least one battery cell based on the internal temperature of the at least one battery cell, determine a state of charge of the at least one battery cell based on the rate of change of the internal temperature, and cause a charging rate to be applied, by a battery charger, to the at least one battery cell based on the determined state of charge.
US09966759B2

A battery monitor circuit includes a first monitoring unit for detecting voltages of battery cells in a first group, a second monitoring unit for detecting voltages of battery cells in a second group, and a current cancellation unit for canceling a difference between first and second currents that flow through the first and second monitoring units, respectively. One terminal of a series connection of the battery cells in the first and second groups and one terminal of the first monitoring unit are connected, the other terminal of the first monitoring unit and one terminal of the second monitoring unit are connected, and the other terminal of the second monitoring unit and the other terminal of the series connection are connected. The current cancellation unit is disposed between a connection point between the first and second monitoring units and a middle connection point in the middle of the series connection.
US09966754B2

A circuit breaker is disclosed for an electrical circuit. The circuit breaker includes a tripping unit; at least one current sensor; and an input for a signal, at which a blocking signal for a circuit breaker arranged upstream on the energy sink side, can be received. The tripping unit; at least one current sensor; and an input are all connected to a control unit. A connectable blocking function is provided. The ascertained current is compared with a first current limit value, the exceeding of which requires this first current value to be present for a first period of time in order to prompt interruption of the electrical circuit; and is compared with a second current limit value. Different periods of time need to be present to prompt interruption when the blocking function is disengaged or engaged.
US09966753B2

An apparatus for predicting an operating time in a power device includes an operating characteristic parameter estimating unit, and only the operation historical data in the vicinity of a current operation environmental condition is extracted and input by a vicinity operation historical data extracting unit.
US09966748B1

A one-bolt type junction box includes a main body in which electrical parts are installed, a lower cover configured to cover a lower portion of the main body, sockets installed on a lower surface of the main body, side connectors installed in the lower cover so as to be coupled to the sockets, a single fixing bolt installed in the main body, a single fixing nut provided in the lower cover so as to be threadedly coupled to the fixing bolt, a central connector mounted in a central portion of the junction box in which the fixing bolt and the fixing nut are disposed, and a connector seating member in which the central connector is seated. The central connector is configured to be mounted on the lower cover in a state in which the central connector is seated on the connector seating member.
US09966747B1

A universal surface flush junction box which provides an improved way to transition from in-wall wiring to surface (out of wall) wiring in a building, which requires no additional mounting brackets or conduit bends, which thereby allows for a one trip complete rough-in installation and greatly reduces the amount of sealant required for smoke, fire and acoustical seal.
US09966739B2

A container energy storage system is provided, including a container, a plurality of functional assemblies, and a splitting plate, wherein the splitting plate has a connecting port electrically connected to the functional assemblies. The container includes a hollow main body having an opening and two doors pivotally connected to the hollow main body. The functional assemblies are disposed in the hollow main body, and the splitting plate is disposed between the functional assemblies and the opening. When the doors are in a closed position, the doors cover the opening.
US09966734B2

The present invention discloses a semiconductor laser comprising an optical waveguide structure which may include a lower waveguide layer, an active layer of multiple quantum wells and an upper waveguide layer, which are successively stacked from bottom to top, a grating layer being formed on upper portion of the active layer, wherein the upper waveguide layer, a cladding layer and a contact layer are formed as a ridge which has a light incidence end surface and a light output end surface, wherein a beam expanding structure is formed on one end of the output end surface. The beam expanding structure has a beam expanding portion with a shape gradually contracted inwards from the light output end surface. Preferably, the beam expanding portion has a horizontal divergence angle of 5° to 20°.
US09966731B2

A laser system includes a plurality of diode lasers, a cryogenic cooling system circulating a cryogenic coolant and coupled to the plurality diode lasers to cool the plurality of diode lasers with the cryogenic coolant, and a fuel cell coupled to the plurality of diode lasers to power the plurality of diode lasers and situated to receive the cryogenic coolant from the cryogenic cooling system as fuel for the fuel cell. A method of operating a high power laser system includes cooling a plurality of diode lasers with a cryogenic cooling system circulating a cryogenic coolant, fueling a fuel cell with a portion of the cryogenic coolant circulating in the cryogenic cooling system, and powering the plurality of diode lasers with power generated by the fuel cell.
US09966730B2

A surface-emitting laser apparatus includes a surface-emitting laser substrate; a microlens substrate; and an adhesion agent. The surface-emitting laser substrate includes a semiconductor substrate; and a surface-emitting laser and plural first adhesion fixing regions formed on a first face of the semiconductor substrate. The microlens substrate includes a microlens configured to receive light emitted by the surface-emitting laser; plural pier portions protruding toward a side of the first face of the semiconductor substrate; and plural second adhesion fixing regions, formed at positions corresponding to the first adhesion fixing regions on surfaces of the pier portions. The adhesive agent causes the first adhesion fixing regions and the second adhesion fixing regions to adhere to each other. A restoring force acts on the adhesive agent in a case where the adhesive agent is melted. The surface-emitting laser substrate and the microlens substrate are self-aligned with each other according to the restoring force.
US09966723B2

A laser including a solid state laser gain medium having a D-shaped cross section and an unstable resonator laser cavity including the solid state laser gain medium configured with a geometric magnification in a range of 1 to 5 under the intended operating conditions, including the effects of thermal lensing in the gain medium. An optical switching device in the unstable resonator laser cavity generates a pulse duration in the range of 0.05 to 100 nanoseconds. A diode-pump source is configured to inject pump light through the curved or barrel surface of the D-shaped gain medium.
US09966709B2

A connector, which is coupled to a first communication component, including: a connector body; a fitting portion, which is formed on one end of the connector body, configured to fix the connector body by being adhered to a wall of the first communication component; and a ground stabilization member coupled to the connector body and the first communication component, wherein the ground stabilization member includes: a fixing portion configured to fix the ground stabilization member to an inner wall of the connector body; an insertion portion inserted in an insertion hole of the first communication component, wherein a plurality of slots imparting elasticity are formed; and a ground contact portion configured to perform a grounding function by contacting an inner wall of the insertion hole due to the elasticity.
US09966686B2

A connector is disclosed. The connector has an insulation body, a conductive terminal disposed on the insulation body, and a scratching terminal disposed on the insulation body. The scratching terminal is electrically isolated from the conductive terminal. An electrical contact of a mating conductive terminal of a mating connector comes into electrical contact with the scratching terminal before electrically contacting the conductive terminal during mating with the connector.
US09966683B2

A connector terminal includes two top side contact points each of which makes point contact with a top surface of a counter connector terminal and three bottom side contact points each of which makes point contact with a bottom surface of the counter connector terminal and which are not aligned in a straight line, the two top side contact points doing not overlap the three bottom side contact points when viewed in a direction perpendicular to the top surface of the counter connector terminal in a fitted state, a position of a center of gravity as determined by arrangement positions of the two top side contact points coincides with a position of a center of gravity as determined by arrangement positions of the three bottom side contact points when viewed in the direction perpendicular to the top surface of the counter connector terminal in the fitted state.
US09966682B2

A female connection terminal includes a first female terminal having a substantially cylindrical shape with openings at one end and another end, a second female terminal having a substantially cylindrical shape with openings at one end and another end, and a coupling spring coupling together the first female terminal and the second female terminal at the other end of the first female terminal and the other end of the second female terminal. The coupling spring connects the first female terminal and the second female terminal to each other without, when viewed from an upper side, overlapping at least one of the openings of the first female terminal on the other end side and at least one of the openings of the second female terminal on the other end side.
US09966680B2

A contact carrier is disclosed. The contact carrier comprises a base body, a contact having a holding section disposed within the base body, and a tool channel extending adjacent to the holding section, the holding section exposed in the tool channel.
US09966674B2

A termination connection box for a direct-current (DC) cable, including: a connecting semiconducting layer configured to cover an exposed conductor of the DC cable and an insulating layer of the DC cable; a conductor withdrawal rod electrically connected to the exposed conductor of the DC cable; and a heat shrinkable tube formed of functionally gradient material having non-linear electrical characteristics. The heat shrinkable tube includes: a first end electrically connected to the conductor and which covers a portion of the conductor withdrawal rod and the connecting semiconducting layer; a second end opposite to the first end, electrically connected to the outer semiconducting layer, and which covers a portion of the outer semiconducting layer; and a middle portion positioned between the first end and the second end, and which is in direct contact with and covers an outer circumferential surface of the insulating layer.
US09966667B2

An electronic device may have wireless circuitry with antennas. An antenna resonating element arm for an antenna may be formed from conductive housing structures running along the edges of a device. The antenna may have a pair of switchable return paths that bridge a slot between the antenna resonating element and an antenna ground. An adjustable component and a feed may be coupled in parallel across the slot. The adjustable component may switch a capacitor into use or out of use and the return paths may be selectively opened and closed to compensate for antenna loading due to the presence of external objects near the electronic device.
US09966664B2

Multi-band antenna systems for communication systems are disclosed. An antenna system includes at least one low band dipole radiating element for radiating RF energy in a low frequency range and at least one group or column of high band dipole radiating assemblies for radiating RF energy in a high frequency range. The low band dipole radiating element may be constructed to provide improved control beam width stability of the high band dipole radiating assemblies and improved cross-polarization performance in the low frequency range. The high band dipole radiating assemblies include high band dipole radiating elements and shrouds surrounding the high band dipole radiating elements. The shrouds are configured to improve the beam width stability and cross-polarization of the high band dipole radiating elements, improve isolation between the high band dipole radiating elements and to shift resonance of the high band dipole radiating assemblies below the low frequency range.
US09966662B2

An antenna for use in a communication system with a number of plates connected to a ground plane, where when the number of plates are excited by at least two electrical signals, the number of plates are arranged to radiate at least two electromagnetic signals each having an independent resonant frequency.
US09966660B2

Provided is an electromagnetic wave shielding sheet including: a substrate that is formed in a nano-web form by spinning a polymer material into fiber strands by a spinning method; a conductive metal layer that is formed on one surface of the substrate for shielding electromagnetic waves; and an adhesive layer formed on the other surface of the substrate, to thereby make a thickness of the electromagnetic wave shielding sheet thin, and improve electromagnetic wave shielding performance.
US09966656B1

A rectenna for high efficiency RF-to-DC wireless energy harvesting that includes an off-center-fed dipole antenna and a rectifying circuit, wherein the rectifying circuit comprises at least one rectifying diode. The input impedance of the antenna may be directly conjugate matched to the impedance of the rectifying circuit over a wide range of frequencies and/or under different operating conditions. The impedance matching network required by a conventional rectenna system may therefore be eliminated using the methods disclosed for the design and implementation of the rectenna. The rectenna offers consistently high RF-to-DC power conversion efficiency over a wide range of frequencies and under different operating conditions. The rectenna may be connectible to a rectifying circuit utilizing different types of rectifying diodes.
US09966652B2

A packaged electronic device includes an integrated antenna as part of a conductive leadframe. The conductive leadframe includes a die paddle have an elongated conductive beam structure configured as a transmission line, and a ground plane structure disposed surrounding the die paddle. The ground plane includes a gap where the transmission line extends to an edge of the packaged electronic device. In one embodiment, selected leads within the leadframe are configured with conductive connective structures as ground pins, source pins, and/or wave guides. In an alternate embodiment, a portion of the integrated antenna is embedded and partially exposed within the body of the packaged electronic device.
US09966651B2

A wireless communication device includes a housing and an antenna. The housing includes a frame. The frame includes a metal portion and a non-metal portion connected to the metal portion. The antenna includes a base board and a radiating body. The radiating body is partially surrounding the base and electrically connected to the base board. The radiating body is formed by the metal portion.
US09966647B1

A software defined antenna can include a light source and a photoconductive surface. The photoconductive surface can be two-dimensional or three-dimensional. A plurality of electrically isolated pixels can be embedded in the photoconductive surface. The antenna can further include a processor with computer software incorporated to manipulate the light source to selectively illuminate the surface matrix in a predetermined pattern. As the surface matrix becomes illuminated, the illuminated portion of the matrix surface electrically connects the pixels, resulting in the desired radiation pattern. The software can be manipulated to further manipulate the light source to change antenna frequency, gain and bandwidth parameters, as desired by the user. Similarly, the pixels can be selectively illuminated to cause a desired radiation pattern, such as circular, sector scan or raster patterns.
US09966644B2

A cathode for a lithium air battery, the cathode including: an organic-inorganic composite material including a coating layer on at least one portion of a surface thereof, wherein the coating layer includes a positively charged silane compound and an ionic bond forming anion. Also a lithium air battery including the same, and a method of manufacturing the cathode.
US09966642B2

A battery autoclaving system is provided including a battery pack having a housing, a battery cell disposed within the housing, and an isolation region disposed between the housing and the battery cell. The isolation region may be formed at least partially from at least one of a thermal insulating material, a phase change material or any combination thereof. The system may include a temperature sensor adapted to sense at least one of a temperature of the battery cell temperature of the isolation region. The system may include and an autoclave configured to receive a temperature indication from the temperature sensor and to inhibit autoclaving when the temperature indication exceeds a predetermined value.
US09966640B2

The efficiency in layout of an exhaust space for a power source apparatus mounted in an in-car space is increased and uncomfortableness is suppressed due to air discharged from the power source apparatus into the in-car space. A vehicle on which a power source apparatus is mounted includes the power source apparatus disposed in an in-car space of the vehicle, a cooling apparatus supplying air within the in-car space to the power source apparatus, and a cooling duct which the air discharged from the power source apparatus flows. The cooling duct is connected to any one of a first cooling flow path formed by a pillar of the vehicle, a second cooling flow path formed by a frame portion of the vehicle and a stepped portion provided for the frame portion, and a third cooling flow path formed by the frame portion and a scuff plate portion.
US09966639B2

A battery monitoring device is configured to include a monitoring unit that transmits state information that indicates a state of a battery and that interrupts, using an interrupter, a power supply from a battery to a load upon receiving a power-interruption request or when a power supply to the monitoring unit is interrupted, and a controller that transmits a power-interruption request to the monitoring unit upon determining, on the basis of the state information transmitted from the monitoring unit, that an anomaly has occurred in the battery, wherein the controller interrupts, using an interrupter, a power supply to the monitoring unit upon determining that a communication anomaly has occurred between the monitoring unit and the controller, or that an anomaly has occurred in the monitoring unit.
US09966632B2

Provided are a nonaqueous electrolytic solution having an electrolyte salt dissolved in a nonaqueous solvent, the nonaqueous electrolytic solution containing from 0.001 to 5% by mass of 1,3-dioxane and further containing from 0.001 to 5% by mass of at least one selected from a specified phosphoric acid ester compound, a specified cyclic sulfonic acid ester compound, and a cyclic acid anhydride containing a side chain having allyl hydrogen; and an energy storage device using the same. This nonaqueous electrolytic solution is capable of improving electrochemical characteristics at high temperatures and further capable of not only improving a capacity retention rate after a high-temperature cycle test but also decreasing a rate of increase of an electrode thickness.
US09966625B2

The present invention provides a non-aqueous redox flow battery comprising a negative electrode immersed in a non-aqueous liquid negative electrolyte, a positive electrode immersed in a non-aqueous liquid positive electrolyte, and a cation-permeable separator (e.g., a porous membrane, film, sheet, or panel) between the negative electrolyte from the positive electrolyte. During charging and discharging, the electrolytes are circulated over their respective electrodes. The electrolytes each comprise an electrolyte salt (e.g., a lithium or sodium salt), a transition-metal free redox reactant, and optionally an electrochemically stable organic solvent. Each redox reactant is selected from an organic compound comprising a conjugated unsaturated moiety, a boron cluster compound, and a combination thereof. The organic redox reactant of the positive electrolyte comprises a tetrafluorohydroquinone ether compound or a tetrafluorocatechol ether compound.
US09966615B2

