US08881310B2

Systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media are provided for remotely initiating lost mode on a computing device. A request that lost mode be initiated can include a message and contact information provided by the requesting user. Once authenticated, a command to initiate lost mode is sent to the lost device. Initiating lost mode includes locking the lost device and suppressing select functionality. The message and contact information are displayed and the lost device is enabled to contact the requesting user using the contact information. The lost device can also collect and transmit location data to the requesting user. The location data can be presented on a map indicating the lost devices location and the time the lost device was at the location. The location data can be scheduled to be resent to the user based on numerous factors such as a set schedule, rules or heuristic.
US08881306B2

An architecture and techniques to facilitate lending of digital content at an authorized location to an authenticated electronic device.
US08881301B2

A network of storage units has a data path which is at least a portion of the network. The network also has a key storage unit and a gateway storage unit. If the key storage unit stores a key value, the key storage unit transmits a key signal to the gateway storage unit. If the gateway storage unit does not store a gateway value or the key signal is not transmitted to the gateway storage unit, the gateway storage unit does not insert a data path segment in the data path. If the gateway storage unit stores a gateway value and the key signal is transmitted to the gateway storage unit, the gateway storage unit inserts the data path segment.
US08881288B1

A method of generating graphical models for providing security analysis in computer networks that in one embodiment includes the steps of generating a type abstract graph independent of particular networks that models abstract dependency relationships among attributes and exploits; generating network-specific attack graphs by combining the type abstract graph with specific network information; monitoring an intruder alert; and generating a real-time attack graph by correlating the intruder alert with the network-specific attack graph. The real-time attack graph can be generated using reachability checking, bridging, and exploit prediction based on consequence alerts and may further include the step of calculating the likelihood of queries using a Bayesian network model. The method may also include the steps of inferring unobserved attacks that may have been missed by intrusion detection sensors, and projecting on which hosts and using what exploits additional intruder attacks may occur. The method may further include the step of comparing alternate actions by computation, wherein the alternate actions include the step of patching some vulnerabilities, and wherein the specific network information includes network topology. The specific network information may also include firewall rules.
US08881286B2

A method and device for clustering virus files is provided. The method involves statically analyzing binary data of virus files to be clustered, so as to obtain PE structure data of the virus files. Further, based on a comparison of the PE structure data, those virus files with PE structure data meeting a specific similarity may be categorized into the same category. The device may include a first data analyzing module configured to extract PE structure data of virus files to be clustered by static analysis of binary data of the virus files. A first clustering module of the device may compare the PE structure data and cluster the virus files having the PE structure data meeting a specific similarity into the same category. The solution may improve efficiency of clustering computer virus files, reduce resource consumption, and avoid the risk of virus infection caused by dynamically running the virus files.
US08881281B1

In an embodiment, a computer-implemented method detects a network or application abuse to a service provider environment. In the method, data is collected describing incoming requests from plurality of different external source addresses to the service provider environment. The collected data is used to compare the incoming requests against a heuristic. When the incoming requests are determined to match the heuristic, the requests, having the plurality of different external source addresses, are from a common abuse entity. Finally, the collected data is evaluated to determine that the common abuse entity is a potential network abuser of the service provider environment.
US08881278B2

A system and method for detecting malicious code in web content is described. A controller receives information, routes the information to the appropriate module and determines whether a user receives the web content or a report of a detection of malicious code. A vulnerability definition generator generates vulnerability definitions. A parser parses web content into static language constructions. A translation engine translates the static language constructions into trap rules, translates the web content into application programming interface (API) calls and determines whether the API calls trigger any of the trap rules. A sandbox engine generates an environment that mimics a browser and executes dynamic parts of the web content and determines whether a dynamic part triggers a trap rule.
US08881270B2

A system for selectively enabling a microprocessor-based system is disclosed. State information that describes the operating conditions or circumstances under which a user intends to operate the system is obtained. In the preferred embodiment of the invention, a valid hash value is determined, preferably based on the state information and preferably by locating the valid hash value within a table of valid hash values indexed by the state information. Candidate authorization information is obtained from the user, and a candidate hash value is generated by applying a hashing algorithm to the candidate authorization information, the state information, or a combination of the candidate authorization information and state information. The candidate hash value and the valid hash value are then compared, and the microprocessor-based system is enabled if the candidate hash value matches the valid hash value. In this manner, the designer or distributor of the system can determine, at the time of manufacture or distribution, the conditions and circumstances under which the system may be operated.
US08881266B2

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system for automatically authenticating a user. During operation, the system receives a user's request for authentication. The system then extracts information associated with the user from user-specific information stored in an enterprise computer. The extracted user information does not explicitly relate to a password. The system further generates one or more challenges based on the extracted user information, and receives the user's response to the challenges. Subsequently, the system compares the user's response to the extracted user information, and authenticates the user.
US08881265B2

A computer system includes a memory having a secure area and a plurality of processors using the memory. When an access-allowed program unit executed by one of the processors starts an access to the secure area, the program unit subject to execution by the other processors is limited to the access-allowed program unit.
US08881260B1

Cross-Domain guard with authentication and authorization function used to protect data transferred between two separate and secure networks. The guard utilizes an existing audit port to provide the capability augment or replace data-forwarding decisions, which were previously being based solely on whether the data is in a well-formed packet. The authentication and authorization may be resident in a partition, a side car processor or a separate network.
US08881259B2

Methods, devices, and storage media storing instructions to obtain logs from a security device and one or multiple service-providing devices, wherein the logs include information pertaining to traffic flow activity at an application layer associated with a service; store rules that identify behavior ranging from unintentional through intentional for one or multiple communication layers including an application layer; interpret the logs based on the rules; determine whether a violation exists based on the interpreting; and generate a notification that indicates the violation exists in response to a determination that the violation exists.
US08881254B2

A method and apparatus for managing virtual objects in a network is provided. The method includes creating a unique link between at least one virtual object and a physical token. The at least one virtual object is represented by a first set of distinct predefined properties and is associated with a data set. Further, the method includes maintaining information about the unique link between the at least one virtual object and the physical token and information about the first set of distinct predefined properties. Furthermore, the method includes regulating access to the at least one virtual object based on a second set of predefined properties and verification of the physical token.
US08881250B2

Systems and methods for passporting credentials provide a mechanism by which a native app on a client device can invoke a service provider's core web site web addresses (URL) while keeping the existing session active and shared between the two experiences (native app and web flow) so that the end user does not need to re-login at each context switch. The mechanism can include a unique way for the web flow context to communicate conditions and pass control back to the native app context of the shared session. Embodiments may operate by authenticating a device session from a native app executing on a client device producing a device session token; passing the device session token from a native app to an embedded browser to authenticate a user when entering a web flow; and entering the web flow, according to the session token, on an embedded browser driven by the native app so that the user encounters a single shared session (device session and web session) running at least two parallel secure communication interactions with an infrastructure.
US08881249B2

A secret (e.g. a password, key, certificate) is automatically generated by a system. For example, at the time of deployment of a computing machine, a password may be generated and securely stored by the system with other secrets. The password may be used by the system to perform various operations (e.g. configuring the machine, . . . ). When a secret is requested by a user to access a resource, a secret is provided to the user. Once the secret has been utilized by the user, the secret is reset and replaced with a newly generated secret. All/portion of the secrets may also be automatically regenerated. For example, when a breach occurs and/or is suspected, each of the secrets may be replaced with newly generated secrets and securely stored. Auditing and reporting may also be provided (e.g. each request/access to a secret is logged).
US08881239B1

A method and apparatus for securing transactions using verified resource locations is described. In one embodiment, the method for authorizing a transaction request using published location information for at least one resource includes examining relationship data regarding at least one resource to identify at least one publisher computer and at least one subscriber computer, wherein the at least one publisher computer communicates location information for the at least one resource and in response to at least one transaction request from the at least one subscriber computer, comparing the location information with the at least one transaction request to verify at least one resource location.
US08881238B2

In the event of an authentication process failure, a mobile station bans a connection profile storing the credentials provided by the mobile station when initiating the failed authentication process, thus affecting how subsequent scans—other than discovery scans—and connection attempts are handled. In the event of an authentication process failure, a mobile station bans or suppresses an access point with which the mobile station initiated the failed authentication process. The mobile station refrains from transmitting any communications addressed to the unique identifier of any banned access point. The mobile station may ignore any communications received from a banned access point. Suppressed access points are occasionally not made available to the mobile station for selection as a target for a connection attempt.
US08881236B2

A networking system comprising a virtual group controller in an information centric network configured to enable mobility and security for a plurality of users groups of the information centric network, a plurality of user groups coupled to the virtual group controller and associated with the users, a plurality of agents that are each associated with one of the user groups, and a database for trusted service profile coupled to the virtual group controller, wherein the virtual group controller is configured to interact with the agents to enable mobility for the user groups using a server-less domain-based naming scheme.
US08881228B2

Methods, systems, computer-readable media, and apparatuses for providing a managed browser are presented. In various embodiments, a computing device may load a managed browser. The managed browser may, for instance, be configured to provide a managed mode in which one or more policies are applied to the managed browser, and an unmanaged mode in which such policies might not be applied and/or in which the browser might not be managed by at least one device manager agent running on the computing device. Based on device state information and/or one or more policies, the managed browser may switch between the managed mode and the unmanaged mode, and the managed browser may provide various functionalities, which may include selectively providing access to enterprise resources, based on such state information and/or the one or more policies.
US08881224B2

A system and method for presenting on-demand masking of data as a software service in a distributed environment is provided. An application hosted on a computing device receives request for access to application data from a user. Credentials of the user are first validated in order to determine whether the user is authorized to access the requested application data. For an authorized user, a category of the user is determined to ascertain whether the user is privileged to obtain full access. In case the user is a privileged user, unmasked application data is fetched from a database utility and provided to the user. In case the user is not a privileged user, application data access request is transferred to a data masking service. Application data is fetched from database utility, masked based on pre-defined masking rules and provided to the user.
US08881212B2

A method includes storing, at a first network device configured to communicate with at least one set top box (STB) and at least one digital video recorder (DVR), information identifying parameters associated with bandwidth in a home network. The method may also include receiving, at a first network device in the home network, a request having a corresponding first bandwidth and identifying a class of traffic associated with the request. The method may further include determining whether the first bandwidth is less than an available bandwidth associated with the identified class of traffic, approving the request when the first bandwidth is less than the available bandwidth, and modifying the available bandwidth associated with the identified class of traffic in response to approving the request.
US08881208B2

A wireless communication apparatus and a control method thereof are provided. The wireless communication apparatus includes: a first communication unit which receives a video signal from an image device; a video processor which processes the video signal; a second communication unit establishes a wireless connection with another device; and a controller receives wireless connection information from the image device through the first communication unit, and controls the second communication unit to establish the wireless connection with the other device based on the received wireless connection information.
US08881207B2

An apparatus is provided. The apparatus includes a control unit to establish communication with a wireless terminal and to control reception of multimedia data wirelessly transmitted from the wireless terminal, and an output unit to display the multimedia data on an external device, whereby the multimedia data is reproduced on the external device in real time.
US08881202B2

A data delivery system leverages existing satellite infrastructure to deliver massive data sets (e.g., genomic data) to last-mile, remote or rural, locations. The system repurposes existing high-capacity satellite links normally used to broadcast entertainment content by creating customized channels specifically adapted to delivering large data sets to be stored upon computer systems.
US08881199B2

An apparatus, method and data structure for generating at least one table in a broadcast environment, are provided. The apparatus includes a generator to generate an event information table (EIT) and an extended text table (ETT). The ETT has program guide information for an n-hour span and has a transmission interval. The ETT has a transmission interval and program description information according to the EIT. The transmission interval of the EIT is shorter than the transmission interval of the ETT.
US08881193B2

Improved enhanced TV programming provides the capability for a TV viewer watching one channel to be notified of interesting programming events happening or about to happen on other channels. The present invention overcomes the problem addressed by “surfing TV channels” by providing notifications that alert enhanced TV viewers to other programming events happening or about to happen on different channels that are not presently being watched. This enables the viewer to watch a primary program on one channel without interruption and be timely notified about interesting programming events about to occur on other channels. The viewer then may have the option of switching to another channel based on the information included with the event notification.
US08881184B2

A disc device which takes out a disc stored in a magazine and conveys the disc to any disc drive, in which the magazine comprises a tray which stores a plurality of discs, and a case which has a substantially rectangular parallelepiped shape and which stores the tray. The case has an opening at front face into which the tray can be inserted into or taken out therefrom. The tray has an outer shape being substantially rectangular in planar view. The tray is provided with cut portions formed at corner portions positioned on the back side of the case being cut off. The disc device further comprises a picker which holds the tray and draws out the tray from the case. The picker rotates the tray when the cut portion passes through the opening.
US08881167B2

Techniques are disclosed for load balancing in networks such as those networks handling telephony applications. By way of example, a method for directing requests associated with calls to servers in a system comprised of a network routing calls between a plurality of nodes wherein a node participates in a call as a caller or a receiver and wherein a load balancer sends requests associated with calls to a plurality of servers comprises the following steps. A request associated with a node belonging to a group including a plurality of nodes is received. A server is selected to receive the request. A subsequent request is received. A determination is made whether or not the subsequent request is associated with a node belonging to the group. The subsequent request is sent to the server based on determining that the subsequent request is associated with a node belonging to the group.
US08881159B2

Mechanisms are provided for allocating threads for execution of a parallel region of code. A request for allocation of worker threads to execute the parallel region of code is received from a master thread. Cached thread allocation information identifying prior thread allocations that have been performed for the master thread are accessed. Worker threads are allocated to the master thread based on the cached thread allocation information. The parallel region of code is executed using the allocated worker threads.
US08881157B2

Techniques are generally described for allocating a thread to heterogeneous processor cores. Example techniques may include monitoring real time computing data related to the heterogeneous processor cores processing the thread, allocating the thread to the heterogeneous processor cores based, at least in part, on the real time computing data, and/or executing the thread by the respective allocated heterogeneous processor core.
US08881155B2

A computer program product includes a computer readable storage medium containing computer code that, when executed by a computer, implements a method including receiving, by a memory device of the computing system, a log file, the log file comprising unsummarized metrics, the unsummarized metrics being related to a plurality of transactions performed by a program in the computing system, and a summarized metric, the summarized metric being related to the program, wherein the summarized metric comprises accumulated data from the plurality of transactions; selecting an unsummarized metric that reflects a distribution of the summarized metric among the plurality of transactions by a processing device of the computing system; and determining an amount of the summarized metric that belongs to a transaction of the plurality of transactions based on the selected unsummarized metric by the processing device of the computing system.
US08881144B1

A computer-implemented method for reclaiming storage space from virtual machine disk images may include (1) identifying a virtual machine that uses a virtual machine disk image as a virtual disk for storage, the virtual machine disk image being stored on a thin-provisioned volume within a host file system, (2) determining that a portion of the virtual machine disk image represents a portion of the virtual disk that is unused by a file system of the virtual machine, (3) based on determining that the portion of the virtual machine disk image represents the portion of the virtual disk that is unused by the file system of the virtual machine, marking the portion of the virtual machine disk image for reclamation from the thin-provisioned volume, and (4) reclaiming the marked portion of the virtual machine disk image from the thin-provisioned volume. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.
US08881138B1

A first region and a second region of a display device graphically represent a first folder and a second folder, respectively, of a computer-readable storage medium. A computer software installation comprises installing a plurality of files in the first folder and installing at least one file in the second folder. A first graphical progress indicator that is within the first region and whose shape is at least partially defined by a first line segment, a second line segment, and an approximately circular first arc graphically represents progress of said installing the plurality of files in the first folder. A second graphical progress indicator that is within the second region and whose shape is at least partially defined by a third line segment, a fourth line segment, and an approximately circular second arc graphically represents progress of said installing the at least one file in the second folder.
US08881128B2

A method and system for acquisition of an application for installation on a communication device. The method comprises monitoring a frequency of a usage event at the communication device to infer a set of usage characteristics; triggering a search request to a computer server for applications associated with the set of usage characteristics, the triggering of the search request based on a predefined threshold related to the monitored frequency of the usage event; receiving at the communication device a search result compiled at the server computer, the search result including an application for installation thereon; and providing a notification, at a graphical user interface (GUI) of the communication device, of the application for installation thereon.
US08881120B2

Methods and systems for creating multi-state content using state information are disclosed. The state information may specify, for example, that a subcomponent is included in one state and excluded from another state. As another example, the state information may specify that an attribute of the object will have a first value in one state and a different value in another state. Certain embodiments allow a developer to use declarative statements to specify different states for an object. These declarative statements may directly specify the appearance attributes or subcomponents of the object. Certain embodiments allow a developer to specify state-specific appearance attributes and sub-components within the general specification of the object and without having to specify appearance attributes or subcomponents in terms of changes to a base state or any other state.
US08881114B2

A method and system of inserting marker values used to correlate trace data as between processor cores. At least some of the illustrative embodiments are integrated circuit devices comprising a first processor core, a first data collection portion coupled to the first processor core and configured to gather data comprising addresses of instructions executed by the first processor core, a second processor core communicatively coupled to the first processor core, and a second data collection portion coupled to the first processor core and configured to gather data comprising addresses of instructions executed by the second processor core. The integrated circuit device is configured to insert marker values into the data of the first and second processor cores which allow correlation of the data such that contemporaneously executed instruction are identifiable.
US08881113B2

Methods and systems are provided for assigning exceptions in a multi-tenant system providing instances of a virtual application over a network to multiple tenants. One exemplary method of assigning an exception record corresponding to an anomalous condition identified by an instance of the virtual application involves obtaining context information associated with the anomalous condition from the instance of the virtual application and automatically assigning the exception record to a development entity based at least in part on the context information.
US08881112B2

A method for estimating a quality measure of a composite application is presented. The method may include receiving a set of sequence diagrams describing interactions between pairs of components in a composite application. Each sequence diagram may describe a functional use case of the composite application. Component quality metrics may also be received, such that each component quality metric corresponds to a component of the composite application. A quality estimation may be calculated for each use case of the composite application. The quality estimation may be determined as a function of one or more of the component quality metrics. A quality measure of the composite application may then be calculated as a function of the quality estimation for each use case. The quality measure of the composite application may be output.
US08881104B2

A method for component discovery from source code may include receiving source code, and determining business classes by excluding packages and classes in the source code identified as belonging to a presentation layer, as belonging to a data access layer, as models and/or as utilities. The method may further include extracting multi-dimensional features from the business classes, estimating similarity for business class pairs based on the extracted multi-dimensional features, clustering the business classes based on the similarity and mapping functional concepts to the clusters. The clusters generated by the clustering may represent components of the source code. The method may also include determining interfaces for the components based on the clustering.
US08881103B2

A computer system, program, or method may provide for quantifying changes in an individual component among a plurality of components in a software development environment where the components are incorporated in a build. This may include calculating a baseline weight of the individual component prior to a change; effecting, in the software development environment, the change to the individual component; calculating a modified weight of the individual component after the change; determining a threshold for a difference between the baseline weight and the modified weight of the individual component; calculating the difference between the baseline weight and the modified weight of the individual component; and providing on the software development computer a notification if the difference exceeds the threshold. The weights of the individual component may use data such as a count of other components required by the individual component, an install size, a runtime memory usage, a depth of a dependency tree, a component license type, a component category for memory location, a component code type, and/or other types of data.
US08881092B2

A tool is provided for addressing a number of issues related to assembling software stacks including multiple uncoordinated components such as open source projects. The tool identifies individual projects for stacking, manages dependency relationships and provides an intuitive graphical interface to assist a user. A project filter is also provided for controlling access to or installation of projects in accordance with filter criteria. In this manner, compliance with internal policies regarding the use of open source or other software is facilitated. The user can also add projects to the collection of supported projects and define stack macros or stacros. Once such stacros are defined, various functionality can be provided analogous to that provided for individual projects.
US08881080B2

Methods and apparatus for Enhanced Static IR Drop Analysis are provided. Enhanced Static IR Drop Analysis can be used to determine a quality and robustness of a power distribution network in a circuit. In examples, Enhanced Static IR Drop Analysis includes recording time points at which global current demand profile peaks, sampling instantaneous current from individual tile-based current demand profiles at each time point, and running Static IR Analysis for the tiles at the time points to determine tile current use by the tiles during the time points. Enhanced Static IR Drop Analysis can be used for quick assessment of peak current distribution and determining how the peak current distribution stresses the power distribution network. Enhanced Static IR Drop Analysis is useful during earlier stages of circuit design, when quickly producing circuit performance data is imperative and conventional techniques require significant resources.
US08881078B2

A method is provided for identifying use of a proprietary circuit layout. A representation of a layout of a circuit is input and the locations of a set of predetermined physical features of the circuit are identified. This set of locations is then compared with a previously generated characteristic pattern file, the characteristic pattern file comprising a representation of relative locations of a set of these predetermined physical features in the proprietary circuit layout. If the set of locations matches the relative locations of the characteristic pattern file, then an output is generated indicating that use of the proprietary circuit design has been found.
US08881066B2

Methods for forming a single fin fin-like field effect transistor (FinFET) device are disclosed. An exemplary method includes providing a main mask layout and a trim mask layout to form fins of a fin-like field effect transistor (FinFET) device, wherein the main mask layout includes a first masking feature and the trim mask layout includes a second masking feature that defines at least two fins, the first masking feature and the second masking feature having a spatial relationship; and modifying the main mask layout based on the spatial relationship between the first masking feature and the second masking feature, wherein the modifying the main mask layout includes modifying the first masking feature such that a single fin FinFET device is formed using the modified main mask layout and the trim mask layout.
US08881063B2

Systems and methods are provided for conducting the entire development process of new products, such as clothing or fashion designs, from conception through production in a virtual world. The virtual world is a multi-user three-dimensional persistent interactive graphical environment in which a plurality of avatars can interact as if interacting in the physical world to develop a new product. The avatars represent actual individuals that are contributors to the product development process. Each avatar can communicate with other avatars, can interact with and modify the graphical environment and can manipulate three-dimensional objects within the graphical environment for purposes of demonstration, explanation or review. Databases containing the necessary elements for product design are provided and are accessible by the avatars within the graphical environment.
US08881054B2

Information associated with an unavailable option is provided to a user upon detecting the user's interest in that option in a configuration environment or user interface control environment. The provided information may explain why the option is unavailable, what alternative options may be available, and which actions may be needed to render the option available. The user may be further enabled to unselect conflicting options or re-select among a subset of relevant options to render the unavailable option available without losing the context of the current selection screen.
US08881051B2

A user interface method, including presenting by a computer executing a user interface, multiple interactive items on a display. A first sequence of images is captured indicating a position in space of a hand of a user in proximity to the display, and responsively to the position, one of the interactive items is associated with the hand. After associating the item, a second sequence of images is captured indicating a movement of the hand, and responsively to the movement, a size of the one of the items is changed on the display.
US08881050B2

A scrolling method and apparatus devices having display screens such as a mobile terminal. When a first image on a screen cannot be moved in a direction by a touch input, a region of the first image is modified in response to the touch input and the modified image is subsequently restored to the first image after the touch is released or a preset amount of time passes. The modification of the region of the image provides an indication that is fed back to the user so that the end or last part of the image is displayed and cannot be moved further, so that undesired repetitive touch input can be prevented.
US08881048B2

Methods and systems are provided for providing an improved three-dimensional graphical user interface. In one embodiment, the method generally comprises: receiving an input from an end user, and capturing computing output from at least one computer source in response to the received end-user input. The computing output can be presented as two or more objects within a three-dimensional virtual space displayed to the end user. In one embodiment, the method further comprises generating a timeline that includes an icon for each object presented within the virtual space. In another embodiment, the method further comprises providing a database for storing and categorizing data regarding each object presented within the virtual space.
US08881038B1

A method of rendering data on a graphical display includes an editor and objects for creating dashboards of various styles and shapes. Objects are created and edited in a graphical user interface to produce object trees or lists and layers or containers for organization. Data values are rendered in a dashboard on a display, and objects and layers may be cached for quicker rendering. Rendering of an object may change based on the data value to be represented, and an object may be clipped when displayed.
US08881037B2

One exemplary embodiment involves receiving input editing electronic content being edited in the electronic content creation application and identifying changes to the electronic content being edited that are required based on the input. The exemplary embodiment further involves determining one or more of the changes to be hidden effects and selectively displaying information associated with one or more effects defined for the electronic content being edited, where the information associated with the one or more effects excludes information about the hidden effects.
US08881031B2

A method of connecting consumers with third parties includes providing one or more widgets adjacent a plurality of directory listings of third parties on webpage, with each widget being associated with one of the third parties. An indication can be received that a consumer has executed one of the widgets. The consumer and third party can be connected in a live chat session in response to the execution of the widget. The live chat session can be configured to allow direct communication between the consumer and the third party.
US08881026B2

Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to queued requests to establish human-to-human collaborative sessions and provide a novel and non-obvious method, system and computer program product for managing queued requests to establish human-to-human collaborative sessions. In one embodiment, a human-to-human collaborative data processing system can be provided which can include a messenger configured for coupling to other messengers. The system further can include a queue of incoming session requests to establish respective human-to-human collaborative sessions with requesters associated with the other messengers. Finally, the system can include queue management logic enabled to order the session requests in the queue according to queue rules coupled to the queue management logic.
US08881017B2

Information related to art is provided in networked computing environments wherein users can participate in public or private online interactive video conferences, chat rooms and other online sessions led by art galleries or art gallery affiliates. User's may switch between public sessions and private sessions when ready to make a transaction related to an art object or artist presented in a public session. In private online sessions, potential consumers may also electronically provide the art gallery pictures, diagrams and photographs of an area in which they are interested in placing certain art objects. An image of the art object is shown within the picture to scale with other objects such as a wall, and angle of view. Users may also see the art objects to scale next to other stock images of familiar reference objects during the online session.
US08881001B2

Provided are an apparatus and method for transforming an application for a multi-modal interface. The apparatus includes: a parsing means for parsing an original application to generate a parsed structure of the original application; an application transforming/creating means for transforming the parsed structure generated by the parsing means; a multi-modal synthesizing means for synthesizing the contents created by the application transforming/creating means with multi-modal information of the user terminal; a multi-modal detecting means for detecting multi-modal information received from the user terminal and transforming the detected information into contents that can be used by the device; and an action mapping means for mapping the contents, which are received from the multi-modal detecting means and can be used in the device, to action information contained in the original application to generate an event of the device according to the action information.
US08881000B1

A system and method is disclosed for informing a user of an action to be performed by a web component in a domain of a primary website. A web component is provided to a web browser for display in connection with a website. The web component includes code that is executed in a different web domain than the website. On receiving an indication that a user has moved a cursor over the web component, the web component generates an alert informing the user of the action to be performed by the web component before the user activates the web component.
US08880993B2

Handling unexpected response messages at a client-side application such as a web browser, where those responses require the client-side application to issue an unexpected prompt and are triggered by request messages sent from script executing in the client-side application. A widget is dynamically constructed to provide the prompt to a user. Display and processing of the widgets and prompts is handled in a non-disruptive manner in an environment where a gateway function requesting the prompt may be interposed between a browser and a server in a network, and where the browser script may adhere to the Ajax methodology.
US08880984B2

According to one embodiment, a method of processing broadcast data in a broadcast transmitter includes: encoding the broadcast data for broadcast service; encoding signaling information for signaling the broadcast data; assigning the encoded broadcast data and the encoded signaling information into a signal frame; and transmitting a broadcast signal including the signal frame. The broadcast signal further includes a signaling table having access information of the broadcast data. The signaling table includes service id information for identifying the broadcast service and component information for indicating a number of components in the broadcast service.
US08880981B2

A data access request is received specifying a data block stored in a stripe of a parity group that includes a plurality of data storage devices to store data blocks and a parity storage device to store parity information for the data. The stripe includes a data block from each of the plurality of data storage devices and the stripe includes a parity block from the parity storage device. An error is detected in the data block specified by the data access request. The error is identified as a lost write error for the data block or a lost write error for the parity block. Identifying the error includes comparing a first storage device signature stored in a metadata field associated with the data block to a second storage device signature stored in a label block identifying a data storage device where the data block is stored.
US08880974B2

A DRAM device includes an ECC generator/checker that generates ECC syndromes corresponding to items of data stored in the DRAM device. The DRAM device also includes an ECC controller that causes the ECC syndromes to be stored in the DRAM device. The ECC controller also causes a flag bit having a first value to be stored in the DRAM device when a corresponding ECC syndrome is stored. The ECC controller changes the flag bit to a second value whenever the corresponding data bits are modified, this indicating that the stored syndrome no longer corresponds to the stored data. In such case, the ECC controller causes a new ECC syndrome to be generated and stored, and the corresponding flag bit is reset to the first value. The flag bits may be checked in this manner during a reduced power refresh to ensure that the stored syndromes correspond to the stored data.
US08880973B1

Systems and methods are provided for GF(q) iterative decoding. A decoder computes a plurality of R messages corresponding to a variable node of the decoder and forms decoder extrinsic information for the variable node by combining the plurality of R messages. The decoder stores the decoder extrinsic information in a memory during a first time period and retrieves the decoder extrinsic information from the memory during a second time period, the second time period occurring after the first time period. The decoder extrinsic information is provided to a soft detector.
US08880970B2

A system including one or more memory devices, and an error detection and correction method are disclosed. A memory device of the system includes an input for receiving a packet. A first portion of the packet may include at least one command byte, and a second portion of the packet may include parity bits to facilitate command error detection. The memory device may include an error manager configured to detect, based on the parity bits, whether an error exists in the at least one command byte, and circuitry configured to provide the packet to the error manager.
US08880967B2

A test controller applies test stimulus signals to the input pads of plural die on a wafer in parallel. The test controller also applies encoded test response signals to the output pads of the plural die in parallel. The encoded test response signals are decoded on the die and compared to core test response signals produced from applying the test stimulus signals to core circuits on the die. The comparison produces pass/fail signals that are loaded in to scan cells of an IEEE 1149.1 scan path. The pass/fail signals then may be scanned out of the die to determine the results of the test.
US08880960B1

A request is received for a page to add a computer program name for a critical function that a business unit performs. A list of computer program names is retrieved from memory and is provided through a user interface. A selection of a first computer program name as being a name of a first computer program required to perform the critical function is received. A first expected recovery time is retrieved from memory for the first computer program and is provided through a user interface with a request for an indication of whether the first expected recovery time is acceptable.
US08880957B2

Processing, such as debug and/or recovery processing, within a communications environment is facilitated. Responsive to detecting an event, a stop signal is propagated through a communications network of the communications environment, and each network element that receives the stop signal, transmits the signal to its neighbors (if any), and then performs an action depending on its specific programming. The action can be to take no action, perform a debugging action or perform a recovery action. The elements that receive the signal and perform the same action as other elements form a coordinated network providing a coordinated result.
US08880954B2

