Patent application number | Description | Published |
20120086615 | Method and Apparatus for an Integrated Antenna - Aspects of a method and apparatus for an integrated antenna are provided. In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, a substrate may comprise one or more metal traces thereon and/or embedded therein. The substrate may be sufficiently flexible to be bent or molded into a shape that corresponds to the outer dimensions of a battery. When the substrate is bent into the shape corresponding to the outer dimensions of the battery, the one or more metal traces may form an antenna. A ferromagnetic laminate may be affixed to a first side of the substrate, and a dielectric laminate may be affixed to a second side of the substrate. The substrate may be wrapped around a battery and the battery and substrate may be integrated into a smartcard or other wireless communication device. | 04-12-2012 |
20120087267 | Method and Apparatus for Adaptive Searching of Distributed Datasets - A first communication device comprising memory in which data is stored may receive a request packet from a second communication device, measure received signal strength for the request packet, and determine whether to perform the requested search of the data stored in the memory based on the received signal strength and the power at which the request packet was transmitted. The search request packet may comprise a request to search the data stored in the memory, and a transmit power field that indicates a power at which the request packet was transmitted. The determining may be based on a result of a comparison between the received signal strength and a threshold and/or based on a comparison of a relative power and a threshold. The relative power may be calculated utilizing the received signal strength and the power at which the packet was transmitted. | 04-12-2012 |
20120087350 | Method and Apparatus for Low-Power, Long-Range Networking - An endpoint device may be operable to transmit and receive data wirelessly via a medium to which access is time-division multiplexed into a plurality of repeating windows. A first window of the plurality of repeating windows may be time-division multiplexed into a plurality of timeslots utilized for transmitting beacon signals. A second window of the plurality of repeating windows may be time-division multiplexed into a plurality of timeslots utilized for transmitting alarm signals. The endpoint may be assigned one of the first timeslots and, when an alarm condition is present, select one of the second timeslots for transmitting an alarm signal based on the assigned first timeslot, and based on a hash function. The endpoint may then transmit an alarm signal during the second timeslot. The endpoint may be operable to synchronize its local clock by listening to beacons transmitted by other endpoints. | 04-12-2012 |
20120088449 | Method and Apparatus for A Multi-band, Multi-mode Smartcard - Aspects of a method and apparatus for a multi-band, multi-mode smartcard are provided. An ISO 7816 compliant smartcard may comprise a near-field radio operable to communicate wirelessly, a far-field radio operable to communicate wirelessly, and a contact-based radio operable to communicate via one or more metal contacts of the smartcard. The smartcard may be operable to receive data via a first one of the far-field radio, the near-field radio, and the contact-based radio, and transmit the received data via a second one of the far-field radio, the near-field radio, and the contact-based radio. The smartcard may be operable to transcode the received data prior to the transmitting the received data via the second one of the far-field radio, the near-field radio, and the contact-based radio. | 04-12-2012 |
20120116694 | Method and Apparatus for Tire Pressure Monitoring - A tire pressure monitoring system comprising a sensor located inside a tire of a vehicle may be operable to measure one or both of a temperature inside the tire, and flexion of the tire. The tire pressure monitoring system may be operable to calculate an air pressure inside the tire based on one or both of the measured temperature and the measured flexion. Communications between the sensor and other components of the tire pressure monitoring system may be wireless, such as, for example, via an ISO 18000-7 link. The sensor may be embedded in the tire (e.g., in the sidewall, in the tread, or in the liner). The sensor may measures flexion of the tire at a point (e.g., the point where the tire meets the ground) where the tire is being compressed and at a point (e.g., the point opposite where the tire meets the ground) where the tire is not being compressed. | 05-10-2012 |
20120116887 | Method and Apparatus for Electronic Payment and Authentication - A first device may be operable to receive a request to accept a payment via an ISO 18000-7 interface. The first device may transmit, via the ISO 18000-7 interface, a wake-up message to a second device comprising an ISO 18000-7 interface. The first device may transmit, via the ISO 18000-7 interface, an authorization request to the second device. The first device may receive an authorization message from the second device. The first device may decide whether to accept the payment based on the received authorization message. The first device may register with a retail outlet's network upon coming into range of a registration terminal of the network. While registered with the network, the first device may communicate with the network utilizing the ISO 18000-7 interface. The first device may deregister with the network upon coming into range of a deregistration terminal of the network. | 05-10-2012 |
20120118952 | Method and Apparatus for Interfacing with a Smartcard - A device may be configured such that a smartcard may be physically mounted in, on, and/or to the device. The device may comprise one or more circuits that enable communicating over a far-field communication link and that enable communicating with a smartcard when the smartcard is physically mounted in, on, and/or to the device. The far-field communication link may be an ISO 18000-7 link. The device may communicate with a smartcard via contacts and/or via near-field communications. The device may be operable to relay data between a near-field communication link between the device and a smartcard and a far-field communication link between the device and another device. The device may be generally rectangular in shape, less than one centimeter thick, than one centimeter longer than an ISO 7816 compliant smartcard, and less than one centimeter wider than an ISO 7816 compliant smartcard. | 05-17-2012 |
20120207141 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PLUG AND PLAY, NETWORKABLE ISO 18000-7 CONNECTIVITY - A device may comprise a Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface and a wireless interface operable to communicate in accordance with the ISO 18000-7 standard. The device may be operable to receive a command via the USB interface and transmit the command via the wireless interface. The device may be operable to receive data via the wireless interface and transmit the data via the USB interface. A form factor of the USB device may be such that it can be plugged directly into a USB port without any external cabling between the USB device and said USB port. | 08-16-2012 |