A recharger includes a manifold having an input to couple to a hydrogen generating module and an output port to couple to at least one rechargeable fuel cell. A vacuum pump is coupled to the manifold to evacuate the manifold. A valve is coupled to the manifold between the vacuum pump and the input of the manifold. A controller is coupled to control the vacuum pump and the valve, as well as an optional fan.
US09966612B2

The fuel flow channels (20a) of the end fuel cell (9a) at the anode end (34) of a fuel cell stack are significantly deeper than the fuel flow field channels (20) of the remaining fuel cells (9) in the stack, whereby fuel starvation caused by ice in the fuel flow channels is avoided during cold startup. The fuel flow field channels of the end cell (9) at the anode end of the stack is between about 0.15 mm and about 1.5 mm deeper than the fuel flow field channels in the remaining fuel cells of the stack, or between about 35% and about 65% deeper than the fuel flow field channels in the remaining fuel cells of the stack.
US09966609B2

Disclosed is a process for making a gas diffusion electrode that comprises an electrically conductive substrate, a gas diffusion layer (GDL) and an active layer (AL). The process comprises forming the GDL and/or the AL by pressing and/or rolling a mass obtained by subjecting electrically conductive carbon material and polymeric binder and, in the case of the AL, electroactive catalyst to high energy mixing in a liquid medium, followed by the separation of solid matter from the liquid medium and, optionally, drying of the separated solid matter.
US09966606B2

A binder composition for power storage devices comprising a polymer which contains at least 3 to 40 mass % of a first recurring unit derived from an unsaturated carboxylic acid ester having an alicyclic hydrocarbon group and 1 to 40 mass % of a second recurring unit derived from an α, β-unsaturated nitrile compound based on 100 mass % of the total of all recurring units.
US09966597B2

There are provided a method of manufacturing a jelly roll-type electrode assembly and a method of manufacturing a secondary battery using the electrode assembly. The method of manufacturing the electrode assembly includes notching a cathode and an anode, elongated in one direction, in a constant size and shape to form a plurality of electrode units, laminating the cathode and the anode with a separator disposed therebetween to form a unit cell, and winding the unit cell by bending the connection units so that the electrode units of the cathode and the anode overlap each other. In the manufacturing of the jelly roll-type electrode assembly and the polymer secondary battery, whose production process can be easily simplified, a jelly roll-type electrode assembly and a polymer secondary battery, both of which exhibit excellent design flexibility, can be manufactured.
US09966595B2

An electrode material includes inorganic particles of LiFexMn1-x-yMyPO4 and a carbonaceous film coating surfaces of the inorganic particles, and volume of micropores having micropore diameter of 2 to 10 nm is 3 to 11 cm3/g. A method for manufacturing an electrode material includes immersing the inorganic particles in an aqueous solution having pH of 7.0 to 10.0; producing a slurry including the inorganic particles, a carbonaceous film precursor, and water; producing a dried substance of the slurry by drying the slurry; and calcinating the dried substance in a non-oxidative atmosphere of 500° C. to 1,000° C., and an amount of the carbonaceous film precursor blended into 100 parts by mass of the inorganic particles when converted to a carbon element is 1.0 to 5.0 parts by mass. An electrode includes the electrode material. A lithium-ion secondary battery includes a cathode; an anode; and a non-aqueous electrolyte, the cathode being the electrode.
US09966591B1

Methods, stacks and electrochemical cells are provided, which improve production processes and yield flexible and durable electrode stacks. Methods comprise depositing an electrode slurry on a sacrificial film to form an electrode thereupon, wherein the electrode slurry comprises a first solvent, attaching (e.g., laminating) a current collector film, which is produced at least partly using a second solvent, onto the formed electrode, to yield a stack, wherein a binding strength of the electrode to the current collector film is higher than a binding strength of the electrode to the sacrificial film, and delaminating the sacrificial film from the electrode while maintaining the attachment of the electrode to the current collector film. Additional layers such as a cell separator and an additional electrode may be further attached using similar steps.
US09966587B2

This application relates to batteries that are capable of routing signals that are separate from the charge supplied by the batteries. In some embodiments, a battery can incorporate a conductive trace that extends through a portion of the battery to allow for signals to be routed through the battery, as opposed to around the battery. The conductive trace can be a single wire, multiple wires, a coaxial trace, optical cable, or any other mechanism for allowing a signal to be transmitted between one or more components. By providing the conductive trace within the battery, shorter pathways to components can be created thereby reducing signal or power loss over the pathways.
US09966579B2

A rechargeable battery includes: an electrode assembly including a first electrode, a separator, and a second electrode; a case accommodating the electrode assembly and having an opening at a side thereof for receiving the electrode assembly; a cap assembly coupled to the case at the opening; a first insulation member surrounding the case, an extending portion of the first insulation member extending above the cap assembly; and a second insulation member on the cap assembly and contacting the portion of the first insulation member extending above the cap assembly, the second insulation member being a coated layer.
US09966577B2

A battery includes an outer package including a laminated film including one or more resin layers, a terminal, and a melt-bonding assisting member including a thermoplastic resin and extending along the terminal. The outer package includes a melt-bonded region at which the terminal is sandwiched between the one or more resin layers. The terminal includes an inner part, a sandwiched part, and an outer part arranged in a first direction. The melt-bonding assisting member internally and externally extends in the first direction beyond contact with the outer package.
US09966573B2

The disclosure discloses a display apparatus and an organic light emitting diode device, wherein the organic light emitting diode device including a glass substrate, an anode layer, an organic layer and a cathode layer laminated sequentially, the refractive index of the anode layer is larger than the refractive index of the glass substrate, wherein a through hole is formed in the anode layer so that partial of the incident light from the organic layer can be extracted through the through hole to the glass substrate in order to reduce the total reflection phenomenon of the contracting surface of the anode layer and the glass substrate.
US09966572B2

A flexible organic light emitting diode display and a method of fabricating the same are provided. The method has steps of: performing a patterning process on a photoresist layer to form a plurality of photoresist portions; etching a fluoropolymer layer to form a plurality of polymerization portions; depositing a material of a light extracting enhanced layer on the photoresist portions to form a plurality of light extracting enhanced portions; removing the fluoropolymer layer and the photoresist layer; fabricating a buffer layer on the light extracting enhanced portions; and fabricating a second waterproof layer on the buffer layer.
US09966550B2

The present invention provides an organic EL element having high luminous efficacy and productivity and an organic EL panel including the organic EL element. The organic electroluminescent element of the present invention includes, in the given order, an anode, a hole-transport layer, a luminescent unit, an electron-transport layer, and a cathode. The luminescent unit includes a mixed light-emitting layer and includes a luminescent dopant layer at least between the hole-transport layer and the mixed light-emitting layer or between the electron-transport layer and the mixed light-emitting layer. The mixed light-emitting layer contains a first luminescent host material and a first luminescent dopant material. The luminescent dopant layer consists essentially of a second luminescent dopant material and is thinner than the mixed light-emitting layer.
US09966538B2

A novel compound for improving the power efficiency and the lifespan of a light-emitting element, and a light-emitting element and an electronic device including the same are provided. And the new compound may provide excellent light-emitting efficiency and extended lifespan, and may improve thermal stability (heat resistance) for the electronic device.
US09966536B2

An organic electroluminescent (EL) device including an anode; an emission layer for obtaining luminescence via a singlet excited state; and a laminated structure between the anode and the emission layer, the laminated structure including at least three layers having different components, wherein the laminated structure includes a first layer including a hole transport compound, the hole transport compound being obtained by doping an electron accepting compound having a lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) level of about −9.0 eV to about −4.0 eV; and a second layer between the first layer and the emission layer, the second layer being closer to the emission layer than the first layer and including a compound represented by the following Formula 1:
US09966533B2

A method of fabricating an organic photovoltaic device. The method includes providing a first electrode which by applying a layer of conductive material onto a transparent substrate. The conductive material forms the first electrode. The method also includes placing an active layer of organic photovoltaic material on top of the first electrode. The active layer is configured to convert photonic energy into electrical energy. Placing an active layer of organic photovoltaic material includes placing an active layer of organic photovoltaic material having ferroelectric dipoles dispersed therein. The method further includes applying a second electrode on top of the active layer of organic photovoltaic material.
US09966532B2

A dendrimer compound characterized by comprising a core represented by the following formula (1-1), (1-2), (1-3), or (1-4) and at least one kind of dendritic structure selected among dendritic structures represented by the following formulae (3) and (4).
US09966517B2

An LED leadframe or LED substrate includes a main body portion having a mounting surface for mounting an LED element thereover. A reflection metal layer serving as a reflection layer for reflecting light from the LED element is disposed over the mounting surface of the main body portion. The reflection metal layer comprises an alloy of platinum and silver or an alloy of gold and silver. The reflection metal layer efficiently reflects light emitted from the LED element and suppresses corrosion due to the presence of a gas, thereby capable of maintaining reflection characteristics of light from the LED element.
US09966514B2

A light emitting diode package structure allows for an improved light-emitting efficiency by including a first reflecting material layer with through holes; a flip chip on the first reflecting material layer, with the electrodes inlaid in the through holes of the first reflecting material layer; a first transparent material layer surrounding the side surface of the flip chip except the electrodes; and a second reflecting material layer surrounding the first transparent material layer. An interface between the first transparent material layer and the reflecting material layer is an inclined plane, an arc plane, or an irregular shape, to thereby facilitate upward light reflection of the flip chip. A wavelength conversion material layer is over the first reflecting material layer, the flip chip, and the second reflecting material layer.
US09966512B2

The invention relates to an illumination system having a light scattering and conversion plate comprising a non-converting but scattering layer and a thinner converting layer. By separating scattering and conversion, the characteristics of the illumination system can greatly be increased.
US09966508B2

The addition of a chain transfer agent (CTA) or a reversible-addition fragmentation chain transfer agent (RAFT CTA) such as (2-(dodecyl-thiocarbonothioylthio)-2-methylpropionic acid) during the formation of quantum dot polymer films yields films characterized by high and stable quantum yields.
US09966507B2

Embodiments of the invention include a wavelength-converting material defined by AE3−x1−y+zRE3−x2+y−z[Si9−wAlw(N1−yCy)[4](N16−z−wOz+w)[2]]Eux1,Cex2, where AE=Ca, Sr, Ba; RE=Y, Lu, La, Sc; 0≤x1≤0.18; 0≤x2≤0.2; x1+x2>0; 0≤y≤1; 0≤z≤3; 0≤w≤3.
US09966504B2

By using a light emitting device including an insulating substrate and a light emitting unit formed on the insulating substrate, the light emitting unit including: a plurality of linear wiring patterns disposed on the insulating substrate in parallel with one another, a plurality of light emitting elements that are mounted between the wiring patterns while being electrically connected to the wiring patterns, and a sealing member for sealing the light emitting elements, as well as a method for manufacturing thereof, it becomes possible to provide a light emitting device that achieves sufficient electrical insulation and has simple manufacturing processes so that it can be manufactured at a low cost, and a method for manufacturing the same.
US09966499B2

A method for manufacturing a light emitting diode structure uses a removable prefilled layer to attach the flip-type chip on a temporary substrate. A growth substrate of the flip-type chip is removed by laser lift-off, and then the light emitting diode structure is attached to a transparent support body. Lastly, the temporary substrate and the prefilled layer are removed.
US09966497B2

A method of fabricating a nonpolar gallium nitride-based semiconductor layer is provided. The method is a method of fabricating a nonpolar gallium nitride layer using metal organic chemical vapor deposition, and includes disposing a gallium nitride substrate with an m-plane growth surface within a chamber, raising a substrate temperature to a GaN growth temperature by heating the substrate, and growing a gallium nitride layer on the gallium nitride substrate by supplying a Ga source gas, an N source gas, and an ambient gas into the chamber at the growth temperature. The supplied ambient gas contains N2 and does not contain H2.
US09966490B1

An ultraviolet sensor comprises a glass substrate, a semiconductor structure, an electrode layer and a thin film metallic glass. The semiconductor structure comprises a semiconductor seed layer formed on the glass substrate and a plurality of semiconductor nanostructures formed on the semiconductor seed layer. The electrode layer is formed between the semiconductor seed layer and the plurality of semiconductor nanostructures. The thin film metallic glass is in contact with the semiconductor structure, wherein an interface between the thin film metallic glass and the semiconductor structure forms a Schottky barrier junction to inhibit dark current and increase signal-to-noise ratio.
US09966471B2

A device includes a first semiconductor strip, a first gate dielectric encircling the first semiconductor strip, a second semiconductor strip overlapping the first semiconductor strip, and a second gate dielectric encircling the second semiconductor strip. The first gate dielectric contacts the first gate dielectric. A gate electrode has a portion over the second semiconductor strip, and additional portions on opposite sides of the first and the second semiconductor strips and the first and the second gate dielectrics.
US09966469B2

A method for manufacturing a semiconductor device includes forming a fin structure having a top face and a first side face and a second side face opposite to the first side face, forming a lower cover layer over the first and second side faces, forming an upper cover layer over the first and second side faces, the upper cover layer being spaced apart from the lower cover layer so that exposed regions of the first and second side faces are formed between the lower cover layer and the upper cover layer, and forming first and second semiconductor layers over the exposed regions of the first and second side faces, respectively.
US09966468B2

A method for fabricating semiconductor device is disclosed. First, a fin-shaped structure is formed on a substrate, a first liner is formed on the substrate and the fin-shaped structure, a second liner is formed on the first liner, part of the second liner and part of the first liner are removed to expose a top surface of the fin-shaped structure, part of the first liner between the fin-shaped structure and the second liner is removed to form a recess, and an epitaxial layer is formed in the recess.
US09966465B1

A non-volatile memory device is provided. The non-volatile memory device includes a substrate, a first dielectric layer, a charge trapping layer, a ferroelectric material layer, and a gate layer. The first dielectric layer is disposed on the substrate, the charge trapping layer is disposed on the first dielectric layer, the ferroelectric material layer is disposed on the charge trapping layer, and the gate layer is disposed on the ferroelectric material layer.
US09966460B2

A switching device includes a semiconductor substrate having a first element range and an ineffective range. First trenches extend in a first direction across the first element range and the ineffective range. Second trenches are provided in each inter-trench region within the first element range and are not provided within the ineffective range. A gate electrode is disposed in the trenches. No contact hole is provided in an interlayer insulating film within the ineffective range. The first metal layer covers the interlayer insulating film. The insulating protective film covers a portion of the first metal layer on its outer peripheral side within the ineffective range. The second metal region is in contact with the first metal layer within an opening of the insulating protective film, and is in contact with a side surface of the opening.
US09966454B2

A method for manufacturing a semiconductor device comprises forming a silicide region on a semiconductor substrate, forming a gate structure on the semiconductor substrate adjacent the silicide region, forming a dielectric layer on the gate structure and on the silicide region, forming a first liner layer on the dielectric layer, removing a portion of the first liner layer and a portion of the dielectric layer to form an opening exposing a top surface of the silicide region, forming a second liner layer on the first liner layer and on sides and a bottom of the opening, removing a portion of the second liner layer from a top surface of the first liner layer and from the bottom of the opening to re-expose a portion of the top surface of the silicide region, and forming a contact layer in the opening directly on the re-exposed portion of the top surface of the silicide region.
US09966452B2