A method, system and computer program product for generating device fingerprints and authenticating devices uses initial states of internal storage cells after each of a number multiple power cycles for each of a number of device temperatures to generate a device fingerprint. The device fingerprint may include pairs of expected values for each of the internal storage cells and a corresponding probability that the storage cell will assume the expected value. Storage cells that have expected values varying over the multiple temperatures may be excluded from the fingerprint. A device is authenticated by a similarity algorithm that uses a match of the expected values from a known fingerprint with power-up values from an unknown device, weighting the comparisons by the probability for each cell to compute a similarity measure.
US08880947B2

The present invention relates to an automatic testing apparatus used for testing a tested device. The automatic testing apparatus is fixed on a first side of a testing platform. The tested device executes a testing program while being tested, and transmits a test signal to a control unit of the testing platform for controlling a driving testing unit or a multimedia testing module to test the tested device and hence testing the tested device automatically. Thereby, testing costs can be saved and artificial factor affecting the test results can be avoided.
US08880934B2

A method and system for logical partition (LPAR) migration including creating a profile for a logical partition on a host system comprising one or more LPARs, wherein the profile is associated with a first name. Also, within the profile, a port of a client virtual small computer system interface (SCSI) adapter of the LPAR is mapped to a port of a server virtual SCSI adapter of a virtual input/output server (VIOS) of the host system. The server port of the VIOS is set to accept any port of virtual client SCSI adapters of the one or more LPARs of the host system. Within the VIOS, the server port of the VIOS is mapped to a device name (i.e., LPAR) and to a target device (i.e., a disk of shared storage), for purposes of proper failover implementation of the LPAR, wherein the target device comprises an operating system for the LPAR.
US08880913B2

A battery management and protection system can include various features to improve safety-critical and other functions. Among the features that can be included in some implementations are automatic loading of safety or other parameters during start-up of the system; a centralized timekeeper and an event system that can trigger actions in the system independently of a central processing unit; use of the same modules for both automatically-controlled safety-related measurements and firmware-controlled measurements; enhanced diagnostic features, and a sleepwalking feature that allows certain modules in the system to continue to perform various functions even when the module or the system is in a low-power sleep mode.
US08880911B2

The power supply includes an output unit that converts a DC voltage and outputs the DC voltage; a capacitor that stabilizes the DC voltage output from the output unit, the power supply being able to be operated in a power saving mode in which a power consumption is reduced by stopping a whole or part of an operation of a load operated by the DC voltage output from the output unit; a detection unit that detects that a power is cut off; a discharging load that discharges the capacitor; and a control unit that performs control so as to operate the charging load when the detection unit detects that the power is cut off during the operation in the power saving mode.
US08880907B2

Systems and methods are provided for automatically determining certain physical characteristics of a network device. In one embodiment, a method is employed to automatically determine the physical location of a network device. This method may employ a computer based system to acquire network device information, instruct the network devices to change power consumption, detect the changes and determine the physical location of the network device based on the changes detected. In another embodiment, a method is employed to automatically determine the functional type of a network device. This method may employ a computer based system to monitor the power drawn by the network device at a power distribution device and determine the network device functional type based on the power drawn.
US08880896B1

Systems and methods are disclosed for controlling medium access. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving a first message including a first integer and a first sequence number; sending a second message including a second integer and the first sequence number; determining a first encryption key based on the first sequence number; and receiving a third message including a second sequence number and data, the second sequence number identifying a second encryption key capable of decoding the third message.
US08880893B2

The present invention provides a policy specification framework to enable an enterprise to specify a given insider attack using a holistic view of a given data access, as well as the means to specify and implement one or more intrusion mitigation methods in response to the detection of such an attack. The policy specification provides for the use of “anomaly” and “signature” attributes that capture sophisticated behavioral characteristics of illegitimate data access. When the attack occurs, a previously-defined administrator (or system-defined) mitigation response (e.g., verification, disconnect, de-provision, or the like) is then implemented.
US08880891B2

A method, a system, and an apparatus for establishing communication are disclosed. The method is invented to establish communication between at least two communication parties including a first communication party and a second communication party. The method includes: sending a Cryptographically Generated Address (CGA) request to the first communication party; receiving CGA parameters and a CGA signature returned by the first communication party; and authenticating the CGA parameters and the CGA signature, and establishing communication with the first communication party if the authentication succeeds. By using the method disclosed herein, in the process of establishing communication, the communication party authenticates the CGA parameters and CGA signature carried in the CGA extension header to determine authenticity of the CGA, thus preventing the IP address spoofing and preventing or mitigating the network security problems caused by the IP address spoofing.
US08880890B2

A system and method to control the writing on electronic paper (e-paper). An e-paper device may incorporate authentication indicia as part of informational data written on e-paper material. The informational data is protected by a security methodology that is accessible to authorized entities. A reader device may be used to help make a verification determination of whether encrypted or encoded data has been altered. In some instances an output alert operably coupled to the reader device serves as a verification status indicator.
US08880885B2

Implementations of the present disclosure are directed to web-based authentication. Implementations include receiving user credentials at a browser, transmitting a first request to an application, the first request including a first user credential, receiving a first response, the first response including an encrypted server public key (SPK) and a user-specific salt value, decrypting the encrypted SPK to provide a SPK, the encrypted SPK being decrypted based on the user-specific salt value and a second user credential, determining a browser public key (BPK) and a client-side session signing key (SSK), encrypting the BPK to provide an encrypted BPK, transmitting a second request to the application, the second request including the encrypted BPK and a request signature, the request signature having been provided based on the client-side SSK, and receiving a second response, the second response including a response signature and indicating that a user has been authenticated by the application.
US08880879B2

Methods and systems for encrypting and decrypting are presented. In one embodiment, the method comprises encrypting one or more segments of a data with a key. The data is associated with at least one encryption attribute and having a plurality of segments. The encryption attribute includes information to identify one or more segments of the data to encrypt. The method further comprises encrypting the encryption attribute and storing the data including the partly encrypted data and the encrypted encryption attribute.
US08880871B2

Disclosed are various embodiments for improving hash table utilization. A key corresponding to a data item to be inserted into a hash table can be transformed to improve the entropy of the key space and the resultant hash codes that can generated. Transformation data can be inserted into the key in various ways, which can result in a greater degree of variance in the resultant hash code calculated based upon the transformed key.
US08880859B2

The invention relates to a method for configuring electronic devices, particularly terminals, wherein during configuration at least parts of first configuration data on a chip card are fed to an electronic device, wherein the configuration data are stored on the chip card as second configuration data such that the stored data are the result of an obfuscation following at least one first algorithm. Furthermore, at least parts of the first algorithm can be derived by the electronic device. The stored second configuration data are subjected to a de-obfuscation by the device such that, having knowledge of the first algorithm, they can be reconstructed as first configuration data and the configuration of the terminal can be based thereon. The invention further relates to an arrangement having means for carrying out the method.
US08880854B2

An out-of-order execution microprocessor executes an architectural segment register-loading instruction that instructs the microprocessor to load a new value into an architectural segment register of the microprocessor. A comparator compares the new value specified by the architectural segment register-loading instruction with a current contents of the architectural segment register. A control unit causes to be re-executed using the new value all instructions in the microprocessor that used the current architectural segment register contents as a source operand and that are newer in program order than the architectural segment register-loading instruction whenever the comparator indicates the new value does not equal the current contents. An instruction scheduler retrieves the current contents and issues for execution instructions that use the retrieved current contents, even though the instructions are newer in program order than the register-loading instruction and the register-loading instruction has not yet written the new value to the architectural segment register.
US08880846B2

A semiconductor device according to the present invention includes a first address generation unit that includes a first register group and generates a table address by a cyclically repeating first pattern using a value stored to the first register group, a second address generation unit that includes a second register group and generates an access address by a cyclically repeating second pattern using a value stored to the second register group and parameter information determined by the table address, and a control unit that outputs setting information to be supplied to the first register group and the second register group. Further, the semiconductor device performs at least one of a read process and a write process of data from and to a data memory using the access address.
US08880836B2

According to one embodiment, a device includes a determination unit, compression unit, selecting unit, write updating unit, writing unit. The determination unit determines whether to compress write data based on specific information. The specific information including at least one of the type, number of accesses, access frequency and importance level of the write data. The compression unit compresses the write data when determining to compress the write data. The selecting unit selects a write region for the write data in nonvolatile memory based on the specific information. The write updating unit updates the specific information. The writing unit writes compressed write data into the write region when determining to compress the write data. The writing unit writes uncompressed write data into the write region when not determining to compress the write data.
US08880835B2

Mechanisms for managing data segments in a tiered storage system are provided. The mechanisms maintain at least one counter for each data segment in the tiered storage system. Each counter in the at least one counter counts a number of access operations to a corresponding data segment for a predetermined time interval. The mechanisms further perform one or more analytical operations based on one or more values of the at least one counter for each data segment to make residence determinations for each data segment. The mechanisms also adjust a storage location of one or more data segments in tiers of the tiered storage system to thereby move the one or more data segments to appropriate tiers of the tiered storage system based on results of the one or more analytical operations.
US08880829B2

Systems, methods, and apparatus with improved techniques for copying data from a source memory location to a destination memory location are disclosed. An exemplary method includes receiving a source address that indicates the source memory location, a destination address that indicates the destination memory location, and receiving a size indicator that indicates the size of the data. When the size is less than a threshold size, a particular pointer in a jump table is accessed, based upon the size that points to particular load and store instructions. The jump table includes a plurality of pointers that point to a corresponding one of a plurality of load and store instructions. The particular load-store instructions are then executed with a processor of the computing device to copy the data from the source memory location to the destination memory location. Several other efficiency-improvement aspects are also disclosed that may be used in connection with these steps to further improve copy efficiencies.
US08880827B2

A method for executing safety-relevant and non-safety-relevant software components on a hardware platform comprising a computer, memory and a monitoring component that operates independently of the computer. The safety-relevant software component erects a memory protection against access of a non-safety-relevant function to at least one area of the memory of the safety-relevant function before execution of the non-safety-relevant software component, so that the non-safety-relevant software component does not have access to the areas of the memory being used for safety-relevant components. After the return from the non-safety-relevant component, the memory protection is deactivated and the monitoring function monitors the safety-relevant function for its proper operation.
US08880824B1

Redundant data is globally de-duplicated across a shared architecture that includes a plurality of storage systems. The storage systems implement copy-on-write or WAFL to generate snapshots of original data. Each storage system includes a de-duplication client to identify and reduce redundant original and/or snapshot data on the storage system. Each de-duplication client can de-duplicate a digital sequence by breaking the sequence into blocks and identifying redundant blocks already stored in the shared architecture. Identifying redundant blocks may include hashing each block and comparing the hash to a local and/or master hash table containing hashes of existing data. Once identified, redundant data previously stored is deleted (e.g., post-process de-duplication), or redundant data is not stored to begin with (e.g., inline de-duplication). In both cases, pointers to shared data blocks can be used to reassemble the digital sequence where one or more blocks were deleted or not stored on the storage system.
US08880823B2

An information processing system includes a first information processing apparatus, a second information processing apparatus, and a third information processing apparatus, wherein the first information processing apparatus includes: a first reproducing unit reproducing a moving image, a first receiving unit receiving an operation related to the moving image, a first control unit controlling the reproduction of the moving image, a first recording unit recording a time elapsed and a reproduction position, and a first transmitting unit transmitting the recording result, the second information processing apparatus includes: a second receiving unit receiving the recording result, a second generating unit generating a variable for adjusting a reproduction speed, and a second transmitting unit transmitting the variable, and the third information processing apparatus includes: a third receiving unit receiving the variable, a third reproducing unit reproducing the moving image, and a third control unit controlling the reproduction of the moving image.
US08880818B2

Embodiments of a memory controller are described. This memory controller includes signal connectors, which are electrically coupled to a communication path that includes multiple links, and an interface circuit, which is electrically coupled to the signal connectors. In a first operating mode, the interface circuit communicates with a first memory device via the communication path using spatial multiplexing, in which there are dedicated command/address links and dedicated data links in the communication path. Moreover, in a second operating mode, the interface circuit communicates with a second memory device via the communication path using time multiplexing, in which at least some of the links in the communication path time interleave command/address information and data.
US08880817B2

A storage subsystem backplane management system includes a storage controller and a service processor. A first backplane including a first management controller is coupled to the storage controller and the service processor. The first backplane is operable to couple a plurality of first drives to the first management controller. A second backplane including a second management controller is coupled to the first management controller. The second backplane is operable to couple a plurality of second drives to the second management controller. The first management controller communicates with the second management controller and creates a virtual management controller that presents to the storage controller and the service processor a virtual backplane including the plurality of first drives and the plurality of second drives when the plurality of first drives are coupled to the first management controller and the plurality of second drives are coupled to the second management controller.
US08880814B2

The present invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art by providing a technique that stripes data containers across volumes of a striped volume set (SVS) using one of a plurality of different data placement patterns to thereby reduce the possibility of hotspots arising due to each data container using the same data placement pattern within the SVS. The technique is illustratively implemented by calculating a first index value, an intermediate index value and calculating a hash value of an inode associated with a data container to be accessed within the SVS. A final index value is calculated by multiplying the intermediate index value by the hash value, modulo the number of volumes of the SVS. Further, a Locate( ) function may be used to compute the location of data container content in the SVS to which a data access request is directed to ensure consistency of such content.
US08880811B2

A data processing device is described with a memory and a first and a second data processing component. The first data processing component comprises a control memory comprising, for each memory region of a plurality of memory regions of the memory, an indication whether a data access to the memory region may be carried out by the first data processing component and a data access circuit configured to carry out a data access to a memory region of the plurality of memory regions if a data access to the memory region may be carried out by the first data processing component; and a setting circuit configured to set the indication for a memory region to indicate that a data access to the memory region may not be carried out by the first data processing component in response to the completion of a data access of the first data processing component to the memory region.
US08880807B2

A data prefetcher in a microprocessor. The data prefetcher includes a plurality of period match counters associated with a corresponding plurality of different pattern periods. The data prefetcher also includes control logic that updates the plurality of period match counters in response to accesses to a memory block by the microprocessor, determines a clear pattern period based on the plurality of period match counters and prefetches into the microprocessor non-fetched cache lines within the memory block based on a pattern having the clear pattern period determined based on the plurality of period match counters.
US08880801B1

Described are techniques for selecting a storage pool configuration. A set of one or more candidate storage pool configurations is determined. For each of the candidate storage pool configurations of the set, a reliability calculation is performed to determine a reliability value indicating reliability of the candidate storage pool configuration. For each of the candidate storage pool configurations of the set, an availability calculation is performed to determine an availability value indicating availability of the candidate storage pool configuration. In accordance with selection criteria, one of the candidate storage pool configurations of the set for a first storage pool is selected. The selection criteria includes the availability value and the reliability value for each of the plurality of candidate storage pool configurations.
US08880800B2

A method of operation of a redundant array of independent disks system includes: instantiating a first controller having a first local map and a first remote map; instantiating a second controller having a second local map and a second remote map mapped to the first local map; mapping a first memory device to the first local map by the first controller; coupling a storage device to the second controller and the first controller; and switching control of the storage device to the first controller, when a failure of the second controller is detected, by the first controller reading the first memory device.
US08880799B2

A rebuilder application operates on a dispersed data storage grid and rebuilds stored data segments that have been compromised in some manner. The rebuilder application actively scans for compromised data segments, and is also notified during partially failed writes to the dispersed data storage network, and during reads from the dispersed data storage network when a data slice is detected that is compromised. Records are created for compromised data segments, and put into a rebuild list, which the rebuilder application processes.
US08880789B2

Decoding a content of interest with optimal power usage. In an embodiment, a central processing unit (CPU) retrieves the frames of a data stream of interest from a secondary storage and stores them in a random access memory (RAM). The CPU forms an index table indicating the locations at which each of the frames is stored. The index table is provided to a decoder, which processes the frames in sequence to recover the original data from the encoded data. By using the index information, the power usage is reduced at least in an embodiment when the decoding is performed by an auxiliary processor.
US08880788B1

In one embodiment, a flash-optimized, log-structured layer of a file system of a storage input/output (I/O) stack executes on one or more nodes of a cluster. The log-structured layer of the file system provides sequential storage of data and metadata on solid state drives (SSDs) to reduce write amplification, while leveraging variable compression and variable length data features of the storage I/O stack. The data may be organized as an arbitrary number of variable-length extents of one or more host-visible logical units (LUNs). The metadata may include mappings from host-visible logical block address ranges of a LUN to extent keys, as well as mappings of the extent keys to SSD storage locations of the extents. The storage location of an extent on SSD is effectively “virtualized” by its mapped extent key such that relocation of the extent on SSD does not require update to volume layer metadata.
US08880787B1

In one embodiment, an extent store layer of a storage input/output (I/O) stack executing on one or more nodes of a cluster manages efficient logging and checkpointing of metadata. The metadata managed by the extent store layer, i.e., the extent store metadata, resides in a memory (in-core) of each node and is illustratively organized as a key-value extent store embodied as one or more data structures, e.g., a set of hash tables. Changes to the set of hash tables are recorded as a continuous stream of changes to SSD embodied as an extent store layer log. A separate log stream structure (e.g., an in-core buffer) may be associated respectively with each hash table such that changed (i.e., dirtied) slots of the hash table are recorded as entries in the log stream structure. The hash tables are written to SSD using a fuzzy checkpointing technique.
US08880786B2

A method includes, in a storage device that includes a non-volatile memory and a volatile memory, maintaining at least one data structure that stores management information used for managing data storage in the non-volatile memory, such that at least a portion of the data structure is stored in the volatile memory. A sequence of journaling chunks is created during operation of the storage device, each journaling chunk including a respective slice of the data structure and one or more changes that occurred in the data structure since a previous journaling chunk in the sequence. The sequence of the journaling chunks is stored in the non-volatile memory. Upon recovering from an electrical power interruption in the storage device, the data structure is reconstructed using the stored journaling chunks.
US08880785B2

A microcontroller includes a microprocessor, a serial flash memory interface, and input/output (I/O) terminals for coupling the serial flash memory interface to external serial flash memory. The microprocessor is operable to generate instruction frames that trigger respective commands to read data from specified addresses in the external serial flash memory. The serial flash memory interface receives and processes the instruction frames, obtains the data contained in the specified addresses in the external serial flash memory regardless of whether the specified addresses are sequential or non-sequential, and provides the data for use by the microprocessor.
US08880781B2

A memory system according to at least one example embodiment stores meta data in a cache register when the memory system enters a standby mode. Therefore, the memory system may reduce power consumption in the standby mode, and/or rapidly perform a mode switch.
US08880780B2

An apparatus and method are provided for using a page buffer of a memory device as a temporary cache for data. A memory controller writes data to the page buffer and later reads out the data without programming the data into the memory cells of the memory device. This allows the memory controller to use the page buffer as temporary cache so that the data does not have to occupy space within the memory controller's local data storage elements. Therefore, the memory controller can use the space in its own storage elements for other operations.
US08880779B2

In one implementation, a memory subsystem includes non-volatile memory, a memory controller that is communicatively connected to the non-volatile memory over a first bus, a host interface through which the memory controller communicates with a host controller over a second bus, and a joint test action group (JTAG) interface that provides the host controller with access to state information associated with the memory controller. The memory subsystem can be configured to be coupled to a board-level memory device that includes the host controller.
US08880778B2

A memory device, and a method of operating same, utilize a first memory buffer associated with a first memory array and a second memory buffer associated with a second memory array to maintain information subsequent to a program-fail event associated with the first memory array and to provide the information to the second memory array.
US08880777B2

A non-volatile mass storage memory and an input/output processing method using the memory are provided. The memory device includes a storage unit including a non-volatile random access memory and a flash memory and a controller to control the storage to process an input/output request. Accordingly, system memories having different purposes and functionalities, such as a flash memory and a dynamic random access memory (DRAM), may be integrated with each other.
US08880769B2

Techniques for management of target devices are provided. User input for management of a target device may be received. The user input may be converted into a first format. The first format may be encapsulated into a second format and sent over a communications channel. The second format may be un-encapsulated to recover the first format. The first format may be provided to the target devices.
US08880768B2

A method of operation of a storage controller system includes: accessing a first controller having a synchronization bus; accessing a second controller, by the first controller, through the synchronization bus; and receiving a first transaction layer packet by the first controller including performing a multi-cast transmission between the first controller and the second controller through the synchronization bus.
US08880754B1

An aspect provides an information handling device, including: a housing; an input element connected at an end to the housing in a rotatable fashion, the input element having an input surface and another surface that is opposite to the input surface; one or more processors; and a memory device accessible to the one or more processors and storing code executable by the one or more processors to: detect that the input element has been rotated from a resting position, wherein, in the resting position, the input surface of the input element is fit in a cavity of the housing and the another side of the input element forms a part of the housing exterior surface; and responsive to detecting that the input element has been rotated from the resting position, accept one or more user inputs via the input surface. Other aspects are described and claimed.
US08880748B2

System and method controlling connectivity within a device. A device may be coupled to a host device. In response to the coupling, low power logic (e.g., an embedded device) of the device may be coupled to the host device. The low power logic may perform enumeration with the host device using only power provided by the host device. The low power logic may also charge a battery of the device using power provided by the host device. Device circuitry of the device may provide a signal for coupling to the host device. In response, the device circuitry may be coupled to the host device and may perform device enumeration with the host device.
US08880744B2

Registry information systems and methods are presented. In one embodiment, an application dedicated registry hive method comprises: performing application dedicated registry hive agent operations, including: an online initiation phase in which a system independent application dedicated registry hive from a shared resource is loaded into the system namespace; a monitoring phase in which status of the system independent application dedicated registry hive is monitored; and an offline initiation phase in which the system independent application dedicated registry hive is unloaded from the system namespace; and performing an application dedicated registry hive driver filter process, including redirecting read and write operations to the system independent application dedicated registry hive. The system independent application dedicated registry hive can include a registry content file and a corresponding transaction log file.
US08880741B2

A management method is provided, suitable for an electronic system having electronic devices connected in a daisy-chain configuration. The management method comprises the steps of: the electronic devices are sequentially connected with a host, thereby obtaining universal unique identifiers corresponding to the electronic devices; serial numbers corresponding to the electronic devices are generated according to a first order of obtainment of the universal unique identifiers of the electronic devices; and the host communicates with the electronic devices according to the serial numbers.
US08880740B2

Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to computing device location and provide a novel and non-obvious method, system and computer program product for visually locating a computing device. In one embodiment of the invention, a computing device location method can include establishing filter criteria grouping different computing devices by common characteristic, wirelessly broadcasting the filter criteria in a discovery request to in range peripheral locators coupled to computing devices, aggregating a list of discovered peripheral locators meeting the filter criteria, selecting at least one of the peripheral locators in the list, and interrogating the selected peripheral locators to retrieve data provided by corresponding ones of the computing devices. Additionally, a display element in each of the discovered peripheral locators can be illuminated upon discovering the peripheral locators. Likewise, a display element can be illuminated in the selected peripheral locators upon selecting the peripheral locators.
US08880731B2

Devices and methods are provided that spatially restrict online communications to persons from a real world meeting. Such restriction, with optional supervisory control by an authority, protects children from online predators, and can facilitate communication with known friends. An embodiment provides a portable access control (AC) device having a spatially-restricted (SR) communication port that communicates over a short range. The AC device has a unique identifier (UID) that identifies the AC device and the owner of the AC device. The user collects UIDs (using the SR port) from other people having AC devices, and stores the collected UIDs in a friendlist. When communicating by Internet, discrimination software restricts communication from people who do not have UIDs in the friendlist. The discrimination software can operate on a user's computer or on a remote server. Embodiments provide protected email, instant messaging, voice communication, gaming activities, and video links.
US08880729B2

According to one embodiment, an apparatus that makes improved routing decisions is provided that includes a receiver, a retriever, a proximity engine, and a transmitter. The receiver may be configured to receive a request from a source. The retriever may be configured to retrieve a plurality of providers capable of servicing the request. The proximity engine may be configured to rank the plurality of providers based on weights indicative of a network distance. The weights may correspond to a first Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) community attribute associated with the source and at least a second BGP community attribute associated with at least one of the providers in the plurality of providers. The transmitter may be configured to transmit the request to the provider in the plurality of providers with the highest ranking.
US08880726B2

Methods, servers and systems for communicating signaling information in a telecommunications signaling network may involve using a topology tree categorizing network nodes into groups, receiving a first message encoding signaling information from a source, decoding the received first message into an internal representation of the message, determining if the internal representation identifies a destination component in the topology tree, performing application level routing operations by hierarchy to determine if information contained in the internal representation identifies a destination component in the topology tree, packaging the information contained in the internal representation into a second message encoding signaling information, and sending the second message encoding signaling information to the identified destination component. The topology tree may include one or more domains as root nodes, a peer-group as an internal node for each of the one or more domains, and a peer as a terminal node for the at least one peer-group.
US08880723B1

Internet streaming from broadcast radio or television stations is described wherein triggers for dynamic content from internal or external systems cause an encoder system to generate command messages, and to optionally synchronize those command messages with any delays associated with the triggering events. Command messages are delivered through a streaming media distribution system to client media players which obtain or present the dynamic content, in association with any desired configuration changes to the appearance of the media player or the method or manner in which the dynamic content is presented.
US08880714B2

Some embodiments of the present invention provide methods for use in playing back content. Some of these methods access a content package comprising media content to be locally played back; detect, as defined by the content package, whether a remote secondary device is available with which a connection can be established; determine whether an authorization to establish the connection has been confirmed; establish, when the authorization is confirmed, a communication connection; determine, as instructed by the content package and when the communication with the secondary device is established, whether one or more commands are received from the secondary device; and implement, as instructed by the content package and when it is determined that the one or more commands are received from the secondary device, the one or more commands in controlling playback experience of the media content.
US08880713B2

System, method, and computer-readable instructions for use in communicating with an energy management device in a network that comprises one or more energy devices. First search results are created by searching for devices associated with a first energy management device identifier using a first discovery protocol. Second search results are created by searching for devices associated with a second energy management device identifier using a second discovery protocol. The first and second search results are combined to create a collection of candidate devices, and at least one candidate device of the candidate devices is validated to determine whether the candidate device is an energy management device.
US08880710B2

A method and apparatus for setting cookies on client devices 6, in particular for allowing maintenance of cross domain session continuity. A server 5 is provided for extracting a session ID from a first party cookie in the domain of the server 5 which is included in a HTTP request generated by a page 8 from a different domain active in a browser 7. Code is returned by the server 5 to that page 8 to cause it to generate a first party cookie in its domain which includes the extracted session ID.
US08880704B2

Technologies related to migration in place are generally described. In some examples, software and/or data associated with a platform customer can be “migrated” to a new platform while allowing the platform customer's software and/or data to remain on same hardware. A data center and/or Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider may be configured to support migration in place for example by providing hardware identifiers upon request, providing platform identifiers upon request, providing platform compatibility information upon request and/or approving platforms for migration in place operations, deploying platform modules to migration in place hardware, providing user session support during migration in place operations, and/or performing security operations.
US08880698B2

In a peer-to-peer network of peers which are interconnected for sharing content data, the peers store content files of content data in a file structure comprising a plurality of content folders each content folder containing any number of content files of related content data, and a description file containing both unique identification information and descriptive information in XML format describing the content file or files stored in the same content folder. Requesting peers transmit search query messages which specify search criteria for passage through the network. Peers receiving a search query message compare the search criteria with the descriptive information contained in the description files in each of their plurality of content folders and in the event of there being a matching content folder transmit a hit message including the identification information to identify the matching content folder for passage back through the network to the respective requesting peer.
US08880695B2

There is provided an information processing apparatus including: a receiving section that receives function information about one or more functions from an external device connected via a network; a display section that displays a list of the functions of the external device, the functions being included in the function information; a selected-information acquiring section that acquires selected information pertaining to a function selected by a user from the list of the functions displayed by the display section; and a coordinate function executing section that causes the external device to execute the function selected by the user. Such a configuration provides the information processing apparatus designed such that even if the information processing apparatus and the external device do not have information about each other, the function of the external device can be executed by operating the information processing apparatus.
US08880691B2

A method, apparatus, and machine readable storage medium is disclosed for managing a communication network wherein statistics are collected and next expected values for the statistics are calculated based on batch mean and confidence interval calculations and an alarm is raised if the next expected value exceeds a threshold.
US08880690B1

Systems and methods for implementing network changes are described herein. In one aspect, a network change procedure may be comprised of a plurality of scripts that may implement a change in the network. In one embodiment, the deployment may be paused after the script has been executed. During the pause, a change management server may determine the impact of the change on the network. If the change had a positive effect, the change management server may execute another script to make another network change. However, if the change had a negative effect, the change management server may initiate one or more remedial actions.
US08880688B2

An apparatus and a method support Machine to Machine (M2M) communication in a communication system. A method for providing an M2M service includes determining at least one of identifier (ID) information of an M2M device, ID information of an M2M Service Provider (MSP), and service type information of the M2M device to provide the M2M service. The method also includes determining a profile of the M2M device using the at least one information determined. The method further includes transmitting the profile of the M2M device to an Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) server.
US08880683B2

A device receives, from multiple network elements, status information for a user equipment (UE) connection associated with a wireless core network and updates, based on the status information received from the network elements, a database record for the UE connection. The device receives, from an application server, a request for information associated with the UE connection and constructs, based on the request and from the database record, a resource message that includes real-time information about the UE connection. The device sends the resource message to the application server. The device also provides a disconnect message to the application server and/or the network elements when the status information received from the network elements indicates that the UE has been disconnected from the wireless core network.
US08880678B1

A system and method for managing and monitoring a web application that uses multiple cloud providers. Preferably, a cloud manager monitors the web applications and pulls web resources from multiple cloud providers. The system and method preferably allows for automatic wiring from a cloud provider to a web application, and allows for use of different Web resources from multiple cloud providers. The cloud manager also preferably allows for automatic scaling for the web application.
US08880677B2

Targeted content may be provided to a designated set of one or more interconnected resources. Programmatic operations are executed using resources that are private to the one or more interconnected devices. The operations, when executed, cause or result in (i) monitoring activities of one or more users of the designated set; (ii) developing profile information of the one or more users, where the profile information is based at least partially on information determined from monitoring activities of the one or more users; (iii) generating, from the profile information, a set of coded data that represent selection criteria; and (iv) communicating the set of coded data to a programmatic source external to the system, where the represented selection criteria enables programmatic selection of content resources from a content library for the system.
US08880667B2

Attestation by a self-regulating attestation client. The attestation client requests a credential of health from an attestation service, which includes an ordered attestation log and proof of integrity and freshness of the log. The attestation client receives the requested credential of health, which certifies the attestation client was healthy when it requested the credential of health and that the attestation service trusts the attestation client to be healthy each time the attestation client authenticates using the credential of health. The attestation client receives a request to authenticate that it is healthy using the credential of health, verifies that it is currently healthy, and performs the requested authentication.
US08880664B1