20120224491 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ADAPTIVE TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT IN A RESOURCE- CONSTRAINED NETWORK - An electronic device may utilize or support adaptive traffic management in a resource-constrained network. The adaptive traffic management may comprise applying a multi-stage filtering to packets received by the electronic device, wherein each stage of the multi-stage filtering may comprises a validation check and a failure of any validation check of any stage when handling a packet terminates the handling of the packet. The adaptive traffic management may comprise apply an adaptive search function, whereby when the number of search responses received by the electronic device exceeds a particular maximum response threshold, one or more criteria for modifying search requests may be selected, to reduce number of expected search responses, and the modified search criteria may be applied to generated modified search command(s) that are applied in the search function. | 09-06-2012 |
20120224530 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR RAPID GROUP SYNCHRONIZATION - A first device of a network may decide to transmit a flood of packets that is longer in duration than the maximum amount of time that the first device can continuously transmit. The first device may coordinate with one or more second devices of the network such that each of the one or more second devices transmits a respective second portion of the flood of packets following transmission of a first portion of the flood of packets by the first network device. The packets may advertise a pending network event that is to occur at a time indicated by the contents of the packets. The first device may select the one or more second devices from a plurality of devices based on a location of the one or more second devices and/or how many third devices are in the network. | 09-06-2012 |
20120224543 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR QUERY-BASED CONGESTION CONTROL - An electronic device may be operable to communicate over a physical medium and to regulate the transmission of a message onto the physical medium. The device may access the medium in accordance with a CSMA scheme, wherein one or more values of one or more CSMA parameters may be determined based on the result of a comparison of a received search token to data stored in the communication device. The message may be a response to a received request message, and the search token may have been received in the request message. A value of the CSMA parameter(s) may be determined based on the result of a comparison of the score and one or more thresholds. The threshold(s) may have been received in the request message. The value(s) of the CSMA parameter(s) may be determined based on one or more initial values contained in the received request message. | 09-06-2012 |
20120224590 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DYNAMIC MEDIA ACCESS CONTROL IN A MULTIPLE ACCESS SYSTEM - An electronic device may be operable to control access to a physical medium (e.g., airwaves, a copper cable, or an optical fiber) utilizing carrier sense multiple access (CSMA). The amount of time that the electronic device must sense the physical medium as being inactive before it permits transmission of a message onto the physical medium may be determined based on: the size of the message, the type of the message, the symbol rate at which the message is to be transmitted, and/or a channel onto which the message is to be transmitted. Similarly, other aspects of how and when electronic device transmits and/or receives on the physical medium may be controlled via one or more dynamically configurable parameters which may be configured based on characteristics of received and/or to-be-transmitted messages. | 09-06-2012 |
20120225687 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR POWER AUTOSCALING IN A RESOURCE-CONSTRAINED NETWORK - An electronic device may adaptively manage power consumption associated with transmission and/or reception of signals by the electronic device, wherein the adaptive power management may comprise adjusting transmit power and/or one or more power-related thresholds used during transmission or reception operations in the electronic device. Adjustments to the transmit power and/or the one or more power-related thresholds may be determined based on comparison between power measurement associated with signals received by said electronic device with original transmit power for the signals. The reception power measurement may be determined based on detected received signal strength indication (RSSI). The original transmit power may be determined based on signal transmission information embedded in at least one frame carried via said signals. The original transmission power may be embedded as an equivalent isotropic radiated power (EIRP) value. | 09-06-2012 |
20120226822 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ADDRESSING IN A RESOURCE-CONSTRAINED NETWORK - An electronic device may receive a protocol data unit (PDU) comprising a plurality of addressing bits. Data-link-layer processing of the PDU may be based on each of the addressing bits. Network layer processing of the PDU may be based on a first subset of the plurality of addressing bits. Transport-layer processing of the PDU may be based on a second subset of plurality of addressing bits. The data-link-layer processing may comprise determining whether the PDU is unicast-addressed or non-unicast-addressed. For a unicast-addressed PDU, the data-link-layer processing may comprise determining whether the PDU is destined for the electronic device based on a comparison of a Target ID field of the PDU and a device ID of the electronic device. For a non-unicast-addressed PDU, the Target ID field may not be present, and whether the PDU is destined for the electronic device may be determined based on other criteria. | 09-06-2012 |
20120226955 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR FORWARD ERROR CORRECTION (FEC) IN A RESOURCE-CONSTRAINED NETWORK - An electronic device may utilize or support adaptive use of forward error correction (FEC) in a resource-constrained network. The adaptive FEC use may comprise determining whether use of FEC encoding in transmissions from another electronic device to the electronic device is necessary, desirable, and/or feasible, and when use of FEC encoding is deemed feasible and either necessary or desirable, instructing the another electronic device to utilize FEC encoding when transmitting signals destined for the electronic device. Use of FEC encoding may be determined to be feasible, necessary and/or desirable based on power loss associated with the communications from the another electronic device; based on determination of latency associated with the communications from the another electronic device; and/or based on power and/or processing related resources in the electronic device. The electronic device may separately and selectively apply FEC encoding to transmissions to the another electronic device. | 09-06-2012 |
20130017788 | PROTECTIVE CASE FOR ADDING WIRELESS FUNCTIONALITY TO A HANDHELD ELECTRONIC DEVICE - A protective case for an electronic device may comprise a wireless adaptor for adding wireless capabilities, including support of additional wireless communication protocols, to the electronic device. The system may enable, for example, location based services functions, social networking functions, and messaging functions. | 01-17-2013 |