A semiconductor device includes an SOI substrate and a MISFET formed on the SOI substrate. The SOI substrate has a base substrate, a ground plane region formed on the base substrate, a BOX layer formed on the ground plane region and an SOI layer formed on the BOX layer. The base substrate is made of silicon and the ground plane region includes a semiconductor region made of silicon carbide.
US09966451B1

Some embodiments include an integrated structure having a vertical stack of alternating insulative levels and conductive levels. Recesses extend into the conductive levels. The conductive levels have projections above and below the recesses. The projections have outer edges. An outer periphery of an individual conductive level is defined by a straight-line boundary extending from the outer edge of the projection above the recess in the individual conductive level to the outer edge of the projection below the recess in the individual conductive level. A depth of the recess is defined as a horizontal distance from the straight-line boundary to an innermost periphery of the recess. The recesses have depths of at least about 5 nm. Charge-blocking regions extend within the recesses. Charge-storage structures are along the charge-blocking regions. Gate dielectric material is along the charge-storage structures. Channel material is along the gate dielectric material.
US09966447B2

A technique of manufacturing a semiconductor device of stable operation is provided. There is provided a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device comprising a first process of forming an insulating film from a nitrogen-containing organic metal used as raw material, on a semiconductor layer by atomic layer deposition; a second process of processing the insulating film by oxygen plasma treatment in an atmosphere including at least one of oxygen and ozone; and a third process of processing the insulating film by heat treatment in a nitrogen-containing atmosphere, after the second process.
US09966444B2

Disclosed is a thin film transistor, including a gate electrode, a source electrode and a drain electrode. The source electrode includes a loop structure with an opening, and a width of the opening is less than a maximum width of an inner ring of the loop structure of the source electrode in a direction identical to a direction of the width of the opening. The drain electrode is surrounded by the loop structure, and is not in contact with the source electrode. The drain electrode is distant from the inner ring of the loop structure of the source electrode at a same interval.
US09966440B2

Techniques are disclosed for forming transistor devices having reduced parasitic contact resistance relative to conventional devices. The techniques can be implemented, for example, using a metal contact such as one or more metals/alloys on silicon or silicon germanium (SiGe) source/drain regions. In accordance with one example embodiment, an intermediate tin doped III-V material layer is provided between the source/drain and contact metal to significantly reduce contact resistance. Partial or complete oxidation of the tin doped layer can be used to further improve contact resistance. In some example cases, the tin doped III-V material layer has a semiconducting phase near the substrate and an oxide phase near the metal contact. Numerous transistor configurations and suitable fabrication processes will be apparent in light of this disclosure, including both planar and non-planar transistor structures (e.g., FinFETs, nanowire transistors, etc), as well as strained and unstrained channel structures.
US09966435B2

A novel semiconductor transistor is presented. The semiconductor structure has a MOSFET like structure, with the difference that the device channel is formed in an intrinsic region, so as to effectively decrease the impurity and surface scattering phenomena deriving from a high doping profile typical of conventional MOS devices. Due to the presence of the un-doped channel region, the proposed structure greatly reduces Random Doping Fluctuation (RDF) phenomena decreasing the threshold voltage variation between different devices. In order to control the threshold voltage of the device, a heavily doped poly-silicon or metallic gate is used. However, differently from standard CMOS devices, a high work-function metallic material, or a heavily p-doped poly-silicon layer, is used for an n-channel device and a low work-function metallic material, or heavily n-doped poly-silicon layer, is used for a p-channel FET. Doped or insulating regions are used to increase the control on the channel conductivity.
US09966432B2

Semiconductor devices and methods of manufacturing semiconductor devices. A semiconductor device includes a metal gate electrode stacked on a semiconductor substrate with a gate insulation layer disposed therebetween, spacer structures disposed on the semiconductor substrate at both sides of the metal gate electrode, source/drain regions formed in the semiconductor substrate at the both sides of the metal gate electrode, and an etch stop pattern including a bottom portion covering the source/drain regions and a sidewall portion extended from the bottom portion to cover a portion of sidewalls of the spacer structures, in which an upper surface of the sidewall portion of the etch stop pattern is positioned under an upper surface of the metal gate electrode.
US09966430B2

A method of making a nanowire device includes disposing a first nanowire stack over a substrate, the first nanowire stack including alternating layers of a first and second semiconducting material, the first semiconducting material contacting the substrate and the second semiconducting material being an exposed surface; disposing a second nanowire stack over the substrate, the second nanowire stack including alternating layers of the first and second semiconducting materials, the first semiconducting material contacting the substrate and the second semiconducting material being an exposed surface; forming a first gate spacer along a sidewall of a first gate region on the first nanowire stack and a second gate spacer along a sidewall of a second gate region on the second nanowire stack; oxidizing a portion of the first nanowire stack within the first gate spacer; and removing the first semiconducting material from the first nanowire stack and the second nanowire stack.
US09966429B2

A semiconductor device such as a Zener diode includes a first semiconductor material of a first conductivity type and a second semiconductor material of a second conductivity type in contact with the first semiconductor material to form a junction therebetween. A first oxide layer is disposed over a portion of the second semiconductor material such that a remaining portion of the second semiconductor material is exposed. A polysilicon layer is disposed on the exposed portion of the second semiconductor material and a portion of the first oxide layer. A first conductive layer is disposed on the polysilicon layer. A second conductive layer is disposed on a surface of the first semiconductor material opposing a surface of the first semiconductor material in contact with the second semiconductor material.
US09966424B2

An organic light emitting diode display device includes a substrate, a pixel structure, and a wiring pattern. The substrate includes a plurality of pixel regions each having sub-pixel regions and a transparent region. The pixel structure is disposed in the sub-pixel region on the substrate. The wiring pattern is disposed in the transparent region and the sub-pixel region on the substrate, and is electrically connected to the pixel structure. The wiring pattern extends in a first direction that is from the transparent region into the sub-pixel region, and has at least one opening in the transparent region.
US09966423B2

The embodiments of the present invention provide an OLED substrate, a manufacturing method thereof, an OLED display panel and an electronic equipment. The OLED substrate and the manufacturing method thereof provided by the embodiments of the present invention apply a transparent first cathode and a reflective second cathode, realizing top emitting and bottom emitting in a first region covered by electronic elements and a second region other than the first region respectively, increasing the light emitting area and the aperture ratio of pixels, thereby realizing double-sided display of OLED display device.
US09966420B2

A display device includes a substrate with a major surface and a cover opposing the substrate. An array of light emitting pixels is disposed over a generally central portion of the major surface, and interposed between the substrate and the cover. A seal is disposed over a peripheral portion of the substrate, and interposed between and interconnecting the substrate and the cover. Between the seal and the substrate, a lower insulation layer, an upper insulation layer, and a structure located between the lower and upper insulation layers and including at least one metal layer. The upper insulation layer includes an uneven top surface. A contour of the uneven top surface of the upper insulation layer may conform with or follow that of the top uneven surface of the structure. The seal contacts and is bonded to the uneven top surface of the upper insulation.
US09966413B2

A light-emitting diode (LED) module and a lamp using the same are provided. The LED module includes a substrate and several light-emitting packages. Each light-emitting package includes an optical wavelength conversion layer and a light-emitting diode having a first light-output surface, a bonding surface, and several second light-output surfaces. The bonding surface is opposite the first light-output surface and connected to the substrate. The second light-output surfaces are between the first light-output surface and the bonding surface. The optical wavelength conversion layer covers the first and second light-output surfaces. The distance between the bonding surface and the top surface of the optical wavelength conversion layer represents a light source thickness. The distance between two adjacent light-emitting packages represents a spacing of light sources. Specifically, the ratio of the spacing of light sources to the light source thickness is between 1 and 6.3.
US09966411B2

A method of manufacturing an image capturing apparatus is provided. The method comprises forming a structure which includes an interlayer insulation film having a plurality of opening portions above an imaging and a peripheral region, forming a first film so as to cover the structure arranged above the imaging and the peripheral region while filling the plurality of opening portions, planarizing the first film to form a waveguide member above the imaging and the peripheral region, forming a second film so as to cover the waveguide member above the imaging and the peripheral region after the planarizing the first film, polishing the second film to expose the waveguide member arranged above the imaging region and removing a portion of the waveguide member arranged above the peripheral region so as to expose the interlayer insulation film after the polishing the second film.
US09966409B2

An imaging device for electromagnetic radiation, especially for x-ray and/or gamma radiation, is disclosed. In an embodiment, the imaging device includes a layering including a number of detection elements, a number of read-out boards and a base board. Each of the detection elements is electrically contacted with a respective read-out board via a plurality of first solder contacts. Each read-out board includes a plurality of through-contacts and is electrically contacted with the base board via a plurality of second solder contacts.
US09966390B2

A display device includes first to fifth insulating films, first to third conductive films, semiconductor film, a planarization layer, an organic resin film, a pixel electrode, an opposing electrode and a light-emitting member. The first insulating film includes nitrogen. The second and third insulating films include oxygen. The fifth insulating film is an inorganic insulating film. The fourth insulating film, the fifth insulating film, the planarization layer and the organic resin film include first to fourth opening, respectively. An edge portion of the third opening and an edge portion of the fourth opening are rounded. Part of the third conductive film and part of the planarization layer are located in the second opening. Part of the pixel electrode and part of the organic resin film are located in the third opening. Part of the light-emitting member and part of the opposing electrode are located in the fourth opening.
US09966387B2

A method for fabricating a semiconductor device, includes providing a strained silicon on insulator (SSOI) structure, the SSOI structure comprises, a dielectric layer disposed on a substrate, a silicon germanium layer disposed on the dielectric layer, and a strained semiconductor material layer disposed directly on the silicon germanium layer, forming a plurality of fins on the SSOI structure, forming a gate structure over a portion of at least one fin in a nFET region, forming a gate structure over a portion of at least one fin in a pFET region, removing the gate structure over the portion of the at least one fin in the pFET region, removing the silicon germanium layer exposed by the removing, and forming a new gate structure over the portion of the at least one fin in the pFET region, such that the new gate structure surrounds the portion on all four sides.
US09966386B2

According to one embodiment, a semiconductor memory device includes first to third conductive layers extending along a first direction, and a memory portion. A portion of the second conductive layer is provided between the third conductive layer and a portion of the first conductive layer. The first conductive layer includes a first end portion crossing the first direction. The second conductive layer includes a second end portion crossing the first direction. The third conductive layer includes a third end portion crossing the first direction. A position in the first direction of a portion of the second end portion is between a position of the first end portion and a position of the third end portion. The position in the first direction of the portion of the second end portion is between a position of another portion of the second end portion and the position of the third end portion.
US09966379B2

A semiconductor device may include a first inverter, a second inverter, a first access transistor, and a second access transistor. A drain electrode of the first access transistor or a source electrode of the first access transistor may be electrically connected to both an output terminal of the first inverter and an input terminal the second inverter. The drain electrode of the first access transistor may be asymmetrical to the source electrode of the first access transistor with reference to a gate electrode of the first access transistor. A drain electrode of the second access transistor or a source electrode of the second access transistor may be electrically connected to both an output terminal of the second inverter and an input terminal the first inverter.
US09966374B2

A semiconductor device includes gates and a low-k spacer. The low-k spacer includes low-k spacer portions formed upon the gate sidewalls and a low-k spacer portion formed upon a top surface of an underlying substrate adjacent to the gates. When a structure has previously undergone a gate processing fabrication stage, the gates and at least a portion of the top surface of the substrate may be exposed thereby allowing the formation of the low-k spacer. This exposure may include removing any original gate spacers, removing an original liner formed upon the original spacers, and removing any original fill material formed upon the liner.
US09966370B2

A method for producing a plurality of optoelectronic semiconductor devices is provided. A number of semiconductor chips are fastened on an auxiliary support. The semiconductor chips are spaced apart from one another in a lateral direction. A reflective layer is formed, at least in regions between the semiconductor chips. A composite package body is formed at least in certain regions between the semiconductor chips. The auxiliary support is removed and the composite housing body is separated into a number of optoelectronic semiconductor devices. Each optoelectronic semiconductor device has at least one semiconductor chip, part of the reflective layer and part of the composite package body as a package body.
US09966368B2

A semiconductor device includes an active region disposed in a semiconductor substrate and an uppermost metal level including metal lines, where the uppermost metal level is disposed over the semiconductor substrate. Contact pads are disposed at a major surface of the semiconductor device, where the contact pads are coupled to the metal lines in the uppermost metal level. An isolation region separates the contact pads disposed at the major surface. Adjacent contact pads are electrically isolated from one another by a portion of the isolation region. Reflective structures are disposed between the upper metal level and the contact pads, where each of the reflective structures that is directly over the active region completely overlaps an associated portion of the isolation region separating the contact pad.
US09966361B1

An electronics package includes an insulating substrate and electrical components coupled to a first surface of the insulating substrate. A multi-thickness conductor layer is formed on a second surface of the insulating substrate opposite the first surface. The multi-thickness conductor layer extends through vias in the insulating substrate to connect with contact pads of the electrical components. The multi-thickness conductor layer has a first thickness in a region proximate the first electrical component and a second thickness in a region proximate the second electrical component, the first thickness greater than the second thickness. The electronics package also includes a first redistribution layer having a conductor layer formed atop a portion of the multi-thickness conductor layer having the second thickness. A top surface of the conductor layer is co-planar with or substantially co-planar with a top surface of a portion of the multi-thickness conductor layer having the first thickness.
US09966351B2

A method and device for input/output connections is provided. Devices and methods for connection structure are shown with improved mechanical properties such as hardness and abrasion resistance. Land grid array structures are provided that are less expensive to manufacture due to reductions in material cost such as gold. Ball grid array structures are provided with improved resistance to corrosion during fabrication. Ball grid array structures are also provided with improved mechanical properties resulting in improved shock testing results.
US09966340B2

The present invention provides a flexible substrate for packaging and a package. The flexible substrate for packaging includes a bendable region provided in a central region of the flexible substrate; chips provided at both sides of the bendable region and at both ends of the flexible substrate, respectively; and a wire provided to be connected between the chips and to pass through the bendable region. A portion of the wire corresponding to the bendable region is provided with an anti-stress structure, and the anti-stress structure is configured to release a tensile resistance and a compressive resistance when the bendable region is bent.
US09966339B2

A method for forming an interconnect structure includes forming a dielectric layer overlying a substrate, forming an opening in the dielectric layer, forming a metal-containing layer overlying the opening in the dielectric layer, forming a conformal protective layer overlying the metal-containing layer, filling a conductive layer in the opening, and performing a thermal process to form a metal oxide layer barrier layer underlying the metal-containing layer.
US09966335B2

A semiconductor device has an interposer frame mounted over a carrier. A semiconductor die has an active surface and bumps formed over the active surface. The semiconductor die can be mounted within a die opening of the interposer frame or over the interposer frame. Stacked semiconductor die can also be mounted within the die opening of the interposer frame or over the interposer frame. Bond wires or bumps are formed between the semiconductor die and interposer frame. An encapsulant is deposited over the interposer frame and semiconductor die. An interconnect structure is formed over the encapsulant and bumps of the first semiconductor die. An electronic component, such as a discrete passive device, semiconductor die, or stacked semiconductor die, is mounted over the semiconductor die and interposer frame. The electronic component has an I/O count less than an I/O count of the semiconductor die.
US09966329B2

Reliability of a semiconductor device is improved. A method for manufacturing the semiconductor device includes the steps of: providing a lead frame having a semiconductor chip mounted thereon; providing a heat radiating frame having a heat radiating plate; and resin sealing the semiconductor chip and the heat radiating plate with the lead frame and the heat radiating frame in a stacked state. The method further includes the steps of: separating a frame body of the heat radiating frame from the lead frame having a sealing body; and applying an inspection to detect resin-unfilled regions to the lead frame having the sealing body. Since the frame body of the heat radiating frame shielding an inspection region is removed before the inspection, it becomes possible to perform the inspection using transmitted light.
US09966328B2