A method is disclosed for generating a network profile and a device profile relating to devices in one or more networks and comprises, in one embodiment, receiving device identity information for a plurality of devices in one or more customer networks; receiving device configuration information from each of the devices in the networks; transforming the device configuration information into device feature information; creating and storing, based on the device identity information, device configuration information, and device feature information, a device profile that summarizes device details for all the devices.
US08880645B1

Embodiments disclosed herein provide systems and methods for registering media content with a CDN for transfer at a later time. In a particular embodiment, a method of operating a wireless communication device to deliver media content to a plurality of user devices over a Content Distribution Network (CDN) is provided. The method comprises transferring an upload registration request to the CDN that indicates the wireless communication device and an upload time. The method further comprises receiving an upload confirmation transferred from the CDN confirming the upload registration request and powering down after receiving the upload confirmation. The method further comprises powering up and obtaining the media content. After powering up and during the upload time, the method comprises transferring the media content for delivery to the CDN based on the upload confirmation, wherein the CDN subsequently transfers the media content to the user devices.
US08880641B2

A method for redundant communication in a communication system having a plurality of communication networks connected to one another by at least one node, wherein data that originates from a first communication network is prevented from being transmitted back from the second the communication network into the first communication network as a result of information that is predefined before the transmission.
US08880637B2

A method of assigning a server to a client system includes determining an ingress point of the client system and identifying possible egress points for the client system. The method further includes selecting the server from a plurality of servers to reduce network cost and delivery time.
US08880634B2

A method for cache sharing among branch proxy servers. A branch proxy sever receives a request for accessing a resource at a data center. The branch proxy server creates a cache entry in its cache to store the requested resource if the branch proxy server does not store the requested resource. Upon creating the cache entry, the branch proxy server sends the cache entry to a master proxy server at the data center to transfer ownership of the cache entry if the master proxy server did not store the resource in its cache. When the resource becomes invalid or expired, the master proxy server informs the appropriate branch proxy servers storing the resource to purge the cache entry containing this resource. In this manner, the master proxy server ensures that the cached resource is synchronized across the branch proxy servers storing this resource.
US08880632B1

A method and apparatus for handling packets received from a server over a network based upon quality of network service on DMA channels includes inspecting a packet received by a network device, classifying the inspected packet with the network device based on one or more class of service identifiers in the packet, assigning with the network device the classified packet to one of a plurality of DMA rings associated with a DMA channel based on the one or more class of service identifiers in the packet, and moving the assigned packet to a host memory based upon the assigning.
US08880625B2

An exemplary method is implemented by a first end-user communication device for processing a received electronic communication that includes a digital packet having a header segment and a user data segment. The user data segment contains a first command and a user message, where the first command contains a first parameter representing automatic expiration and an associated first value representing how long the user message will be available for display by the first end-user communication device. Under the control of an enhanced services application program, the user message in clear text format is generated for display on a screen of the first end-user communication device. A determination is made of the expiration of the time set by the first value, and upon the expiration, the clear text user message is thereafter prevented from being accessed by the first end-user communication device.
US08880624B2

The present specification relates generally to computing devices and more particular relates to a method and apparatus for receiving data from a plurality of feed sources at a plurality of servers via a mobile device comprising a processor interconnected with a display. In one aspect, the mobile device is configured to start a feed service; register feed adapters with the feed service; receive content data via the feed adapters; and generate a list view of the content data on a display of the mobile device.
US08880621B2

An exemplary method includes a message broker subsystem receiving a message intended for delivery to a recipient software application instance, determining that the recipient software application instance is included in a plurality of functionally equivalent software application instances that are registered with a global directory service subsystem that is communicatively coupled to the message broker subsystem, automatically selecting a software application instance from the plurality of software application instances for receipt of the message in accordance with a load balancing heuristic, and attempting to deliver the message to the selected software application instance. Corresponding methods and systems are also described.
US08880618B2

An email communications system for operating over a communications network may include an email server having a server inbox for receiving and storing email via the communications network and having a server email storage folder. The system may further include at least one wireless email communications device having a device inbox, and an email proxy server for communicating with the email server and the at least one wireless email communications device via the communications network. The email proxy server may be for forwarding email from the server inbox to the device inbox, detecting a deletion of a given email from the server inbox, and if the deletion of the given email from the server inbox is not preceded by copying of the given email to the server email storage folder, then causing the wireless email communications device to also delete the given email from the device inbox based thereon.
US08880617B2

Email messages stored on a mail server are filtered to identify the email messages that contain unwanted content. The mail server receives incoming email messages over a network. A content filter performs an initial scan to identify the incoming email messages that contain unwanted content by determining whether signatures associated with the email messages are included on a list of signatures that identify email messages that are known to include unwanted content. The email messages that are not identified as containing unwanted content are forwarded to appropriate mail boxes on the mail server. Multiple scanning threads perform a subsequent scan of the email messages in the mail boxes to identify those email messages containing unwanted content that were not identified by the initial scan. The subsequent scan determines whether signatures associated with the email messages in the mail boxes are included in an updated list of the signatures.
US08880616B2

A method for distributing contents to several users, wherein users are interconnected as members of one or more groups and wherein the group members can be pre-arranged from the user side is characterized in that based on his context a user can select one or more content from offered contents, in that the selected contents are dynamically personalized by taking advantage of a correlation of selected contents on the one hand and a group on the other hand by embedding communication triggers into the contents to initiate a communication with a group, and in that the personalized group-related contents are pushed to the members of the group.
US08880608B1

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage devices, for determining social affinities from public data. In one aspect, a method computes numeric affinity scores or weights between pairs of network identities, e.g., identities made public by users of social web sites on the Internet, where the pairs of identities appear to represent pairs of individual people, using explicit and inferred social connections obtained from public user data on the Internet. Some of the system and methods explore all social connections (paths) between any given pair of vertices X and Y in the weighted graph data structure of such social connections and aggregates information about their number and relative strength to produce the affinity score from X to Y.
US08880597B1

An electronic note management system is provides that includes a storage component, a user-interface, and one or more navigation features. The storage component maintains a plurality of records, and the user-interface component renders a plurality of electronic notes from the plurality of records. The user-interface is configured to display a given group of two or more notes in the plurality of notes as a sequenced series while the two or more notes are in a rendered state. One or more navigation features provided with the user-interface to enable a user to navigate (i) from a first note in the group to a next note in the group that is adjacent to the first note in the sequenced series (ii) while the first note and the next note are in the rendered state.
US08880587B2

Techniques for delivering content to an end user device are disclosed. A policy server performs an ingest process in which multiple versions of a content object are created. The multiple versions of the content object are associated with a single network identifier which can be distributed to publishers of the content object. When the content object is requested using the single network identifier, the policy server determines a preferred version and delivery orchestration scheme from among the multiple versions for delivery to an end user device based on several criteria. The policy server may thereafter orchestrate delivery of the preferred version of the content object to the end user device. The single network identifier may be associated with an edge location in a content delivery network (CDN) and the policy server may orchestrate delivery in cooperation with servers at the CDN edge location.
US08880583B2

A system and method for permitting geographically-pertinent information provided on the Internet to be ranked by users, while taking into account the users' geographic proximity to the information, the distance between each user who rates the information, the age of the information, and the age of the users' ratings to determine a ranking for affecting the ranking of information.
US08880575B2

The present invention provides technologies for implementing a high-speed Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm with a small memory. An information processing apparatus for performing a radix-2 FFT on a data sequence comprises storage means, reading means, a plurality of butterfly operation means, writing means, and control means, wherein each stage of the FFT operation includes a plurality of operation steps, and at every operation step the control means controls each of the means so that: the reading means reads from the storage means sets of data elements referred by storage addresses A, A+1, A+2m, and A+2m+1, the plurality of butterfly operation means perform radix-2 butterfly operation on the data elements in the sets, and the writing means writes the sets of the result data into the storage area referred by the storage addresses A, A+1, A+2m, and A+2m+1.
US08880572B2

The document relates to modulated sub-sampled digital filter banks, as well as to methods and systems for the design of such filter banks. In particular, the present document proposes a method and apparatus for the improvement of low delay modulated digital filter banks. The method employs modulation of an asymmetric low-pass prototype filter and a new method for optimizing the coefficients of this filter. Further, a specific design for a (64) channel filter bank using a prototype filter length of (640) coefficients and a system delay of (319) samples is given. The method substantially reduces artifacts due to aliasing emerging from independent modifications of subband signals, for example when using a filter bank as a spectral equalizer. The method is preferably implemented in software, running on a standard PC or a digital signal processor (DSP), but can also be hardcoded on a custom chip. The method offers improvements for various types of digital equalizers, adaptive filters, multiband companders and spectral envelope adjusting filterbanks used in high frequency reconstruction (HFR) or parametric stereo systems.
US08880567B2

A computer program product for discovering and distributing relevant business information contained in a mashup comprises computer usable program code is configured to interrogate a mashup maker to discover the elements, relationships, and dependencies embodied by a mashup page; assemble this information into a data structure; and make the data structure accessible. A method for updating a configuration management database, where an end user creates a mashup page that embodies the end user's knowledge about the elements and processes required to fulfill a specific task, comprises deriving elements, relationships, and dependencies from the mashup page; creating a data structure representing this information, and communicating this data structure to the configuration management database.
US08880565B2

A table creation request pertaining to a table in a database maintained on a multi-node data partitioning landscape that comprises a plurality of processing nodes can specify a number of partitions to be generated. At run time, a currently available number of processing nodes in the multi-node data partitioning landscape can be queried, and this currently available number of processing nodes can be compared with the specified number of partitions to be generated for the created table. The table can be generated with the specified number of partitions such that the generated partitions are located across the plurality of partitions according to a load balancing approach if the number of processing nodes equals the number of partitions to be generated or according to other information in the table request if the number of processing nodes does not equal the specified number of partitions.
US08880562B2

A statistically overrepresented token in the descriptions of users associated with a target entity may be descriptive of the target entity. This may be true regardless of whether a primary description of the entity includes the overrepresented token. Accordingly, the entity description machine may access multiple descriptions of multiple users associated with the target entity. A portion of the multiple descriptions may each include a token descriptive of the target entity and of a subset of the multiple users. The entity description machine may determine that the token is overrepresented among the tokens within the multiple descriptions and generate a supplemental description of the target entity, where the supplemental description includes the overrepresented token. Once the supplemental description is generated, the entity description machine may use the supplemental description in referencing the target entity.
US08880560B2

Various embodiments described and illustrated herein include at least one of systems, methods, and software to identify and resolve violations of system and process performance measuring metrics. Following identification of such a violation, some embodiments may identify and cause a solution to be implemented. Following implementation of a solution, the violated metrics are again applied and the results evaluated to verify resolution of the metric violation. Some embodiments may repeat this process until the metric violation or violations are resolved.
US08880551B2

A distributed data processing system executes database operations, and includes a first group of host processors and a second group of job processing units (JPUs). A software application for executing database operations executes in a distributed fashion with portions of the database application executing on at least one central database processor and other portions executing on the data storage processors. At least a portion of the database application is implemented within and/or coordinated by a communication process that is executing the communication protocol. The communication process implements a load balancing function in front of the host processors, the load balancing function directing individual transactions to selected processors so as to evenly distribute workload.
US08880550B2

A Phasetime Method and Automated System for tracking Element Efforts that result in end products, at least including products of art, industry, and nature, and reporting Development Event Efforts by their virtual Points in Phasetime within designated Past, Present, and Future Project Development Phases. Dynamically generated Phasetime Reports display Element Project Efforts within a live Phasetime Matrix in relation to their Phase of Development and Points in Phasetime. Development Events occur within Project Development Phases, which Phases may vary in number and kind depending on the end product. Development Events include Project Production Elements, Element Efforts, the duration of said Efforts, and Efforts' Points in Phasetime. Element Efforts, tracked by Phasetime Project Development Event Instances, are reported in edited Storyboard Beats in Phasetime Macro, Micro, and Nano Views depicting the Efforts' effect on the end Product's Storyline. Effortology keys allow browsers to alter the Storyboard Storyline Report.
US08880545B2

Various embodiments enable audio data, such as music data, to be captured, by a device, from a background environment and processed to formulate a query that can then be transmitted to a content recognition service. In one or more embodiments, multiple queries are transmitted to the content recognition service. In at least some embodiments, subsequent queries can progressively incorporate previous queries plus additional data that is captured. In one or more embodiments, responsive to receiving the query, the content recognition service can employ a multi-stage matching technique to identify content items responding to the query. This matching technique can be employed as queries are progressively received.
US08880538B1

In general, the subject matter described in this disclosure can be embodied in methods, systems and program products. An input document is received. A computing system determines whether a first portion of text is listed in a table of textual content. A computing system inserts into an output document, as a result of determining that the first portion of text is not listed in the table of textual content, the first portion of text. A computing system adds the first portion of text into the table of textual content. A computing system determines whether a second portion of text is listed in the table of textual content, wherein the second portion of text matches the first portion of text. A computing system inserts a reference to the first portion of text from the table of textual content into the output document. A computing system stores the output document.
US08880536B1

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer program products are provided for responding to search queries having results that identify books. In one aspect, a search query and multiple web pages that satisfy the search query and have a ranked order as responses to the search query are received. A subset of web pages that are each a reference page for a respective book are selected. A web page is a reference page for a book when the web page includes a reference to the book and satisfies a citation criterion for the book. A book score is assigned to each of the books for which there is at least one reference page in the group of highest ranking web pages. The book scores are used to select one or more of the books. A book reference is generated for each of the books and the book references are provided in response to the search query.
US08880534B1

A video classification score boosting method boosts classification scores for videos for increased accuracy. A target video is classified with a classifier, producing a classification score. Related video scores are determined using the classifier for sets of videos related to the target video. The sets of related videos may include co-browsed videos, co-commented videos, co-queried videos, and co-uploaded videos. The related video scores may be the mean or median classification score for the classified sets of related videos. Weighting coefficients associated with the classifier are retrieved and applied to the classification score and the related video scores. The weighting coefficients may be determined for the classifier by classifying sets of pre-classified videos with the classifier and determining the weighting coefficients which, when applied to the classification scores of the pre-classified videos, improves the accuracy of the classification scores. A boosted classification score is determined based on the weighted classification score and related video scores.
US08880533B2

An apparatus, method and article of manufacture of the present invention detects the presence of references to the same concept in separate sections of text, and, with no input required from the reader, presents the reader with information concerning the detected references to the concept. The information provided may comprise information related to the location of the reference to the concept in other sections of text, and the reader also is provided the ability to move from one reference to a concept directly to another reference to the same concept.
US08880532B2

Provided are techniques for analyzing fields. Statistical metrics for each field in a data set are received. A general interestingness index is generated for each field using one or more combination functions that aggregate standardized interestingness sub-indexes. One or more fields are identified as interesting for further analysis using the general interestingness index. One or more expert recommendations for field transformations are constructed for the identified one or more fields.
US08880527B2

An approach is provided for initiating generation of a media compilation based on one or more sampling criteria. A sampling platform determines at least one subset of one or more media items captured of at least one event. The sampling platform also partitions the at least one subset of the one or more media items into one or more bins and generates at least one compilation of the at least one subset of the one or more items based, at least in part, on whether the one or more media items in the one or more bins at least substantially meet one or more sampling criteria.
US08880518B2

Techniques are described herein for enhancing the ranking products using purchase day based time windows. A purchase day based time window is a time window that is defined to include purchase days selected from a series of consecutive days. A purchase day is a day on which a product associated with the time window is purchased. The series of consecutive days includes the purchase days intermixed with non-purchase day(s). A non-purchase day is a day on which the product associated with the time window is not purchased. The purchase day based time window is further defined to not include the non-purchase day(s).
US08880517B2

Methods, systems, and computer-readable media for a method of propagating signals across a web graph. A signal describes a document or otherwise provides useful information about a document in a web graph. A web graph is a collection of documents that are related to one another through links, such as hyperlinks. The signals are propagated in the sense that information from the related pages is associated with the target page even though the information may not be directly found in the target page. This information may then be used by a search engine to determine that a particular page is relevant to a search query.
US08880505B2

A method and apparatus for resolving conjunctive queries, comprising relational predicates and external predicates, such as XML predicates. The method and apparatus obtain results from a relational engine or from an external engine, and then use the obtained results as input for the other engine, so as to optimize the activity of the other engine. The process may repeat further times, with the results obtained by the other engine being input to the first engine. The method and apparatus further disclose handling value, being isomorphic hierarchical subtrees.
US08880485B2

According to some embodiments, a data source is accessed from which data will be retrieved via a plurality of processing threads. The data source may have, for example, a plurality of records with each record being associated with a plurality of identifiers. Each of the plurality of identifiers may be dynamically evaluated as a potential range identifier, and the evaluation may be based at least in part on a number of distinct values present within each identifier. One of the potential range identifiers may be selected as a selected range identifier, and the plurality of records may be divided into ranges defined using the selected range identifier.
US08880480B2

A database rollback processor allows rollback, or rewind, of the data and metadata to a point at which a failover or other metadata change occurred, therefore “rewinding” the metadata to a previous consistent point. The rollback processor identifies transaction entries in a redo log resulting in changes to the metadata. The changes are identified backward to a target recovery time. Transactions affecting the metadata are stored in a stack. The transactions are then backed out of the metadata according to the stack to restore the metadata to the state at the target recovery time. Data changes from the redo log may then be applied to the corresponding metadata as it existed at the target recovery time. Since the target recovery time is not bound by the timing of the snapshots, but rather may be at an arbitrary point chosen as the target recovery time, a failover, replication or recovery operation need not rely on the snapshot time.
US08880478B2

A method is disclosed for archiving data in a storage server using a runtime monitoring system. The method includes providing a plurality of data files and creating access logs according to a specified format, which may include an append only access log, from the plurality of data files. At least one of the access logs from the plurality of data files is examined and a file will be archived from the examination of the access logs. An archive procedure is initiated for a file when the file has not been accessed for a specified period of time. If the file will be archived includes ascertaining if the file has a duplicate entry in the access log, and archiving the file when the file does not have the duplicate entry in the access log.
US08880477B2

Methods and systems for database migration from a multitenant database include taking a snapshot of an original database to be migrated with a hot backup process, such that the database is still capable of answering queries during the hot backup process; maintaining a query log of all queries to the tenant database after the hot backup process begins; initializing a new database at a target server using the snapshot; replaying the query log synchronize the new database with the original database; and answering new queries with the new database and not the original database.
US08880475B2

Mechanisms, in a data processing system, are provided for performing a data management operation. These mechanisms identify one or more defined groups of data elements that are a target of the data management operation. One or more previously generated snapshot files associated with the one or more defined groups are identified and a determination is made as to whether at least one previously generated snapshot file of the one or more previously generated snapshot files associated with the one or more defined groups is able to be reused when performing the data management operation. The data management operation is performed based on the determination of whether at least one previously generated snapshot file of the one or more previously generated snapshot files associated with the one or more defined groups is able to be reused when performing the data management operation.
US08880471B2

A method for managing a virtual storage device including scanning ports of a device for storage devices coupled to the device and identifying file systems of the storage devices, creating a database to include entries for the storage devices and files included in the storage devices based on the file systems of the storage devices, and aggregating the files listed in the database as a virtual storage device.
US08880469B2

A system for storing data comprises a performance storage unit and a performance segment storage unit. The system further comprises a determiner. The determiner determines whether a requested data is stored in the performance storage unit. The determiner determines whether the requested data is stored in the performance segment storage unit in the event that the requested data is not stored in the performance storage unit.
US08880460B2

A live dual audit system and recorder method validating and independently verifying element effort event data, assigning audit levels to element effort reports displaying audit level icons whether effort event data is submitted by effort owner or generated by the system's dynamic method, and whether the effort is acknowledged by the project owner. A semi-automated first audit examines repository auditor input effortology decisions against provided effort exhibit data. A fully automated second audit examines dynamically generated system effort data against repository data. A DVIVD event data match audit recorder displays real time dynamic dual audit test reports with each effort audit level movement, and indicates any element effort audit mismatch data system location. An element's audited effort dataset level is displayed in the DVIVD event data match audit recorder until all dataset requirements are fulfilled and satisfy that element's highest audit level, and displays a “System Audit Certified” icon report.
US08880459B2

Architecture for slicing data defined on both tabular data sources and in OLAP (online analytical processing) multidimensional data sources by time relative to the current date simultaneously with the same time intelligence (TI) filter on a dashboard page. The architecture employs a simple time period specification (STPS) language used to specify time periods in monitoring server TI filters, and key performance indicator (KPI) filters. The architecture maps all time dimensions to a common set of time aggregations (hierarchy) and to a common calendar.
US08880457B2

A method for improved, automated analysis of a data set improves the reliability of the data set by comparing the data set with a model of similar data. The method may be used in applications such as medical imaging, clinical trial participant selection, marketing, security, traffic control, and other applications.
US08880456B2

Sequencing information is used to correlate alleles at certain locations to alleles at other locations. The statistical information from the reads of fragments in a sample can be used to determine the phasing of haplotypes and to correct or confirm based calls at the locations. In one example, a confidence value (strength score) is determined for a particular hypothesis, which can include whether two alleles are on a same haplotype at two particular loci, as well as what the alleles are on another haplotype (e.g. for a diploid organism). The strength can include a positive contribution from data that is consistent with the hypothesis and a negative contribution from data is that inconsistent with the hypothesis, where both values can be used in a formula to determine the strength.
US08880452B2

A computer-implemented method is provided for performing mishap risk assessment within a system. The method includes providing a first set of data including risk information associated with at least one hazard within the system, correlating all input first set of data with a second set of data defined as a plurality of mishaps of the system such that the hazard correlates with each mishap to assess mishap potential, storing the correlated first and second sets of data, and performing mishap risk assessment within the system based the correlated data including the first and second sets of data.
US08880450B2

A system configured to predict characteristics of an artificial heart is described. The system includes a processor and memory in electronic communication with the processor, and an artificial neural network configured to receive an input vector of a predetermined length to train the artificial neural network, produce an output vector based on the input vector, and compare the output vector with a target vector of the predetermined length. When the output vector does not match the target vector within a predetermined error rate, the network is configured to adjust at least one weight, and when the output vector matches the target vector within the predetermined error rate, the network is configured to execute the input vector to produce an estimate at least one characteristic of the artificial heart.
US08880442B2

A method and system for generating a heartbeat of a process including at least one machine configured to perform a process cycle consisting of a plurality of timed events performed in a process sequence under an identified condition includes determining the duration of each of the timed events during the process cycle performed under the identified condition, ordering the durations of the plurality of timed events in the process sequence, and generating a heartbeat defined by the ordered durations of a process cycle. The identified condition may be one of a design intent, baseline, learnt, known, current or prior condition. The variance of the heartbeat between a first and at least a second identified condition may be analyzed to monitor and/or control the process or machine. The system may display the process heartbeat information and may generate a message in response to the heartbeat and/or variance thereof.
US08880436B2

Online collaboration through a web portal facilitates effective communication among all parties, regardless of their geographical and organizational boundaries. With the disclosed web-based implementation portal, project implementation according to various embodiments of the present invention, is no longer an abstract list of service pledges by banks. Companies can visualize at each stage exactly how a solution will be implemented for them. In some embodiments, through embedded workflow steps and pre-defined templates, the portal can standardize and automate the customer onboarding process. The process can be standardized and automated from the time the customer confirms subscription to specific commercial solutions to the time when these commercial products are implemented and used by the customer.
US08880431B2

A system includes a transaction terminal that is configured to examine an authorization response for an indicator, which, when set, causes the transaction terminal to communicate with a portal to obtain content relevant to the receipt for the transaction approved by the authorization response. The content may identify the benefit of an offer applied to the transaction, which is not reflected in the authorization response. The content may direct the user to select an option regarding the delivery of the receipt. Options presented for selection include suppression of the printing of the paper receipt in favor of an electronic receipt transmitted to a communication reference of the user, printing a mini paper receipt in addition to transmitting an electronic receipt, and/or printing the full paper receipt at the transaction terminal.
US08880430B1

Computer-implemented methods, articles of manufacture and systems for identifying an on-line bank account utilized for business purposes. A computer processor receives or determines a name of on-line bank account entered by an account holder. The account name is tokenized or parsed into name segments, which are analyzed using a first or local set of rules that is applied to each individual segment to tag or assign a score to each individual segment, and a second or global set of rules are applied to multiple name segments or groups of segments. Scores generated by application of the first and second rule sets are used to determine whether the customer uses the account identified by the account name for business purposes.
US08880419B2

Methods and computer program products for accommodating unforeseen events using an electronic calendar. Occurrences of unforeseen events pertinent to preexisting appointments are detected. Occurrences of unforeseen events may be detected by, for example, accepting input from the user conveyed by, for example, a keyboard, a mouse click, or a menu selection; or by accepting input from an automated information source that provides, for example, commute times or weather reports. The calendar responds automatically on behalf of the user to the detection of unforeseen events pertinent to preexisting appointments. Response may include sending notifications to other parties to appointments by way of, for example, electronic mail, instant messaging, or voice mail messaging; by canceling appointments; or by rescheduling appointments.
US08880416B2

Systems and methods for creating in a facility on-demand routes for powered industrial vehicles to transport cargo efficiently. In one embodiment, an on-demand route generation module receives receiving a request to move cargo. The module analyzes data about the current location, the current tasking, and the driver availability of PIVs in operation. Based on the information, the module creates an on-demand route through the facility and sends a notification to an assigned PIV to pick up the cargo and carry it on the defined on-demand route.
US08880415B1

A computing device identifies a first codeword in a first codebook to represent short-timescale information of frames in a time-based data item segmented at intervals and identifies a second codeword in a second codebook to represent long-timescale information of the frames. The computing device generates a third codebook based on the first codeword and the second codeword for the frames to add long-timescale information context to the short-timescale information of the frames.
US08880412B2

An apparatus comprising an ingress port configured to receive a signal comprising a plurality of encoded audio signals corresponding to a plurality of sources; and a processor coupled to the ingress port and configured to calculate a parameter for each of the plurality of encoded audio signals, wherein each parameter is calculated without decoding any of the encoded audio signals, select some, but not all, of the plurality of encoded audio signals according to the parameter for each of the encoded audio signals, decode the selected signals to generate a plurality of decoded audio signals, and combine the plurality of decoded audio signals into a first audio signal.
US08880410B2

An apparatus for generating a bandwidth extended signal from an input signal includes a patch generator and a combiner. The input signal is represented for first and second bands by first and second resolution data, respectively, the second resolution being lower than the first. The patch generator generates first and second patches from the first band of the input signal according to first and second patching algorithms, respectively. A spectral density of the second patch generated using the second patching algorithm is higher than a spectral density of a first patch generated using the first patching algorithm. The combiner combines both patches and the first band of the input signal to obtain the bandwidth extended signal. The apparatus scales the input signal according to the first and second patching algorithms or scales the first and second patches, so that the bandwidth extended signal fulfills a spectral envelope criterion.
US08880409B2

A system provided herein may perform automatic temporal alignment between music audio signal and lyrics with higher accuracy than ever. A non-fricative section extracting 4 extracts non-fricative sound sections, where no fricative sounds exist, from the music audio signal. An alignment portion 17 includes a phone model 15 for singing voice capable of estimating phonemes corresponding to temporal-alignment features. The alignment portion 17 performs an alignment operation using as inputs temporal-alignment features obtained from a temporal-alignment feature extracting portion 11, information on vocal and non-vocal sections obtained from a vocal section estimating portion 9, and a phoneme network SN on conditions that no phonemes exist at least in non-vocal sections and that no fricative phonemes exist in non-fricative sound sections.
US08880407B2

A projector includes a display part configured to display a first image by projection; a retrieval object specifying part configured to cause a user of the projector to specify an object of retrieval; a result display area specifying part configured to cause the user to specify an area for displaying the result of the retrieval in the displayed first image; and an image combining part configured to receive a second image of the result of the retrieval from a server that has performed the retrieval with respect to the object of retrieval specified by the user, and to display the second image by combining the second image with the area for displaying the result of the retrieval in the displayed first image.
US08880406B2

A system, computer-readable medium, and method for automatically determining a topic of a conversation and responding to the topic determination are provided. In the method, an active topic is defined as a first topic in response to execution of an application. The first topic includes first text defining a plurality of phrases, a probability of occurrence associated with each of the plurality of phrases, and a response associated with each of the plurality of phrases. Speech text recognized from a recorded audio signal is received. Recognition of the speech text is based at least partially on the probability of occurrence associated with each of the plurality of phrases of the first topic. A phrase of the plurality of phrases associated with the received speech text is identified. The response associated with the identified phrase is performed by the computing device. The response includes instructions defining an action triggered by occurrence of the received speech text, wherein the action includes defining the active topic as a second topic.
US08880398B1

A local computing device may receive an utterance from a user device. In response to receiving the utterance, the local computing device may obtain a text string transcription of the utterance, and determine a response mode for the utterance. If the response mode is a text-based mode, the local computing device may provide the text string transcription to a target device. If the response mode is a non-text-based mode, the local computing device may convert the text string transcription into one or more commands from a command set supported by the target device, and provide the one or more commands to the target device.
US08880396B1

The present technology provides techniques for transform domain reconstruction of noise-corrupted portions of an acoustic signal to emulate speech which is obscured by the noise. Replacement transform values for the noise-corrupted portions are determined utilizing the portions of the acoustic signal which contain speech.
US08880394B2

In response to a first envelope within a kth frequency band of a first channel, a speech level within the kth frequency band of the first channel is estimated. In response to a second envelope within the kth frequency band of a second channel, a noise level within the kth frequency band of the second channel is estimated. A noise suppression gain for a time frame n is computed in response to the estimated speech level for a preceding time frame, the estimated noise level for the preceding time frame, the estimated speech level for the time frame n, and the estimated noise level for the time frame n. An output channel is generated in response to multiplying the noise suppression gain for the time frame n and the first channel.
US08880389B2

A method, computer program product and system are disclosed for determining the semantic density of textualized digital media (a measure of how much information is conveyed in a sentence or clause relative to its length). The more semantically dense text is, the more information it conveys in a given space. Users input a topic, a timeline, and one or more target web media sources for analysis. Text in the target media sources is deconstructed to determine density, and a density rating assigned to the web media source. Over time, users can track trends in the density of text media relative to a given topic, and determine how much information is being conveyed in connection with the topic, such as a political campaign. Line graphs, pie charts, and other time-elapsed output graphic representations of the semantic density are generated and rendered for the user.
US08880387B2

