| Sony Corporation, a Japanese corporation Patent applications |
| Patent application number | Title | Published |
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| 20120117168 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ENABLING DEVICE COMMUNICATION AND CONTROL USING XMPP - A method and device is provided for platform independent device communication by detecting a request at a processor-based device to perform a function, determining an external device corresponding to the request, retrieving a tag for the external device for performing a function corresponding to the request and generating a message implemented in XMPP, having embedded therein the tag, wherein the tag is essential at the external device for performing the function corresponding to the request. Receiving the message at a device, determining whether the message comprises a device message, retrieving a tag included in the message, wherein the tag corresponds to an executable command to perform a function and executing the tag to perform the function. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117108 | QUICK PARTS LIST - PANEL SUB FINDER - The instant invention provides a method, executable by a processor based device, that eliminates the need to manually look up a list of support parts to determine the stock availability of one or more replacement part alternatives, based at least in part on the stock availability of one or more support parts for the one or more replacement part alternatives. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20110244696 | 60 GHz DATA TRANSMISSION THROUGH A MECHANICAL SWIVEL CONNECTION - A swivel mechanism comprising a first swivel portion having a first coupling portion and a second swivel portion having a second coupling portion, the second swivel portion dimensioned for mechanically engaging with the first swivel portion to provide at least a first mechanical coupling position and at least a first data communication channel, wherein the first data communication channel is provided through a hollow cavity formed when the first swivel portion and the second swivel portion are in the first mechanical coupling position and wherein the first data communication channel is configured to convey 60 GHz data signals when the first swivel portion and the second swivel portion are in the first mechanical coupling position. | 10-06-2011 |
| 20110205849 | DIGITAL CALENDAR DEVICE AND METHODS - A digital calendar device involving an electronic device having a graphic user interface. The electronic device is capable of receiving at least one note from a user, and retrieving and displaying the at least one note, as well as running on at least one operating system. The digital calendar device further includes features, such retrieval and displaying features, a touch screen interface, handwriting support feature, a speech recognition feature, a reminder feature, a frame feature, a mechanical support feature, and a fortune-teller software program. | 08-25-2011 |
| 20110174938 | Modular Low Profile Swivel Mechanism - A swivel mechanism, comprising a base configured to be attached to a screen and further configured to rotate with the screen as the screen is rotated, a hub configured to fit into the base and remain stationary as the screen and the base are rotated and two springs configured to be set into the hub and configured to compress to provide a resistance torque as the screen is rotated. | 07-21-2011 |
| 20110096073 | MUSIC-VISUALIZER SYSTEM AND METHODS - A music visualization system and methods involving a central processing unit capable of converting waveform data to geometry data, a graphics processing unit capable of recognizing and accepting the geometry data and rendering a plurality of graphical images, a custom shader software program being operable on the graphics processing unit, an embeddable platform being in electronic communication with the graphics processing unit, and an audiovisual display device in electronic communication with the graphics processing unit and the embeddable platform. | 04-28-2011 |
| 20110085024 | 3D MULTIVIEW DISPLAY - A method for displaying content to a user including receiving a first content and a second content, applying a first depth to the first content, applying a second depth to the second content and compositing the first content and the second content to generate a 3-Dimensional (3-D) composite content, wherein the composite content is configured to be displayed on a 3-D display, wherein the composite content is configured to be played back such that the first content and the second content are displayed simultaneously, and wherein the composite content is further configured to be played back such that one of the first content and the second content is displayed appearing in focus and the second one of the first content and the second content is displayed appearing out of focus based on a selection of one of the first content and the second content. | 04-14-2011 |
| 20110069073 | WIRELESS ATTACHED READER SCREEN FOR CELL PHONES - A display device is provided comprising a housing, a communication means within the housing configured to receive content from a local content source device external to the housing and to transmit messages to the local content source device, wherein the content comprises a static screen image, a storage means configured to store the content having been received from the content source device, wherein the storage means stores no more than a single static screen image and a display configured to display the content. A method for use with the display device is further provided. | 03-24-2011 |