A semiconductor power device is disclosed. The semiconductor power device comprises a lead frame unit, two or more pluralities of single in-line leads, two or more semiconductor chip stacks, and a molding encapsulation. Each semiconductor chip stack includes a high-side semiconductor chip, a low-side semiconductor chip and a clip connecting a top surface of the high-side semiconductor chip to a bottom surface of the low-side semiconductor chip. This invention further discloses a method for fabricating semiconductor power devices. The method comprises the steps of providing a lead frame strip having a plurality of lead frame units; providing two or more pluralities of single in-line leads; attaching two or more high-side semiconductor chips to each lead frame unit; connecting each of the two or more high-side semiconductor chips to a respective lead by a respective clip of two or more first clips; attaching a respective low-side semiconductor chip of the two or more low-side semiconductor chips to each clip of the two or more first clips; molding an encapsulation; and singulating the lead frame strip and the encapsulation to form the semiconductor power devices.
US09966327B2

A lead frame according to one embodiment includes a lead part including an inner lead and an outer lead connected to the inner lead, and a frame unit supporting the lead part. The inner lead has a terminal portion having a facing surface and a back surface in the opposite side from the facing surface. The facing surface faces a conductive pattern of a wiring board. An outer region of the terminal portion is provided with a solder thickness ensuring portion where the facing surface is depressed toward the back surface. The solder thickness ensuring portion is thinner than a center region of the facing surface. A center region of the back surface is flat without a depression.
US09966321B2

An interposer may comprise a metal layer above a substrate. A dam or a plurality of dams may be formed above the metal layer. A dam surrounds an area of a size larger than a size of a die which may be connected to a contact pad above the metal layer within the area. A dam may comprise a conductive material, or a non-conductive material, or both. An underfill may be formed under the die, above the metal layer, and contained within the area surrounded by the dam, so that no underfill may overflow outside the area surrounded by the dam. Additional package may be placed above the die connected to the interposer to form a package-on-package structure.
US09966319B1

A method for assembling a packaged integrated circuit for operating reliably at elevated temperatures is provided. The method includes providing an extended bond pad over an original die pad of an extracted die to create a modified extracted die. The extracted die is a fully functional semiconductor die that has been removed from a finished packaged integrated circuit. The method also includes placing the modified extracted die into a cavity of a package base and bonding a new bond wire between the extended bond pad and a lead of the package base or a downbond, and sealing a package lid to the package base and the cavity of the package.
US09966316B2

According to one embodiment, deposition supporting system, depositing apparatus and manufacturing method of a semiconductor device includes a depositing apparatus that deposits stacked bodies on wafers allocated to stations and a host computer. The host computer evaluates feature amounts convertible to misalignments at predetermined points on the stacked bodies of the respective wafers, and specifies the stations to which the wafers are to be allocated based on the feature amounts of the stacked bodies in the respective stations. The depositing apparatus allocates the wafers to the stations based on the specification from the host computer.
US09966308B2

A method of forming a semiconductor device includes forming a sacrificial layer in a first contact hole of a first dielectric layer, forming a second dielectric layer on the first dielectric layer, and forming a second contact hole in the second dielectric layer, the second contact hole being aligned with the first contact hole, removing the sacrificial layer from the first contact hole, forming a liner layer on the second dielectric layer and in the first and second contact holes, and forming a copper contact in the first and second contact holes.
US09966304B2

An improved interconnect structure and a method for forming the interconnect structure is disclosed that allows the interconnect structure to achieve a lower Rc. To lower the Rc of the interconnect structure, an α-phase inducing metal layer is introduced on a first Ta barrier layer of β phase to induce the subsequent deposition of Ta thereon into the formation of an α-phase Ta barrier layer. The subsequently deposited Ta barrier layer with a primary crystallographic structure of α phase has a lower Rc than that of the β-phase Ta barrier layer.
US09966289B2

An apparatus and method capable of reducing the footprint of substrate processing system. An apparatus includes a housing chamber including a housing cabinet which houses housing containers for housing substrates, and a housing container carrying mechanism provided on the ceiling of the housing chamber and configured to carry the housing containers.
US09966283B2

A pressurizing-type lamp annealing device which can easily handle a substrate to be treated having a large surface area. An embodiment of the pressurizing-type lamp annealing device includes: a treatment chamber (25); a holding part (23) disposed in the treatment chamber to hold a substrate to be treated; a gas-introduction mechanism for introducing a pressurized gas into the treatment chamber; a gas-discharge mechanism for discharging the gas in the treatment chamber; a transparent tube (20) disposed in the treatment chamber; and a lamp heater (19) placed in the treatment chamber to irradiate the substrate with a lamp light through the transparent tube.
US09966277B2

An arrangement is provided. The arrangement may include: a substrate having a front side and a back side, a die region within the substrate, a multi-purpose layer defining a back side of the die region, and an etch stop layer disposed over the multi-purpose layer between the multi-purpose layer and the back side of the substrate. The multi-purpose layer may be formed of an ohmic material, and the etch stop layer may be of a first conductivity type of a first doping concentration.
US09966275B2

Methods for reducing oxygen content in an oxidized annealed metal nitride film comprising exposing the film to a plasma.
US09966266B2

An apparatus for semiconductor wafer treatment includes a wafer holding unit configured to receive a single wafer, at least a solution supply unit configured to apply a solution onto the wafer and an irradiation unit configured to emit irradiation to the wafer. The irradiation unit further includes at least a plurality of first light sources configured to emit irradiation in FIR range and a plurality of second light sources configured to emit irradiation in UV range.
US09966257B2

A composition of matter comprising at least one nanowire on a graphitic substrate, said at least one nanowire having been grown epitaxially on said substrate, wherein said nanowire comprises at least one group III-V compound or at least one group II-VI compound or comprises at least one non carbon group (IV) element.
US09966255B2

Methods of densifying films, cross-linking films, and controlling the stress of films are provided herein. Methods include forming a removable film on a substrate comprising a material to be densified, and annealing the substrate to transfer stress from the removable film to the material and thereby densify the material. Some methods involve depositing a tensile capping layer on the material to be densified on a substrate and annealing the substrate at a temperature greater than about 450° C. Some methods include clamping the substrate including the material to be densified to a shaped pedestal using an electrostatic chuck to apply compressive stress to the material to be densified.
US09966252B2

Provided is a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device. The method includes: (a) forming an oxide film having a predetermined thickness on a substrate by alternately repeating: (a-1) forming a layer containing a predetermined element on the substrate by supplying a source gas containing the predetermined element into a process vessel accommodating the substrate and exhausting the source gas from the process vessel; and (a-2) changing the layer containing the predetermined element into an oxide layer by supplying an oxygen-containing gas and an hydrogen-containing gas into the process vessel, wherein inside of the process vessel is under a heated atmosphere having a pressure lower than an atmospheric pressure; and exhausting the oxygen-containing gas and the hydrogen-containing gas from the process vessel; and (b) modifying the oxide film formed on the substrate by supplying the oxygen-containing gas and the hydrogen-containing gas into the process vessel, wherein the inside of the process vessel is under the heated atmosphere having the pressure lower than the atmospheric pressure, and exhausting the oxygen-containing gas and the hydrogen-containing gas from the process vessel.
US09966247B2

A wafer component supply device supplying a wafer component and a feeder, such as a tape feeder supplying an electronic component, are set in a component mounting machine. When the wafer component is to be inverted and mounted on a circuit substrate, the wafer component supply device allows the wafer component present on an inverted supply head to be sucked by a mounting head of the component mounting machine at a position where the supply head and a stage are moved down by a vertical movement mechanism. An order of an operation for inverting the wafer component and mounting the wafer component on the circuit substrate and an operation for mounting the feeder component on the circuit substrate is set so that the supply head and the mounting head do not interfere with each other; and an operation for moving down the supply head and the stage, allowing the wafer component to be sucked by the supply head, and inverting the wafer component is performed so as to overlap with an operation for sucking and mounting the feeder component by the mounting head.
US09966233B2

A plasma processing apparatus of exciting a processing gas into plasma by applying a high frequency power between an upper electrode and a lower electrode provided within a processing chamber and performing a plasma process on a target object to be processed with the plasma includes a DC power supply configured to apply a DC voltage to the upper electrode; a ground electrode connected to the DC power supply; and an annular shield member provided outside the ground electrode. A groove is formed into a downward recess at an outer peripheral portion of the ground electrode, and an upper end of the shield member is positioned above an upper end of the peripheral portion of the ground electrode. A protruding portion, which is protruded toward a center of the ground electrode, is formed at a portion of the shield member positioned above the ground electrode.
US09966230B1

A multi-column electron beam device includes an electron source comprising multiple field emitters fabricated on a surface of a silicon substrate. To prevent oxidation of the silicon, a thin, contiguous boron layer is disposed directly on the output surface of the field emitters. The field emitters can take various shapes including a pyramid, a cone, or a rounded whisker. Optional gate layers may be placed on the output surface near the field emitters. The field emitter may be p-type or n-type doped. Circuits may be incorporated into the wafer to control the emission current. A light source may be configured to illuminate the electron source and control the emission current. The multi-column electron beam device may be a multi-column electron beam lithography system configured to write a pattern on a sample.
US09966226B2

A cross-section processing and observation method performed by a cross-section processing and observation apparatus comprises a cross-section processing step of forming a cross-section by irradiating a sample with an ion beam; a cross-section observation step of obtaining an observation image of the cross-section by irradiating the cross-section with an electron beam; and repeating the cross-section processing step and the cross-section observation step so as to obtain observation images of a plurality of cross-sections. In a case where Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectrometry (EDS) measurement of the cross-section is performed and an X-ray of a specified material or of a non-specified material that is different from a pre-specified material is detected, an irradiation condition of the ion beam is changed so as to obtain observation images of a plurality of cross-sections of the specified material, and the cross-section processing and observation of the specified material is performed.
US09966216B2

A new ultra-thin high-efficiency photoelectron source utilizing a metallic photonic resonant cavity having a photonic resonant cavity with a top metallic layer with a plurality of openings, each having an average dimension less than the wavelength of the excitation photons in vacuum, a bottom metallic layer and a photoelectron emission layer of semiconductor positioned between the top metallic layer and the bottom metallic.
US09966214B2

An electromagnetic relay includes a spool in which a coil is wound around its outer peripheral surface, and a magnetic core is inserted in its inside; a yoke arranged along the spool; and an insulating member provided between a first member including the coil, and second members including a fixed contact portion, a movable contact portion, an armature and the yoke to contribute to insulation between the first member and the second members, wherein the insulating member is provided with an opening portion at a portion that does not face the second members, and the spool is inserted in the insulating member from the opening portion to be placed in the insulating member.
US09966208B2

The present invention discloses a manual operation device for low voltage switching apparatus. An operating handle is provided with a fixing groove. The fixing groove is matched with a second fixing plate, the second fixing plate is placed in the fixing groove. A reset torsion spring is arranged between the second fixing plate and the fixing groove. A pawl is rotatably mounted on the second fixing plate through a fixing pin, the pawl rotates about the fixing pin. One end of a first reset spring is connected to the top end of the pawl, the other end of the first reset spring is connected to the operating handle. The operating handle i mounted on a mounting shaft of an operating mechanism of the low voltage switching apparatus. A mounting plate is provided with a rotation shaft, the rotation shaft is the rotation shaft of an energy storage mechanism of the low voltage switching apparatus. The mounting shaft and the rotation shaft are not concentric. A ratchet wheel is rotatably mounted on the rotation shaft, the bottom end of the pawl is engaged with an intertooth position of the ratchet wheel. A stop detent is provided on the bottom of the mounting plate, the stop detent is rotatably mounted on the mounting plate. The top end of the stop detent is engaged with an intertooth position of the ratchet wheel. One end of a second reset spring is connected to the bottom end of the stop detent, the other end of the second reset spring is fixed on the mounting plate.
US09966202B2

A keyswitch includes a cap, a support structure, a first magnet, and a baseplate having a bending arm protruding from the baseplate and a support rib extending horizontally to form a receiving space with the bending arm. The support structure includes a first support member pivoted to the baseplate and against the cap and a magnetic permeable plate extending from the first support member and being above the receiving space. The first magnet is inserted into the receiving space to be supported by the support rib and be pressed by the bending arm. When the cap is pressed to make the magnetic permeable plate away from the first magnet as the first support member rotates, the cap moves to a pressed position. When the cap is released, a magnetic attraction force between the magnetic permeable plate and the first magnet drives the magnetic permeable plate to approach the first magnet.
US09966200B2

An electrolytic capacitor includes a capacitor element, and a liquid solution with which the capacitor element is impregnated. The capacitor element includes: an anode foil having a dielectric layer thereon, and a cathode layer including a conductive polymer and in contact with the dielectric layer. The liquid solution contains at least one of polyalkylene glycol and derivatives thereof. A total weight content of polyalkylene glycol and derivatives thereof in the liquid solution is 15 wt % or greater with respect to a weight of the liquid solution.
US09966198B2

Solar cells are provided which comprise an electron transporting layer and a light sensitizing layer of perovskite disposed over the surface of the electron transporting layer. The perovskite may have a formula selected from the group consisting of A2MX6, Z2MX6 or YMX6, wherein A is an alkali metal, M is a metal or a metalloid, X is a halide, Z is selected from the group consisting of a primary ammonium, an iminium, a secondary ammonium, a tertiary ammonium, and a quaternary ammonium, and Y has formula Mb(L)3, wherein Mb is a transition metal in the 2+ oxidation state L is an N—N neutral chelating ligand. Methods of making the solar cells are also provided, including methods based on electrospray deposition.
US09966197B2

A novel hybrid lithium-ion anode material based on coaxially coated Si shells on vertically aligned carbon nanofiber (CNF) arrays. The unique cup-stacking graphitic microstructure makes the bare vertically aligned CNF array an effective Li+ intercalation medium. Highly reversible Li+ intercalation and extraction were observed at high power rates. More importantly, the highly conductive and mechanically stable CNF core optionally supports a coaxially coated amorphous Si shell which has much higher theoretical specific capacity by forming fully lithiated alloy. Addition of surface effect dominant sites in close proximity to the intercalation medium results in a hybrid device that includes advantages of both batteries and capacitors.
US09966196B2

A solid electrolytic capacitor and method for making the capacitor are provided. The capacitor includes a sintered porous anode body; a sintered anode substrate; a dielectric that overlies at least a portion of the anode body and at least a portion of the anode substrate and that is also formed within at least a portion of the anode body; a solid electrolyte cathode overlying at least a portion of the dielectric that overlies the anode body; an anode termination that is electrically connected to the anode substrate; and a cathode termination that is electrically connected to the solid electrolyte. The anode body is disposed on a planar surface of the anode substrate, and both the anode body and substrate are formed from a powder of a valve metal composition. Further, the anode substrate is hermetic and impermeable to liquids.
US09966187B2

A coil component includes: a pillar part, quadrangular planar parts formed at both ends of the pillar part, a coil formed by winding an insulating sheath conductor around the pillar part, electrode terminals that are electrically connected to both ends of the coil, and an outer sheath covering the coil at least partially; wherein the pillar part and quadrangular planar parts are made of ferrite material; the outer sheath contains metal magnetic grains and resin material; and based on a section obtained by cutting through the center of the pillar part vertically to the long-axis direction of the pillar part, the cross-section area of the pillar part is greater than the cross-section area of the outer sheath.
US09966182B2