An information processing apparatus connected to an emulator to arrange a verification model and a verification target includes a compile unit configured to create a first data transfer unit arranged in a computer to transfer data from the computer to the emulator based on a description of a file function of a verification program and a generation unit configured to generate a second data transfer unit that receives the data from the first data transfer unit and transfers the received data to the verification target based on the description of the file function.
US08880386B2

A computer-implemented method for simulating an electrical circuit. The method includes (a) setting a first temperature distribution in the electrical circuit, (b) performing an electrical simulation across the electrical circuit taking into consideration the first temperature distribution, (c) performing a thermal simulation across the electrical circuit taking into consideration a result of the electrical simulation, to obtain a second temperature distribution, and (d) determining whether a criterion for termination the simulation is met. If the criterion is met, terminate the simulation. If the criterion is not met, assign the second temperature distribution to the first temperature distribution, and repeat steps (b), (c), and (d).
US08880377B2

An apparatus, a method, and a computer program are disclosed. The apparatus comprises a processor. The processor is configured to obtain instantaneous acceleration values representing lower limb motion of a user, to form an effective acceleration value from the instantaneous acceleration values over a plurality of steps of the user, and to determine a motion parameter representing overall motion of the user by means of the effective acceleration value.
US08880374B2

Provided is a charged particle beam device wherein a secondary signal generated from an alignment pattern having known coordinate values in a sample coordinate system is detected, and a positional deviation quantity between the coordinate system of a sample (10) and the coordinate system of a stage (21) is calculated so as to generate coordinate correction data. At the time of observing a sample image, the secondary signal generated from the alignment pattern is detected at least once so as to perform realignment, and the coordinate correction data is updated. Thus, the charged particle beam device performs long-time inspection at a high observation magnification by accurately correcting the sample coordinate information obtained by temperature change, while suppressing device cost increase and throughput deterioration.
US08880372B2

A system for instantaneous and continuous nanosecond-level accuracy determination of a relative time offset between at least two non-collocated timing units, the system including at least two non-collocated timing units located at known positions, each timing unit comprising a frequency source and a collocated receiver, each frequency source being disciplined at a frequency domain using a time source to generate corrections of the relative frequency drift between the frequency source and the time source.
US08880364B2

Systems, apparatuses, and methods for measuring microscopic vibration of machines, which include the use of a selectable high pass or band pass filter and an average power processor unit, among other things.
US08880361B2

Methods and devices for testing medical pumps via tracking the travel of at least one of: the leading edge and the trailing edge of induced single or multiple bubble trajectories within a light-transmissive fluid flow conduit by a photo-detector output of a first photo-detector disposed on a controlled, translatable carriage and methods of synchronized corrections of fluid flow data estimates.
US08880353B2

Disclosed are an apparatus for the identification of a ribonucleic acid, whereby not only the molecular weights of digestion products, from which nothing but the nucleic acid residue composition can be understood, but also nucleic acid residue sequence data is obtained from a product ion mass set and thus the identification reliability for the individual digestion products can be remarkably improved; a method for the identification of a ribonucleic acid; and a program and system for the identification of a ribonucleic acid. The method as described above comprises: searching for nucleic acid sequence database by using a fragment mass set indicating the molecular weights and inner structural data of individual oligonucleotides that are obtained by tandem mass spectrometry on digested oligonucleotides formed by chemically or enzymatically cleaving a ribonucleic acid; scoring candidate sequences; among candidate sequences showing the highest scores, referring those showing scores exceeding the threshold as identified sequences; and using these identified sequences in mapping on nucleic acid sequence database including genomic sequences.
US08880352B2

A system and a method of analyzing an electrophysiological signal, wherein the system comprises an acquisition device for acquiring a test electrophysiological signal associated with an anatomical part of a patient and a processor configured to divide a cycle of the test electrophysiological signal into test time windows, compare a test signal value of each of the test time windows with a reference signal value of reference time windows of the reference segments of respective representations representing respective predetermined morphological classes to obtain a difference, define grid points associated with respective test time windows, respective reference time windows and respective differences, obtain a warping path using the grid points non-linearly in a predetermined order, sum differences along the grid points of each of the warping paths to obtain a cumulative distance for each of the warping paths, and classify the test electrophysiological signal into one of the respective predetermined morphological classes corresponding to the warping path of the respective representation having the least cumulative distance.
US08880351B2

The present techniques include methods and systems for finding correspondences between tissue spots in tissue microarray serial sections belonging to the same recipient block. The present techniques may also be used to relate individual tissue cores to clinical information. Using either a whole slide image or the relative x-y coordinates of the tissue spots on the slide, individual tissue spots in different tissue microarrays may be linked to one another and their clinical information.
US08880350B2

A system and method for determining individualized medical intervention for a particular disease state, and especially for cancers, that includes the molecular profiling of a biological sample from the patient, determining whether any molecular findings including one or more genes, one or more gene expressed proteins, one or more molecular mechanisms, and/or combinations of such exhibit a change in expression compared to a reference, and identifying a non-specific disease therapy or agent capable of interacting with the genes, gene expressed proteins, molecular mechanisms, or combinations of such molecular findings that exhibited a change in expression.
US08880348B2

Disclosed is a method implemented by a processor for imaging a formation penetrated by a borehole. The method includes: obtaining acoustic data in a depth-time domain using an acoustic downhole tool disposed at a depth in the borehole, the acoustic downhole tool having an acoustic source and an acoustic receiver; transforming the acoustic data in the depth-time domain into a Radon domain using a Radon transform; filtering the acoustic data in the Radon domain to increase a signal of interest in the acoustic data in the Radon domain; determining a location of a point in the formation that reflected acoustic energy emitted from the acoustic source to the acoustic receiver, the location of the point being represented in the Radon domain; and inverting the location of the point represented in the Radon domain into a radius-depth domain to image the formation.
US08880347B1

The present disclosure relates to generating graphical turn indicators associated with road junctions having an on-route road segment and multiple off-route road segments extending from a center of the road junction. More particularly, the present disclosure provides graphical turn indicators that represent road junctions having multiple road segments that extend from a center of the road junction within close angular proximity with respect to one another. Each road segment of a road junction is mapped to a unique graphical element of the graphical turn indicator and each graphical element represents a particular turn type.
US08880341B2

A display method and apparatus for displaying three-dimensional terrains and route guidance achieves a flexible and high detail three-dimensional display operation by enabling to change parameters, such as a viewing angle of a selected three-dimensional object, a height of a selected three-dimensional object, and a level of details (LOD) of a selected part of the image. The display method and apparatus also enables to compensate discontinuity, if any, at a border portion of two or more images where such parameters have been changed. Since such a change is made only a selected portion or object on the three-dimensional image, a computation power, memory space or other resources of the navigation system may not be overburdened by such operations.
US08880338B2

A mobile phone includes: a first housing having a first display part; a second housing having a second display part; acquisition section for obtaining image data and position information associated with the image data; position information acquisition section for obtaining current position information concerning a current position; a guide information acquisition section for generating a guide map showing a route from the current position to a spot that is indicated by the position information associated with the image data, based on the position information associated with the image data and the current position information; and a display control section for controlling display contents in the first display part and the second display part. The display control section causes the first display part to display the guide map and causes the second display part to display an image based on the image data.
US08880331B1

The present invention relates to a method for integrating information on external application with information on internal application. The method includes steps of: (a) classifying information inputted from internal application and external application into either common information or specialized information; (b) deciding whether common information of the external application should be matched with that of the internal application by referring to a matching algorithm and then matching the common information of the external application with that of the internal application, if necessary, and matching the specialized information of the external application with that of the internal application; and (c) providing common information at states of being matched or unmatched according to the matching algorithm through the template and the matched specialized information through the template.
US08880328B2

A method of optically locating an aircraft relative to an airport having standardized signage, including markings, the method includes generating an image of at least a portion of the airport from an optical sensor mounted on the aircraft, determining the location of the aircraft, and providing an indication of the determined location within the aircraft.
US08880323B2

A computer-implemented method includes obtaining road sensor data reflecting speeds of traffic on road segments, transforming the road sensor data using vehicle probe data for the road segments reflecting vehicle speeds, and producing speed estimates for the road segments using the transformed road sensor data. The method can further include determining speeds for road segments between road sensors by smoothing data from sensors near the road segments.
US08880319B2

A driving control apparatus mounted on a present vehicle used for tracking a preceding vehicle includes: control module for controlling the present vehicle to accelerate or decelerate; vehicle detecting module for detecting the preceding vehicle; region detecting module for detecting a lateral region existing on an adjacent lane being adjacent to a present lane where the present vehicle exists, the lateral region being laterally to the present vehicle; and region determining module for determining whether or not the lateral region is an avoidance region that has a predetermined area.The control module performs an avoidance standby operation that allows the present vehicle to accelerate or decelerate based on a result of determining by the region determining module, when the vehicle detecting module detects the preceding vehicle existing on the present lane.
US08880314B2

An air brake monitoring system includes an air brake control module and an air brake monitoring module. The air brake control module is configured to control variation of an amount of pressure in a brake pipe of the vehicle to actuate brakes of a braking system of the vehicle. The air brake monitoring module is configured to obtain a reference replenishment volume corresponding to a volume of air used to recharge the braking system after application of the brakes of the braking system when the braking system when a first amount of brakes are operational, to obtain an actual replenishment volume corresponding to an actual volume of air used to recharge the braking system of the vehicle after a braking activity performed by the vehicle, and to generate a signal based on a comparison of the actual replenishment volume to the reference replenishment volume.
US08880313B2

A method operates a vehicle having an acquisition device for acquiring defined route section data of an upcoming route section to be passed through via the vehicle, in particular a utility vehicle. Accordingly, the route section data, which are acquired by the acquisition device are evaluated in an evaluation device with respect to the wear reduction potential of a vehicle-side wearing part for the upcoming route section to be passed through such that, to reduce and/or optimize the wear of the wearing part. An actuating parameter, in particular an actuating time and/or an actuating duration, is predetermined for the wearing part in the upcoming route section to be passed through. An auxiliary device which supports the wearing part in its action is activated in the upcoming route section to be passed through in accordance with at least one predefined auxiliary device parameter.
US08880309B1

The present invention provides a smoother driving experience through the use of an advanced powertrain system for a vehicle. The powertrain system includes a transmission having a gear selection controller adapted to select one of a plurality of gear ratios, an electronic control unit, at least one information acquisition unit wherein the electronic control unit uses information from the information acquisition unit to determine if the vehicle is stationary and if the vehicle is on an expressway. If the electronic control unit determines the vehicle is stationary and the vehicle is on an expressway, then the electronic control unit sends a signal to the gear selection controller of the transmission to select a lower gear ratio that would normally be used to transition the vehicle from a stationary to a moving state.
US08880308B2

A method and system of improving shift event performance in a vehicle with an automatic transmission. One or more accelerometers in the vehicle are used to sense one or more longitudinal acceleration values. The longitudinal acceleration values or values derived therefrom are compared with predetermined stored values. Shift event behavior is changed in response to differences between the one or more longitudinal acceleration values or values derived therefrom and the predetermined stored values.
US08880292B2

A vehicle body vibration estimating device for estimating a vehicle body vibration as a sprung mass of a vehicle where wheels are suspended via a suspension device. The vehicle body vibration estimating device includes a wheel speed physical quantity detecting section and a vibration estimating section. The wheel speed physical quantity detecting section detects a wheel speed physical quantity related to wheel speed, which is a circumferential velocity of a wheel. The vibration estimating section estimates the vehicle body vibration from a correlation relationship between displacements in a back-and-forth direction and displacements in an up-and-down direction of the wheels with respect to the vehicle body, and the wheel speed physical quantity detected by the wheel speed physical quantity detecting section.
US08880277B2

Methods and apparatus are provided for generating a vehicle specific configuration file. The method includes: determining a vehicle identification number; retrieving, based on the vehicle identification number, from at least one data storage device a bus topology, module information, at least one message identification number, and at least one message length; and generating a configuration file based on the vehicle identification number, the bus topology, the module information, the at least one message identification number, and the at least one message length.
US08880275B1

A vehicle control system is provided that includes an internal communications system. The vehicle control system further includes a controller configured to communicate with a plurality of independent vehicle systems via the internal communications system. The controller stores and accesses a plurality of libraries of system processes having data associated with the plurality of vehicle components. The controller maintains an operational state for the vehicle during an operational failure of at least one of the plurality of independent vehicle systems.
US08880259B2

A method and apparatus for controlling an electric motor. An electric motor apparatus has an electric motor with motor stator windings, a battery, battery control module coupled to the battery and configured to monitor and detect a state of the battery, and a motor control unit coupled to the battery and the batter control module and being configured to select an operation of the electric motor based on a signal from the battery control module representing the state of the battery. The motor control unit selects a normal motor control operation, a power dissipation motor control operation, or a discharge operation. During the power dissipation motor control operation, power from brake torque is dissipated in the motor stator windings of the electric motor.
US08880250B2

Provided is a method and controller for controlling a vehicle dc bus voltage. The method includes generating a parameter. The parameter is based on a reference dc bus voltage squared. The method includes controlling the vehicle dc bus voltage based on the parameter and a detected dc bus voltage. The method may also include generating another parameter based on a power demand associated with at least one of a motoring mode operation and a generating mode operation of a traction motor associated with the vehicle. The power demand is indicated in a message received via a dedicated high speed data bus. The method includes controlling the vehicle dc bus voltage based on the another parameter.
US08880244B2

A method for evaluating the structural compatibility of an aircraft for use on a runway having a profile with one or more roughnesses in the form of bumps and/or dips using a computer-based system, and including the steps of: generating a first bump height curve representing elevations or depressions on the runway; comparing the bump height curve with a second bump height curve which is a first reference curve; generating a first power spectral density curve of the profile of the runway; comparing the first power spectral density curve with a second power spectral density curve which is a second reference curve; and authorizing or denying the aircraft the use of the runway on the basis of results of the comparison.
US08880240B2

Methods for establishing continuous communications between a vehicle and a mobile device using Near Field Communications (NFC), and using the NFC communication to enable application hosting on the mobile device and other features. An NFC-enabled mobile device is placed in close proximity to an NFC antenna in the vehicle, where in one embodiment the NFC antenna is integrated into a wireless charging pad for the device. Continuous wireless NFC communications are established between the mobile device and the vehicle, such that the device can serve as a controller for in-vehicle systems. Control applications on the mobile device can include driver-commanded features such as operation of windows and door locks, as well as automatic features such as navigation and collision warning. Other uses of the NFC-enabled mobile device are also disclosed, such as event-based information capture and gesture-based control.
US08880235B2

One embodiment of the present invention provides an energy-management system for managing energy within a predominantly closed power system. During operation, the system obtains one or more control actions that control energy transitions of a plurality of components, receives transitional characteristics associated with the components, and schedules the energy transitions by generating a set of offsets. A respective offset results in a delay of at least one energy transition.
US08880232B2

A system and method for real-time power management are provided. The system can include one or more lights, one or more light controllers, one or more meters to detect power demand of a building, and a central controller to modify the light output of the lights responsive to the detected power demand. The system can interface with other utility controls to manage the total power demand of the building on a real-time basis. The light controllers can provide individual metering of the lights for use by the central controller.
US08880231B2

Systems and methods for enterprise energy automation are provided. An enterprise energy automation system determines an energy performance model for each of a plurality of building automation systems using data extracted from the plurality of building automation systems. The performance models for each of the plurality of building automation systems are used in conjunction with pricing information received from an energy supply and delivery system to determine an optimum operating strategy for the plurality of building automation systems.
US08880227B2

Methods and systems for controlling temperatures in plasma processing chamber for a wide range of setpoint temperatures and reduced energy consumption. Temperature control is coordinated between a coolant liquid loop and a heat source by a control algorithm implemented by the plasma processing module controller. The control algorithm may completely stop the flow of coolant liquid to a temperature-controlled component in response to a feedback signal indicating an actual temperature is below the setpoint temperature. The control algorithm may further be based at least in part on a feedforward control signal derived from a plasma power or change in plasma power input into the processing chamber during process recipe execution.
US08880219B1

A self-contained pill dispenser is disclosed. A housing is provided and a hopper for containing a plurality of pills is supported by the housing. A feed chute having a detector mechanism is operatively connected to the hopper for receiving pills therefrom. A microcontroller is also operatively connected to the hopper, the feed chute, and the detector mechanism. The microcontroller calculates the volume of each of the pills transiting the detector mechanism based on occluded electromagnetic signals detected by the detector mechanism and the time of transit of each pill relative thereto.
US08880214B2

Methods, systems, and articles of manufacture to combine mail streams in a binding line are disclosed. An example method is used to create a first book on a production line, where the first book is associated with a first recipient address. The example method is then used to deposit the second book associated with a second recipient address via a book feeder on the first book as the first book moves along the production line.
US08880199B2

A smart lighting control system has a central control unit and at least one lighting module. The lighting module has its own controller, an ambient light sensor, a current sensor, and an emergency button and is connected to the central control unit and other modules via a serial port. Each lighting module can follow commands from the central control unit to display a specific lighting effect or adjust its brightness according to the ambient light automatically or to switch to another color or lighting effect to generate a warning signal.
US08880198B2

A system for automatically monitoring and controlling an infrastructure or process includes a plurality of remote clients installed along various portions of an industrial infrastructure or an infrastructure performing a process. Each of the remote clients collects data. A plurality of server replicas is in communication with the plurality of remote clients. The server replicas receive the collected data from the remote clients and process the received data. The plurality of remote clients and the plurality of server replicas communicate across an electronic network. The plurality of server replicas includes a state machine replication system that is tolerant of a failure of one or more of the server replicas.
US08880189B2

Disclosed methods and devices treat chronic lower back pain from degenerated or injured intervertebral discs. Electrodes connected to a pulse generator deliver electrical impulses to nerves located within the posterior longitudinal ligament and annulus fibrosus of lumbar intervertebral discs. The stimulation reduces back pain reversibly, adjustably, and with almost complete coverage of the pain-generating region. A temporary percutaneous lead and a permanent paddle lead are used. The percutaneous lead, designed to prevent inappropriate stimulation of the thecal sac, is inserted using a specially-designed introducer cannula and lead blank. The paddle lead is configured individually for implantation in the anterior epidural space of each patient. Electrical stimulation parameters may also be selected so as to ablate the nerves, using non-thermal irreversible electroporation, or using joule heating wherein a thermal insulator covers substantially all of the thecal sac, thereby shielding the thecal sac from potential heat damage.
US08880178B2

Disclosed herein is a functional electrical stimulation (FES) device and system. In one embodiment, sequential bipolar pulse stimulation may be provided to an area of a living body via one or more electrode leads applied to the area via a FES device comprising a current pulse generating circuit comprising output nodes for operative coupling to the one or more electrode leads, and configured for operative coupling to a voltage supply. The current pulse generating circuit generally comprises positive and negative stimulation paths drawing from the voltage supply to respectively apply positive and negative currents through the area via the one or more electrode leads. In one example, the stimulation paths comprise respective capacitive elements, a capacitance ratio of which dictating, at least in part, an amplitude ratio of the positive and negative currents, wherein periodic alternative activation of the stimulation paths provides the sequential bipolar pulse stimulation. In another example, each path comprises a respective charging element and a respective activation switch, wherein each respective charging element is charged by the voltage supply and discharged upon activation of the respective activation switch to generate positive and negative current pulses respectively, such that a pulse rise time of the positive and negative current pulses is predominantly dictated by a switching speed of each respective switch. Systems and uses for these devices, and FES in general, are also described.
US08880175B2

Systems and devices for selectively applying electrical energy to a target region beneath a skin surface of a patient involve applying an electrical impulse to one or more electrodes on a skin surface of the patient to modulate one or more nerves at the target region, where the impulse is substantially blocked at nerves located between the target region and the skin surface such that only the nerves at the target region are modulated by the electrical impulse.
US08880171B2

A system comprising implantable device, the implantable medical device including an intrinsic cardiac signal sensor, an impedance measurement circuit configured to apply a specified current to a transthoracic region of a subject and to sample a transthoracic voltage resulting from the specified current, and a processor coupled to the intrinsic cardiac signal sensor and the impedance measurement circuit. The processor is configured to initiate sampling of a transthoracic voltage signal in a specified time relation to a fiducial marker in a sensed intrinsic cardiac signal, wherein the sampling attenuates or removes variation with cardiac stroke volume from the transthoracic voltage signal, and determine lung respiration using the sampled transthoracic voltage signal.
US08880170B2

Some embodiments provide a system, comprising a peripheral nerve field modulation (PNFM) therapy delivery system, PNFM electrodes configured to be implanted subcutaneously, and a controller. The PNFM electrodes are electrically connected to the PNFM therapy system. The PNFM therapy delivery system and the PNFM electrodes are configured to deliver current and/or control the field potentials at one or more peripheral nerve fields. The controller is configured to control the PNFM therapy delivery system to deliver a PNFM therapy to the one or more peripheral nerve fields. The controller includes a scheduler configured to control timing of the PNFM therapy.
US08880165B2

The invention is directed to a method of bonding a hermetically sealed electronics package to an electrode or a flexible circuit and the resulting electronics package, that is suitable for implantation in living tissue, such as for a retinal or cortical electrode array to enable restoration of sight to certain non-sighted individuals. The hermetically sealed electronics package is directly bonded to the flex circuit or electrode by electroplating a biocompatible material, such as platinum or gold, effectively forming a plated rivet-shaped connection, which bonds the flex circuit to the electronics package. The resulting electronic device is biocompatible and is suitable for long-term implantation in living tissue.
US08880159B2

Methods and systems are disclosed for analyzing three dimensional orthogonal ECG measurements to assess patient risk of a subsequent cardiac event based on evaluation of cardiac vector values in view of risk factors defined by the invention.
US08880156B2

The physiological condition of a person is determined in physiological condition determining system by using a sensor for sampling a plurality of heart beats of the person, and using a control unit to perform the acts of: extracting a series of cardiac R-R intervals from the heart beat samples, providing a two-dimensional representation of subsequent R-R intervals, wherein two subsequent R-R interval forms an entry in the two-dimensional representation resulting in a plurality of entries, determining a centroid, an average radius and an average rotation frequency for the plurality of entries in the two-dimensional representation, determining a plurality of distances between the radius and each of the entries in the two-dimensional representation, and determining the physiological condition of the person using the radius in combination with the plurality of distances.
US08880146B1

The present invention enables a safe and noninvasive assessment of tumor resistance using one diffusion or sodium MRI scan over the entire tumor. The evaluation can be done before therapy and can help select a strategy of treatment. The invention can be used in different types of tumors in most parts of the human body. The level of tumor resistance can be determined reproducibly and quickly. The results can be used immediately to create individualized therapy. The invention allows clinicians to avoid ineffective therapies, which may be more harmful than useful, or come up with the other more appropriate alternatives.
US08880145B2

The invention relates to a simulation and planning system for intraoperative radiation therapy and to a method allowing said system to be used for treatment studies, simulation, planning, training and recording, which system generally comprises a central processing unit or computer (1) for management and control and software-based communication with the rest of the devices and the user; one or several monitors or screens (2) for displaying images and peripherals responsible for gathering data relating to the actions performed by said user, a deformation simulation module for the virtual simulation of the deformation produced in the organs and tissues during the process; algorithms for instantly calculating the radiation dose applied during the radiation therapy treatment simulation and means for recording all the activities carried out and generating a full dosimetry report.
US08880136B2

A simple calibration method for calibrating an instrument for measuring a biogenic substance, using near-infrared spectral spectroscopy is realized. The calibration method comprises (1) the step of measuring a specific substance of a biological object with the use of an instrument for measuring a biogenic substance, using a confocal optical system, (2) the step of using an instrument for measuring a biogenic substance, using near-infrared spectral spectroscopy, thereby measuring a specific substance in the same region of the biological object, (3) the step of comparing a measured value of the specific substance, measured in the step (1) with a measured value of the specific substance, measured in the step, and (4) the step of executing an operation in the step at least once after the elapse of predetermined time.
US08880135B2

The present invention is configured such that, in a low AC loss oxide superconductor constituted by providing an oxide superconducting layer 6 on a substrate 1, said oxide superconducting layer 6 is separated into a plurality of filament conductors 2 in parallel to the lengthwise direction of said substrate 1 by dividing grooves 3 plurally formed in the widthwise direction of said substrate, and a high-resistance oxide 8 is formed in said dividing grooves 3. Because of the invention, it is possible to increase the insulation properties of individually divided mated filament conductors, and to obtain an oxide superconductor that has low AC loss.
US08880134B2

This invention relates to a superconductor device, comprising: a superconductor; a former which supports the superconductor; and, an intermediate electrical connector attached to the former for coupling the superconductor to a power source, wherein the intermediate electrical connector is connected to the superconductor via a deformable portion in the intermediate electrical connector, wherein the deformable portion allows relative movement between the superconductor and former.
US08880132B2

A mobile terminal that can prevent radiation performance deterioration of an antenna is provided. The mobile terminal includes a circuit board in which an antenna and one or more key buttons are mounted, a housing mounted on the antenna and the circuit board, and a case for enclosing a periphery of the one or more key buttons and having a plurality of openings according to the quantity of the key buttons, wherein an antenna adjacent opening among the plurality of openings is extended through a slot toward an edge of the case to embody a loop antenna. Therefore, radiation deterioration of an antenna due to a case can be prevented. In addition, production costs can be minimized, and a desired external appearance of the mobile terminal is not compromised.
US08880131B2

A cover mechanism is provided for an opening and closing device, which includes a fixed plate arranged at a first housing; a moving plate arranged at a second housing; a hinge arm that is arranged between the two plates and rotates to move the moving plate between a closed position where the first and second housings overlap and an open position where surfaces of the first and second housings are substantially coplanar; and a recess formed at the second housing that prevents the hinge arm from interfering with the second housing in the open position. The cover mechanism includes a cover arranged at the moving plate that covers the recess when the moving plate is positioned at the closed position and moves from the covering position by engaging with and being urged by the rotating hinge arm; and an urging part that urges the cover toward the covering position.
US08880130B2

A method for reproducing a music file of a mobile communication terminal includes outputting a confirmation message for determining whether a music file is to be reproduced if reproduction of the music file is requested during the manner mode of the mobile communication terminal, and reproducing the music file if an external output device is connected to the mobile communication terminal. Since a user can reproduce music files without any complex key manipulation, even during the manner mode of the mobile communication terminal, the user can listen to desired music easily, thereby improving the convenience of the mobile communication terminal.
US08880129B2

A mobile terminal is provided. The mobile terminal includes a terminal body, a window disposed at one surface of a terminal body, a first frame having a space for mounting one or more components, the first frame having a first cavity, a display configured to output visual information through the window, the display being located at the first cavity, a battery configured to supply power to the terminal body, the battery being located at the first cavity, and a separation sheet coupled to the first frame to separate a first region of the terminal body where the display is located from a second region of the terminal body where the battery is located. A periphery of the separation sheet contacts the bottom of the first cavity.
US08880128B1

Methods and systems for preventing a user device from exceeding a transmit power budget when a presence of an object is detected are described. A user device detects a presence of object that absorbs electromagnetic radiation, and in response to detection of the human body part, the user device determines a remaining amount of a transmit power budget of the user device, and calculates an amount of data that can be transmitted without exceeding the remaining amount. The user device transmits the second data at the specified transmit power level according to the calculated amount of data.
US08880126B2

A method and a system discover a wireless LAN network for a multi-mode handset in a power-efficient way. The method extends stand-by time for the cellular and wireless LAN multi-mode handset, taking advantage of that fact that the cellular interface demands less energy from the battery than the wireless LAN (WLAN)-based interface in such a handset. The method therefore uses the cellular interface as an always-on proxy for the wireless LAN interface to receive the initial packets of a communication session, and uses the initial packet or packets to activate the handset's interface with the wireless LAN.
US08880120B1

Embodiments of the invention provide a communication system including a processor and a memory coupled to the processor. The memory includes instructions executable by processor to communicate with a database comprising a plurality of visual integrated voice response (IVR) menus associated with a plurality of destinations. Further, the instructions executable by the processor for receiving a dialed phone number of a destination. Furthermore, the instructions executable by the processor for comparing the dialed phone number with phone numbers stored in the database. Additionally, the instructions executable by the processor for transferring to be displayed a form based on the comparison. Herein, the form comprises one or more data request fields corresponding to a visual IVR menu associated with the dialed destination.
US08880117B2

A mechanical information input/output device of a mobile terminal permits various functions to be selected or adjusted according to changing positions of certain mechanical structures therein. The mechanical terminal preferably includes: a case for forming an external form with a predetermined form; and a mechanical information output unit provided at one side of the case and formed with at least one mechanical structure that changes a disposition by information according to a user function of the mobile terminal.
US08880111B2

Various systems and methods for network management are disclosed. In one embodiment, a network management system comprises a receiver for receiving data from a plurality of entities, including base stations and/or subscriber handsets, a processor for generating a network map or a recommendation based on the received data, a display device for displaying the network map or recommendation, and a transmitter for transmitting instructions based on the recommendation.
US08880105B2

This invention relates to methods and devices for entropy-based location fingerprinting, in particular for use over wireless local-area networks (WLANs). The invention has particular application in localization for indoor environments. In embodiments of the invention, an entropy-based fingerprint is determined at a number of predetermined locations within the desired area of localization during an off-line phase and subsequently used in an on-line mode to determine the location of a receiver. In particular embodiments, the fingerprint is a vector of entropy estimates of the channel transfer function (CTF) between a mobile terminal and all access points within coverage. The invention seeks to provide a fingerprinting localization solution that has a simplicity of structure, leading to advantages in storage and pattern recognition requirements, and robustness by proving a unique measure of information that is related to the channel experienced at the location of the mobile terminal.
US08880098B2

According to one embodiment, a communication server is provided with a communication interface unit, a storage unit, a setting unit and a roaming unit. The storage unit stores terminal list containing terminal ID and position ID (pID) of a content output terminal on a network. The setting unit transmits an instruction to set a session for outputting a content on the terminal, upon receiving from the terminal a first message containing user ID (uID), user position ID (upID) and content information associated with the session. The roaming unit selects, when a second message containing the uID and the upID is received, and it is determined that the user moved, a terminal having a pID corresponding to the upID, and transmits, to devices associated with session roaming to the selected terminal, an instruction to perform the session roaming.
US08880076B2

Provided is a terminal that achieves appropriate handover control even in a case where a cell group in which downstream communication is performed by coordination between a plurality of cells is included in a communication system. According to the terminal (100), a CoMP quality calculation unit (105) calculates a comprehensive quality value for a group to be quality calculated on the basis of a reference signal transmitted from the group to be quality calculated, and, when the comprehensive quality value calculated exceeds a CoMP threshold, a measurement control unit (106) transmits to the communicating cell the quality of the reference signal transmitted from at least one cell of the plurality of cells included in the group to be quality calculated.
US08880074B2