| 20110010322 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR TRANSITIONING FROM A CASE-BASED CLASSIFIER SYSTEM TO A RULE-BASED CLASSIFIER SYSTEM - A computer implemented method including determining whether a predetermined condition is satisfied with respect to a case-based dataset stored within memory accessible by at least one processor; generating, for each of a plurality of rule-based classifiers, rule-based classification data identifying class boundaries between the records upon determining that the predetermined condition has been satisfied; computing a structural risk of the rule-based classification data for each of the rule-based classifiers with respect to the records identified within the record data; selecting rule-based classifiers having generated rule-based classification data identifying class boundaries between the records with a structural risk below a predetermined threshold; identifying selected rule-based classifiers having rule-based classification data that is within a predetermined degree of similarity with the case-based classification data; and replacing the case-based dataset stored within the memory with rule-based classification data of at least one of the identified rule-based classifiers. | 01-13-2011 |
| 20100287476 | SYSTEM AND INTERFACE FOR MIXING MEDIA CONTENT - A visual display interface involving an associated display icon. The display icon is dragged across the visual display interface in a movement so as to cause the mixing of media streams. The output is a new mix of the various media streams. | 11-11-2010 |
| 20100286806 | DEVICE AND METHODS FOR AUDIO DATA ANALYSIS IN AN AUDIO PLAYER - A method of data analysis for an audio player, which involves analyzing at least a portion of audio data; selecting a sound profile based upon the analysis of the audio data; adjusting sound field settings according to the sound profile; and outputting at least a portion of the audio data according to the sound field settings, and an audio player device involving an audio analysis circuit adapted to determine a characteristic of audio data; a profile selection circuit adapted to select a sound profile corresponding to the characteristic of audio data; and a sound field circuit adapted to adjust sound field settings according to the sound profile. | 11-11-2010 |
| 20100238293 | GRAPHICAL POWER METER FOR CONSUMER TELEVISIONS - A graphical power meter involving a device for measuring, in real time, an internal power consumption value corresponding to power being consumed by an electronic device; and a device for displaying a graphical representation of the real-time internal power consumption value from the measuring device to a consumer. | 09-23-2010 |
| 20100231725 | ILLUMINANT INDEPENDENT COLOR CALIBRATION USING COLORED RAYS APPROACH - The color calibration using colored rays method achieves illuminant independence in calibrating digital still cameras. A constraint is developed using matrix-vector operations and properties of the Kronecker product. The constraint ensures similar calibration performance between colored rays set and the Macbeth ColorChecker. An optimization scheme using orthogonal non-negative matrix factorization with the new constraint is able to obtain the optimal colored rays set. Then, by acquiring an image of the optimal colored rays set, a camera is able to determine an adjustment matrix for color calibration. Experimental results show that compared to traditional calibration approach for digital still cameras, the colored rays approach gives smaller color error under various evaluation illuminants with only one shot needed. | 09-16-2010 |
| 20100226567 | COLOR EFFECTS FOR COMPRESSED DIGITAL VIDEO - Implementing color effects in compressed digital video is improved upon by re-using the original video's compression parameters during the re-encoding stage, such that the parameters do not need to be re-estimated by the encoder. This improved method reduces complexity and also improves quality. Quality is improved due to re-use of the compression parameters since accumulated error which is common when re-encoding compressed video is prevented. For digital negatives, the effect is able to be implemented even more efficiently. | 09-09-2010 |
| 20100226437 | REDUCED-RESOLUTION DECODING OF AVC BIT STREAMS FOR TRANSCODING OR DISPLAY AT LOWER RESOLUTION - A method of and system for reducing complexity for transcoding Advanced Video Coding (AVC) videos is described herein. Transcoding from higher resolution signals to lower resolution signals or to signals for a lower resolution display is implemented. The complexity is reduced by decoding the AVC video at reduced horizontal and/or vertical resolution. This results in the reduction of computation cost for decoding and re-sampling the AVC video to lower resolution. | 09-09-2010 |