This disclosure relates generally to semiconductors, and more particularly, to structures and methods for implementing high performance multi-frequency inductors with airgaps or other low-k dielectric material. The structure includes: a plurality of concentric conductive bands; a low-k dielectric area selectively placed between inner windings of the plurality of concentric conductive bands; and insulator material with a higher-k dielectric material than the low-k dielectric area selectively placed between remaining windings of the plurality of concentric conductive bands.
US09966177B2

A reactor includes a core made of a magnetic material; a resin mold that encloses the core; a coil that is wound around the core through the resin mold; a plurality of fasteners located on the resin mold; and a supporting member that is secured to the resin mold through the fasteners. At least one of the plurality of fasteners is a flexible fastener.
US09966174B2

A magnetic sealing closure, comprising: a. a first flexible strip, with a plurality of cavities adapted to incorporate a plurality of magnetic elements; b. a second flexible strip, with a plurality of cavities adapted to incorporate a plurality of magnetic elements; wherein said sealing closure comprises membranes connectable to said first strip, and a second membrane connectable to said second strip, such that said plurality of magnetic elements of said second strip are embedded within said plurality of cavities between said second strip and said second membrane; when said first and second strips and are brought together from the side of said first and second membranes, magnetic elements of said first and said second strips magnetically attract each other, such that a sealing is provided.
US09966167B1

The present invention provides a system and method for producing superconducting joints between superconductive segments of a Bi-2212 high-temperature superconducting (HTS) conductor, thereby eliminating the heat generating resistive joints that are commonly known in the art for connecting two or more smaller Bi-2212 conductive segments to create an Bi-2212 conductor of adequate length.
US09966165B2

In accordance with an embodiment, an electrical cable can be configured to electrically connect to contact pads that are carried by a substrate. The electrical cable can include at least one, such as a pair, of electrical signal conductors and at least one, for instance a pair, of electrically conductive drain wires. A drain wire in the electrical cable can define a first surface that is configured to face the substrate and a second surface that is opposite the first surface. The drain wire can define a height that is greater than 0.2 mm as measured from the first surface to the second surface along a straight line.
US09966164B2

The present invention provides an insulated coated wire comprising a wire, a wire coating layer disposed around the wire, and a wire adhesive layer disposed around the wire coating layer, wherein the wire coating layer is of one type of or a combination of two or more types of a fluorine resin, a polyamide-imide resin and a low dielectric polyimide resin having a relative permittivity of less than 3.6 at 10 GHz, and a multi-wire wiring board using the insulated coated wire.
US09966160B2

A collimating system for collimating a radiation beam having a first multileaf collimator and a second multileaf collimator configured such that the radiation beam will pass through the first multileaf collimator before passing through the second multileaf collimator, and pass through the second multileaf collimator before hitting its target. The leaves of the first multileaf collimator and the leaves of the second multileaf collimator may be configured to move independently of one another.
US09966151B2

There are provided a current sensing circuit and a memory device having the same. A current sensing circuit includes a current mirror unit suitable for outputting a first voltage and a second voltage; a chunk current controller suitable for generating the first voltage by generating a current through at least one page buffer; a fail bit counter suitable for adjusting a current at a first node where the first voltage is output in response to fail bits received from the page buffer; an allowed bit counter suitable for adjusting the current at the first node according to predetermined allowed bits; and a target range setting unit suitable for adjusting a current at a second node where the second voltage is output in response to a target code.
US09966146B2

According to one embodiment, a controller groups a plurality of memory cells in each of the pages into a plurality of groups. The plurality of groups includes a first group and a second group. In a case of reading data from a first page, The controller performs first reading. The first reading includes reading data from the first page by using a first operation parameter for the first group. The controller performs second reading. The second reading includes reading data from the first page by using a second operation parameter for the second group. The controller merges first read data and second read data, and return the merged data as read data read from the first page. The first read data is acquired by the first reading. The second read data is acquired by the second reading.
US09966141B2

A nonvolatile memory cell includes a first-conductivity-type silicon substrate, a metal layer formed in a surface of the first-conductivity-type silicon substrate, a second-conductivity-type diffusion layer formed in the surface of the first-conductivity-type silicon substrate and spaced apart from the metal layer, an insulating film disposed on the surface of the first-conductivity-type silicon substrate between the metal layer and the second-conductivity-type diffusion layer, a gate electrode disposed on the insulating film between the metal layer and the second-conductivity-type diffusion layer, and a sidewall disposed at a same side of the gate electrode as the metal layer and situated between the gate electrode and the metal layer, the sidewall being made of insulating material.
US09966138B2

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, a device and a method are provided. The device includes one or more resistive random access memory (ReRAM) elements. The device further includes a random number generator configured to generate a random number in dependence on impedance values of the one or more ReRAM elements.
US09966124B2

A memory device includes: a memory cell; a data buffer which receives write data; a first latch circuit which latches data stored in the memory cell; a second latch circuit which latches data transferred from the data buffer; a controller which performs a first transfer operation to transfer data from the data buffer to the second latch circuit after a write command is received and then a first period elapses; and a write circuit which performs a write operation to write data of the second latch circuit to the memory cell after the first transfer operation, when data of the first latch circuit is different from the data of the second latch circuit. The controller performs a second transfer operation to transfer data from the second latch circuit to the first latch circuit after the write operation.
US09966118B2

Systems and methods of synchronous memories and synchronous memory operation are disclosed. According to one illustrative implementation, a memory device is disclosed comprising memory circuitry having a memory output, the memory circuitry including a sense amplifier having a first output and a second output, a first data path coupled to the first output of the sense amplifier, the first data path including 2 latches/registers, and a second data path coupled to the second output of the sense amplifier, the second data path including a plurality latches/registers. In further implementations, various control circuitry, connections and control signals may be utilized to operate the latches/registers in the first and second data paths according to specified configurations, control, modes, latency and/or timing domain information, to achieve, for example, pipelined output latching and/or double data rate output.
US09966104B2

A control device is provided which mixes and outputs two types of audio signals processed under standards different from each other; in particular, an audio signal of ASIO standard and an audio signal of WDM standard. An audio interface is connected to a computer, and an audio signal is input to the computer. A mixer module of the computer mixes an audio signal which is effect-processed by an ASIO application and an audio signal reproduced by a WDM application, outputs the mixed audio signal to the audio interface, and also outputs the mixed audio signal to the WDM application and records the sound. In each step of the process, double buffering is used to reduce sound drop-out.
US09966097B2

An information recording method of the present disclosure is an information recording method for recording information on a write-once information recording medium, including one or more recording layers, each of the recording layers being spiral-shaped on which a land track and a groove track are alternately repeated as recording tracks, each of the recording tracks being divided into blocks, each of the blocks being a minimum unit in which recording is performed. The information recording method includes: recording the information on the information recording medium in a unit of each of the blocks; and controlling recording on the information recording medium. In the control step, switching is performed whether to perform recording in a block to be recorded in which the information is to be recorded next among the blocks based on recording conditions of the recording tracks adjacent on both sides of the block to be recorded.
US09966095B2

A magnetic media for magnetic data recording having reduced signal noise. The magnetic media includes a magnetic recording layer that has first, second and third portions. The first portion at the bottom of the magnetic recording layer includes an oxide and has a high anisotropy field. The third portion, located at the top of the magnetic recording layer has a low anisotropy field and does not include an oxide. The second portion, located between the first and third portions has an anisotropy field that is between that of the first and third magnetic portions. The second portion includes a thin layer of a material that has an extremely low anisotropy field that is located within a material having a higher magnetic anisotropy.
US09966093B1

A heat assisted magnetic recording head gimbal assembly comprises a light source unit, a heat assisted magnetic recording head, a suspension, an actuator, and a slider. The light source unit comprises a light emitting element and a submount. The suspension comprises a load beam and a flexure movably coupled with the load beam. The actuator is deformably coupled to the flexure. The slider is supported by the suspension and coupled to the flexure and the light source unit. The slider includes the heat assisted magnetic recording head. First and second solders or conductive adhesives are positioned on opposite longitudinal sides of the light source unit, so that the first solder or conductive adhesive electrically and mechanically connects the submount to a wiring supplying power, while the second solder or conductive adhesive electrically and mechanically connects the light emitting element to the wiring.
US09966092B2

To provide an ion beam etching method which enables a highly uniform IBE process even under a low-angle-incident static condition, without increase in the size of an apparatus. The ion beam etching method includes: changing a position of an opening portion with respect to a substrate; etching the substrate with an ion beam passing through the opening portion; and reducing a tilt angle as a center of a site where the ion beam is incident on the substrate moves away from the ion source.
US09966090B2

A motion inducing system for playing sounds over a gramophone is provided. An electrical signal such as that from a digital music player is converted to lateral movement of a surface using a linear motion transducer. The lateral movement moves the stylus of a gramophone, and the music from the digital music source is played over the horn of the gramophone.
US09966087B1

A method that may be performed by a device may include receiving, from a personal camera, streaming content via a first WiFi interface. The method may include receiving a vocal instruction regarding the streaming content. The method may include determining configuration information based on which to modify or provide the streaming content. The configuration information may be determined based on one or more of: location information associated with the device, or the vocal instruction. The method may include modifying the streaming content, to obtain modified streaming content, based on the configuration information. The method may include providing the modified streaming content via a second WiFi interface.
US09966086B1

A system may be configured to interact with a user through speech using a first and second audio devices, where the first device produces audio and the second device captures audio. The second device may be configured to perform acoustic echo cancellation with respect to a microphone signal based on a reference signal provided by the first device. The reference and microphone signals may have the same nominal signal rates. However, the signal rates may drift from each other over time. In order to synchronize the rates of the signals, each of the devices maintains a signal index. The second device compares the values of the two signal indexes over time to determine rate differences between the reference and microphone signals and then corrects for the rate differences.
US09966084B2

A method and a device for achieving object audio recording and an electronic apparatus are disclosed. The method includes performing a sound collection operation via a plurality of microphones simultaneously to obtain a mixed sound signal. The method also includes identifying the number of sound sources and position information of each sound source and separating out an object sound signal corresponding to each sound source from the mixed sound signal according to the mixed sound signal and set position information of each microphone. The method further includes combining the position information and the object sound signal of individual sound sources to obtain audio data in an object audio format.
US09966080B2

An audio object encoder comprises a receiver (701) which receives N audio objects. A downmixer (703) downmixes the N audio objects to M audio channels, and a channel circuit (707) derives K audio channels from the M audio channels, K=1, 2 and K
US09966072B2

Methods, and devices and systems, for example an answering machine system, are provided for determining a language among a plurality of languages available for a voice to text transcription of phone calls between a caller and a recipient. In the method, at least two of said available languages are proposed to the caller. The proposed languages are based on a phone country code corresponding to said caller, a phone country code corresponding to said recipient, a language from a set of languages available for the transcription by said answering machine system, or a language selected automatically on the basis of parameters set by the caller or the recipient. The caller selects said language by interacting with said answering machine system, and a corresponding voice message is transcribed into text of the selected language for forwarding to said recipient.
US09966070B2

An electrically operated domestic appliance, in particular a kitchen appliance, includes a voice recognition device, which voice recognition device is designed to compare voice signals of a user with known control commands for operating the domestic appliance, and includes an activation device for activating the voice recognition device. The activation device has an optical detection device, wherein the activation device is designed to activate the voice recognition device in dependence on information captured by the optical detection device. A method operates the domestic appliance.
US09966068B2

An electronic device with one or more processors and memory includes a procedure for sharing information with a third party recipient. In some embodiments, the device receives a speech input from a first user, the speech input specifying a second user different from the first user, and an information item to be shared with the second user. In response to the speech input, the device initiates a background process during which a digital assistant searches for the information item and causes the information item to be sent to the second user without further review and instruction from the first user.
US09966065B2

Systems and processes are disclosed for handling a multi-part voice command for a virtual assistant. Speech input can be received from a user that includes multiple actionable commands within a single utterance. A text string can be generated from the speech input using a speech transcription process. The text string can be parsed into multiple candidate substrings based on domain keywords, imperative verbs, predetermined substring lengths, or the like. For each candidate substring, a probability can be determined indicating whether the candidate substring corresponds to an actionable command. Such probabilities can be determined based on semantic coherence, similarity to user request templates, querying services to determine manageability, or the like. If the probabilities exceed a threshold, the user intent of each substring can be determined, processes associated with the user intents can be executed, and an acknowledgment can be provided to the user.
US09966060B2

The method is performed at an electronic device with one or more processors and memory storing one or more programs for execution by the one or more processors. A first speech input including at least one word is received. A first phonetic representation of the at least one word is determined, the first phonetic representation comprising a first set of phonemes selected from a speech recognition phonetic alphabet. The first set of phonemes is mapped to a second set of phonemes to generate a second phonetic representation, where the second set of phonemes is selected from a speech synthesis phonetic alphabet. The second phonetic representation is stored in association with a text string corresponding to the at least one word.
US09966059B1

An acoustic interference cancellation system that performs beamforming using a subset of microphones from a microphone array. For example, a first group of microphones from an array can be used to generate target signals that focus on the direction of the desired speech in the audio and a second group of microphones from the array can be used to generate reference signals that include the environmental noise, audio from a loudspeaker, etc. The reference signals of the second group of microphones can then be used to isolate the actual speech from the target signals of the first group of microphones. The microphone array can be three dimensional, allowing a device to simplify beamforming calculations by selecting subsets of microphones along different planes. In addition, directional microphones and remote microphones may be used to improve a quality of the reference signals.
US09966043B2

An identifier control device includes: a cumulative transmission and reception initiation control unit that instructs a plurality of controlled devices, via a network, to initiate cumulative transmission and reception; a distance determination command transmission unit that transmits to each of the plurality of controlled devices via the network a distance determination command; a distance recognition unit that determines the distances on the network with respect to the respective plurality of controlled devices, based on response signals transmitted by the respective plurality of controlled devices after the accumulation time has elapsed from when each of the plurality of controlled devices receives the distance determination command; and an identifier control unit that sets to each of the plurality of controlled devices, via the network, an identifier for each of the plurality of controlled devices determined based on the determined distances on the network.
US09966033B2

The present disclosure proposes a detection device for a display panel. The detection device includes twelve signal source input terminals for inputting a detection signal, and twelve shorting bars corresponding to the signal source input terminals one on one. One end of the shorting bar is connected to the corresponding signal source input terminal, and the other end of the shorting bar is connected to a corresponding data line on the display panel.
US09966026B2

A GOA substrate includes GOA circuit units connected in cascade. The GOA circuit unit includes an output module, a reset module, a latch module, and an input module. The output module is used for outputting the scan signal based on a trigger signal. The reset module is used for resetting the trigger signal based on the reset signal. The latch module is used to hold and pull down the electric potential of the trigger signal. The input module is used for receiving the scan signal outputted by the previous stage GOA circuit unit. The input module includes a first CMOS transmission gate and a first transistor. The input module can lower the equivalent on-resistance of the transistor, elevate the drive current between the input terminal and the output terminal, so to increase level transmission speed, lower drive power loss of the transistor and improve the stability of the circuit.
US09966025B1

The present invention provides a gate driving circuit, of which respective odd stage GOA unit circuits are cascade connected, and respective even stage GOA unit circuits are cascade connected; the odd stage first, second scan control signals (VfO, VrO), the odd stage scan start signal (STVO), the odd stage first, second high frequency clock signals (CK1O, CK2O) are located corresponding to the odd stage GOA unit circuits; the even stage first, second scan control signals (VfE, VrE), the even stage scan start signal (STVE), the even stage first, second high frequency clock signals (CK1E, CK2E) are located corresponding to the even stage GOA unit circuits; by controlling the voltage levels of the odd stage first, second scan control signals (VfO, VrO) and even stage first, second scan control signals (VfE, VrE) in cooperation with the odd stage scan start signal (STVO) and the even stage scan start signal (STVE) of different sequences, the odd stage GOA unit circuits and the even stage GOA unit circuits can be controlled to perform forward scan or backward scan at the same time or in time division.
US09966007B2