Disclosed is an operating method of a femto base station which includes broadcasting a plurality of public land mobile network (PLMN) identities; broadcasting a plurality of closed subscriber group (CSG) identities correlated with the plurality of PLMN identities; and establishing wireless communication with user equipment based on the broadcasted PLMN and CSG identities.
US08880067B2

Systems and methods for correlating multiple registrations from a single device are disclosed. A private ID used in an prior registration may be used to obtain subsequent private IDs. The subsequent private IDs may be used in subsequent registrations. An instance ID from an prior registration may be used in conjunction with different registration IDs in subsequent registrations.
US08880059B2

A system and method for media access control optimization for long distance wireless communication between an airborne platform and a surface base station is provided. The system includes receiving an incoming beamform signal. The incoming beamform signal includes a data portion and a token. It is possible, in some embodiments, that the data portion and the token are independently modulated. The token identifies a subsequent transmitter by including any of: an identification of which transmitter is to transmit next, length of time the next transmitter should transmit for, and transmit timing data. The system may then transmit an outgoing beamform signal including a data portion and a token. After which the system may wait for a return transmission, or a timeout. The system may also be enabled, in some embodiments, to maintain a list of active transmitters. This list of active transmitters may be updated periodically by adding and removing particular transmitters according to successful response transmissions.
US08880052B2

A method is provided of evolving algorithms for network node control in a telecommunications network by genetic programming to (a) generate algorithms (b) determining fitness level of the algorithms based on a model of the telecommunications network and (c) select the algorithm that meet a predetermined fitness level or number of generations of evolution. The model is updated and the steps (a), (b) and (c) are repeated automatically to provide a series of algorithms over time adapted to the changing model of the network for possible implementation in the network.
US08880038B2

A communications device for use on a communications network comprising: at least two communications profiles, each communications profile being associated with a geographic region within which the communications device is to be used processing means arranged to allow an active communications profile to be selected from the at least two communications profiles.
US08880032B2

A method and apparatus for providing a masked short message service in a wireless network are disclosed. For example, the method receives a message from a first endpoint device directed to a second endpoint device, wherein the message indicates that the message is a masked short message service message, and forwards the masked short message service message with a code towards the second endpoint device. In one example, the second endpoint device parses the message and executes instructions contained therein, e.g., for sending a regular SMS with content derived from masked SMS, making a call, playing music, finding location by invoking an API, sending a file or a picture and any other functions that the second endpoint device may be capable of doing. The masked short message service provides a method for remotely controlling a 2G/3G mobile device through a computer or another mobile device.
US08880021B2

A system and method for updating physical address location information of a wireless device for E911 services. The updating may include determining that the current geographical coordinate location of the wireless device has moved beyond a predetermined distance from a last recorded geographical coordinate location. A physical address location associated with the current geographical coordinate location may then be updated. The physical address location may be updated in the wireless device and/or a data repository operating on a data packet network. The physical address location may be communicated to a public safety answering point (PSAP) in response to an emergency 911 call being placed.
US08880015B2

Aspects of a method and system for LNA adjustment to compensate for dynamic impedance matching are provided. In this regard, an antenna matching network may be configured to maximize received signal strength for a determined frequency and an amplifier gain may be adjusted based on the maximized signal strength such that output levels of the amplifier are between specified limits. The antenna matching network may be programmatically controlled via one or more switching elements. The amplifier gain may be programmatically controlled via one or more bias points. The antenna matching network may be configured for a plurality of frequencies in a frequency band, such as an FM broadcast band, and a configuration for each frequency may be stored. Accordingly, when the receiver is tuned to a frequency, a corresponding configuration may be retrieved from memory.
US08880003B2

An apparatus and method for controlling Tracking Area Update (TAU) in a wireless communication system are provided. A method for controlling TAU includes, in a case of receiving a request for TAU from a User Equipment (UE), determining a periodic TAU request count of the UE when a type of the TAU is periodic, deciding a TAU period of the UE based on the periodic TAU request count of the UE, and sending the UE a TAU response message including TAU period information of the UE.
US08880000B1

A first angle of arrival of a first signal from a second communication device to a first communication device is determined. A second angle of arrival of a second signal from a third communication device to the first communication device is determined. First coefficients to control an antenna array according to a first beam pattern is determined using (i) the first angle of arrival of the first signal and (ii) the second angle of arrival of the second signal. The first coefficients are for communicating with the second communication device. Second coefficients to control the antenna array according to a second beam pattern is determined using (i) the first angle of arrival of the first signal and (ii) the second angle of arrival of the second signal. The second coefficients are for communicating with the third communication device.
US08879990B2

A method and an apparatus for automatically connecting a short range wireless network in a portable terminal. The method for automatically connecting a short range wireless network in the portable terminal includes, when registering to an Access Point (AP), storing location information of the AP. The method also includes obtaining location information of the terminal. The method further includes controlling an activation cycle of a communication module by comparing the location information of the terminal and the location information of the AP. The method still further includes, when the communication module is activated, searching for the AP.
US08879983B2

The present invention relates to a communication system and methods of use thereof. The system includes sets of complementary radios for transmitting and receiving signals to achieve high reliability and reduced costs. The sets of complementary radios are in wireless communication with each other. A new connection is made by selecting from amongst the complementary radios. Switching between complementary radios during a connection is also permitted. Optimized protocols and hardware for implementing the system are disclosed.
US08879980B2

In an embodiment, a mobile radio communication device may be provided. The mobile radio communication device may include a first communication interface configured to communicate with another mobile radio communication device, a second communication interface configured to communicate with a mobile radio base station, and a relay quality determiner configured to determine a quality of relaying data between the other mobile radio communication device and the mobile radio base station via the first communication interface and the second communication interface.
US08879978B1

Techniques disclosed herein can determine sequences for educational units by evaluating entropies of multiple potential sequences and biasing selection of next units towards those associated with high sequence entropies. Further, an analysis can determine which units are under-represented (relative to a target proportion) in a past sequence and bias towards inclusion of an under-represented unit in the sequence. The available units that are considered for potential selection can include those matched to a learner's skill (e.g., such that all pre-requisite units have been mastered but the unit itself has not been mastered). Thus, techniques can generate sequences of units that promote unit variation and nonetheless conform to relative unit frequencies and skill level appropriateness.
US08879974B2

An image heating device includes an endless belt including a base layer and an elastic layer formed around the base layer, a contact member contacting an inner surface of the endless belt, a pressure rotating member forming a nip portion configured to convey a recording material while nipping the recording material along with the contact member via the endless belt, wherein an image formed on the recording material is heated at the nip portion using heat from the endless belt, and wherein one end of the endless belt is coated with the elastic layer and the other end of the endless belt is not coated with the elastic layer, and a belt lateral shifting direction regulating mechanism configured to regulate a direction in which the endless belt shifts when the endless belt is rotated, toward the end coated with the elastic layer.
US08879968B2

An image forming apparatus includes an image bearing member, a medium transport member, an image transfer member, a first detection member detecting widthwise deviation of the image bearing member, a first deviation correcting member tiltable relative to the width direction and supporting the image bearing member, a first correction control section tilting the first deviation correcting member to correct deviation of the image bearing member, a second detection member detecting widthwise deviation of the transport member, a second deviation correcting member tiltable relative to the width direction and supporting the transport member, and a second correction control section tilting the second deviation correcting member to correct deviation of the transport member.
US08879965B2

A developing device can supply sufficient amount of developing agent into a developing chamber regardless of residual amount of developing agent in a developing agent chamber. The developing chamber has a developing roller and a supply roller. The developing agent chamber is positioned below the developing chamber. A wall portion is positioned below and extending along a lower portion of the supply roller. A vertical conveyer is configured to convey the developing agent from the lower portion of the developing agent chamber to a position above the supply roller. The developing chamber has a reservoir positioned above the supply roller and configured to accumulate the developing agent conveyed by the vertical conveyer.
US08879952B2

A holder unit is configured to hold a plurality of photosensitive drums such that the plurality of photosensitive drums are arrayed in a predetermined direction and juxtaposed with each other with a space between neighboring photosensitive drums. A plurality of developing units is held by the holder unit, each is provided in association with each photosensitive drum, and each includes a developing roller displaceable between a contact position where the developing roller is in contact with the photosensitive drum and a spaced position where the developing roller is spaced away from the photosensitive drum. A spacer member has a plurality of retaining portions each in association with each developing unit and configured to retain each developing unit at the spaced position, and a linking portion integral with the retaining portions and configured to connect neighboring retaining portions therethrough in the predetermined direction.
US08879948B2

A toner cartridge, a main casing accommodates therein toner and is formed with an opening which provides communication between an interior and an exterior of the main casing. A shutter is movable along the main casing by an external driving force applied in a force direction between a closed position at which the shutter closes the opening and an open position at which the shutter opens the opening. A toner seal is formed with a seal opening opposing the opening of the main casing, and interposed between the main casing and the shutter when the shutter is positioned at the closed position. A guide portion is configured to guide a movement of the shutter in an inclined direction inclined with respect to the force direction.
US08879946B2

An image-forming apparatus for forming an image on a recording medium includes an image carrier for carrying a toner image corresponding to an image to be formed on the recording medium, a cleaning device including a cleaning member for cleaning the image carrier by removing residual toner remaining on an image-carrying face, and a bias-applying unit for applying a first bias for removing residual toner charged to a first polarity by electrostatic force from the image carrier such that the cleaning member captures residual toner, and expelling the residual toner charged to a second polarity, which is an opposite polarity to the first polarity, by electrostatic force from the cleaning member toward the image carrier, between the image carrier and the cleaning member.
US08879933B2

An image formation apparatus includes an exposure unit to form an electrostatic latent image with image dots on a rotatable image carrier by exposing the image carrier to irradiation light, a development unit to form a developer image by attaching a developer to the electrostatic latent image, a voltage supply unit to supply the development unit with a development voltage, a cleaning unit to clean up the developer left on the image carrier after the development, and a developer discard amount controller to control an amount of the developer to be forcibly attached to the image carrier based on a total rotation number of the image carrier if the number of image dots printed during a prescribed number of rotations of the image carrier is smaller than a reference value, and to forcibly attach the controlled amount of the developer to the image carrier to discard the developer.
US08879927B2

An optical receiver, a method of operating an optical receiver, a correction based transimpedance amplifier circuit, and a method of adjusting an output of a transimpedance amplifier. In one embodiment, the optical receiver comprises an optical-to-electrical converter, a transimpedance amplifier, and a correction circuit. The optical-to-electrical converter is provided for receiving an optical signal and converting the optical signal to an electrical signal. The transimpedance amplifier is provided for receiving the electrical signal from the optical-to-electrical converter and for generating from the electrical signal an amplified electrical signal. The amplified electrical signal has inter symbol interference resulting from a reduced bandwidth of the transimpedance amplifier. The correction circuit is provided for receiving the amplified electrical signal from the transimpedance amplifier and for generating, from the amplified electrical signal, an output signal including corrections for the inter symbol interference in the amplified electrical signal effectively increasing a bandwidth of the optical receiver.
US08879925B2

An optical transmitter includes: a digital signal processor to generate a drive signal from input data; a controller to control an amplitude or power of the drive signal according to information relating to the digital signal processing of the digital signal processor; and an optical modulator to modulate input light with the drive signal controlled by the controller to generate an optical signal.
US08879924B2

Disclosed herein are a Visual Light Communication (VLC) method and apparatus using a DMX-512 network. The VLC apparatus includes a DMX signal generation unit and a DMX signal transmission unit. The DMX signal generation unit generates VLC data packets each including a DMX header, fragmentation information, and a data fragment. The DMX signal transmission unit transmits the VLC data packets to an LED lighting apparatus coupled over a DMX-512 network in order to perform VLC.
US08879916B1

This invention provides an approach to lock the optical phase of a single sideband, carrier-suppressed coherent-AM analog optical link, so that for example an RF signal can be transmitted with high fidelity over fibers. In some embodiments, a method comprises providing a RF locking signal; impressing an RF input signal and the RF locking signal onto the optical field of a suppressed carrier; introducing the optical spectrum to a photonic integrated circuit comprising a microresonator filter and a finite impulse response filter; selectively passing the double sideband, associated with the locking frequency, through the finite impulse response filter; and recovering a RF output signal, wherein a feedback loop provides dithering to stabilize the optical phase of the link and thus preserve amplitude/phase integrity for the RF-photonic signal. The disclosed method is especially suited to the filtering of RF-photonic signals via use of the resonance passbands derived from microdisks or micro-rings.
US08879912B2

A bandwidth control method used in a case where, for example, a first communication device (OLT) allocates a bandwidth for signal transmission to each of a plurality of second communication devices (ONUs) connected to the OLT in a communication system having the OLT and the ONUs includes a sleep controlling of shifting devices among the ONUs that satisfy a predetermined condition into a power saving state, a control-target selecting of selecting control target devices among the ONUs based on a result of performing the sleep controlling, and a bandwidth determining of determining a bandwidth to be allocated to the selected control target devices.
US08879902B2

There is disclosed an integrated 2D/3D camera system which may include a 2D camera and a 3D camera affixed to the 2D camera. An inter-camera convergence angle between the 2D camera and the 3D camera may be preset. At least some imaging parameters of one of the 2D camera and the 3D camera may be preset. Imaging parameters of the other of the 2D camera and the 3D camera may be remotely controllable.
US08879890B2

A method for viewing a collection of images or videos, includes analyzing the collection to determine properties of the images or videos and using the determined properties to produce icons corresponding to such properties; providing a time-varying display of the images or videos in the collection following an ordering of the images or videos in the collection and at least one of the corresponding icons; receiving a user selection of an icon; changing the time-varying display of the images or videos in the collection following a reordering of the images or videos in the collection in response to the user selection; storing the sequence of the user selections and associated timing in a script in a processor accessible memory; and playing back the viewing of the collection of images or videos using the script.
US08879874B2

An intruder detection system including a light emitting unit, a light guide, and a light receiving unit. The light emitting unit is arranged to emit light into the light guide and the light guide is arranged to guide the light to the light receiving unit. The impact of an intruder on the light guide causes changes in the characteristics of the light received at the light receiving unit.
US08879873B2

An optical modulator that supports a plurality of modulation formats is provided. The optical modulator includes: a distribution part including an optical demultiplexing/variable-branching switchable circuit; an optical modulator array; and an aggregation part including a combining ratio variable combining circuit and/or an optical multiplexing/variable-combining switchable circuit. The distribution part forms any or a combination of a variable 1×M demultiplexer/brancher, a combination of one or more fixed ILFs and an optical switch and a combination of a plurality of variable optical couplers and an optical switch; the optical modulator array includes a plurality of optical modulators; the aggregation part includes a structure of any or a combination of one or more variable optical couplers, a combination of a plurality of variable attenuators, an M×1 variable coupler, a variable M×1 demultiplexer/brancher and a combination of one or more fixed ILFs and an optical switch.
US08879866B2

An image processing circuit includes: a correction amount calculation section which calculates a correction amount from area-by-area correction amounts set respectively for two, corresponding to the hue of input image data, out of a plurality of areas into which the hue/saturation plane is divided; and a color correction processing section which generates output image data by subjecting the input image data to color correction processing according to the correction amount.
US08879861B2

A method is described to greatly improve the efficiency of and reduce the complexity of image compression when using single-sensor color imagers for video acquisition. The method in addition allows for this new image compression type to be compatible with existing video processing tools, improving the workflow for film and television production.
US08879858B1

A system and method are provided for packing compressed image data into a format suitable for encoding. The system includes a plurality of sub-band state registers, which store compressed image data from a corresponding sub-band. A bit packer receives a stream of bits of compressed image data, and concatenates the input bits with bits stored in one of the sub-band state registers. If a length of the concatenated bits is less than a width of an output data bus, the bit packer stores the concatenated bits in the sub-band state register. If the length of the concatenated bits is greater than or equal to the width of the output data bus, the bit packer outputs the concatenated bits via the output data bus.
US08879850B2

An image stabilization method and an image stabilization device are provided. In the method, each of images to be processed is detected by a feature point detection method to detect a plurality of feature points. The relationship of the same feature points in adjacent images to be processed is analyzed. According to the relationship of the feature points, a homography transform matrix of adjacent images to be processed is calculated. Based on the known feature points and the homography transform matrix, a stabilization matrix and a plurality of adjustment matrices corresponding to each image to be processed are calculated. Compensation is performed on each image to be processed by the adjustment matrices, so as to produce a plurality of corrected images. A first image of adjacent corrected images multiplied by the same stabilization matrix is transformed to a second image of the adjacent corrected images.
US08879845B2

Techniques described herein may recognize handwritten characters that are written at least partially over the top of one another that are input to a computing device. The handwritten characters may be formed of one or more strokes. A user may write characters or parts of words over approximately the same area of graphical user interface (i.e., on top of each other) without having to wait for a timeout between character input and without having to select a button or provide another input indicating the character is complete before entering input for another character. Once a character is at least partially recognized, a graphical indication corresponding to the user input displayed on a screen may be altered. Such alterations may include fading or changing size or location of the graphical indication.
US08879839B2

An image processing apparatus includes a color intersection point determination and contour point extraction unit configured to raster-scan a multivalued image by using a pixel matrix having a predetermined size, to determine whether a target point is a color intersection point for dividing a contour for forming a boundary between pixels having a different value from each other, according to states of a plurality of pixels in the pixel matrix, and to extract a contour point for forming the boundary between the pixels having a different value from each other; and a contour information reconstruction unit configured to, by using color intersection points determined by the color intersection point determination and contour point extraction unit and contour points extracted thereby, generate contour information including contour lines each being sectioned by the color intersection points.
US08879834B2

A method and apparatus for reduced complexity video and image processing with special chroma handling are disclosed. Frame-type decisions are made on a video stream made up of a sequence of frames. A first subset of the frames are selected to be monochrome and generated without chroma data. A second subset of the frames are selected to be in color and generated with chroma components. In one embodiment, the first subset of frames includes odd frames and the second subset of frames includes even frames in the video stream. Under higher video frame rates, the lack of color in every other frame is not visible to the end viewer. Accordingly, subsequent processing of the output video stream permits luma-only processing of many frames in the video stream, extensively reducing the amount of computation.
US08879833B2

A method and apparatus for generating an image of a seal impression. Irradiation of a face of a seal with N beams of light striking the face in succession from N respective different directions respectively corresponding to N different angles of incidence of the light on the face is caused, the face having a character thereon, N≧2. N still images of the face corresponding respectively to the N beams are acquired, each still image structured as pixels including a RGB color combination. The N still images are combined to generate a composite image of pixels that includes a common area of pixels that commonly appears on the face of the seal in all still images, the common area having a luminance value exceeding a specified luminance threshold, the common area including a character area pertaining to where the engraved character is located on the face of the seal.
US08879829B2

Techniques are disclosed for carrying our correlation search in contexts such as stereo algorithms of graphics systems. In accordance with an embodiment, the techniques employ a locality-sensitive hashing (LSH) function to reduce the number of bits to be processed during the correlation process, and to identify a sub-set of available image points that are likely to be the best match to a given target image point. Once such a sub-set of likely image points is identified, a more comprehensive correlation algorithm can be run, if so desired, to further ensure the quality of the match.
US08879826B2

A video sequence of images includes at least first and second images. In response to at least first and second conditions being satisfied, an encoding mode is switched between two-dimensional video coding and three-dimensional video coding. The first condition is that the second image represents a scene change in comparison to the first image. The second image is encoded according to the switched encoding mode.
US08879820B2

To image a component larger than the field of view of a camera, a range based on the shape and dimension of the component to be imaged and the field of view of the camera, a range of the component is divided, and imaging ranges of a plurality of characteristic parts to be imaged are determined. Then, images of the plurality of characteristic parts obtained by imaging the plurality of characteristic parts with the camera are combined to create a combined image of the characteristic parts of the component. Based on the combined image, the position of the component is measured.
US08879793B2

A method for repairing, bridging, or extrapolating an existing aperture to improve image interpretability in synthetic aperture radar images.
US08879792B2

The invention relates to a microscopy method for identifying target objects (32) having a predetermined optical property in material (6) to be analyzed.According to the invention, in a first step an overview field of view (36) of a microscope optical system (14) is directed to an overview region of a sample carrier (4) containing the material (6) to be analyzed, the material (6) to be analyzed is illuminated by an illumination unit (16), which irradiates the sample carrier (4) from outside a field of view tube (48), and is recorded by a camera (8), the material (6) to be analyzed is optically analyzed for the optical property such that even a single target object (32) having the predetermined optical property is identified as such in the material (6) to be analyzed, in a subsequent second step a target field of view (52) of the microscope optical system (14) is aligned with a target region around the target object (32) using the known position of the target object (32), and the identified target object (32) is analyzed in a differentiated manner for various additional optical properties.
US08879791B2

A method, an apparatus and a system are provided for determining if a piece of luggage contains a liquid product comprised of a container holding a body of liquid. The piece of luggage is scanned with an X-ray scanner to generate X-ray image data conveying an image of the piece of luggage and contents thereof. The X-ray image data is processed with a computer to detect a liquid product signature in the X-ray image data and determine if a liquid product is present in the piece of luggage. A detection signal is released at an output of the computer conveying whether a liquid product was identified in the piece of luggage. The detection signal may, for example, be used in rendering a visual representation of the piece of luggage on a display device to convey information to an operator as to the presence of a liquid product in the piece of luggage.
US08879788B2

According to one embodiment, a video processing apparatus includes an acquisition unit, a first extraction unit, a generation unit, a second extraction unit, a computation unit and a selection unit. The acquisition unit is configured to acquire video streams. A first extraction unit is configured to analyze at least one of the moving pictures and the sounds for each video stream and to extract feature values. A generation unit is configured to generate segments by dividing each video stream, and to generate associated segment groups. A second extraction unit is configured to extract the associated segment groups that number of associated segments is greater than or equal to threshold as common video segment groups. A computation unit is configured to compute summarization score. A selection unit is configured to select segments used for a summarized video as summarization segments from the common video segment groups based on the summarization score.
US08879786B2

A method for detection and/or tracking of objects in motion 16 in a scene under surveillance 15, in which besides the objects in motion 16, interfering objects and/or interfering regions—both hereinafter called interfering factors 17, 23—can occur, is proposed, in which the scene under surveillance 15, a plurality of regions are defined that are divided up into various region classes; and a first region class D1, 5 includes sensitive regions, in which no and/or only insignificant interfering factors 17, 23 are located and/or are to be expected; and for detection and/or tracking of the objects in motion 16 in the sensitive regions, a sensitive content analysis is performed, and a second region class D2, 6 includes semi-sensitive regions 19, in which interfering factors 17, 23 are located and/or are to be expected, and for detection and/or tracking of the objects in motion 16 in the semi-sensitive regions 19, a semi-sensitive content analysis is performed, which is limited and/or modified compared to the sensitive content analysis.
US08879784B2

A method for providing augmented reality includes acquiring a real-world image including an object; transmitting terminal information, in which the terminal information includes a location information of a terminal and an original retrieval distance; receiving object information corresponding to the object, in which the object information is based on the transmitted terminal information; and overlapping the received object information over the corresponding object in the real-world image. A terminal to perform the methods described herein includes a location information providing unit, an information transmitting/receiving unit, an image processing unit, and a user view analyzing unit.
US08879775B2

A smart material actuator having more than two actuating arms, more than two mechanical webs, and being driven by a piezo or other smart material device within an enclosed compensator, and which may be adapted for use as an actuator, an energy capture device, or a sensor. In certain embodiments, the smart material actuator can also operate as the driver for an audio speaker.
US08879773B2

A retractable storage system for handheld electronic device comprises a removable panel with one or more storage chambers for storing an accessory item, such as a wireless earbud, cabled earbud, headphone cable or e-cigarette, and a retractable mechanism to retrieve and dispense the stored accessory item through an accessory station. The removable panel can be replaced with another removable panel configured with different structure to store different accessory item, such as a battery to charge a wireless earbud or e-cigarette.
US08879769B2

An earpiece that substantially lacks a lower lobe is disclosed. The earpiece has a generally arcuate rib having upper and lower ends. A generally vertical rib extends substantially between the upper and lower ends of the generally arcuate rib. A lobe is formed at the upper end of the arcuate rib. No lobe is similarly formed at the lower end of the arcuate rib. Eliminating the lower lobe mitigates discomfort during use and also reduces the likelihood of tissue damage and infection.
US08879761B2

A method and apparatus for outputting audio based on an orientation of an electronic device, or video shown by the electronic device. The audio may be mapped to a set of speakers using either or both of the device and video orientation to determine which speakers receive certain audio channels.
US08879758B2

A loudspeaker includes a back panel and a plurality of thin loudspeakers mounted onto the back panel. The back panel has an aspect ratio of 6 or higher, and has a wiring unit formed thereon and wire-connecting the thin loudspeakers. The thin loudspeakers are arranged on the back panel in series in a straight line. Accordingly, a thin-type loudspeaker can be realized.
US08879757B2

A thermoacoustic device includes a substrate, a sound wave generator, an insulating layer, a first electrode and a second electrode. The first electrode and the second electrode are spaced from each other and electrically connected to the sound wave generator. The substrate includes a first surface and a second surface opposite to the first surface. The first surface defines a plurality of grooves, and a bulge is formed between the adjacent two grooves. The insulating layer is located on the first surface, and continuously attached on the grooves and the bulge. The sound wave generator is located on the insulating layer. The sound wave generator defines a first portion and a second portion. The first portion is suspended on the grooves. The second portion is attached on the bulge.
US08879755B2

There is provided an at least partially implantable device for picking up sound impinging onto a skin area of a person, comprising means for generating an audio signal corresponding to the change in time of the distance between a position of the device and the outer surface of the skin area, wherein the device position is adjacent to the skin area.
US08879751B2

A headset having game, chat and microphone audio signals is provided with a programmable signal processor for individually modifying the audio signals and a memory configured to store a plurality of user-selectable signal-processing parameter settings that determine the manner in which the audio signals will be altered by the signal processor. The parameter settings collectively form a preset, and one or more user-operable controls can select and activate a preset from the plurality of presets stored in memory. The parameters stored in the selected preset can be loaded into the signal processor such that the sound characteristics of the audio paths are modified in accordance with the parameter settings in the selected preset.
US08879749B2

A directional microphone apparatus and directivity control method that corrects a level difference and a phase difference generated in a low band in a plurality of non-directional microphone units, improve the directivity, and reduce the size are provided. Level difference calculation section (105) calculates the level difference between first signal x1(t) obtained by first non-directional microphone unit (101) and second signal x2(t) obtained by second non-directional microphone unit (102), and correction parameter calculation section (106) calculates coefficients of a linear IIR filter configuring correction process section (103) based on the level difference. Correction process section (103) simultaneously corrects the level difference and a phase difference in the low band between two non-directional microphone units by using the calculated coefficients.
US08879743B1

A compact portable stereo microphone apparatus can acquire three dimensional immersive sounds which can then be recorded and played back in a standard audio recording device. The apparatus includes two elastomer fabricated simplified human ear elements (ear models) fitted at the ends of a cylindrical cavity of a microphone enclosure. The ear models may be protected against physical damage by end grills. A circuit board, microphone cable interface, power indicator, power switch and batteries may be located in the lower shell of the enclosure. A handle may serve as the hand grip for the microphone as well as a battery cover.
US08879742B2

An apparatus for determining a spatial output multi-channel audio signal based on an input audio signal and an input parameter. The apparatus includes a decomposer for decomposing the input audio signal based on the input parameter to obtain a first decomposed signal and a second decomposed signal different from each other. Furthermore, the apparatus includes a renderer for rendering the first decomposed signal to obtain a first rendered signal having a first semantic property and for rendering the second decomposed signal to obtain a second rendered signal having a second semantic property being different from the first semantic property. The apparatus comprises a processor for processing the first rendered signal and the second rendered signal to obtain the spatial output multi-channel audio signal.
US08879738B2

A system and method of updating a key based on communication and security damage costs are provided. The key updating system for group communication between a plurality of group members, includes a key update cycle determining unit to determine a key update cycle based on a communication cost and a security damage cost, and a key updating unit to perform a key updating with respect to one or more group members of the group communication based on the determined key update cycle.
US08879736B2

A method for encrypting radio resource control (RRC) messages exchanged between a wireless communication device and a node in a wireless communication system includes separating sequence number rollover events from mobility events while encrypting radio resource control (RRC) messages for exchange within a wireless communication system. According to the method, the sequence number rollover events and mobility events are separated by utilizing a state transition counter, a handover counter, and an overflow counter such that, when the state counter is incremented due to occurrences of a first group of events, the handover counter and the overflow counter are re-set to zero and, when the handover counter is incremented due to occurrences of a second group of events the overflow counter is re-set to zero. The method further includes providing one or more outputs from the state transition counter, the handover counter, and the third overflow counter as one or more inputs to a crypto algorithm for encrypting RRC messages.
US08879732B2

In an exemplary embodiment content of a data message to be sent on a control channel is determined, and a selection is made between ciphering and not ciphering the data message based on the determined content. By example if from the content it is determined that that the data message is a SMS message, ciphering is selected and the control channel is a SACCH; else ciphering is not selected. Such a determination may be made by checking a service access point identifier for a data block comprising the data message. A data message within a data block received on the control channel is determined to be ciphered or not ciphered using only information within the data block, and the received data message is processed according to the determination. In another embodiment the FACCH is selected for sending the message if it is a SMS, and ciphering is selected for all data blocks sent on the FACCH.
US08879730B2

In accordance with the teachings of the present invention, a system and method for bit stream compatible local link encryption are provided. In particular embodiments of the present invention, the method includes generating a random number stream using an active line count of a frame of video as an input to a first random number generator in a playback server; encrypting data at the playback server based upon a first deterministic mapping between the first random number stream and the data, wherein the first deterministic mapping prevents the generation of prohibited codes; transporting the encrypted data from the playback server to a digital video projector; generating a second random number stream using the active line count of the frame of video as an input to a second random number generator in the digital video projector; and decrypting the encrypted data at the digital video projector based upon a second deterministic mapping between the second random number stream and the encrypted data.
US08879729B2

A method and apparatus for providing conditional access to media programs is described. An exemplary method comprising the steps of transmitting media information encrypted according to a control word (CW) to a receiver station, transmitting entitlement management information (EMI) to the receiver station, the EMI comprising a service bitmap, and transmitting entitlement control information (ECI) to the receiver station, the entitlement control information including the control word (CW) encrypted according to a key (K) and an index to an element of the service bitmap, wherein the control word (CW) is decrypted by the receiver stations according to a value of the indexed element of the service bitmap.
US08879727B2