| 20100201646 | E-INK TOUCHSCREEN VISUALIZER FOR HOME AV SYSTEM - An interface apparatus includes a main unit, an array of interface modules, driver circuitry, and a remote unit. The main unit outputs files to an output unit, is detachably couplable to interface modules and assigns content identifiers to interface modules. The array presents an image to the user and each interface module can be engaged by a user. The driver circuitry is adapted to drive the array to present an image to the user based upon the user's engagement with an interface module. The remote unit is coupled to the output unit and can be detachably coupled to the interface module. When coupled to the interface module, the remote unit can access the assigned identifier and transmit a request signal to the main unit based on the identifier. The request signal is adapted to cause the main unit to output a file identified by the identifier to the output unit. | 08-12-2010 |
| 20100067818 | System and method for high quality image and video upscaling - A low complexity upscaling method to generate higher resolution image and video with high quality is described herein. Natural edge smoothness and sharpness are preserved while overshooting artifacts and the “edge dilation” problem are eliminated. To obtain edge smoothness and remove jaggy artifacts along the edge, a bi-directional filtering which is based on two orthogonal directions is used to generate higher resolution pixels. The direction close to the edge direction is heavily weighted, and the direction far from the edge direction is lightly weighted. The weight of each direction is determined by the developed directional vector difference measurement method. To eliminate the overshooting artifacts and solving the thick edge problem, a dual-sided interpolation method is implemented. By using the dual-sided interpolation method, the interpolation result is pushed towards a dominant transition desired location which removes overshooting artifacts. A thin and sharp edge is obtained instead of a blurred, thick edge. | 03-18-2010 |
| 20100027905 | System and method for image and video encoding artifacts reduction and quality improvement - Reducing artifacts and improving quality for image and video encoding is performed in one pass to preserve natural edge smoothness and sharpness. To reduce artifacts and improve quality, several steps are implemented including spatial variation extraction, determining if a block is flat or texture/edge, classifying the pixels as texture or noise, detecting a dominant edge, checking the spatial variation of neighboring blocks, generating base weights, generating filter coefficients, filtering pixels and adaptive enhancement. A device which utilizes the method of reducing artifacts and improving quality achieves higher quality images and/or video with reduced artifacts. | 02-04-2010 |
| 20100014588 | Speculative start point selection for motion estimation iterative search - A speculative start point selection for motion estimation iterative search improves the efficiency and quality of the integer-pel motion estimation iterative search by speculatively selecting the start position of the iteration. The start position is selected by comparing the Sum of Absolute Differences (SAD) value of a 0 motion vector, a predicted motion vector and a global motion vector (GMV) and selecting the position with the smallest SAD value. A refinement scheme with a threshold improves the efficiency and quality of the motion estimation iterative search by performing several comparisons to ensure the proper motion vector is selected. Applications of this improved motion estimation search include stabilizing an image as well as many other applications where motion vectors are used. | 01-21-2010 |
| 20100014001 | Simple next search position selection for motion estimation iterative search - A next position selector for motion estimation iterative search improves the efficiency and quality of the integer-pel motion estimation iterative search by easily and quickly determining the center point of the next search area. By taking a position of the SAD value of the present search area and mapping that position to a center point of the next search area, the process of determining the next search area is very efficient. A local minimum avoidance scheme improves avoids being trapped in a local minimum. By remembering the previous position/direction, the search is able to continue in the correct direction to ensure that the search continues without a back and forth search that is trapped in a local minimum. Applications of this improved motion estimation search include stabilizing an image as well as many other applications where motion vectors are used. | 01-21-2010 |
| 20090265448 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR VIEWING CHOICES AND MAKING SELECTIONS - In one embodiment, the methods and apparatuses detect an input; display a plurality of selections; detect a location of a first segment relative to the plurality of selections; highlight a particular selection from the plurality of selections when the first segment is within an area of the particular selection; and select the particular selection based on the first segment being located within the area of the particular selection. | 10-22-2009 |