Discussed are an organic light emitting display which can reduce flicker, along with power consumption, and a driving method thereof. In a low-power operation mode of the organic light emitting display, at least one holding frame is placed between writing frames in which image data is written, the output of the source driver is enabled during the writing frames, the output of the source driver is disabled during the holding frames, and the emission driver is controlled during the holding frames to increase the toggle frequency of the emission signal to be higher than or equal to N times the frame frequency (N is a positive integer greater than or equal to 2). The driving method can reduce the perceived flicker.
US09966004B2

An organic light emitting diode display includes: a substrate comprising a red pixel, a green pixel, and a blue pixel arranged in a matrix; a scan line on the substrate and extending in a row direction; a red data line, a green data line, and a blue data line between adjacent pixel columns to cross the scan line; a driving voltage line alternating with the red data line, the green data line, and the blue data line; and a horizontal driving voltage line extending parallel with the scan line and electrically connected to the driving voltage line.
US09965994B2

The array substrate includes a substrate and at least one display pixel arranged on the substrate. The display pixel includes a plurality of first pixels and a plurality of second pixels arranged along a row direction and a column direction. The period along the row direction or the column direction includes three display pixels. Wherein within at least one period along the row direction and the column direction, the display pixel of the first row includes one second pixel and two first pixels adjacent to the second pixel. The display pixel of the second row includes one first pixel and two second pixels adjacent to the first pixel. The display pixel of the third row includes one first pixel and two second pixels adjacent to the first pixel, and the first pixel of the third row is in different column from the first pixel of the second row.
US09965988B2

A system, method and apparatus are set forth which adjusts one or more of the brightness, vibrancy and color shift of displayed content based upon the at least approximate age of the viewer. At a display (15) the user's age is at least approximated by accessing an established user data file (835, 837) containing age determining data and/or capturing a facial image (804) of the user and processing the same to determine at least the approximate age of the user. Based upon the age determination the brightness, vibrancy and/or color shift may be adjusted to account for the effects of the aging of the human eye. User overrides (900, 902, 904) may be provided for the user to alter or turn off the adjustments. Adjustment of the brightness, vibrancy and/or color shift may also take into account ambient light conditions.
US09965987B2

A display device and a method for driving the display device are provided, which pertain to the technical field of display, and can reduce the negative influence of data lines in a RGBW display device on the light transmittance. The display device comprises a display panel having a plurality of pixel units arranged as an array. Each of the pixel units comprises three adjacent pixels located in the same column, and each of the pixels comprises a first color sub pixel, a second color sub pixel, a third color sub pixel, and a fourth color sub pixel. In each of the pixel units, the three fourth color sub pixels each share a corresponding data line with a first color sub pixel, a second color sub pixel and a third color sub pixel respectively of different pixels. The present disclosure can be applied to display devices, such as liquid crystal television, liquid crystal display device, mobile phone, and tablet PC, etc.
US09965981B1

The invention includes methods and apparatus for a balloon support bracket that may be secured to an attachment surface such as a light pole or fence and may further be coupled with one or more helium-free balloons through a balloon support. Additional embodiments include novel quick-release coupling and security features to enhance ease of use and deter theft.
US09965971B2

The present disclosure relates generally to question answering systems and methods and, particularly, to systems and methods for domain adaptation in question answering.
US09965968B2

A computing device may include a display, a memory to store electronic textbook data comprising at least one configurable problem to be solved for a system having a plurality of different parameters, a user input device, and a processor coupled to the display, the memory, and the user input device. The processor may be configured to display the electronic textbook data with the at least one configurable problem on the display, selectively change at least one of the parameters of the system to define a new solution for the at least one configurable problem based upon the user input device, and display the new solution on the display.
US09965957B2

An image of the nearby surroundings of a user's vehicle is displayed, which includes images of the user's vehicle and threshold lines that define a range of distance from the user's vehicle. The image of the nearby surroundings of the user's vehicle is changed in accordance with a positional relationship between another vehicle and the range of distance.
US09965953B1

An Enhanced Traffic Sign Information Messaging System (ETSIMS) that provides the methodology, functions and support equipment to provide vehicles, which might not be within sight of the traffic message sign, with all or some prioritized parts of the message displayed on the sign, or an enhanced version of the information provided on the sign, including traffic information messages inferred from the message displayed on the traffic message sign. ETSIMS may also provide messages of this type without the need for the physical presence of a sign on the roadway.
US09965948B2

Methods and systems for utilizing a mobile computing device (e.g., such as a mobile phone) for use in controlling a model vehicle are described. Consistent with some embodiments, a mobile computing device provides various user controls for generating signals that are communicated to a radio transmitter device coupled with the mobile computing device, and ultimately broadcast to a receiver residing at a model vehicle. With some embodiments, the mobile computing device may be integrated with a controller housing which provides separate user controls, such that a combination of user controls present on the mobile computing device and the controller housing can be used to control a model vehicle.
US09965947B2

A transmitter device for coupling to a vehicle and for conducting a transmission to a remote system includes a transmitter and a processing circuit coupled to the transmitter and having an input interface. The input interface is coupled to an existing user interface of the vehicle for receiving an input to cause the transmitter to conduct its transmission to the remote system. The input interface is coupled to a vehicle sensor for receiving a vehicle sensor input including a motion status of the vehicle. The processing circuit is configured to prevent the transmitter from conducting its transmission to the remote system unless the motion status of the vehicle indicates the vehicle is travelling at a speed less than a threshold speed.
US09965945B2

Patient monitoring system includes a master unit. The master unit is configured to receive signal data of the patient from a plurality of acquisition devices. The master unit is also configured to receive a warning signal from a triggered acquisition device of the plurality of acquisition devices. The warning signal is communicated by the triggered acquisition device upon determining that corresponding physiological signals of the triggered acquisition device satisfy a designated condition. In response to receiving the warning signal from the triggered acquisition device, the master unit is configured to analyze the signal data from another acquisition device of the plurality of acquisition devices to determine whether the warning signal is clinically relevant or clinically irrelevant or unreliable. The master unit may permit a patient alarm or suppress the patient alarm based on the signal data from another acquisition device.
US09965939B2

A method for estimating a level of damage to perishable cargo during transportation of the cargo using data collected by a portable monitoring device. The method includes measuring vibrational data associated with the cargo. The vibrational data is monitored by a vibration sensor of the portable monitoring device. The method further includes incrementing a counter in the portable monitoring device in response to an amplitude of the measured vibrational data exceeding a predetermined threshold. The method also includes determining if the counter value exceeds a predetermined value, and generating an alert indicating damage to the cargo in response to determining the counter value has exceeded the predetermined value.
US09965938B1

The present invention includes systems and methods for managing restroom traffic at an event venue. Sensors at restroom facilities receive line and occupancy data and transmit the data to a system for processing. The system generates information regarding a travel time, a wait time, line length, and occupancy for each facility at the event venue. The generated information is transmitted to an event app associated with a ticket and a seat for an event at the venue. The system can notify the user when the combined travel time and wait time for a facility falls below a predetermined threshold.
US09965936B1

A safe network system is provided, wherein the safe network system communicatively couples to proximate peripheral and adjunct devices for identifying threats, sending threat alerts, providing routes to safe locations in threatened areas, and checking in on network users during and after the identified threat.
US09965933B1

Devices, apparatuses, and methods for detecting product straps are provided. An example product security device for detecting product straps may include a base, and a pivot member affixed to the base via a first hinge. The pivot member may be configured to physically engage a strap to maintain the pivot member in a non-deflected position. The example device may further include a biasing member configured to urge the pivot member into a deflected position and a sensor configured to detect when the pivot member is in the deflected position. The sensor may be configured to, in response to detecting that the pivot member is in the deflected position, generate an alert signal. The example device may also include processing circuitry configured to receive the alert signal and, in response to receiving the alert signal, transmit an alert triggering signal to initiate an alert.
US09965926B2

A gaming system, device and method are disclosed herein. The system, in an embodiment, is operable upon a wager input and involves competing symbols associated with a sports event having a series of incremental outcomes. The system is operable to provide an output corresponding to a payout value depending upon which symbol is selected.
US09965924B2

A method and system for implementing a multi-zone blackjack game, wherein a starting zone value is only zero and a game objective is to reach a numerical value in a maximum amount of zones. In the method and system, a gaming operator device receives an initial wager from a player, reveals each card to a player and receiving an input from the player regarding which zone area to place each card in, determines which zone or zones card placement is permitted, repeats the step of revealing and receiving and the step of determining until a determination is made that card placement is not permitted, and resolves the wager according to a predetermined pay scale.
US09965914B2

A magnetic detecting device according to an embodiment includes: a magnetic sensor head in which a plurality of magnetic sensing elements including a first magnetic sensing element and a second magnetic sensing element are arranged; and an environmental magnetism corrector. The plurality of magnetic sensing elements is arranged in one line over a length that is greater than a width of a sheet, in a direction that is orthogonal to a movement direction of the sheet. The environmental magnetism corrector corrects a first output signal output by the first magnetic sensing element, based on a second output signal output by the second magnetic sensing element. The magnetic sensor head has a sheet passage area that faces a sheet that passes over the magnetic sensor head, the first magnetic sensing element is positioned inside the sheet passage area, and the second magnetic sensing element is positioned outside the sheet passage area.
US09965908B2

Systems and methods of accessing a control system are provided. Some methods can include a mobile device transmitting a wireless entry request signal to a tag device, the wireless entry request signal including a mobile device identifier and a system identifier, upon receipt of the wireless entry request signal, the tag device comparing the mobile device identifier and the system identifier with a list of authorized identifiers, when the tag device determines that both the mobile device identifier and the system identifier match an entry in the list of authorized identifiers, the tag device transmitting a data file to the mobile device, the data file containing a door identifier of a door, and the mobile device transmitting an access request signal to a controller for use by the controller in unlocking the door, the access request signal including the mobile device identifier, the door identifier, and the system identifier.
US09965907B1

A system for frequent data readings includes an input interface and a processor. The input interface is to receive frequent data readings. The frequent data readings include a newest data reading. The processor is to determine a simplified running characteristic based at least in part on the newest data readings and a last simplified running characteristic, and store the simplified running characteristic.
US09965903B2

Systems and methods which provide metering of postage value using accumulated postage information are shown. Embodiments implement an accumulated postage register in a postage security device which is incremented each time a postage indicium is generated and which is reset when a postage value settlement operation is performed. Accumulated postage may be paid for using various accounts, including pre-funded or pre-paid accounts, credit accounts, debit accounts, and billing accounts. Accordingly, embodiments may be used with respect to a post-paid metering model, a pre-paid metering model, and combinations thereof.
US09965898B2

A system for generating an overlay display comprises an overlay display, a camera and a processor connected to the overlay display and the camera. The overlay display is arranged to overlay an output on a background, the camera is arranged to detect the background, and the processor is arranged to receive a desired color for the output, determine the actual color of the background, and calculate the output color from the desired color and the actual color of the background.
US09965890B1

Improved techniques for generating video content are disclosed. In some embodiments, a frame is first rendered using a first rendering option. It is then determined whether the frame is an independent frame (I-frame) or a predictive frame (P-frame). In the event that the frame is an I-frame, the frame is rendered using a second rendering option. In the event that the frame is a P-frame, the frame as rendered by the first rendering option and a previous frame as rendered by the first rendering option are used to determine prediction error. The first rendering option comprises a lower computational complexity than the second rendering option.
US09965864B2

Systems, methods, and computer-readable medium containing instructions for controlling mining machines. One system includes an image sensor for capturing an image of a cutting face of a mine and interface sensing and control system for obtaining the image, identifying an anomaly in the image, calculating a distance between the anomaly and a reference, and using the distance to automatically instruct a mining machine control system to keep a cutter head of the mining machine within a seam.
US09965863B2

The present disclosure relates to systems, methods, devices, and non-transitory computer-readable storage medium for segmenting three-dimensional images. In one implementation, a computer-implemented method for segmenting a three-dimensional image is provided. The method may include receiving the three-dimensional image acquired by an imaging device, and creating a first stack of two-dimensional images from a first plane of the three-dimensional image and a second stack of two-dimensional images from a second plane of the three-dimensional image. The method may further include segmenting, by a processor, the first stack and the second stack of two-dimensional images using at least one neural network model. The method may also include determining, by the processor, a label map for the three-dimensional image by aggregating the segmentation results from the first stack and second stack.
US09965860B2

The invention relates to a method of gaze estimation. As to determine the position of the gaze without calibrating the system used for determining the gaze, the method comprises: detecting at least a location of the center of at least an eye on at least an eye image of a viewer watching at least a video image displayed on a screen; determining at least a first position of the gaze of the viewer on the screen by using the at least a detected location of the center of the at least an eye and a mapping function based on center-bias property of human gaze distribution. The invention also relates to a device configured for estimating the gaze.
US09965856B2

A stereo camera system useful in, for example, range finding applications. The system is designed for simple manufacture and long term stability. It includes a thermally stable substrate onto which are mounted multiple imagers. The relative positions of the imagers and corresponding optical elements are maintained in precise alignment.
US09965852B2

System and method for diagnosing brain conditions including evaluating fiber pathways of white matter tracts using a diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) process, tracking the propagation of waves traveling at specific angles to the fiber pathways by performing a 3D magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) process at the same spatial resolution and voxel position as the DTI, analyzing the viscoelastic properties using an inversion having at least nine elastic coefficients, determining the curvature along the pathways, differentiating the spatial-spectral filter twice with respect to arc length along the pathways, and diagnosing a brain condition based on the viscoelastic properties.
US09965846B2

A method and apparatus for detecting crystal orientation of a silicon wafer is proposed. The detection method uses a camera shooting device to irradiate the silicon wafer in a rotation manner in different angular directions and obtains the corresponding reflection intensities, based on which a reflection curve is drawn for a grain of interest in a polar coordinate system; normal directions of three or more faces of a regular octahedron of a grain <111> are determined by identifying a pixel brightness extreme value in the reflection curve, and then all normal vectors of the regular octahedron are calculated, so that a crystal orientation of the grain of interest may be calculated. The camera shooting device has a light source and one or more camera shooting probes.
US09965840B2

The invention relates to a device and a method for determining the weight of product (2), in particular a pharmaceutical product, which is located in a container (3). The device comprises at least one x-ray source (28), which produces a radiation path (18), for passing radiation through the container (3), and a sensor (14), which detects the radiation of the container (3) through which radiation is passed in the form of an image (12), wherein an evaluating apparatus (14), is provided, which divides the image (12) of the container (3) through which radiation is passed into at least one evaluation region (21) in which there is no product (2).
US09965839B2

An apparatus for quality inspection of shafts includes a rotary table having cutout grooves at the outer periphery thereof. The rotary table includes an upper disk and a lower disk stacked in the vertical direction so as to be rotatable relative to each other; and plate members provided on the upper surface of the lower disk and inserted in respective first cutouts formed at the outer periphery of the upper disk. One of groove edges of each cutout groove is constituted by one side edge of each first cutout, and the other groove edge is constituted by one side edge of each plate member. Second cutout, corresponding to the first cutout and provided in the lower disk, are grooves including side edges, and an end edge perpendicular to the side edges. The distance between these side edges is larger than the maximum groove width of the cutout grooves.
US09965836B2