An integrated circuit for data encryption/decryption and secure key management is disclosed. The integrated circuit may be used in conjunction with other integrated circuits, processors, and software to construct a wide variety of secure data processing, storage, and communication systems. A preferred embodiment of the integrated circuit includes a symmetric block cipher that may be scaled to strike a favorable balance among processing throughput and power consumption. The modular architecture also supports multiple encryption modes and key management functions such as one-way cryptographic hash and random number generator functions that leverage the scalable symmetric block cipher. The integrated circuit may also include a key management processor that can be programmed to support a wide variety of asymmetric key cryptography functions for secure key exchange with remote key storage devices and enterprise key management servers. Internal data and key buffers enable the device to re-key encrypted data without exposing data. The key management functions allow the device to function as a cryptographic domain bridge in a federated security architecture.
US08879718B2

A distributed method of delivering events to agent devices. A first software module generates an event, e.g., a screen pop event or a ringing event, for delivery to a second module responsible for an agent device. A third module, which may be the same module as the first module, evaluates a hash function to determine an identifier for the second module from an identifier for the agent device. The first module delivers the event to the second module, which responds to the event, e.g., by causing an agent device to generate a ringing alert or to display a screen pop.
US08879717B2

A user of a personal computing device may identify an item of interest displayed in a user interface provided by a network-based service and would like to obtain more information. The user may submit one or more electronic contact requests to a contact service in communication with a contact distribution system in order to obtain more information. The contact distribution system determines accurate, real-time availability of service agents and enables communications between the customer and an agent to be established in accordance with user contact information provided by the user.
US08879710B2

Provided is a private branch exchange capable of independently adjusting call voice level and call quality according to a connection type of a communication line or a telephone. The private branch exchange includes an audio quality characteristic configuration DB (116) for storing audio quality adjustment values of gain circuits (112 and 122) and an echo canceller circuit (121) for which optimal call quality can be obtained according to a combination for each group of telephone type and line type to connect for a telephone call, and a connection path DB (117) for storing information related to a connection path determined by a combination of a telephone and a communication line to connect for the telephone call, in which if there is a connection request from the telephone or the communication line, the connection path DB (117) is referred to obtain, by referring to the audio quality characteristic configuration DB (116), audio quality adjustment values to be set for the gain circuits (112 and 122) and the echo canceller circuit (121) which exist on the connection path that is determined, to perform settings for the gain circuits (112 and 122) and the echo canceller circuit (121).
US08879708B2

A system for managing customer-to-business voice communication has a network-connected communications device and instructions executable on the communications device from a non-transitory physical medium, the instructions providing a first function for determining if a destination asserted requires treatment, a second function for sending data from the communications device to a network-connected server, a third function for receiving alternative destination information from the server, and a fourth function for establishing communication with the business based on the returned destination information.
US08879707B2

An apparatus and methods are disclosed that provide a plurality of telecommunications management features to a telecommunications terminal that is associated with a corresponding terminal through a private branch exchange. In particular, the illustrative embodiment enables a user to manage the simultaneous use of and interaction between associated telecommunications terminals. This capability can be particularly advantageous when on-premises telecommunications terminals are associated with off-premises telecommunications terminals.
US08879703B1

Embodiments of the present invention enable a telephone calling device to monitor information exchanged between the device and a destination after establishing a telephone call with the destination. The device may also be configured to create and store a profile of the user having stored therein data corresponding to personal information of the user and interaction of the user with various destinations. Further, the device may be configured to detect if the telephone call is on-hold or not by monitoring occurrence of a designated tone, background music, or pre-set amount of no-conversation between the user and the connected destination. Furthermore, based on the profile of the user, the device may display various services tailored specifically for the user when the call is on-hold.
US08879699B1

The application relates to a modem for use at a terminal. In one embodiment, the modem includes: (1) a first interface arranged for connection to a network; (2) a second interface arranged for connection to a host processor on the terminal; and (3) a processing unit arranged to, on receipt of a message from the network addressed to the host processor: determine whether or not the host processor is in a power saving mode; and if it is determined that the host processor is in a power saving mode, cause the first interface to transmit an acknowledgement to the message to the network regardless of whether a communication from the host processor is received via the second interface.
US08879691B2

A system, method, and computer readable medium for a metallic test method in a digital subscriber line system in which a subscriber's voice service has been switched from plain old telephony service to an inband digital subscriber line data stream characterized in that a direct current loop current used for plain old telephony service is replicated for testing, comprising, providing a sealing line current to a transmission line via a digital subscriber line device serving the subscriber and supervising the provided sealing line current between the digital subscriber line device and a subscriber's premises for determining a connectivity therebetween.
US08879685B2

An electromotive unit that produces an electric current in response to a pressure applied thereto when a user lands the ground on his/her foot while walking or running, or a pressure detector that detects variation in the applied pressure is formed like a flat plate and arranged within a small space in a shoe. A wire material is provided to deliver, outside the shoe, the electric current produced in response to the pressure applied when the user lands the ground on his/her foot or a signal indicative of the variation in the applied pressure. The wire material is connected to a pedometer unit outside the shoe to perform counting. The wire material can be fixed and mounted onto a desired portion in the opening of the shoe by using a fastener or by being formed as a fixable wire material.
US08879682B2

A wireless access terminal, system and method for the wireless access terminal to synchronize to system times in a wireless communication system. A first timing hierarchy in a first wireless communication network is used to operate the wireless access terminal The lint wireless communication network has a first radio access technology. Operating with the first timing hier-archy includes determining a frame cycle for the first wireless communication network. The frame cycle has a frame cycle boundary. Broadcast parameters for a second wireless communication network having a second radio access technology different from the first radio access technology are received. The broadcast parameters include the system time of the second wireless communication network. The system time of second wireless communication network is aligned, from the perspective of the wireless access terminal, with the frame cycle boundary. The wireless access terminal engages in a communication session using the second wireless communication network.
US08879679B2

A method and system provide frequency offset compensation in a wireless communication device. A frequency offset compensation module (FOCM) correlates a received reference signal with sub-replica reference sequences to obtain a vector of matched filter output values associated with a time offset identified by a correlation time index value. The FOCM determines a correlation score vector using a combined energy associated with matched filter output values. The FOCM then determines a first phase difference based on matched filter output values corresponding to adjacent sub-replica sequences. The FOCM computes a second phase difference by linearly combining a selected first phase difference and at least one neighbor first phase difference having a second correlation time index value that differs from a first correlation time index value of the selected first phase difference. The FOCM uses the second phase difference to provide compensation for a frequency offset associated with received signals.
US08879675B1

A synchronization system for initial setup of phases of local oscillators in a wireless receiver of a communication system characterized by transmission of data packets having a predetermined preamble consisting of M identical sections of L symbols followed by a single section of the same kind, multiplied by −1, and wherein the wireless receiver is operative to perform decimation in an RF demodulator. The synchronization system includes a twofold correlator, an accumulator, a multiplier, a threshold comparator, a carrier phase former and a clock phase former, and operates at a decimated symbols frequency, and performs not only preamble detection, but also symbols clock phase detection together with carrier phase detection, while enabling the theoretically possible noise immunity.
US08879664B2

Encoding of a message is conducted using codewords selected from a codebook. The selected codewords are used to construct a corresponding plurality of waveforms, which are then weighted and added to form a signal for transmission. At a receiver, channel impulse response is used to determine which codewords from the known codebook have been used, and by which weights from a known constellation of weights the resultant waveforms have been weighted. A message embedded in a received signal can then be detected.
US08879663B1

Adaptive filtering is used to substantially cancel distortion in radio frequency (RF) signals. Such adaptive filtering can be used in an RF transmitting module to pre-compensate an RF signal with compensation (inverse) distortion to cancel inherent transmission path distortion from the RF signal. Adaptive filtering can also be used in a multi-carrier RF receiving module to cancel from a given carrier signal distortion due to cross talk from adjacent carrier signals. Adaptive filtering in an RF transceiver can be used to cancel from a received RF signal distortion arising from leakage of a transmit signal into the receive path.
US08879661B2

A signal processing apparatus configured to correct a distortion introduced by a signal processing path into a processed signal comprising a transformer that transforms the processed signal into a transformed signal in frequency domain, a processor that determines a first correction function and a second correction function upon the basis of a transfer function of the signal processing path, a first multiplier that multiplies values of the transformed signal with coefficients of the first correction function to obtain a first corrected signal, a signal reverser that reverses an order of values in a copy of the transformed signal to obtain a reversed transformed signal, a second multiplier that multiplies values of the reversed transformed signal with coefficients of the second correction function to obtain a second corrected signal, and an adder that adds the first corrected signal and the second corrected signal to obtain a corrected output signal.
US08879657B2

A communication system includes: a covariance module configured to calculate a joint-covariance based on a receiver signal for communicating a communication content in a transmitter signal with an interference signal using subcarriers based on a space-frequency block-coding scheme; a preparation module, coupled to the covariance module, configured to generate a joint-whitener with a control unit based on the joint-covariance for randomizing the interference signal; a joint whitening module, coupled to the preparation module, configured to generate a joint-whitening output based on the receiver signal and the joint-whitener; a message processing module, coupled to the joint whitening module, configured to determine a joint-estimation feedback based on the joint-whitening output; and a cancellation module, coupled to the message processing module, configured to cancel the joint-estimation feedback from the receiver signal for communicating the communication content with a device.
US08879655B2

The present invention provides a method for obtaining channel state information required for beamforming, comprising: estimating current channel state information according to a received signal; predicting future channel state information which is expected to be used by a transmitter in the next beamforming based on the current channel state information and historical channel state information; reading previous channel state information used by the transmitter in the current beamforming; determining feedback information based on the future channel state information and the previous channel state information; and sending the feedback information to the transmitter. The present invention further provides a method for performing beamforming, comprising: receiving feedback information from a receiver; reading previous channel state information used in the last beamforming; reconstructing channel state information based on the feedback information and the previous channel state information; and performing beamforming according to the reconstructed channel state information.
US08879654B2

An improved data transmission system is disclosed in which data encoding such as Data Bus Inversion (DBI) in a transmitting device is matched to the termination scheme being used in a receiving device. In the improved system, the transmitting device is able to automatically discover the termination scheme being used in the receiving device, and is thereby able to automatically implement a data-encoding algorithm to best match the termination scheme being used. In one example, Information concerning the termination scheme can be communicated to the transmitting device via a control channel, or another channel otherwise dedicated to data encoding such as a DBI channel. In another example, the transmitting device can infer the termination scheme being used via measurements, or by understanding how the receiving device will modify its termination scheme given current data transmission conditions. Alternatively, the receiving device is able to discover the data encoding scheme used in the transmitting device and is able to configure its termination circuitry accordingly.
US08879653B2

This invention concerns soft-decision demapping of Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) signals to enable soft-decision channel decoding in a communications system. In a first aspect the invention is a method for performing the soft-decision demapping of Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) signals to enable soft-decision channel decoding in a communications system. The method comprises the steps of Extracting baseband signals from both I-and-Q channels. Sampling the baseband signals to extract a stream of complex numbers. Converting the stream of complex numbers to frequency domain vectors with components for each subcarrier frequency. Approximating bit log-likelihood ratios for each symbol directly from the real and imaginary parts of the corresponding frequency vector, without equalization by the estimated channel. And, soft-decoding of the channel codes using the approximated log-likelihood ratios. In other aspects the invention concerns a device for performing the method and software for performing the method.
US08879652B2

The description herein relates to pilot designs for an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) based communication system. In at least one embodiment, the communication system is one operating according to the IEEE 802.16m, or WiMax, standard. In general, an OFDM transmitter operates to insert pilot symbols into a resource of a transmit frame according to a predetermined staggered pilot symbol pattern defining pilot symbol locations within the resource of the transmit frame. The predetermined pilot symbol pattern is defined such that pilot symbols are located at or near time boundaries of the resource, at or near frequency boundaries of the resource, or both. By doing so, when generating a channel estimate for the communication channel between the OFDM transmitter and an OFDM receiver based on the pilot symbols, extrapolations needed to estimate the channel near the boundaries of the resource are optimized, thereby improving overall channel estimation accuracy.
US08879650B2

Systems and methods are presented for controlling the peak-to-average-power of a baseband orthogonal-frequency-domain multiplexing (OFDM) signal by designating a subset of the available subcarriers as information-bearing data-subcarriers, and loading remaining subcarriers by symbols that are a function of the symbols loading the data-subcarriers. At the receiver, the data-dependent subcarriers are optionally combined with data-subcarriers to increase error protection.
US08879645B2

A communication circuit includes a receiver circuit that provides differential communication by using first and second transmission paths which transmit first and second signals. The receiver circuit includes a compensation circuit that compensates for the attenuation of a current when common mode noise is superimposed on the first signal and on the second signal. The compensation circuit includes a first compensation circuit and a second compensation circuit. The first compensation circuit detects an electric current attenuation of the first signal when the common mode noise is superimposed thereon, and compensates for the attenuation thereof by adding the detected electric current attenuation to the second signal. The second compensation circuit detects an electric current attenuation of the second signal when the common mode noise is superimposed thereon, and compensates for the attenuation thereof by adding the detected electric current attenuation to the first signal.
US08879644B2

Method for communication channel coordination between nodes, each node including at least one of a transmitter and a receiver, for transmitting and receiving signals over residential electrical cables. The residential electrical cables include at least one active wire, one neutral wire and one ground wire, at least two of the wires forming wire pairs. The method includes the procedures of, for a given one of the receiver, examining the transmitter in each one of the nodes which communicates with the receiver, selecting one of the examined transmitters as a primary transmitter, determining an optimal receive wire pair for the receiver to receive the signals transmitted between the primary transmitter and the receiver, informing all the examined transmitters of the determined optimal receive wire pair, and tracking at least one communication characteristic over the determined optimal receive wire pair.
US08879641B2

There is provided a method for employing Parameter Set information corresponding to an Advanced Video Coding (AVC) file. The method includes the step of embedding the Parameter Set information into a Hint Track of the AVC file.
US08879635B2

Apparatus and methods of using content information for encoding multimedia data are described. A method of processing multimedia data includes obtaining content information of multimedia data, and encoding the multimedia data so as to align a data boundary with a frame boundary in a time domain, wherein said encoding is based on the content information. In another aspect, a method of processing multimedia data includes obtaining a content classification of the multimedia data, and encoding blocks in the multimedia data as intra-coded blocks or inter-coded blocks based on the content classification to increase the error resilience of the encoded multimedia data. Apparatus that can process multimedia data described in these methods are also disclosed.
US08879631B2

For a frame set of a moving image sequence, a motion estimate is accessed. The motion estimate describes a change to a region of a reference frame with respect to at least one other frame. The reference frame and the other frames are displaced from each other within the frame set from over a temporal window. The regions of the two frames contain at least a portion of an image feature. The motion estimate is smoothed over the temporal window. The smoothing may facilitate aligning, at least in part, the image feature within the set of frames.
US08879620B2

A method for performing localized multihypothesis prediction during video coding of a coding unit includes: dividing the coding unit into a plurality of sub-coding units; and performing motion vector prediction of each of the sub-coding units. More particularly, the step of performing motion vector prediction of each of the sub-coding units further includes: obtaining a plurality of motion vectors for multihypothesis motion compensation of a specific sub-coding unit of the sub-coding units from a plurality of other sub-coding/coding units. The method further includes performing multihypothesis motion compensation on the specific sub-coding unit according to the plurality of motion vectors, and more particularly, includes utilizing a linear combination of a plurality of pixel values of the plurality of other sub-coding/coding units as a predicted pixel value of the specific sub-coding unit. An associated apparatus is also provided.
US08879610B2

An apparatus detects, from symbol data of a predetermined communication scheme that is input via a common public radio interface (CPRI) at a first rate indicating a chip rate for the CPRI, a timing at which a clock phase matches between the first rate and a second rate indicating a symbol rate for the predetermined communication scheme, where the CPRI is an internal interface for a radio communication apparatus. The apparatus changes, at the timing, a clock rate for transmitting the symbol data, from the first rate to the second rate.
US08879606B2

Communications systems and/or methods are disclosed that may be used to convey information by forming, and then using, a plurality of frequency agile baseband waveforms, wherein any two different waveforms of the plurality of frequency agile baseband waveforms comprise an orthogonality therebetween. The systems/methods disclosed can convey information by mapping an information sequence into a baseband waveform sequence that includes waveforms of the plurality of baseband waveforms, and by transmitting the baseband waveform sequence. Such systems and/or methods can provide extreme privacy, cognitive radio capability, robustness to fading and interference, communications performance associated with M-ary orthonormal signaling and/or high multiple-access capacity.
US08879602B2

System(s) and method(s) are provided to configure receivers in a mobile device to mitigate receiver overload and fully or nearly-fully utilize available spectrum for communication. Configuration is dictated at least in part by at least one of radio link quality or available receiver specifications, and it can be effected by the mobile device or a base station that serves the mobile device. Receiver configuration includes various spectrally asymmetric receivers that tune respective disparate portions of the available spectrum to maximize utilization thereof in the spectral regions prone to overload conditions. In severe overload conditions, a single receiver can be configured to operate in a frequency band spectrally adjacent to a sub-band that leads to overload conditions when employed for telecommunication. To improve performance, the single receiver configuration can be supplemented with at least one of transmit diversity operation, asymmetric multicarrier spreading, or downlink power boost of asymmetrical multicarrier spreading.
US08879595B2

Semiconductor structures, quantum cascade structures and lasers including the structures are provided. The semiconductor structures include a substrate, a metamorphic buffer layer structure over the substrate, and a quantum cascade structure including a superlattice of quantum wells and barriers over the metamorphic buffer layer structure. The substrate may be GaAs and the quantum cascade structure may be an InGaAs/InAlAs superlattice, including one or more barriers of AlAs.
US08879591B2

An apparatus includes a laser that generates a predetermined wavelength when the laser operates at room temperature, the predetermined wavelength being offset from a specific wavelength. The laser has a controlled wavelength range due to a wavelength drift, the wavelength range having a first wavelength as the upper boundary and a second wavelength as the lower boundary, the first wavelength is generated when the laser operates at a first temperature of an ambient and the second wavelength is generated when the laser operates at a predetermined temperature higher than a second temperature of the ambient. The apparatus includes a heater that heats the laser such that a wavelength in the controlled wavelength range that is generated by the laser when heated by the heater from the second temperature is longer than a short wavelength that is generated by the laser centered on the specific wavelength that operates at the second temperature; and a control circuit configured to turn on the heater.
US08879588B2

A method and device are provided for fast, continuous tuning of an optical source. A first pump signal with a first pump frequency is input into a mixer along with a first seed signal having a first seed frequency. Within the mixer, the first pump signal and the first seed signal generate at least one idler having an idler frequency defined as two times the pump frequency minus the seed frequency. Shifting the pump signal across a frequency range at a sweep rate causes the idler frequency to be shifted by two times the frequency range at two times the sweep rate. The shifted at least one idler is mixed with the shifted pump signal to generate a first mix product that has two times the sweep rate and frequency range of the pump signal.
US08879586B2

Embodiments are directed to timing synchronization between network nodes, such as, for example, based upon IEEE 1588. Example embodiments provide for a node in a IEEE 1588 message exchange to obtain the T3 timestamp without using its host interface to access the physical layer. Methods and systems include aspects of determining an egress timestamp corresponding to a time at which a first packet is transmitted from a physical interface of a first network entity on to a network media, storing the egress timestamp in a memory associated with the physical interface, receiving a second packet at the physical interface, retrieving the egress timestamp from the memory based upon the second packet, and updating the second packet with the retrieved egress timestamp. Embodiments may further include providing the updated second packet for protocol processing in the first network entity, or transmitting the updated second packet from the physical interface on to a network media.
US08879583B1

A system and method are provided for conditioning a received signal prior to transmission. The signal is separated into different signal components in respective contiguous frequency channels. Each signal component is routed through either time domain or frequency domain processing circuitry and simultaneously a sample of the signal component is routed through control signal generation circuitry. The time domain processing circuitry contains a delay such that if any portion of the signal component exceeds a reference voltage signal, a switch is opened using a control signal generated by the control signal generation circuitry to blank that portion of the signal for that particular frequency channel. The outputs of each frequency channel are then combined into an output signal for transmission. A processor may be used to automatically configure various components within the time domain and frequency domain processing circuitry to prevent excessive power signals from being transmitted.
US08879582B2

In a transmitter which transmits a signal by a DSTBC scheme, communication is efficiently performed by the DSTBC scheme. In the transmitter which transmits the signal by the DSTBC scheme, a frame in which a sync word is disposed in a predetermined position subsequent to the head is used. Initial value controller (31 to 35) sets initial values of differential encoding (differential encoding unit 15) when a DSTBC encoder which processes a transmission target processes the frame on the basis of values from the head of the frame to a position before the sync word so that a signal point corresponding to the position immediately before the sync word in the DSTBC encoder which processes the transmission target becomes a specific point.
US08879564B2

A method and system for measuring a distance between nodes in a packet network are provided. The system and method include measuring and storing a departure time of a ping packet sent from a source node to a destination node, sending a response packet with respect to the ping packet from the destination node to the source node, cutting through the ping packet or response packet to a successive node or the destination node without an intermediate node delay, computing a round-trip time by measuring an arrival time of the response packet at the source node and measuring the distance between the nodes, based on the round-trip time and speed of the ping packet.
US08879560B2

A reorder engine classifies information relating to incoming data items as belonging to either a first, second, or third region. The information relating to the data items may arrive at the reorder engine out of order. The data items each include a sequence number through which the reorder engine may reconstruct the correct order of the data items. Based on the classification, the reorder engine may either process the data items normally or drop certain ones of the data items. The majority of incoming data items will fall in the first region and are processed normally. Data items arriving in the second region indicate that a previous data item is late or delayed. If this previous data item is delayed but does eventually arrive, it will arrive in the third region and is simply ignored.
US08879559B1

A system and method of processing frames in a network switch comprises receiving frames by the network switch via an ingress port and processing the frames through the network switch. Control frames are identified from the received frames, wherein a control frame includes instruction messages, and identifying non-control frames that include data traffic. For identified control frames, the control frames are modified by inserting an EtherType and control data within the control frame. The EtherType and control data are not inserted within the non-control frames. The method also includes transmitting the frames to a central processing unit (CPU) or other frame processing device within the network switch wherein the CPU is configured to identify the control frames from the non-control frames by the presence of the EtherType in the frames.
US08879557B2

When stored identifying information of a transmission target frame and identifying information of a received frame are equal, a node apparatus updates transmission feasibility information stored in association with the final destination of the received frame. The transmission feasibility information indicates feasibility of transmission to each of a plurality of adjacent node apparatuses being a transmission destination, and is updated so that feasibility of transmission to the transmission destination associated with the identifying information of the received frame indicates that “the transmission is infeasible”. The node apparatus transmits the received frame, when there is no adjacent apparatus to which transmission is feasible, and when the stored identifying information of the transmission target frame is equal to the identifying information of the received frame, to the adjacent node apparatus recognized as the origin in association with the identifying information of the received frame.
US08879553B2

The distributed switch may include a plurality of chips (i.e., sub-switches) on a switch module. These sub-switches may receive from a computing device connected to a Tx/Rx port a multicast data frame (e.g., an Ethernet frame) that designates a plurality of different destinations. Instead of simply using one egress connection interface to forward the copies of the data frame to each of the destinations sequentially, the sub-switch may use a plurality of a connection interfaces to transfer copies of the multicast data frame simultaneously. The port that receives the multicast data frame can borrow the connection interfaces (and associated hardware such as buffers) assigned to these other ports to transmit copies of the multicast data frame simultaneously.
US08879552B2

In a data network node implementing the Precision Time Protocol, low-touch PTP packet processing functions are moved from a PTP processing unit into an efficient network processor. An example network node thus includes a time-transfer protocol processing unit that generates negotiation messages and management messages for a time-transfer protocol and forwards said negotiation and management messages to one or more clients. The network node also includes a separate network processor unit, which is adapted to: receive a configuration message from the time-transfer protocol processing unit, the configuration message comprising stream configuration data for a first type of repetitive time-transfer message; generate a plurality of time-transfer messages according to the first type of repetitive time-transfer message, using the stream configuration data; and forward said plurality of time-transfer messages to the one or more remote network nodes, via the one or more line ports.
US08879550B2

In one aspect, the present invention reduces the amount of low-latency memory needed for rules-based packet classification by representing a packet classification rules database in compressed form. A packet processing rules database, e.g., an ACL database comprising multiple ACEs, is preprocessed to obtain corresponding rule fingerprints. These rule fingerprints are much smaller than the rules and are easily accommodated in on-chip or other low-latency memory that is generally available to the classification engine in limited amounts. The rules database in turn can be stored in off-chip or other higher-latency memory, as initial matching operations involve only the packet key of the subject packet and the fingerprint database. The rules database is accessed for full packet classification only if a tentative match is found between the packet key and an entry in the fingerprint database. Thus, the present invention also advantageously minimizes accesses to the rules database.
US08879549B2

One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch. The switch includes an ownership management mechanism and a notification mechanism. The ownership management mechanism maintains a local ownership association between the switch, and a medium access control (MAC) address learned at the switch and terminates the local ownership association for the MAC address. The notification mechanism generates a first notification indicating the local ownership association and a second notification indicating the termination of the local ownership association.
US08879548B2

A control circuit generates a selection signal indicating a head area of an alignment buffer when the area is an unwritten area, and when the head area is a written area, successively performs comparison between a sequence number stored in the area and a sequence number of a target packet from a head to a tail to search a boundary area and generates a selection signal indicating the detected boundary area. When the boundary area could not be detected even when the search reaches the last written area, the control circuit generates a selection signal indicating the next area of the last written area. The writing circuit shifts data stored in each area by one area from the area indicated by the selection signal in a direction of the tail of the alignment buffer, and writes packet information of the target packet into the area indicated by the selection signal.
US08879544B1

Disclosed are techniques for establishing a communication session in a call server between communication devices. A call server receives a communication session establishment message from a communication device that has an associated VoIP telephone number. The message is indicative of the communication device wanting to place a call to a target communication device that has an associated target telephone number. The communication session establishment message includes the VoIP telephone number, the target telephone number and a connection status indicator. The call server establishes a first communication link with the device based on the connection status indicator. The call server then establishes a second communication link with the target communication device. The call server may then join the first and second communication links to establish a communication session between the communication devices.
US08879536B2

An apparatus for time synchronization of a femtocell base station receives, via neighboring macrocell base stations adjacent to a femtocell base station, timing packets generated by timing servers directly connected to the neighboring macrocell base stations, and if time synchronization using a GPS satellite is impossible, obtains system time information from a timing packet received via one corresponding to a master base station, among the neighboring macrocell base stations, and performs time synchronization.
US08879524B2

The present invention relates to a method for providing connectivity information, regarding a consumer electronic device that is connected to a local network, to an Internet server. The method includes a step of a mobile communication unit retrieving the connectivity information of the consumer electronic device from the local network and then transmitting the connectivity information of the consumer electronic device to the Internet Server via an access network independent from the local network.
US08879512B2

Provided is a mobile station device which can increase the success ratio and reduce a communication delay when transmitting a dedicated preamble from the mobile station device to a base station device by using a random access channel (RACH). The mobile station device performs random access to the base station device by using a dedicated preamble. The mobile station device transmits a first message by using the dedicated preamble and again transmits the first message using the dedicated preamble during a period (a random access response reception-uncertain period) when the base station device may transmit a second message as a response to the first message.
US08879510B2

Discloses are a method and a device for transmitting midamble signals in a wireless communication system. The method for transmitting the midamble signals comprises the steps of: generating each of midamble signals for eight transmission antennas; and transmitting said midamble signals to a terminal through said eight transmission antennas. Among the midamble signals for said eight transmission antennas, a first midamble group which includes midamble signals for certain four transmission antennas and a second midamble group which includes midamble signals for the rest of four transmission antennas are transmitted through different resources.
US08879505B2

Disclosed in the present invention are a handover method and system for a mobile terminal (MT) based on a wireless local area network. The method includes: sending a data frame to a second AP when an MT needs to hand over from a cell covered by a first AP service to a cell covered by a second AP service, with the data frame including an associated number between the MT and the first AP and an MAC access of the first AP; and the second AP looking up locally stored mobile terminal certification and association information about the cell covered by the first AP service and rapidly determining whether to allow the access of the MT according to the stored information.
US08879498B2

A wireless communication base station apparatus that allows the number of times of blind decodings at a mobile station to be reduced without increasing the overhead caused by notifying information. In this apparatus, a CCE allocation part (104) allocates allocation information allocated to a PDCCH received from modulation parts (103-1 to 103-K) to a particular one of a plurality of search spaces that is corresponding to a CCE aggregation size of the PDCCH. A placement part (108) then places the allocation information in one of downstream line resources, reserved for the PDCCH, that is corresponding to the CCE of the particular search space to which the allocation information has been allocated. A radio transmission part (111) then transmits an OFDM symbol, in which the allocation information has been placed, to the mobile station from an antenna (112).
US08879494B2

The present invention discloses a method and a system for non-periodic feedback in a carrier aggregation scenario. The method comprises: a base station sending a non-periodic trigger signaling to a piece of User Equipment (UE); the UE receiving the non-periodic trigger signaling, and determining a Downlink Component Carrier (DL CC) requiring feedback according to the non-periodic trigger signaling; the UE triggering a non-periodic feedback of the determined DL CC. With the present invention, the problem that it is impossible to determine which downlink component carrier is to be fed back according to the non-periodic trigger signaling in the carrier aggregation scenario is solved, uplink feedback of the DL CC that is unnecessary to be fed back is effectively reduced, the base station can adjust resource allocation according to information fed back by the UE, and the performance of downlink data transmission is ensured.
US08879491B2

A terminal comprising: a radio-frequency transmitter for transmitting packets on an uplink to a wireless cellular network; and processing apparatus comprising an upper protocol stack and a lower protocol stack, the upper stack being arranged to process data according to one or more transport protocols and form the data into packets of a plurality of different types for transmission over a packet-based network, and the lower stack being arranged to receive the packets from the upper stack and process them for transmission via the wireless cellular network. The lower stack comprises a plurality of packet queues each corresponding to a different respective priority level, and a packet decoder configured to supply each packet in dependence on its type to a packet queue of a corresponding priority level. The lower stack further comprises a dequeuing mechanism configured to dequeue packets for transmission from said queues in dependence on the priority levels.
US08879486B2

The present invention relates to methods and arrangements for introducing an automatic one-time configuration of the DNS server(s) when a base station gateway, such as an HeNB GW, is deployed, such that the FQDN-to-HeNB GW IP address translation data is proactively configured. This is performed to identify the base station gateway address to which subsequently deployed base stations will be connected. That is, the FQDN-to-HeNB GW IP address translation data for the HeNB IDs of all the HeNBs that may potentially connect to the HeNB GW is proactively configured in the DNS server(s), thereby avoiding frequent and constantly ongoing DNS configuration during normal network operation. This configuration of the DNS allows the eNB to obtain the destination address for an X2 connection without knowing about an eventual HeNB GW, nor the addressing details, such as size/length (or fixed number of bits) of the HeNB GW ID.
US08879484B2