| 20090262800 | Block based codec friendly edge detection and transform selection - Low complexity edge detection and DCT type selection method to improve the visual quality of H.264/AVC encoded video sequence is described. Encoding-generated information is reused to detect an edge macroblock. Variance and Mean Absolute Difference (MAD) of one macroblock shows a certain relationship that is able to be used to differentiate the edge macroblock and the non-edge macroblock. Also, the variance difference of neighbor macroblocks provides a hint for edge existence. Then, a block-based edge detection method uses this information. To determine the DCT type for each block, the detected edges are differentiated as visual obvious edge, texture-like edge, soft edge and strong edge. 8×8 DCT is used for texture-like edges and the 4×4 DCT is used for all the other edges. The result is an efficient and accurate edge detection and transform selection method. | 10-22-2009 |
| 20090237109 | Efficient method for implementing programmable impedance output drivers and programmable input on die termination on a bi-directional data bus - A combined input and termination circuit comprises a fixed portion of impedance and a programmable portion of impedance. The fixed portion is able to be fixed in a driver mode and a termination mode. The programmable portion is able to be configured to have a desired impedance in a driver mode or a termination mode while maintaining minimum associated capacitance. | 09-24-2009 |
| 20090180398 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR FACILITATING INTERACTION BETWEEN THE SERVICES PROVIDED BY RESPECTIVE NETWORKED DEVICES - A method to facilitate interaction between the services provided by respective networked devices. The method includes receiving service capabilities associated with a source device which has joined a first network, and receiving a service application at a presentation device. The service application is associated with at least one service identified by the service capabilities associated with the source device. The method further includes presenting a service associated with the source device on the presentation device utilizing the service application. | 07-16-2009 |
| 20090106444 | CEC ENHANCEMENT - A method for determining transfer rate comprising selecting a first transfer rate of a plurality of transfer rates, transmitting a message at the first transfer rate over a Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) line of a High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) network, determining whether an acknowledgment to the message having been transmitted at the first transfer rate is received, storing, in the event the acknowledgment to the message having been transmitted at the first transfer rate is received, the first transfer rate and storing, in the event no acknowledgment is received, a default transfer rate of the plurality of transfer rates. | 04-23-2009 |
| 20090067494 | Enhancing the coding of video by post multi-modal coding - Post multi-modal coding overcomes the shortcomings of video encoders which fail to meet an expected quality standard while encoding some portions of a video. The deficient encoding is typically due to the type of video content or the encoding technique. A method to improve the quality of the deficient portions, identifies macroblocks that are encoded at a deficient quality. Then, the identified macroblocks are encoded with another suitable encoding technique so that the desired quality is met. The improved macroblocks are then inserted into the original bit-stream, replacing the lower quality sections. | 03-12-2009 |
| 20090049186 | METHOD TO FACILITATE TRICK-MODES FOR STREAMING VIDEO - A method for navigating multimedia content comprising receiving an index list comprising a plurality of index points corresponding to timing information of portions of multimedia content, wherein the index list facilitates navigation through the multimedia content, selecting one of the plurality of index points from the index list, transmitting a request, after selecting one of the plurality of index points, to a service provider for one of the portions of multimedia content, wherein the request comprises the corresponding one of the plurality of index points, and receiving one of the portions of multimedia content corresponding to the request. | 02-19-2009 |
| 20090049074 | CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM - A content management server is provided. The content management server includes at least one relay element to identify media content and media players within a network and acquire content characteristic information from the media content and media player characteristic information from the media players. A database stores the content characteristic information and the media player characteristic information. A processor performs a compatibility test, based on the content characteristic information and the media player characteristic information, to determine whether selected media content is playable on any of the media players and to indicate a result of the compatibility test via a user interface. | 02-19-2009 |
| 20080238653 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR IDENTIFYING AN ELECTRONIC APPLIANCE - Methods and systems for identifying an appliance comprising receiving indication of an appliance coupling to a communication port on a communication network and retrieving, over the communication network, a first identification assigned to the appliance during manufacturing of the appliance. The appliance is validated using the first identification and a status of the appliance is determined. | 10-02-2008 |