Provided is a method for performing a Fourier transformation for generating a computer-generated holographic (CGH) image. The method includes generating first intermediate data by performing a first FFT calculation that relates to coordinates of a pupil of a user with respect to input image data; generating second intermediate data by calculating a light concentration effect correction term for correcting a light concentration effect occurring at the pupil of the user and multiplying the first intermediate data by the light concentration effect correction term; and performing a second FFT calculation that relates to the coordinates of the pupil of the user with respect to the second intermediate data.
US09965829B2

A method interactively displays panoramic images of a scene. The method includes measuring 3D coordinates of the scene with a 3D measuring instrument at a first position and a second position. The 3D coordinates are registering into a common frame of reference. Within the scene, a trajectory includes a plurality of trajectory points. Along the trajectory, 2D images are generated from the commonly registered 3D coordinates. A trajectory display mode sequentially displays a collection of 2D images at the trajectory points. A rotational display mode allows a user to select a desired view direction at a given trajectory point. The user selects the trajectory display mode or the rotational display mode and sees the result shown on the display device.
US09965822B2

An image processing method and electronic device are provided. The image processing method includes receiving an instruction to process an input image, determining at least one image processing unit to be used to execute the instruction based on a state of an electronic device, dividing the input image and distributing the divided input image to the determined at least one image processing unit, and processing the divided image using the at least one image processing unit and combining the processed divided image.
US09965811B2

Techniques to promote messages in a social networking services to increase communication opportunities while throttling unsolicited messages are described. In one embodiment, an apparatus may have a message generation component and a message delivery component. The message generation component may be operative to receive a request from a first member of a social networking service (SNS) to send a message for a second member of the SNS. The message delivery component may be operative to deliver the message to one of multiple mailboxes for the second member based on a tiered payment schedule. The tiered payment schedule may include a first parameter to represent a relationship type between the first and second members, a second parameter to represent a subscriber tier for the second member, and a third parameter to represent a promotional cost associated with the subscriber tier. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US09965809B2

Disclosed is a method and system for extracting a mathematical structure associated with a financial table. According to an exemplary embodiment, the method uses a LR-(Left-to-Right) parser reducing stack and a LR-parser nonreducing stack to generate a final reducing stack representative of the mathematical structure.
US09965806B2

A system and method for mass market hedge fund investing is proposed that preferably works in conjunction with the U.S. Treasury's Treasury Direct program for direct investment in U.S. Government securities. A primary investment in a principal-guaranteed, fixed term financial instrument, such as U.S. Government securities, including U.S. Notes, Bonds and Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) having principal linked to the Consumer Price Index, wherein the principal is guaranteed to the extent of the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government, generates an interest income stream. The interest stream is electronically diverted to a separate account within an aggregated pool invested in a hedge fund over a predetermined time horizon. The fund is preferably run by an experienced chief portfolio strategist and a money-management team.
US09965804B1

Systems, methods, and program products for providing an exchange traded product holding digital math-based assets are disclosed. Shares based on digital math-based assets may be created using one or more computers by determining share price information based upon quantities of digital math-based assets held by a trust, electronically receiving a request from an authorized participant user device to purchase a quantity of shares, electronically transmitting a quantity of digital math-based assets to one or more destination digital asset accounts for receipt of digital math-based assets from the authorized participant based on the determined share price information and the requested quantity of shares, and electronically issuing shares to the authorized participant.
US09965801B1

A system includes one or more memory devices storing instructions, and one or more processors configured to execute the instructions to perform steps of a method. The system may provide a virtual fitting system. The system may store sizing data including a 3-dimensional model of a target. The system may then receive user input data indicating the selection of a test object. In response to this identification, the system may receive a 3-dimensional model of the test object. The system can then apply the test object model to the target model to create a virtual fit model, and provide the virtual fit model to the computing device.
US09965799B2

A computer implemented method includes receiving media content for interactive product display systems used with different products in different retail establishments. Product interaction data characterizing consumer gestures performed in connection with the different products in the different retail establishments is collected. The media content and product interaction data is analyzed to form marketing data. The display of media content at an interactive product display system of a retail establishment is remotely initiated.
US09965796B2

Methods and systems for facilitating the purchase of an item on a social networking website are described. Merchants can embed payments in buttons displayed on social networking websites to enable payments at the point of discovery, such as on Pinterest® or Facebook®. As the items associated with the buttons are shared further, the embedded payment capability follows the shared items. For example, a Pinterest® pin has the payment capability embedded within it so as the pin gets re-pinned in the Pinterest® platform, shared on blogs, shared on platforms like Facebook®, or surfaces on Google® Search, the payment capability is also available on those platforms. In some instances, open standards such as oEmbed or Open Graph are used to create the buttons with the payment capability and make creation of the buttons simpler for merchants.
US09965793B1

Systems and methods are provided for determining dimensional criteria of a physical space and identifying a set of items that satisfy the dimensional criteria. For example, the dimensional criteria may be determined based on an image depicting the physical space or search terms provided by a user. Composite keys may be generated based on the dimensional criteria and one or more search terms provided by the user, and the generated composite keys may be used to search one or more databases storing sorted item keys and corresponding item identifiers.
US09965789B2

Systems and techniques for pre-purchase wearable device testing are described herein. A wearable device may be identified as a trial device to a wearable ensemble. Trial data corresponding to the trial device may be provided to a wearable ensemble system that includes the wearable ensemble.
US09965779B2

A content delivery provider may stream an application to each of a plurality of computing devices. The content delivery provider may transmit an offer to download the application to each of the plurality of computing devices, after a first initial display interval. The provider may receive a number of positive user interactions with the offer after the first initial display interval, and a total number of positive user interactions with the offer. The provider may automatically adjust the initial display interval by a factor proportional to a desired first-display quantile divided by the number of positive user interactions after the first initial display interval. The application may be streamed to a second computing device, and the offer to download the application transmitted to the second computing device, after the adjusted initial display interval.
US09965770B2

Embodiments disclosed herein may be directed to the intelligent distribution, redemption, and tracking of coupons. Modernized couponing processes described herein may provide meaningful synergy between three different parties, namely the shopper, the retailer, and the product supplier. For example, while shopping at a retailer, a shopper may use their device to scan a barcode of a product that they wish to purchase. Based on the scanned barcode, relevant coupon offers associated are identified and presented to the shopper on the user device. The shopper may then select one or more coupon offers to be redeemed at the point of sale.
US09965767B2

In general, systems, components, methods, and techniques for gathering, recording, and development of accurate user demographics attributed to accesses by client systems of webpage, web content, or other online resources is provided. For a given a subset of unique users having known demographics for a segment of traffic or general population, a demographic profile may be created for all users of the segment or population within a tolerable margin of error. Demographic data for unique machine identifications (IDs) may be assigned, aggregated, and derived from a single source, or multiple sources, such as panel data, beacon level surveys, cookie exchanges, and the overlay of profile cookies from other publishers.
US09965765B2

This invention relates to a system and method for presenting to a user relevant areas of distributed computer network sites. In particular, the invention disclosed infers and cross reference user mind sets with data stores of potential user goals. The user mind sets indicate a navigational goal of a user over the distributed computer network. In addition, the invention cross-references indicated user goals with data stores of service and service providers providing those services. The invention presents targeted service and service providers to the user across the distributed computer network thereby enabling the user to navigate towards the user goal.
US09965756B2

To make a payment, a smartphone presents artwork for a payment card (e.g., a Visa card) that has been selected by a user from a virtual wallet of such cards. Encoded in the displayed artwork is payment information that has been encrypted with a context-dependent session key. A cooperating system (e.g., a retailer's point of sale system) uses a camera to capture an image of the artwork, and independently creates the session key from its own context sensor(s), enabling decryption of the payment information. Such technology provides a superior transaction security model at a fraction of the cost of competing chip card payment systems (which require, e.g., expensive physical cards, and single-purpose reader hardware). A great variety of other features and arrangements are also detailed.
US09965746B1

Systems and methods are shown which provide processor-based self-service systems for use with respect to controlled environment facilities. Embodiments provide processor-based self-service systems having robust input/output capabilities in order to support a wide range of functionality. Processor-based self-service systems of embodiments are adapted to be deployed within a controlled environment facility, such as within a lobby area, a holding area, and/or a restricted area of a controlled environment facility. According to embodiments, processor-based self-service systems are used with respect to a plurality of functions and a plurality of users, thereby processing a variety of information associated with a controlled environment facility. Embodiments operate to aggregate, compile, correlate, and link information to provide data heretofore unavailable from separate or manual systems used with respect to controlled environment facilities.
US09965741B2

Disclosed embodiments provide systems and techniques for mass execution of analytical models across multiple dimensions of client, collateral, deal structure, third party, and other data relevant to predicting optimal decisions in real-time. In some embodiments, disclosed systems and techniques increase decisioning speed through the reduction of computational loads on disclosed decisioning systems. Further disclosed systems and techniques may scale-out analytical modeling computations through, among other technological solutions, advanced execution environments that are asynchronous and non-blocking in nature so as to allow the execution of a plurality of analytical models in parallel and optimizing the results.
US09965734B2

Some embodiments of the invention provide systems and methods for analyzing the deployment of employees in a restaurant. For example, some embodiments are directed to determining whether an employee who has vacated his/her assigned station has acted appropriately in doing so, and if not, causing the employee to be redirected to his/her assigned station. Determining whether an employee acted appropriately in leaving his/her assigned station may involve analyzing video recordings of the restaurant at or around the time the employee left his/her station, operational data describing events occurring in the restaurant at or around the time the employee left his/her station, and/or other information, which may supply valuable context in determining whether or not the employee acted properly. If the employee acted improperly, he/she may be redirected to his/her assigned station, using automated, semi-automated and/or manual techniques.
US09965732B2

A non-transitory computer readable recording medium has stored therein a program that causes a computer to execute a process including displaying a screen on which it is possible to set an area affected by a characteristic of a road around a specific facility, which is the area set based on the facility; and displaying, on a graphic, information specifying a section of road that is contained in the area affected by the characteristic relating to the specific facility on the displayed screen and that is affected by a possible selected type of repair work on the road according to the fact that the section belongs to the affected area.
US09965727B2

Aspects relate to a computer implemented method for resolving abnormal contention on a computer system. The method includes detecting, using a processor, abnormal contention of a serially reusable resource caused by a first process, wherein the abnormal contention includes the first process blocking the serially reusable resource from a second process that is waiting to use the serially reusable resource. The method includes collecting, in a computer storage medium, resource data in a serialized resource history database and analyzing the resource data associated with the serially reusable resource and adjusting, using the processor, resource allocation for the first process of the serially reusable resource based on the resource data. The method also includes processing, using the processor and the serially reusable resource, the first process based on the resource allocation and releasing, using the processor, the serially reusable resource by the first process in response to the first process completing.
US09965718B2

Embodiments of the invention relate to providing transposable access to a synapse array using a recursive array layout. One embodiment comprises maintaining synaptic weights for multiple synapses connecting multiple axons and multiple neurons, wherein the synaptic weights are maintained based on a recursive array layout. The recursive array layout facilitates transposable access to the synaptic weights. A neuronal spike event between an axon and a neuron is communicated via a corresponding connecting synapse by accessing the synaptic weight of the corresponding connecting synapse in the recursive array layout.
US09965711B2

Provided are: a transfer medium supply unit that supplies a transfer medium for image formation; a storage unit that records supply unit setting information regarding the transfer medium supply unit and transfer medium information regarding the transfer medium; and a control unit that controls the image forming apparatus, wherein the control unit allows setting, in the supply unit setting information, the transfer medium information of the transfer medium to be used in the transfer medium supply unit, records the supply unit setting information including the set transfer medium information in the storage unit, and when the set transfer medium information is changed in the supply unit setting information, sets history information of the transfer medium information in the supply unit setting information including the changed transfer medium information and records the history information in the storage unit.
US09965710B2

An image processing apparatus including a contour extraction section which extracts a contour pixel of an object from pixels in image data that has tone values of a plurality of colors for each of the pixels; and a contour processing section which executes thinning processing of adjusting a tone value of an object color of the object and trapping processing of adjusting a tone value of a background color among tone values of colors in the contour pixel of the object which is extracted by the contour extraction section or in a contour pixel of the background of the object, wherein the contour processing section links an adjustment amount of the tone value of the background color by the trapping processing to an adjustment amount of the tone value of the object color by the thinning processing.
US09965706B1

A printing managing apparatus includes: a job attribute correlating information acquiring unit that acquires job attribute correlating information that correlates pieces of individual job attribute information used in plural respective printing control apparatus with common job attribute information for each job attribute that can be set in print job information so as to be common to the plural printing control apparatus as transmission destination candidates of the print job information; an attribute specification information converting unit as defined herein; and a manipulation control processing unit as defined herein.
US09965701B2

There are provided an apparatus and method for generating a heat map that displays crowd density with visual properties such as colors. The image processing apparatus includes at least one processor to implement: an information obtainer configured to obtain an image by photographing a region of interest and location information indicating a location from which the image is photographed; a density map generator configured to generate a crowd density map of the image based on crowd density information estimated from the image; a perspective map generator configured to generate a perspective map that provides distance information indicating a real-life distance between two points of the image based on the location information; and a heat map generator configured to generate a heat map that displays the crowd density information on a map of the region of interest based on the distance information.
US09965694B2

A terminal for measuring at least one dimension of an object includes at least one imaging subsystem and an actuator. The at least one imaging subsystem includes an imaging optics assembly operable to focus an image onto an image sensor array. The imaging optics assembly has an optical axis. The actuator is operably connected to the at least one imaging subsystem for moving an angle of the optical axis relative to the terminal. The terminal is adapted to obtain first image data of the object and is operable to determine at least one of a height, a width, and a depth dimension of the object based on effecting the actuator to change the angle of the optical axis relative to the terminal to align the object in second image data with the object in the first image data, the second image data being different from the first image data.
US09965690B2

An on-vehicle control device includes: an image acquiring unit that acquires a captured image from an image-capturing device, the image-capturing device capturing an image of surroundings of a vehicle; a judged range dividing unit that divides a predetermined judged range of an image-capturing range of the image-capturing device into a plurality of regions; a feature point extracting unit that extracts a feature point having predetermined characteristics in the surroundings of the vehicle from the image acquired by the image acquiring unit; a point accumulating unit that accumulate points for a region where there is the feature point extracted by the feature point extracting unit, among the plurality of regions, for a plurality of images acquired by the image acquiring unit in time series; and a judging unit that judges whether a foreign matter is adhered to the image-capturing device based on scores resulting from accumulating points of the plurality of regions.
US09965679B2

A device may obtain a document, of a document type, from which specific information is to be captured. The specific information to be captured may depend on a document class associated with the document. The device may identify the document class, associated with the document, based on a characteristic of the document. The document class may identify a category of document in which the document is included, and may be associated with multiple document types. The device may determine field information associated with the document class. The field information may include information that identifies a portion of the document where the specific information is located, or may include information that identifies a manner in which the specific information can be identified within the document. The device may analyze the document, based on the field information, in order to capture the specific information. The device may provide the captured specific information.
US09965668B2

A fingerprint image acquisition device includes: a light source, a finger touching surface, a convex lens, an image sensor and a grating. The light source is a surface light source, and the grating is disposed on a light output surface of the light source. The light source is configured to emit a light beam, the grating is configured to change a propagation direction of the light beam to form a detection light beam, the finger touching surface is configured for a user to place a finger thereon to reflect the detection light beam and thereby obtain a reflected light beam, the convex lens is configured to focus the reflected light beam on the image sensor, and the image sensor is configured to generate a fingerprint image based on the focused reflected light beam. Accordingly, the invention can make the structure of the fingerprint image acquisition device be more compact.
US09965660B2