Embodiments of the present invention disclose a method, an apparatus, and a system for processing a reference signal. The present invention relates to the field of radio communications technologies, and solves a technical problem that it is impossible to meet a requirement for measurement of downlink channels of multiple cells in a coordinated multipoint transmission/reception (CoMP) scenario in the prior art. According to the embodiments of the present invention, a reference signal is sent in a specified pilot position to a target user equipment (UE) where data puncturing is performed, in positions corresponding to the specified pilot position, with respect to data symbols simultaneously sent by an evolved NodeB (eNB) to which another cell in a CoMP set of the UE belongs, and the specified pilot position is orthogonally separated from a reference signal pilot position of the another cell in the CoMP set.
US08879482B2

The present system relates to a broadband wireless access system, and more specifically to a method whereby resources for ranging are efficiently allocated to a mobile station with reference to the status of the mobile station, and also relates to a device for implementing the same. In one example of the present invention, the method for allowing a mobile station to range on a broadband wireless access system may comprise the steps of: selecting any one code from one or more codes contained in a ranging code subset corresponding to the status of a mobile station in one or more ranging codes subsets set in accordance with the purpose of the ranging by the mobile station mode; and transmitting the selected code to a base station.
US08879478B2

The present invention provides a method of selecting a random access preamble in a radio communication system operable at least on a physical layer and a medium access control layer. Random access preambles are divided into at least two groups, the groups depending on at least one of the following: radio conditions and a size of a message to be transmitted by user equipment. The method comprising: (a) the medium access control layer selecting one of the preamble groups; (b) the medium access control layer randomly selecting one random access preamble within the selected group; (c) the medium access control layer signaling the selected random access preamble to the physical layer; and (d) the physical layer generating and transmitting the generated random access preamble.
US08879469B2

The present invention provides a method for transmitting/receiving data to/from a relay. The data transmitting/receiving method comprises the steps of: enabling the relay to receive data on an nth subframe of a downlink from a base station; determining the position of the subframe of an uplink to which data is to be transmitted, if any data to be transmitted exists, wherein the position of said subframe is determined as the (n+k)th subframe, wherein said k is determined by the value of said n and by information on a preset HARQ; and transmitting the data on an (n+k)th subframe of the uplink.
US08879461B2

Blank subframe link design uses reduced bandwidth either explicit or derived for Closed Subscriber Group (CSG) cell interference mitigation, enabling a non-allowed User Equipment (UE) to co-exist with CSG cells on the same carrier. One could specify UL blank subframes to orthogonalize non-allowed UE and allowed UE transmissions on UL either via explicit UL blank subframe definition or derived from DL blank subframe definition. Scheduling can orthogonalize data transmissions. A femto cell temporarily reducing uplink bandwidth can mitigate uplink control channel residual interference from a non-allowed UE. A relay configures RACH occasion to coincide with non-blank UL subframes as much as possible. UE knowledge of RACH occasion is sufficient to start RACH and hand over procedure. RACH occasions with 10 ms periodicity are supported by assigning all odd/even uplink HARQ interlaces to relay. RACH occasions with 20 ms periodicity are supported by assigning any of the 1/4 UL HARQ interlaces to relay.
US08879459B2

The present disclosure discloses a method and system for sending a counting response by a User Equipment (UE) in a Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS), wherein the method includes: within a specific period or upon occurrence of a triggering event, the UE actively initiates a feedback process; otherwise, a network side sends a feedback request indication to the UE, the UE sends a counting response to the network side according to the indication, and the network side counts UEs according to counting responses from UEs. According to the solution provided by the present disclosure, the UE may send the counting response according to the feedback triggering condition under the condition of multiple MCCHs, and the network side may count the UEs correctly for enabling or disabling the MBSFN transmission.
US08879453B2

Aspects of an infrastructure offload wake on wireless LAN (WOWL) are described. An aspect of the system may include a networked device, or station, which may communicate one or more filters to an infrastructure networking device. The infrastructure networking device may utilize the filters to perform pattern matching operations on frames or packets received from the network for delivery to at least the station while the station is in an inactive, or low-power, state. When pattern matching operations performed at the infrastructure networking device indicate receipt of a frame or packet on behalf of the inactive station, which matches at least one of the filters, the infrastructure networking device may store an indication value. The indication value may denote receipt of at least one frame or packet that matched at least one of the filters, which were communicated to the infrastructure networking device by the station.
US08879451B2

The described method and system provide for processing telematics service-related calls on a telematics-equipped vehicle when the vehicle ignition is off. By utilizing one or more call timers, the described invention is able to prevent excessive drain to the vehicle battery while still providing broad access to telematics services when the vehicle ignition is off. Certain types of calls may be excepted from the call timers, and different types of calls may use different call timers. A call center may also intervene and modify the process by changing the values of the timers.
US08879440B2

A method, apparatus, and system for providing ad hoc venue-cast content to a plurality of receiving access terminals within a venue boundary. Ad hoc content may be generated at an access terminal, transmitted to a venue-cast server, and broadcast to a plurality of venue-cast receiving access terminals within a venue. In addition to broadcasting the ad hoc content, a notification is given to the plurality of receiving access terminals, notifying them regarding the availability of the ad hoc content.
US08879436B2

Provided is a multiband wireless apparatus that, even if the number of supported frequency bands increases, suppresses increase in the number of components, and completes cell search within a specified time. In a multiband wireless apparatus (1), a reception channel to which a current reception channel is going to be next switched is set in advance for one of a tunable duplexer (13) and a reception dedicated tunable filter (14) that is not connected to an antenna. An antenna switch (15), in a normal transmission/reception mode, connects the antenna to the tunable duplexer (13), and in a compressed mode, switches the connection of the antenna between the tunable duplexer (13) and the reception dedicated tunable filter (14).
US08879432B2

Complementary band-splitter and band-combiner devices and methods of operation of both are disclosed. Embodiments of the invention may allow wideband and narrowband functions and services to operate seamlessly by band-splitting wideband data into low-band data and high-band data. Narrowband data may include only low-band data. Wideband services may operate on both low-band and high-band data, while narrowband services may operate only on low-band data. Another embodiment may include computer-readable storage having stored thereon a computer program having a plurality of code sections executable by a processor for causing the processor to perform the foregoing.
US08879431B2

A system, computer readable medium and method of load balancing of requests between Diameter-enabled network devices is disclosed. Processing occurs at a signal controller in communication with a first Diameter-enabled network device and a second Diameter-enabled network device, request handling capacity of at least the second Diameter-enabled network device. One or more tokens are allocated for inbound requests from the first Diameter-enabled network device to the second Diameter-enabled network device. The second Diameter-enabled network device is notified of the one or more allocated tokens for handling a corresponding number of requests from the first Diameter-enabled network device. Transmission of the corresponding number of requests from the first Diameter-enabled network device to the second Diameter-enabled network device is coordinated by the signal controller.
US08879430B2

A Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) docking station includes a docking port configured to physically dock with a mobile device, and a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port coupled to a hands free device. The VoIP docking station further includes a processing unit configured to receive signaling via the USB port, and determine an on-hook or off-hook status of the hands free device based on the signaling.
US08879426B1

A distributed coordination and control protocol may enable a set of mobile, self-organizing, robotic relay nodes to adaptively seek positions in such an environment that establishes a network, meeting desired coverage in terms of connected warfighters. Distributed coordination of robotic relay nodes may allow the network to dynamically adapt as positions of warfighters change and/or the network demands change. An algorithm is provided that may be scalable to a large number of robots and may be robust to random deployment of robots, robot platform failures, channel dynamics, and changing warfighter positions.
US08879421B2

An invention concerns a method for enabling Service configuration by a plurality of Personal Network Entities connected to a Personal Network comprising a Personal Network Application Server accessible via IP Multimedia Subsystem domain, a primary Personal Network Entity holding a subscription to control the Personal Network and a plurality of secondary Personal Network Entities controlled by the primary Personal Network Entity, the method comprising the following steps: —associating to each PNE configuration rights describing the services to be configured by each of the PNE, —storing the PNE identities, and configuration rights associated to each PNE in a Configuration Element (PNRCE), —sending to the PN Application Server (AS) a configuration request based on the stored configuration rights.
US08879412B2

The present invention enables automatic configuration of random access parameters. The base station is configured to control PRACH transmission of UEs, wherein the UE PRACH transmission comprises transmission of PRACH preambles constructed of root sequences. This is achieved by storing statistics associated with previous transmissions. A parameter associated with the construction of the PRACH is tuned based on the stored statistics. The base station controls the UE PRACH transmission by transmitting information to the UEs relating to the tuned parameter. This information is used by the UE when constructing the PRACH preambles. In this way, the cell parameters relating to random access can be improved to fit better to individual cells resulting in improved resource usage.
US08879407B2

In a two-way ranging scheme where a first apparatus (e.g., device) determines a distance to a second apparatus (e.g., device), specified packets are sent between these apparatuses at specified times to facilitate the determination of the distance. In some aspects, these packets may be defined and/or sent in a manner that enables the apparatuses to detect a leading edge of a received packet with a high degree of accuracy. For example, an apparatus may transmit a packet a defined period of time after transmitting or receiving another packet. In addition, a packet may comprise a defined symbol sequence that is used by an apparatus that receives the packet to identify a leading edge of the packet.
US08879404B2

An apparatus for managing communication device identification is disclosed. A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, a multimode communication device having a controller to wirelessly transmit a device identifier of the multimode communication device to another multimode communication device, where the device identifier is transmitted using a short distance mode of communication, where the device identifier is transmitted without retrieving data from an address book of the multimode communication device, and where the device identifier is transmitted in response to actuation of at least one of a dedicated button or a code on a keypad of the multimode communication device. Other embodiments are disclosed.
US08879389B2

A communications advertising system is described for delivering ad content to subscribers of a telecommunications network. The system performs traffic handling by using at least two limits for regulating message transmission. During processing, a network node of the system can continuously monitor the quantity of message traffic being processed. If the node detects that the quantity of traffic has decreased below a first limit, it can initiate the processing of reserved bulk messages. The node then continues to transmit the bulk traffic while still measuring the quantity of message traffic being processed. If, thereafter, the node detects that the quantity of overall message traffic being processed has exceeded a second limit, the processing of bulk messages is halted until the quantity of regular traffic decreases below the first limit once again, at which point the node can resume processing the bulk message traffic.
US08879380B2

The present invention provides a method for channel estimation used in a receiver of a multi-carrier communication system, including: receiving a multi-carrier symbols from a transmitter of the multi-carrier communication system; and obtaining channel information of sub-carriers carrying data of the multi-carrier symbols, using selectively time direction interpolation and frequency direction interpolation for channel information of a plurality of scatter pilots of the multi-carrier symbols.
US08879371B2

A recording medium is provided with: a guide layer on which a guide track or tracks are formed; and a plurality of recording layers, wherein a same mark group is formed in a same rotational phase position of each of a plurality of guide tracks which are included in a beam spot of guide laser light, the mark group including a pair of record marks which are shifted by a predetermined distance toward a right side and a left side, respectively, from a track center.
US08879356B1

The transmission method utilizes multiple seismic acquisition units within an array as intermediate short range radio receivers/transmitters to pass collected seismic data in relay fashion back to a control station. Any one seismic unit in the array is capable of transmitting radio signals to several other seismic units positioned within radio range of the transmitting unit, thus allowing the system to select an optimal transmission path. Utilizing an array of seismic units permits transmission routes back to a control station to be varied as needed. In transmissions from the most remote seismic unit to the control station, each unit within a string receives seismic data from other units and transmits the received seismic data along with the receiving unit's locally stored seismic data. Preferably, as a transmission is passed along a chain, it is bounced between seismic units so as to be relayed by each unit in the array.
US08879355B2

Computing device and method for processing seismic traces to produce an image of a subsurface area. The method includes receiving a series of seismic traces related to the subsurface area and recorded by one or more seismic receivers, wherein the one or more seismic sources are originally generated by a source; applying a phase encoding function to the series of seismic traces, at least a portion of said seismic traces comprise signals reflected by geological interfaces of the subsurface area; applying a 3 dimensional (3D) harmonic-source reverse time migration of the series of seismic traces encoded with the phase encoding function; computing a forward wavefield by solving a first wave equation; computing a backward wavefield by solving a second wave equation; and cross-correlating the forward wavefield with the backward wavefield to generate an image of the subsurface.
US08879347B2

A flash memory device. In one embodiment, the flash memory device comprises a flash memory, a diode, a controller, and a capacitor. The flash memory has a voltage source pin. The diode is coupled between a voltage source and the voltage source pin of the flash memory. The controller is coupled to the flash memory via a data bus. The capacitor is coupled between the voltage source pin of the flash memory and a ground, and supplies power to the flash memory to enable the flash memory to complete writing of at least one data page when the level of the voltage source is lowered.
US08879338B2

A semiconductor integrated circuit according to an embodiment includes an oscillator that generates and outputs an oscillation signal in an active state and generates no oscillation signal in an inactive state. The semiconductor integrated circuit includes a negative charge pump that generates an output voltage that is a negative voltage in response to the oscillation signal and outputs the output voltage to an output pad. The semiconductor integrated circuit includes a negative voltage detecting circuit that detects the output voltage and controls the oscillator to be in the active state or inactive state so as to bring the output voltage close to a target voltage.
US08879337B1

A memory, a system and a method for controlling dynamic burst length control data can generate clocks for both an upstream counter and a downstream counter by using substantially the same latency delayed received command indications. A downstream clock generation circuit generates a clock signal from a received command indication delayed by both a delay locked loop and latency delays stored in latency control circuits. An upstream clock generation circuit generates a clock signal from the received command indication delayed by the delay locked loop and capture indications from the latency control circuits.
US08879335B2

The first input circuit detects an input signal to output a first output signal having the same phase as the input signal. The second input circuit is configured to detect a first strobe signal to output a second output signal. The third input circuit is configured to detect a second strobe signal as a reversed signal of the first strobe signal to output a third output signal. A data latch circuit includes a first latch circuit and a second latch circuit. It is configured to latch the first output signal in either one of the first latch circuit or the second latch circuit according to the first output signal, the second output signal and the third output signal. It also allows the other one of the first latch circuit or the second latch circuit to input the first output signal thereto.
US08879334B2

A semiconductor device avoids the disturb problem and the collision between write and read operations in a DP-SRAM cell or a 2P-SRAM cell. The semiconductor device 1 includes a write word line WLA and a read word line WLB each coupled to memory cells 3. A read operation activates the read word line WLB corresponding to the selected memory cell 3. A write operation activates the write word line WLA corresponding to the selected memory cell 3. The selected write word line WLA is activated after activation of the selected read word line WLB in an operation cycle that performs both read and write operations.
US08879333B2

An erase operation for a 3D stacked memory device selectively inhibits subsets of memory cells which meet a verify condition as the erase operation progresses. As a result, the faster-erasing memory cells are less likely to be over-erased and degradation is reduced. Each subset of memory cells can be independently erased by controlling a select gate, drain (SGD) transistor line, a bit line or a word line, according to the type of subset. For a SGD line subset or a bit line subset, the SGD line or bit line, respectively, is set at a level which inhibits erase. For a word line subset, the word line voltage is floated to inhibit erase. An inhibit or uninhibit status can be maintained for each subset, and each type of subset can have a different maximum allowable number of fail bits.
US08879332B2

The configurations of a flash memory having a read tracking clock and method thereof are provided. The proposed flash memory includes a first and a second storage capacitors, a first current source providing a first current flowing through the first storage capacitor, a second current source providing a second current flowing through the second storage capacitor, and a comparator electrically connected to the first and the second current sources, and sending out a signal indicating a developing time being accomplished when the second current is larger than the first current.
US08879330B1

A method of erasing a non-volatile memory (NVM) array includes determining a first number based on a temperature of the NVM array. Erase pulses of the first number are applied to the NVM array. A first verify of the NVM is performed for a first time after commencing the applying after the first number has been reached.
US08879328B2

A memory includes a redundant sense amplifier and a plurality of sense amplifier pairs. Each sense amplifier pair includes a first sense amplifier and a second sense amplifier. Each sense amplifier pair drives a common load line. The memory is configured to implement column redundancy using a single redundant sense amplifier without requiring local read lines for each sense amplifier.
US08879327B2

Systems, methods, and devices are disclosed, including an electronic device that includes a first data location, a quantizing circuit, and a reference current source, all coupled to an electrical conductor. The reference current source may include a current mirror with a side coupled to the electrical conductor and a second data location coupled to another side of the current mirror.
US08879320B2

A method of programming a multi-level cells (MLC) commonly coupled to a word line in a non-volatile memory device includes shadow-programming first MLC to a first shadow state, shadow-programming second MLC to a second shadow state less than the first shadow state, and then main-programming the first MLC from the first shadow state to a first final state and main-programming the second MLC from the second shadow state to the second final state less than the first final state.
US08879311B2

A method for improving sub-word line response comprises generating a variable substrate bias determined by at least one user parameter. The variable substrate bias is applied to a sub-word line driver in a selected sub-block of a memory. A voltage disturbance on a sub-word line in communication with the sub-word line driver is minimized by modifying a variable substrate bias of the sub-word line driver to change a transconductance of the sub-word line driver thereby.
US08879305B2

A memory cell and array and a method of forming a memory cell and array are described. A memory cell includes first and second pull-up transistors, first and second pull-down transistors, first and second pass-gate transistors, and first and second isolation transistors. Drains of the first pull-up and first pull-down transistors are electrically coupled together at a first node. Drains of the second pull-up and second pull-down transistors are electrically coupled together at a second node. Gates of the second pull-up and second pull-down transistors are electrically coupled to the first node, and gates of the first pull-up and first pull-down transistors are electrically coupled to the second node. The first and second pass-gate transistors are electrically coupled to the first and second nodes, respectively. The first and second isolation transistors are electrically coupled to the first and second nodes, respectively.
US08879301B2

A method and apparatus for controlling state information retention determines at least a state information save or restore condition for at least one processing circuit such as one or more CPU or GPU cores or pipelines, in an integrated circuit. In response to determining the state information save or restore condition, the method and apparatus controls either or both of saving or restoring of state information for different virtual machines operating on the processing circuit, into corresponding on-die persistent passive variable resistance memory. The state information save or restore condition is a virtual machine level state information save or restore condition. State information for each of differing virtual machines is saved or restored from differing on-die passive variable resistance memory cells that are assigned on a per-virtual machine basis.
US08879300B2

Various embodiments of the present invention are directed to nanoscale electronic devices that provide nonvolatile memristive switching. In one aspect, a two-terminal device (600) comprises a first electrode (602), a second electrode (604), and an active region (606) disposed between the first electrode and the second electrode. The active region includes a mobile dopant (608), and a fast drift ionic species (610). The fast drift ionic species drifts into a diode-like electrode/active region interface temporarily increasing conductance across the interface when a write voltage is applied to the two-terminal device to switch the device conductance.
US08879298B2

An e-fuse array circuit includes a high voltage pumping unit configured to generate a high voltage by pumping a power source voltage, a negative voltage pumping unit configured to generate a negative voltage by pumping a ground voltage, a program/read line supplied with the high voltage when a program operation is activated, a read voltage, which is lower than the high voltage, when a read operation is activated, or the negative voltage when deactivated, a row line supplied with the ground voltage when the row line is activated or the negative voltage when the row line is deactivated, an e-fuse device supplied with voltage of the program/read line, a switch device controlled by the row line and configured to electrically connect the e-fuse device with a column line, and a column circuit configured to supply the negative voltage to the column line when the column line is activated.
US08879294B2

A method for data storage includes defining a first programming scheme that programs a group of analog memory cells while reducing interference caused by at least one memory cell that neighbors the group, and a second programming scheme that programs the group of the analog memory cells and does not reduce all of the interference reduced by the first programming scheme. One of the first and second programming schemes is selected based on a criterion defined with respect to the analog memory cells. Data is stored in the group of the analog memory cells using the selected programming scheme.
US08879292B2

An electrical circuit for a power converter is described. The circuit has been provided with several semiconductor switches and capacitors used for operating the power converter. A brake resistance for lowering energy is provided and is connected to the semiconductor switches provided without the need for an additional switch. The operation of the power converter and the current flowing through the brake resistance can be controlled by means of the existing semiconductor switches.
US08879285B2

A power converter includes a booster circuit, an inverter circuit, a hysteresis control circuit, and a proportional-integral control circuit. The booster circuit boosts DC power of a DC power source. The inverter circuit converts the DC power outputted from the booster circuit into AC power and outputs the AC power to a system. The hysteresis control circuit controls the inverter circuit by hysteresis control so that the AC power can be outputted to the system when an AC voltage of the system is less than a DC voltage of the power source. The proportional-integral control circuit controls the booster circuit by proportional-integral control so that the AC power can be outputted to the system when the AC voltage of the system is larger than the DC voltage of the power source.
US08879275B2

A conformal coating comprising modified porous silica particles is disclosed. A porous silica particle, such as MCM-14 or SBA-15 is modified with a sulfur gettering functionality, such as a phosphine compound, covalently bonded to silicon atoms in the porous silica particle. The conformal coating comprising the modified porous silica particles may be applied to metallic wiring areas of a circuit component, with the sulfur gettering functionality preventing sulfur from atmospheric gasses from penetrating the conformal coating to the metallic wiring.
US08879274B2

There is disclosed a method of manufacturing an electrical component, involving bonding a thin metal foil to an insulating substrate and thereby forming a component blank, and laser machining at least the metal foil of said component blank to produce at least one trench for defining one or more foil tracks, said trench being at least equal in depth to the thickness of the foil so as to prevent current flow across the trench.
US08879271B2

A slide assembly for mounting an electronic device includes an inner slide, a fastening member mounted on the electronic device and a locking member with a distal end slidably mounted on the inner slide. A receiving slot is defined in the locking member. A mounting slice extends horizontally from the receiving slot toward the distal end of the locking member. The fastening member abuts the mounting slice to make the locking member elastically deform. The fastening member slides into the receiving slot. When the locking member elastically returns, the fastening member is restricted in the receiving slot by the mounting slice.
US08879270B2

A rack mountable server apparatus is disposed on a plane of a rack. The rack mountable server apparatus includes a chassis and a plurality of server units. The chassis is disposed in the rack, and the appearance of the chassis is a rectangular cuboid. When the chassis is installed in the rack, a first surface constructed by a length and a width of the chassis is parallel to the plane. The server units are disposed in the chassis. Each of server units has a circuit board, and the circuit boards are arranged parallel to a second surface which is constructed by the length and the height of the chassis or the width and the height of the chassis, and are perpendicular to the first surface.
US08879269B2

Systems and methods are provided for a sheet of graphite material on an electromagnetic interference shield for enhanced heat transfer. An electronic device component may be enclosed by an EMI shield, which may retain heat generated by the component. To help dissipate heat, a sheet of material selected for its heat transfer properties may be disposed over the EMI shield. A portion of the sheet may be folded over an edge of the EMI shield such that the sheet may cover a top surface of the sheet as well as tabs extending perpendicular to the top surface of the EMI shield. To facilitate the adhesion of the sheet to a smaller surface area of tabs, the sheet may include features forming a discontinuity in regions of the sheet aligned with the edge of the shield to facilitate folding the sheet. The discontinuity can include, for example, one or more holes or windows.
US08879267B2

A transceiver assembly includes a transceiver module having ribs and a thermal interface member on an outer surface and a receptacle assembly receiving the transceiver module. The receptacle assembly includes a heat sink and a clip coupling the heat sink to a guide frame. The heat sink has a heat sink surface facing the thermal interface member and a step extending from the heat sink surface with a module engagement surface. The ribs ride along the step during insertion into and removal from the receptacle of the transceiver module. When the ribs are longitudinally aligned with and engage the step, the module engagement surface is in an elevated position. When the ribs are longitudinally offset from the step, the module engagement surface is in a recessed position and in direct thermal engagement with the thermal interface member.
US08879265B2

An electronic circuit storage case includes a housing made of resin and having a case portion storing an electronic circuit board and a connector portion extending in a direction perpendicular to a board attachment surface of the case portion and incorporating a connector. Interior and exterior opening holes communicate at bottoms via a communication hole. A ventilating hole continuing from the interior of the case portion to the exterior of the connector portion is provided in a solid portion of the housing. The interior opening hole and the communication hole are bent in an L shape and provided to a primary resin mold part forming the housing. The exterior opening hole is provided to a secondary resin mold part of the housing enclosing the primary resin mold part and forming the connector and case portions so as to communicate with one end of the L-shaped communication hole substantially perpendicularly.
US08879264B2

A stacked heat dissipating module of an electronic device has a holding frame, and at least one first heat conducting medium layer, a heat dissipating medium layer, a first heat sink layer, at least one second heat conducting medium layer and at least one second heat sink layer stacked with each other. The at least one first heat conducting medium layer is mounted on at least one heating component of the electronic device to dissipate heat generated from the at least one heating component. Moreover, the holding frame, the heat conducting medium layers and the heat sink layers have corresponding housing holes for exposing an exposed component of the electronic device to bring the exposed component's function into full play.
US08879260B2

The memory module comprises a circuit board with a first and a second side, wherein memory chips are arranged at least on the first side. A longitudinally extending module heat conductor is arranged on the first side. The module heat conductor comprises a contact surface configured to contact a heat transfer system.
US08879251B2

A portable electronic device includes a housing body having a bottom wall and a pair of grooves formed in the bottom wall, a cover body, a pair of hinges interconnecting the housing and cover bodies, a pair of foot modules respectively corresponding to positions of the grooves, and a pair of cam mechanisms each connected to one hinge and an adjacent foot module. Each foot module includes a foot pad movable between retracted and protruding position. When the cover body is pivoted from a closed position to an open position, each hinge actuates a respective cam mechanism which in turn actuates the foot pad to move the latter from the retracted to the protruding position.
US08879247B2

A computer chassis cooling sidecar for cooling one or more computers in a chassis of computers in a data center, the sidecar including an air intake chamber and a chassis delivery chamber, the air intake chamber having a first opening at a bottom end for receiving air from beneath the data center through perforated tiles in the floor of the data center located on the side of the computer chassis, the air intake chamber having at the top end a directional vane shaped to direct airflow from the side of the chassis to a chassis delivery chamber; wherein the chassis delivery chamber resides in front or back of the chassis and has an opening to receive air from the air intake chamber and an opening to deliver the received air to the front or back of the computer chassis.
US08879246B2

A peripheral data storage device for IPHONE mobile phone and IPOD media player devices having an encasement containing a system of electronic circuits which communicates with the IPHONE mobile phone or IPOD media player by means of a host software system and a device software system. The device also has a charge pass through connector and optional card slots. Various views of the device are shown in FIGS. 1-5.
US08879241B2

A server rack configured for a plurality of servers is disclosed, in which each of the servers has a power supply circuit board. The server rack includes: a case having a first face and a second face opposed to each other, the first face having an opening for the servers to be arranged in the case in an orientation; a power supply module provided on the second face of the case; and a power transmission assembly composed of a busbar provided on the second face in the orientation and electrically connected to the power supply module; and a plurality of electrical connectors provided on the busbar and coupled respectively with the power supply circuit boards of the servers. Through the power transmission assembly, the servers may be powered in a centralized way by the power supply module.
US08879238B2

There is provided a multilayer ceramic capacitor, and a method of manufacturing the same, the multilayer ceramic capacitor including: a ceramic body; a first internal electrode; a second internal electrode; a first external electrode; a second external electrode; and an insulating layer.
US08879233B2

In accordance with an embodiment of the invention, there is provided an electrostatic chuck. The electrostatic chuck comprises a surface layer activated by a voltage in an electrode to form an electric charge to electrostatically clamp a substrate to the electrostatic chuck. The surface layer includes a plurality of polymer protrusions and a charge control layer to which the plurality of polymer protrusions adhere, the plurality of polymer protrusions extending to a height above portions of the charge control layer surrounding the plurality of polymer protrusions to support the substrate upon the plurality of polymer protrusions during electrostatic clamping of the substrate.
US08879225B2

A protective circuit for an arrangement includes a multiplicity of individual cells in a rechargeable battery pack. A predefined number of individual cells are connected in series in a cell row and at least two cell rows are mutually parallel, and at least one cell connector situated between the individual cells at a location of one cell row is electrically connected via a compensation line to the cell connector situated at an identical location of the parallel cell row, and the potential of the cell connector connected to the compensation line at one location of one cell row and the potential of the cell connector electrically connected to the compensation line at the same location of the parallel cell row are detected and the detected potentials are fed to an evaluation unit.
US08879215B2

According to one embodiment, a magnetoresistance effect element includes a first shield, a second shield, a stacked unit, and a hard bias unit. The stacked unit includes a first magnetic layer provided between the first shield and the second shield, a second magnetic layer provided between the first magnetic layer and the second shield, and an intermediate layer provided between the and second magnetic layers. The hard bias unit is provided between the first shield and the second shield to be arranged with the stacked unit. A crystal orientation plane of the first magnetic layer in a film surface perpendicular direction is a cubic (110) plane. The first magnetic layer includes a first stacked body including a first Fe layer and a first Co layer stacked along the first direction, and a first Heusler alloy layer stacked with the first stacked body along the first direction.
US08879212B1

A disk drive suspension assembly has a load beam and a laminated flexure attached to the load beam. The laminated flexure includes a structural layer with a head mounting tongue, and first and second conductive layers. A first dielectric layer is disposed between the structural layer and the first conductive layer, and a second dielectric layer is disposed between the first conductive layer and the second conductive layer. The first conductive layer includes a first plurality of interleaved traces with at least a first conductive trace and a second conductive trace separated by a first lateral intertrace spacing. The second conductive layer includes a second plurality of interleaved traces with at least a third conductive trace and a fourth conductive trace separated by a second lateral intertrace spacing. The fourth conductive trace overlies the first lateral intertrace spacing and the first conductive trace underlies the second lateral intertrace spacing.
US08879211B2

A suspension substrate according to the present invention includes: an insulating layer; a spring material layer provided on one face of the insulating layer and having conductivity; and a plurality of wirings provided on the other face of the insulating layer. One wiring includes a head-side wiring part extending from the head portion, and a plurality of division wiring parts respectively bifurcated from the head-side wiring part. The spring material layer includes a spring material main body, and a wiring spring material part separated from the spring material main body, via a groove. A conductive connecting part extending through the insulating layer is provided in the insulating layer. Each of the division wiring parts of the one wiring is connected with the wiring spring material part, via the conductive connecting part.
US08879204B2

A motor includes a stationary unit and a rotary unit. The stationary unit includes a stator, a base portion having at least one hole, and a flexible wiring substrate. The flexible wiring substrate reaches a position higher than a lower surface of the base portion through at least one hole and is arranged to supply electric power to the stator. The flexible wiring substrate includes a connection portion arranged higher than the lower surface of the base portion and connected to the stator. The connection portion includes a solder portion arranged on a lower surface thereof to cover a portion of a lead wire extending from a coil of the stator. At least a portion of the solder portion is positioned within the hole.
US08879202B2