A communication device having a function for supplying electric power to a communication partner may include a non-contact control section configured to balanced-output transmission power, an antenna circuit configured to transmit the transmission power as an electromagnetic wave, and a matching circuit which is disposed between an output of the non-contact control section and an input of the antenna circuit and is configured to perform impedance matching. The matching circuit and the antenna circuit are respectively provided with two systems and circuit structures from the output of the non-contact control section to the antenna circuits via the matching circuits of the two systems are formed symmetrically.
US09965658B2

In embodiments of person-centric RFID tag activation, an RFID tag is configured so as to be active or inactive based on proximity to a person. An RFID tag includes an integrated circuit (IC), an antenna coupled to the IC, and skin proximity activation circuitry. For example embodiments, the skin proximity activation circuitry is configured to establish an active state for the RFID tag if proximate to skin and an inactive state if not proximate to skin. For an example implementation, an RFID tag is placed in an operationally active state in which an interrogation signal is detectable by an IC if at least one skin contact point is touching skin. For another example implementation, an RFID tag is placed in a communicatively active state in which a received interrogation signal may trigger the sending of a response signal if a detected temperature comports with a human-appropriate range of temperatures.
US09965654B2

Techniques for securely displaying sensitive information against attempts to capture such information via screenshots are introduced. Similar to the pieces of a puzzle, a plurality of images that collectively represent a keypad (for example) are generated and each image represents a different part of the characters. The generated images are to be displayed to a human user in a sequential fashion at at least a predetermined minimum frame rate, such that the plurality of images sequentially displayed are perceivable by the human user collectively as the keypad. In each of the plurality of images, at least a part of the characters of the keypad is disguised or concealed, and in some embodiments, to the extent that not a single character of the keypad is recognizable by a human or a machine. Further, bogus data can be selectively inserted to enhance security.
US09965649B2

In a query-response model system of network communication, to protect user data privacy, a plurality of Camouflage Queries are automatically generated to be sent along with Intended Queries. The mix of intended queries and the Camouflage Queries masks and obscures the intended queries. Camouflage Messages or queries create a noisy background and thus lower the signal to noise ratio (SNR) for a server or interceptor to detect the intended queries.
US09965648B1

A masking system and method for automatically masking sensitive user information on a webpage is provided. The method includes the steps of identifying a location of the first user data of the first type of sensitive user information on the webpage, updating an initial path to the first user data to account for changes to the initial path detected in response to repeated visits to the webpage, wherein the updated initial path to the first user data is stored as a stable path, locating a second user data associated with a second type of sensitive user information on the webpage, by accessing a central database containing path information to a location of the second user data on the webpage, and masking the first user data and the second user data on the webpage, using the stable path and the path information obtained from the central database.
US09965642B2

One or more systems and/or techniques are provided for managing a partially encrypted file system, for storage hardware virtualization, and/or for storage management. In example, data may be stored in a partially encrypted file system, where sensitive data is encrypted for security and non-sensitive data is unencrypted, which may mitigate energy usage otherwise used for encrypting non-sensitive data, thus improving battery life. In an example, a storage device may be exposed to applications as a plurality of isolated storage structures where an application is provided data access to an isolated storage structure assigned to the application but not to isolated storage structures assigned to other applications, which may provide hardware level isolation with improved energy efficiency. In an example, a storage management component, configured to provide isolation and encryption, may be integrated into a computing device as an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) or a system on a chip (SoC).
US09965640B1

A message distribution system replicates a collection of messages across multiple regional data centers. When any of the data centers receives a message for distribution from an authorized publisher, it transmits the message to each of the other data centers so that the collection of messages is immediately replicated among each data center. When any data center determines that a subscriber is connected to it, that data center determines which messages in the data collection the subscriber is authorized to receive, and it automatically sends those messages to the subscriber.
US09965637B2

A method for activating at least one function of a control device of a motor vehicle, which includes the steps: a) generating a random value in the control device; b) calculating a reference value from the random value by the control device; c) transmitting the random value to a remote control unit and from the remote control unit to a server; d) verifying the authorization of the remote control unit transmitting the random value by the server and if an authorization of the remote control unit is provided: e) generating a response value from the random value by the server; f) transmitting the response value to the remote control unit and from the remote control unit to the control device; and g) comparing the response value with the reference value and, if the response value matches the reference value, activating the at least one function of the control device.
US09965631B2

Disclosed herein are an apparatus and method for analyzing malicious code in a multi-core environment. The apparatus for analyzing malicious code includes a core setting unit for setting at least one monitoring core, on which malicious code is to be monitored, among cores of a multi-core Central Processing Unit (CPU), and executing a monitoring program on the monitoring core, a behavioral information collection unit for, when execution cores that are not set as the monitoring core execute analysis target code, collecting pieces of behavioral information using the monitoring program and a hardware debugging device, and a storage unit for storing the behavioral information.
US09965628B2

Aspects of the present invention provide systems and methods that allow for a generic, decentralized system that is independent of a centralized resource and allows for the reporting and protecting of all types of smart devices including smart phones, laptop, tablets, or smart packages, and the like. In embodiments, the device comprises a security module or modules that interface with a decentralized network that maintains a secure distributed transactional ledger, or block chain, in order to send and/or receive data via the block chain. In embodiments, the device may not operate when its ability to access a communication channel provided via secure distributed transactional ledger has been impeded or otherwise hindered.
US09965626B2

Technologies are generally described for systems, devices and methods effective to detect a potential attack on a memory of a memory device. In some examples, a processor may send a request to the memory device. The request may include a request for information that relates to memory writes to the memory of the memory device. The processor may receive a response from the memory device. The response may include the information that relates to the memory writes. The processor may determine, based on the response, an amount of memory of the memory device written to during an interval of time. The processor may detect the potential attack based on the amount of memory written to and based on the interval of time. The processor may then generate an alert based on the detection of the potential attack.
US09965620B2

This disclosure is directed to a system for system for application program interface (API) monitoring bypass prevention. Operation of an API function may be preserved by generating a binary translation based on the API function native code. The native code may then be protected to prevent API monitoring bypassing. In one embodiment, access permission may be set to non-executable for a memory page in which the native code is stored. Attempts to execute the native code may generate exceptions triggering API monitoring. Alternatively, some or all of a body section of the native code may be replaced with at least one trap instruction that cause exceptions triggering API monitoring or engaging protective measures. Use of the trap instruction may be combined with at least one jump instruction added after a header section of the native code. Execution of the jump instruction may cause execution to be redirected to API monitoring.
US09965615B2

The invention is a method of transferring user data from a first instance of a package to a second instance of another package corresponding to an upgraded version. The first instance stores the user data in its own storage format. The two instances are embedded in a secure element. The method comprises the steps of: establishing a direct channel within the portable secure device between the two instances, the first instance gets in a locked state where it refuses any service requests except the communication with the second instance, prepares a pack by formatting the user data in a transport format, and automatically sends the pack to the second instance through the direct channel, the second instance retrieves the user data from the pack and stores the user data in another storage format.
US09965609B2

Authenticating users comprises a computing device that receives a manual authentication input of a user and initiates a first user session between the user and the user computing device. The device communicates a request for a first user authorization data from an authentication technology associated with the one or more computing devices and receives the first user authentication data. The user or the device terminates the first user session and subsequently receives an input of the user to initiate a second user session. The device communicates a request for second user authentication data from the authentication technology and compares the first user authentication data and the second user authentication data. The device identifies a match of one or more features of the first user authentication data and one or more features of the second user authentication data and authorizes the user to conduct the second user session.
US09965607B2

Embodiments may take the form of devices and methods to help expedite matching biometric data in a validation process. One embodiment, for example, may take the form of a method for biometric validation including receiving a biometric input and retrieving metadata data of a most recently matched template. The method also includes evaluating the metadata and selecting one or more nodes from the most recently matched template for comparison. Additionally, the method includes comparing the selected one or more nodes with the received biometric input and determining if the selected one or more nodes match with the received biometric input. Also, the method includes validating the received biometric input if the selected one or more nodes match with the received biometric input.
US09965604B2

Registration of an application in a per-user registration model includes the creation and storage of duplicate registration data for multiple user accounts present on a system. This duplication of registration data may be reduced by storing at least a portion of identical data in a per-machine location in the system memory where it is accessible to all user accounts. Instead of needing to separately re-compute and/or re-store duplicate registration data in multiple per-user locations in the memory, each user account may access and utilize the registration data stored in the per-machine location. Pre-computing and storing a portion of the application registration data in a per-machine location in the memory may also allow the system to defer the registration of the application.
US09965599B2

A method of setting function includes first to fourth steps. The first step connects a recording medium to a first electrical apparatus having an optional function either disabled or temporarily enabled, the recording medium containing license information to enable the optional function. The second step allows first electrical apparatus to authenticate the license information. The third step, subsequent to the second step, enables the optional function of the first electrical apparatus. The fourth step, subsequent to the third step, records the optional function as having been authenticated in the license information.
US09965590B1

According to various embodiments, a healthcare collaboration system and methods are provided to enable physicians and other participants in the healthcare system to efficiently collaborate with one another by engaging in system-facilitated consultations. As used herein, a consultation may generally refer to communications established between two or more users of the healthcare collaboration system. In general, the system and methods described herein provide the ability for users to establish consultations with other users at a mutually convenient time, whether or not there exists a prior relationship between the users. In exchange for time spent conducting consultations, users may be compensated using any number of compensation methods. By providing a platform that facilitates communication and collaboration among healthcare participants, both patients and physicians are benefited by improving the efficiency of medical diagnosis and treatment, thereby increasing satisfaction and lowering costs of the healthcare system.
US09965587B2

A method includes: measuring a blood glucose (bG) level in a blood sample; storing the bG level and a time of receipt of the blood sample; storing a classification of the blood sample; in response to the receipt of the blood sample, selecting a group of stored bG levels having the classification of the blood sample and that were received within a predetermined period before receipt of the blood sample; calculating a bG evaluation parameter from the selected bG levels; evaluating the bG evaluation parameter in relation to first predetermined criteria, the first predetermined criteria including a first threshold indicative of a high bG level or a low bG level; selectively displaying an indication of recognition of a pattern in the selected bG levels when the bG evaluation parameter is greater than or less than the first threshold; and selectively removing the indication from the display.
US09965585B2

Systems, apparatus, and methods are provided for determining genetic or molecular aberrations in a biological sample. Biological samples including cell-free DNA fragments are analyzed to identify imbalances in chromosomal regions, e.g., due to deletions and/or amplifications in a tumor. Multiple loci are used for each chromosomal region. Such imbalances can be used to diagnose (screen) a patient for cancer, as well as prognosticate a patient with cancer, or to detect the presence or to monitor the progress of a premalignant condition in a patient. Severity of an imbalance and the number of regions exhibiting an imbalance can be used. A systematic analysis of non-overlapping genomic segments can provide a general screening tool. A patient can be tested over time to track severity of each of one or more chromosomal regions and a number of chromosomal regions to enable screening and prognosticating, as well as monitoring of progress (e.g. after treatment).
US09965570B2

Methods, devices and computer program products for performing predicate evaluation on a compressed variable length character string are disclosed. Aspects include determining upper and lower boundaries of a false positive range for a predicate, the false positive range for the predicate being a range in which a result of the predicate evaluation may lead to a false positive error. Aspects also include compression-encoding the upper and lower boundaries of the false positive range and performing a first comparison for comparing the compressed variable length character string with the compression-encoded upper and lower boundaries of the false positive range. Aspects further include determining a result of the predicate evaluation based on at least a result of the first comparison processing.
US09965569B2

A computer device may reduce user error when constructing a search query. The computing device may display one or more search terms within a search box based on user input. The computing device may display initial autosuggest candidates and detect a user-selected initial autosuggest candidate. The computing device may display the user-selected initial autosuggest candidate within the search box as a preliminary search query, without automatically initiating a web search for the preliminary search query. The computing device may receive new autosuggest candidates having the preliminary search query as a common prefix, generate truncated autosuggest candidates by removing the common prefix from each new autosuggest candidate, and display the truncated autosuggest candidates.
US09965557B2

A system for support and management of search for documents is presented. The system includes a knowledge-database, query interface and communication to a database of documents to be searched. Information generated during a search session is collected by the system and is added to the knowledge-database. The information is ranked automatically according to the usage of that information by the user. During successive search session or during a search made by another user, the system uses the knowledge-database to support the users with keywords, queries and reference documents.
US09965556B2

A system for building topical interest profiles for members of a situational awareness system using location tracking information. Members who participate in the system activate location tracking on their mobile communication devices and provide the system with real-time access to the location tracking data. The situational awareness system analyzes a member's location tracking data, detects potential topics of interest for the member based on the location tracking data, and then prompts the member to update their profile data to include the detects potential topics of interest. If the member adds a suggested topic to their profile, the situational awareness system includes the member in situational awareness information provided to requesters seeking information concerning members interested in the added topic. The situational awareness system may also direct online queries to the member relating to the added topic and increase the member's priority for participating in online queries.
US09965554B2

A computerized system and method is presented for analyzing quotations made in a quoting document of text originally found in a source document. The quoting document and source document can be web pages publicly available on the World Wide Web. The present invention analyzes the quoting document for quoted text, searches the source document for that text, and stores the existence of the quotation in association with the source document. When displaying the source document, quoted text is highlighted. A link is provided between items of quoted text and a list of documents that have quoted that text. From this list the full text of a quoting document may be displayed.
US09965546B2

A system includes receiving a substring to be searched and determining one or more N-grams associated with the received substring. A lookup of each of the one or more N-grams is performed using an N-gram index. A set of tokens associated with each of the one or more N-grams is calculated and a determination is made if the substring exits in the calculated set of tokens. The results of the determination if the substring exits in the set of tokens are outputted.
US09965542B2

A method for data storage implemented in a data storage system is disclosed. Data storage nodes may be interconnected by means of a communications network. The method may include sending a request for a first data item to a plurality of storage nodes. The first data item may include a reference to a second data item stored in the storage system. The method may include receiving the first data item from at least one storage node, and sending a request for the second data item to the plurality of storage nodes based on the reference included in the first data item.
US09965538B2

A log manager causing events to be written to the primary and the secondary computing systems for high availability, and returning threads quickly. Rather than cause every event write to be immediately written to the secondary computing system, the log management component is triggered to write to the secondary computing system upon detecting event write requests of event writes of a particular event type. In response to detecting such an event write, the log management component gathers a group of event writes corresponding to that particular event write, and dispatches the event writes as a group. The particular thread that initiated the particular event write of the particular event type is returned after dispatching the event write group, but before or without confirmation of the particular event write group has been written to the secondary computing system.
US09965537B2

A method including: receiving one or more first transactions at the computer replay system from one or more data sources; storing the one or more first transactions in a transactional database; updating a current state of one or more first records in a historical database based on the one or more first transactions; receiving a request from a first user for a replay of the data starting at a first moment; determining a state of the one or more first records in the historical database at the first moment; providing the state of the one or more first records at the first moment to the first user; determining one or more second transactions in the transactional database that occurred after the first moment; and providing sequentially the one or more second transactions to the first user. Other embodiments are provided.
US09965529B2

Methods and systems are provided for providing search results while maintaining search context. A search system may display a plurality of links related to a received search query, wherein the links are all of the same entity type. The system may display sets of search results related to the plurality of links, while continuing to display the plurality of links.
US09965528B2

The present invention relates generally to gathering, verifying, and providing information in an easy-to-understand format. Representations are obtained and evaluated to extract selected content or content information from which certain synthesized information can be gathered, collected, estimated, calculated, or determined. In addition, supplemental synthesized information may be gathered, collected, estimated, calculated, or determined.
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