A cartridge drive apparatus includes a hole detection lever and a hole detector. The hole detection lever is provided with a projection corresponding to an identification hole position of a first shell of a cartridge at an insertion completion position of the cartridge. The projection is supported with respect to the identification hole to be movable in an insertion direction. The movement of the projection in the insertion direction is limited depending on a position of a second shell separated from the first shell. The hole detector is configured to detect whether or not an identification hole is formed at an identification hole position depending on the amount of movement of the projection in the insertion direction.
US08879201B2

A spindle motor includes a shaft arranged to extend in an axial direction, and a base portion arranged to define a portion of a housing, and including a through hole in which the shaft is inserted. A fixing region is defined between an inner circumferential portion of the base portion and a lower portion of the shaft. The fixing region includes a press-fitting region and an adhesion region defined on a lower side of the press-fitting region and in which a seal gap is defined between the inner circumferential portion of the base portion and the lower portion of the shaft. The seal gap is arranged to gradually decrease in radial width with increasing height. The seal gap is arranged to include an adhesive arranged therein over an entire circumference thereof.
US08879189B2

In one embodiment, a magnetic head slider includes at least one magnetic head element chosen from a group consisting of: a write element adapted for writing data to a magnetic recording medium and a read element adapted for reading data from the magnetic recording medium, a heater element adapted for controlling a flying height of the at least one magnetic head element above the magnetic recording medium, a contact sensor element adapted for detecting contact between the magnetic head slider near the at least one magnetic head element and the magnetic recording medium, and shared terminals adapted for supplying voltage to the heater element and for conveying signals from the contact sensor element. Other magnetic head sliders and methods of use are described according to additional embodiments.
US08879184B1

Provided herein is an apparatus, including a servo pattern having magnetic features, wherein each magnetic feature of the magnetic features includes a single magnetic domain; a first population of the magnetic features; a second population of the magnetic features; and a selective magnetization means for selective magnetization of either one of the first population or the second population of magnetic features over the other.
US08879178B2

The lens barrel includes a first lens unit, a second lens unit, and a drive unit. The first lens unit includes a first lens element and a first lens support frame supporting the first lens element. The second lens unit includes a second lens element and a second lens support frame supporting the second lens element. The second lens unit is supported by the first lens unit to be movable in the optical axis direction of the first lens element with respect to the first lens unit. The drive unit is arranged to be used to drive the second lens unit with respect to the first lens unit, and is fixed to the first lens unit. When viewed in the optical axis direction, the drive unit is fixed to the first lens unit so that a first profile line formed by the first lens unit and the drive unit is substantially circular.
US08879172B2

An imaging lens includes a first lens L1 that has a biconvex shape near an optical axis and has positive refractive power, a second lens L2 that has a biconcave shape near the optical axis and has negative refractive power, a third lens L3 that has a shape of a meniscus lens directing a concave surface thereof to an object side near an optical axis and has positive refractive power, and a fourth lens L4 that has a biconcave shape near the optical axis and has negative refractive power, arranged in this order from the object side. When the whole lens system has a focal length f and the fourth lens L4 has a focal length f4, the imaging lens of the invention satisfies the following expression: −0.7
US08879161B2

Liquid lens cells are used in a variable power optical system. In one embodiment, a stop is located between a first lens group comprising at least a first liquid lens cell and a second lens group comprising at least a second liquid lens cell. In one embodiment, a liquid lens cell controls an incident angle of light rays on an image surface.
US08879154B2

A surface light source device is provided. The surface light source device includes a light source, a beam splitter configured to split a light irradiated from the light source into a plurality of light beams each having a different path, a diffusion unit configured to diffuse the plurality of light beams split by the beam splitter into a surface light, and a collimating unit configured to arrange the plurality of light beams diffused from the diffusion unit in one direction.
US08879153B2

A lens array includes arranged lenses. Each of at least two adjacent lenses in the lens array includes a first region located at and around an optical axis of the lens and having a first curvature, and a second region located farther away from the optical axis than the first region and having a second curvature. The second curvature is larger than the first curvature.
US08879150B1

Optical components and their methods of manufacture are provided, including a first stack of layers configured to exhibit a first stop band for s-polarized radiation and a second stop band for p-polarized radiation incident on the first stack of layers at an oblique angle, a second stack of layers configured to exhibit a third stop band for s-polarized radiation and a fourth stop band for p-polarized radiation incident on the second stack of layers at the oblique angle, where the cut-on wavelength for the first stop band is approximately equal to or larger than the cut-off wavelength for the third stop band. Optical components are further provided to include extended blocking functionality, and to permit stress balancing in thin-film coatings on opposite sides of a substrate.
US08879139B2

A display mirror assembly for a vehicle having a front shield including a first side and a second side. A partially reflective, partially transmissive element is mounted on the first side. A rear shield is disposed behind the front shield. A display module is mounted between the front shield and the rear shield and includes in order from the front shield: a display; an optic block; a heat sink having an edge lit PCB mounted along a top edge thereof; and a PCB. The front shield is secured to at least one component of the display module with a first retaining feature and the rear shield is secured to at least one component of the display module with a second retaining feature. A housing at least partially surrounds the front shield, display module, and rear shield.
US08879135B2

A device for deflecting a light beam in two different directions includes a mirror and a first rotating actuator element configured to rotate about a first axis as a function of a first actuation signal. A second rotating actuator element is disposed opposite to the first rotating actuator element along the first axis and configured to rotate about the first axis as a function of a second actuation signal. A first spring element is connected to the first rotating actuator element and, off-axially with respect to the first axis at a predetermined first distance thereto, to the mirror in a rest position of the mirror. A second spring element is connected to the second rotating actuator element and to the mirror.
US08879128B2

An image reading apparatus is disclosed. The image reading apparatus includes an automatic document feeding unit that transports a document in a predetermined direction while the document floats above a platen glass member and a light source disposed below the platen glass member that irradiates a portion on the document at a predetermined reading location such that reflected light from the portion on the document is converted into image data and a floating distance between the document and the platen glass member is detected to set a value of an image parameter for correcting the image data for the document, based on the detected floating distance between the document and the platen glass member.
US08879124B2

An image revising method, an image forming apparatus, and a method for revising image spreading are provided. The image revising method includes regulating a black color level in a black area of an input image; adjusting a color level of at least one other color excluding the black color in the black area; and revising the image by applying the regulated black color level and the adjusted color level of the at least one other color. Thus, in copying a document, the black color with the enhanced legibility can be serviced.
US08879122B2

Embodiments provide a method comprising receiving a continuous tone (contone) image, wherein each pixel of a plurality of pixels of the contone image comprises pixel data associated with a plurality of color planes; forming a pixel group that includes a target pixel and one or more pixels that are neighboring to the target pixel; for each pixel in the pixel group and for each of one or more color planes of the plurality of color planes, comparing pixel data of the corresponding pixel for the corresponding color plane with one or more threshold levels to generate threshold pixel data; generating one or more color plane pixel windows for the pixel group corresponding to the one or more color planes; and generating a pixel window for the pixel group.
US08879118B2

As set forth herein, computer-implemented methods and systems facilitate detecting non-uniformities (e.g., streaks or other defects) in a scanned image, and correcting the non-uniformities while accounting for geometric distortion therein. For instance a scanned image may include a light streak (e.g., higher L* values than expected) down the page at a given distance from a page edge. Paper shrinkage may also cause the image to be magnified relative to the page. Correction values (e.g., L* knockdown values or the like) are generated to bring the non-uniform L* values down to a darker level. To account for the magnification of the image, the correction values are electronically registered to uniformity data for the page, and applied at the correct location to account for the magnification. The corrected image is then printed by a marking device.
US08879117B2

In one embodiment, a width of a print media is measured. A margin adjustment decision is made utilizing a margin instruction if the measured width is within an acceptable variance from a standard width of the media. The margin adjustment decision is applied to a plot of an image to be printed on the media.
US08879116B2

Systems, processes, and methods are presented for creating dots that implode, rather than explode when transformed into a dye-laden gas. Each of the dots can have a smaller cross-section on a target than on the source, and each can have a concave silhouette. The dots can also have a ring-shaped surface prior to transfer to a source, such as a transfer paper. It is further contemplated that a device including, for example, a high resolution printer or an electrostatic printer, can be used to create the dots or transfer the dots to a fabric. Preferably, the dots can be transferred to a fabric or other material including, for example, clothing fabric, wall paper fabric, carpet, paper, plastic, and powder-coated metal.
US08879114B2

When an instruction for combine setting is accepted, a reduction ratio of an original image is set as a first reduction ratio based on an orientation of the original image and an orientation of output paper. When an instruction to change the reduction ratio for the previewed original image is accepted, if a reduction ratio after the change (a second reduction ratio) falls within a prescribed range from the first reduction ratio, the first reduction ratio is set as a reduction ratio of the original image for arranging onto a sheet of output paper in combination.
US08879107B2

The request management server receives a print data acquisition request received from the client device located at an external access-limited site, and specifies the print server disposed in the site to which the user device belongs as a device that prints the print data. Then, the request management server provides an instruction to the specified print server about the acquisition of the print data via the client device which has made the print data acquisition request.
US08879099B2

A print server comprises: unit configured to acquire an owner name of a user for specifying the user in an output apparatus, the owner name being set in advance in correspondence with user information of the user who issues the print instruction in the print server and being to be set in a print job to be processed by the output apparatus; and unit configured to, when the acquisition unit has acquired the owner name, generate a print job in which the acquired owner name is set as an owner name of the print job, and when the owner name has been neither set nor acquired, generate a print job in which a user name designated in the user information of the user in the print server is set as the owner name of the print job.
US08879097B2

A printing device is provided which prints a document, to be passed to one or more recipients, in an output format according to a personal preference of each of the recipients. The printing device includes a receiving portion configured to accept a print job indicating the document and the recipients; a determination portion configured to determine an output format according to a personal preference of each of the recipients indicated in the accepted print job based on a history of print jobs that were executed for each of the recipients, and a print job execution portion configured to, when printing the document indicated in the accepted print job by a plurality of sets corresponding to the number of the recipients, perform the printing in the output format according to the personal preference of each of the recipients determined by the determination portion.
US08879081B2

A multifunction machine includes, a print setting section that performs setting to contribute to a reduction in the environmental load, based on designated content with respect to an operating panel of the multifunction machine or an external computer, an eco-printing judging section that judges whether printing according to the applied setting corresponds to eco-printing which is environment-friendly printing, a logo image attaching section to attach a logo image to an image when the result of the judgment is a correspondence to eco-printing, and a printing controlling section which is caused by a printing engine to print an image to which a logo image is attached.
US08879067B2

Sensors operate by resolving changes in orientation of a wavelength dependent structure with respect to a reference direction determined by an incident light beam, resulting in very high sensitivity and dynamic range. Said sensors are wavelength encoded, can be multiplexed in a single light path such as an optical fiber, yet are decoupled mechanically from the fiber, resulting in high stability.
US08879062B2

An analysis apparatus includes a plasma generation unit and an optical analysis unit. The plasma generation unit generates initial plasma by momentarily energizing a target substance to be turned into a plasma state, and maintains the target substance in the plasma state by irradiating the initial plasma with an electromagnetic wave for a predetermined period of time. The optical analysis unit identifies the target substance based on information with respect to emission intensity during a period from when the emission intensity reaches a peak due to the initial plasma until when the emission intensity increases and reaches approximately a constant value due to electromagnetic wave plasma maintained by the electromagnetic wave, or information with respect to emission intensity after the electromagnetic wave irradiation is terminated.
US08879061B2

The analysis apparatus 10 includes a plasma generation device 11 and an optical analysis device 13. The plasma generation device 11 generates initial plasma by energizing a substance in space to be turned into a plasma state, and maintains the plasma state by irradiating the initial plasma with electromagnetic wave for a predetermined period of time. Then, the optical analysis device 13 analyzes the target substance 15 based on a time integral value of intensity of emission from the target substance 15 in an electromagnetic wave plasma region, which is maintained by the electromagnetic wave.
US08879060B2

A Raman signal detection and analyzing system and a method thereof are disclosed. The Raman signal is generated by emitting an excitation light to a sample. The Raman signal is then modulated by passing through a plurality of optical filter and modulator. The resulting modulated Raman signal comprises two orthogonal components, which intensities are to be computed based on the first harmonic of said modulated Raman signal. The content of a specific analyte within the sample can then be determined based on the ratio of the intensities of the two components.
US08879059B2

Methods and apparatus that provide for precise and continuously-controlled generation of hyperfine polarizations and coherences in samples of laser cooled atoms. In one example, coherent population trapping induced by Raman pulses with preselected parameters (such as phase and duration) is employed as a mechanism for producing well-controlled atomic coherences and polarizations. In one example, these coherences and polarizations are used to provide precision polarization references for normalization of polarization readout measurements, and/or to provide precision phase references for phase storage or phase comparison.
US08879056B2

Illumination subsystems for multi-spot wafer inspection are provided. One illumination subsystem includes a diffractive optical element configured to separate an illumination light beam into multiple light beams and a refractive lens array positioned in the path of the multiple light beams. The refractive lens array is configured to relay the laser beam waist at the diffractive optical element onto a wafer surface and to separately and simultaneously focus each of the multiple light beams to a wafer for inspection.
US08879055B1

The field of view of an objective lens is divided into two areas, and a transmission image of a photomask and a composite image obtained by optically synthesizing a transmission image and a reflection image of the photomask are picked up in parallel. A drop image generated at an edge portion of a pattern portion in the composite image is deleted by limiter processing or masking processing, or is deleted by using primary-differentiated signals of a composite image signal and a transmission image signal.
US08879053B2

The output of optical computing devices containing an integrated computational element can be corrected when an interferent substance or condition is present. The devices may comprise an optional electromagnetic radiation source; a sample detection unit comprising an integrated computational element and a detector configured to receive electromagnetic radiation that has optically interacted with the integrated computational element and produce a sample signal associated therewith; an interferent monitor located proximal to the sample detection unit, the interferent monitor being configured to produce an interferent signal associated with an interferent substance; and a signal processing unit operable to convert the interferent signal into an interferent input form suitable for being computationally combined with the sample signal, the signal processing unit being further operable to computationally combine the sample signal and the interferent input form to determine a characteristic of a sample in real-time or near real-time.
US08879052B2

A shear-stress sensing system can include a floating element whose displacement can be detected through use of optical measurements. The system can utilize high temperature materials to deliver the optical signal to the structure to be measured, which can also utilize high temperature materials. In one embodiment, an intensity modulation or phase modulation of a reflected signal can be measured to determine the shear stress. In another embodiment, a Moire fringe pattern can be used to determine the shear stress.
US08879045B2

A method utilizes a dynamically controllable optical element that receives an electrical field, which changes an index of refraction in at least one direction within the optical element. The change in index of refraction imparts a change to a beam of radiation passing through the optical element. The electric field is controlled by a feedback/control signal from a feedback system that includes a detector positioned proximate an image plane in the system. The optical element can be positioned in various places within the system depending on what light characteristics need to be adjusted, for example after an illumination system or after a light patterning system. In this manner, the optical element, under control of the dynamic electric field, can dynamically change its propagation characteristics to dynamically change either a beam of illumination from the illumination system or a patterned beam of radiation from the patterning system, such that they exhibit desired light characteristics.
US08879044B2

A lithographic device includes a cooling device for removing heat from a motor. The cooling device has a cooling element provided in thermal contact with at least part of the motor. The cooling device further has a cooling duct assembly with a supply duct to supply a cooling fluid to the cooling element, and a discharge duct to discharge the cooling fluid from the cooling element. A pump causes the cooling fluid to flow through at least part of the cooling duct assembly. A flow control device controls a flow rate of the cooling fluid through at least part of the cooling duct assembly, to maintain a predetermined average temperature of the cooling fluid in the cooling element.
US08879042B2

An exemplary embodiment relates to a cooling system and a method for cooling an electronic display. A preferred embodiment includes a transparent gas cooling chamber. The transparent gas cooling chamber may have a linear polarizer. The components in the system are preferably housed within the electronic display housing. The cooling chamber defines a gas compartment that is anterior to and coextensive with the electronic display surface. Fans may be used to propel the isolated gas through the cooling chamber. The circulating gas removes heat directly from the electronic display surface by convection. The isolated gas is transparent or at least semi-transparent. The image quality of an exemplary embodiment remains essentially unchanged, even though the gas is flowing through a narrow channel over the visible face of the electronic display surface.
US08879034B2

An electro-optical device includes an insulating film having a tilted face, the tilted face sloping down toward inside of an opening area of a pixel arranged in a pixel area in plan view, and a pixel electrode that is disposed in the pixel on an upper layer side relative to the insulating film and is formed so as to include at least an area that overlaps the tilted face of the insulating film in plan view.
US08879032B2

An alignment layer for a display device may include a plurality of rubbed patterns formed on its surface, wherein each of the rubbed patterns includes a first pattern intersecting a center axis at a first angle, and a second pattern connected to the first pattern and intersecting the center axis at a second angle, and the first pattern and the second pattern are alternately repeated. A liquid crystal display device includes the alignment layer, and a method and apparatus for treating the alignment layer are provided.
US08879023B2

A circuit substrate including a base layer and a plurality of lead units arranged as an array is provided, wherein the base layer has a plurality of through grooves, and the lead units are disposed on the base layer. Each of the lead units includes a common terminal and at least three leads. The common terminal is capable of being divided into a plurality of electrodes connected with each other. The leads are extended outwards from the edge of the common terminal, and each of the leads is extended outwards from the edge of one of the electrodes. The through grooves expose the common terminals of the lead units.
US08879004B2

A high-quality content generating system provided with a feature amount extracting means for extracting the feature amounts of a plurality of pieces of content therefrom, a content grouping means for performing matching between the feature amounts of the plurality of pieces of content extracted by the feature amount extracting means, grouping the same content included in the plurality of pieces of content and the derived content produced by using the same content, and calculating same/derived content grouping information, and a high-quality content generating means for selecting pieces of content to be grouped by the same/derived content grouping information from the plurality of pieces of content and generating content with higher quality by using the selected content.
US08879002B2

A system and method for enhancing the detail edges and transitions in an input video signal. This enhancement may be accomplished by enhancing small detail edges before up-scaling and enhancing large amplitude transitions after up-scaling. For example, detail edge enhancement (detail EE) may be used to enhance the fine details of an input video signal. An edge map may be used to prevent enhancing the large edges and accompanying mosquito noise with the detail enhancement. Noise may additionally be removed from the signal. After the fine details are enhanced, the signal may be up-scaled. Luminance transition improvement (LTI) or chrominance transition improvement (CTI) may be used to enhance the large transitions of the input video signal post scaler.
US08878998B2

A video decoder block provides a common pathway for processing video signals encoded using different video formats. The video decoder block passes the video signals through the same processing components in order convert the signals to a common format for display or storage. Each processing component cat be disabled or by-passed to enable or disable the function performed by the component. This reduces the number of components and signal processors required in devices that need to accommodate signals of different formats.
US08878994B2

According to one embodiment, an information processing apparatus includes a first receiver, a screen transmitter, a second receiver and a controller. The first receiver receives first information associated with a display function of an external device. The screen transmitter generates an operation screen for operating the apparatus based on the first information, and transmits a video signal of the generated operation screen to the external device. The second receiver receives second information associated with content of an operation on the operation screen from the external device. The controller controls operation of the apparatus based on the second information.
US08878991B2

Systems, methods, software, and data structures that provide dynamic ambient lighting synchronized to a video program being watched in a premises are described herein. A video program may be associated with a predefined lighting scheme that specifies or identifies a time-sequenced set of lighting effects (e.g., flashing police lights, sunrise, explosion, etc.) that are to be performed by the dynamic ambient lighting system time-synchronously with the video program. Components of the dynamic ambient lighting system may extract the lighting scheme from video data, parse the lighting scheme into individual lighting effects, and then control a single-color or multicolor light source associated with each of a plurality of light channels (e.g., front right, rear right, front left, rear left, center, and burst channel, among others) based on time-sequenced lighting primitives defined by each lighting effect. Light sources may be wirelessly controlled, e.g., using an IEEE 802.15.4 or ZigBee-compliant wireless system.
US08878987B2

A camera module includes a lens and a lens holder. The lens has a connecting barrel. The lens holder includes a base plate, a number of claws extending up from the base plate and sleeving on the connecting barrel, a fixing block extending up from the base plate and defining a fixing hole, a tightening ring sleeving on the claws and having two end sections sandwiching the fixing block. The tightening ring also includes a tightening screw for threadedly passing the threaded holes to tightening the tightening ring such that the claws deforms and grasps the connecting barrel.
US08878983B2

The invention relates to a system for automatically adjusting an exposure time to improve or otherwise optimize a dynamic range of a digital image. The system includes a camera configured to capture an image of a subject within the field of view at a first exposure time. The captured image is composed of multiple pixels, with each pixel having a respective intensity value. The system further includes a shutter or suitable control configured to control an exposure time of the camera. A controller configured to carryout the following steps including: (a) querying a frequency distribution of pixel intensity values; (b) determining an effective “center of mass” of such a distribution, or histogram, to determine an adjusted exposure time; and (c) capturing a second image of the subject at the adjusted exposure time thereby obtaining an image with an improved or optimal dynamic range.
US08878982B2

A zoom lens includes, in order from an object side to an image side, a positive first lens unit, a negative second lens unit, an aperture stop, a positive third lens unit, and a positive fourth lens unit. The third lens unit includes, in that order, a positive first lens sub-unit, and a negative second lens sub-unit. The second lens sub-unit is movable in a direction having a component perpendicular to an optical axis to change an image forming position in a direction perpendicular to the optical axis. A distance on the optical axis between the aperture stop and the third lens unit at a wide-angle end, a composite focal length of the first lens unit and the second lens unit at the wide-angle end, a focal length of the first lens sub-unit, and a focal length of the second lens sub-unit are appropriately set.
US08878978B2

The present invention determines the dimensions and volume of an object by using a novel 3-D camera that measures the distance to every reflective point in its field of view with a single pulse of light. The distance is computed by the time of flight of the pulse to each camera pixel. The accuracy of the measurement is augmented by capture of the laser pulse shape in each camera pixel. The camera can be used on an assembly line to develop quality control data for manufactured objects or on a moving or stationary system that weighs as well as dimensions the objects. The device can also ascertain the minimum size of a box required to enclose an object.
US08878977B2

Provided is an image processing apparatus which is capable of easily selecting an optimum focus position for an inspection object even when a plurality of candidate focus positions are present. The image processing apparatus according to the invention includes: an imaging unit for imaging a region including an inspection object; a display unit for displaying an image; a focus adjusting unit for adjusting a focus position with respect to the inspection object; and an image processing unit for executing image processing on image data. A plurality of positions where part of the imaged region comes into a focused state are extracted as candidate focus positions, while the focus position with respect to the inspection object is changed, and candidate focus position information is displayed in the display unit. Selection of a focus position is accepted among the plurality of displayed candidate focus positions.
US08878972B2

A source follower connection line connects a gate of a source follower thin film transistor in a first pixel with a gate of a source follower thin film transistor in a second pixel, between adjacent first and second pixel, and a driving circuit turns the transfer thin film transistor in the first pixel region ON and turns the transfer thin film transistor in the second pixel OFF to make the transfer thin film transistor in the first pixel region output the signal of the first pixel.
US08878967B2

A color filter enhancement method for a portable digital image acquisition device includes digitally exposing color pixels of a color sensor array for a first digital exposure duration and digitally exposing white pixels of a color sensor array for a second digital exposure time shorter than the first digital exposure duration. A color filter enhanced digital image is generated using data from both the color pixels exposed for the first digital exposure duration and the white pixels exposed for the second digital exposure duration.
US08878960B2

Provided is an image processing apparatus comprising: an acquisition unit that acquires location information indicating a photographed point and date/time information indicating a photographed date/time for each of a plurality of images representing image data obtained by photographing; a determination unit that determines whether the photographed point of each image is a main photographed point or a sub-photographed point on the basis of the location information and the date/time information; and a recording unit that, if the photographed point of the image is the main photographed point, records information indicating the location of the main photographed point in association with the image data of the image, and that, if the photographed point of the image is the sub-photographed point, records information indicating the locations of the sub-photographed point and of the main photographed point in association with the image data of the image.
US08878959B2

A solid-state imaging device includes a pixel array section and a signal processing section. The pixel array section is configured to include a plurality of arranged rectangular pixels, each of which has different sizes in the vertical and horizontal directions, and a plurality of adjacent ones of which are combined to form a square pixel having the same size in the vertical and horizontal directions. The signal processing section is configured to perform a process of outputting, as a single signal, a plurality of signals read out from the combined plurality of rectangular pixels.
US08878958B2

The image processing apparatus includes a gradient calculating part calculating intensity gradient at each pixel in a captured color image, a first color blur determining part determining that a pixel at which the intensity gradient satisfies a color blur condition using a first threshold is a possible color blur pixel, and a second color blur determining part detecting a saturated pixel in the color image, and determining, when a distance between the saturated pixel and the possible color blur pixel is within a second threshold, that the possible color blur pixel is a color blur pixel. The first and second color blur determining parts change the first and second thresholds depending on at least one of luminance and chroma of the possible color blur pixel.
US08878957B2

In response to an image, a likelihood of flicker within the image is estimated. In response to the estimated likelihood, references are selected from among first and second sets of references. The first set of references are responsive to a first set of reference images captured under particular illumination. The second set of references are responsive to a second set of reference images captured under fluorescent illumination. In response to the selected references, one or more gains are generated for enhancing white balance of the image.
US08878956B2

A CCD captures a subject image passed through a taking lens and an image processing circuit performs various types of image pre-treatment including gamma correction and white balance on image data corresponding to n lines×m rows output by the CCD. The image processing circuit performs format processing on the data which are then compressed at a compression circuit. The white balance adjustment is implemented in line sequence at a line processing circuit which engages in signal processing in pixel sequence in units of individual lines in the output from the CCD. The image data having undergone the pre-treatment are subjected to format processing prior to JPEG compression, at a block processing circuit that engages in signal processing in units of individual blocks each ranging over an n×m (N>n, M>m) block. The signal processing is performed in block sequence.
US08878950B2

Systems and methods in accordance with embodiments of the invention are disclosed that use super-resolution (SR) processes to use information from a plurality of low resolution (LR) images captured by an array camera to produce a synthesized higher resolution image. One embodiment includes obtaining input images using the plurality of imagers, using a microprocessor to determine an initial estimate of at least a portion of a high resolution image using a plurality of pixels from the input images, and using a microprocessor to determine a high resolution image that when mapped through the forward imaging transformation matches the input images to within at least one predetermined criterion using the initial estimate of at least a portion of the high resolution image. In addition, each forward imaging transformation corresponds to the manner in which each imager in the imaging array generate the input images, and the high resolution image synthesized by the microprocessor has a resolution that is greater than any of the input images.
US08878949B2

Disclosed are methods and apparatus for instructing persons using computer based programs and/or remote instructors. One or more video cameras obtain images of the student or other participant. In addition images are analyzed by a computer to determine the locations or motions of one or more points on the student. This location data is fed to computer program which compares the motions to known desired movements, or alternatively provides such movement data to an instructor, typically located remotely, who can aid in analyzing student performance. The invention preferably is used with a substantially life-size display, such as a projection display can provide, in order to make the information displayed a realistic partner or instructor for the student. In addition, other applications are disclosed to sports training, dance, and remote dating.
US08878944B2

There is provided an image processing apparatus including multiple imaging units included in a stereo camera, the multiple imaging units configured to photograph a chart pattern including a pole, and a correction parameter calculation unit configured to calculate a correction parameter that corrects a gap between the multiple imaging units, based on the pole and a pattern included in the chart pattern photographed by the multiple imaging units.
US08878940B2

The tracking target subject specifying unit specifies a tracking target subject in image data. The first tracking position detection unit detects first characteristic information from the image data and set a first candidate tracking position based on the first characteristic information. The second tracking position detection unit detects second characteristic information from the image data and detect a second candidate tracking position based on the second characteristic information. The reference information acquisition unit acquires reference information. The control unit decides a true tracking position based on two determinations.
US08878938B2

A system and method for generating security alerts for a facility is presented. The system can comprise a server, cameras operable to stream video to the server or other storage location and to a surveillance center of the facility, input devices, a first module operable to assign one or more codes to the facility, associate one or more cameras with each code, and associate response guidelines with each code; and a second module operable to receive one code of the one or more codes from one of the one or more input devices, notify the facility assigned to the one code based on the response guidelines, stream video from the one or more cameras associated with the one code to the surveillance center of the facility, and generate the security alert based on the video stream. In one aspect, a user can send a video feed along with the code.
US08878934B2

Disclosed is an image display device that allows intuitive guidance of a vehicle body based on an assisting image displaced in a screen. The image display device includes an image processing section for displaying a captured image of a rear camera on a monitor. This image processing section includes a synthesis processing unit for displaying a perspective image providing a perspective in superposition over the captured image being displayed on the monitor and a display mode setting unit that realizes selection between a viewing field-fixed mode for displaying the perspective image in superposition with the perspective image being fixed within a viewing field of the monitor and a road surface-fixed mode for displaying the perspective image in superposition with allowing scrolling thereof in unison with a road surface.
US08878933B2

A method and apparatus for providing and determining integrity of video is provided herein. During operation, a trusted unit such as a computer housed within a securable trunk of a vehicle generates or receives data on stimuli applied to a camera and receives video purportedly taken by that camera, as means for the trusted unit or an independent entity to determine if time periods of the stimuli correspond to responses seen or heard within the video.
US08878929B2

A three dimensional shape measurement apparatus includes m projecting sections, each of which includes a light source and a grating element, and, while moving the grating element by n times, projects a grating pattern light onto a measurement target for each movement, wherein the ‘n’ and the ‘m’ are natural numbers greater than or equal to 2, an imaging section photographing a grating pattern image reflected by the measurement target, and a control section controlling that, while photographing the grating pattern image by using one of the m projecting sections, a grating element of at least another projecting section is moved. Thus, measurement time may be reduced.
US08878922B2

A video image information processing apparatus includes a half mirror, an imaging unit arranged behind the half mirror for imaging a subject present in front of the half mirror, and a display unit that displays a video image in the half mirror. The video image information processing apparatus extracts a predetermined part of a human body from a video image of the subject captured by the imaging unit and performs measurement on the subject using information other than the video image. The video image information processing apparatus acquires evaluation information based on a result of the measurement performed by using information other than the video image and the position of the predetermined part of a human body. The video image information processing apparatus controls display by a display unit such that the acquired evaluation information is associated with the predetermined part in a mirror image in the half mirror.