Apple patents range from Nike+iPod technology to an electronic device holder
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Apple patents range from Nike+iPod technology to an electronic device holder

Patent number 7643895 is for a portable media device with workout support (the Nike+iPod technology). Improved techniques and systems for utilizing a portable electronic device to monitor, process, present and manage data captured by a remote sensor are disclosed. The portable electronic device offers a convenient user interface that can be visual and/or audio based customized to a particular application, user-friendly and/or dynamic. The portable electronic device can pertain to a portable media player and thus also provide media playback. The inventors are Sandeep Gupta, Greg Marriott, Max Sprauer, David A. Shayer, John Wesley Archibald and Shannon E. Wells.

Patent number 7641477 is for an electromagnetic connector for an electronic device (Apple's MagSafe technology on its laptops). An electrical plug and receptacle relying on magnetic force from an electromagnet to maintain contact are disclosed. The plug and receptacle can be used as part of a power adapter for connecting an electronic device, such as a laptop computer, to a power supply. The plug includes electrical contacts, which are preferably biased toward corresponding contacts on the receptacle. The plug and receptacle each have a magnetic element. The magnetic element on one of the plug or receptacle can be a magnet or ferromagnetic material. The magnetic element on the other of the plug or receptacle is an electromagnet. When the plug and receptacle are brought into proximity, the magnetic attraction between the electromagnet magnet and its complement, whether another magnet or a ferromagnetic material, maintains the contacts in an electrically conductive relationship. The inventors are John DiFonzo, Bartley K. Andre, Kanye Lim, Matthew Dean Rohrbach, Mark Edward Doutt and Jean-Marc Gery.

Patent number 7655099 involves for a dynamic generation and automated distribution of an user interface from a database model. Via the patent an application server creates a user interface description in accordance with the database model. The description is then distributed to the client, which interprets the description and creates the user interface therefrom. The inventors are Andreas W. Wendker and Eric Noyau.

Patent number D607469 is for a the ornamental design of a graphical user interface for a display screen or a portion thereof. The inventors are Matt Evans, Brian R. Frick, Sean Harold, David Sams and Loren Skelly.

Patent number 7643011 involves noise detection in multi-touch sensors. Multi-touch touch-sensing devices and methods are described. The touch sensing devices can include multiple sense points, each of which can be stimulated with a plurality of periodic waveforms having different frequencies to measure a touch value at the sense point. Noise at one or more of the frequencies can interfere with this measurement. Therefore, various noise detection (and rejection) techniques are described. The noise detection techniques include two-clean-frequency noise detection, one-clean-frequency noise rejection, and combined two-clean-frequency/one-clean-frequency noise detection. Each of the noise detection techniques can include statistical analyses of the sample values obtained. The touch sensing methods and devices can be incorporated into interfaces for a variety of electronic devices such as a desktop, tablet, notebook, and handheld computers, personal digital assistants, media players, and mobile telephones. The inventors are Sean Erik O'Connor and Wayne Carl Westerman.

Patent number 7643037 is for a method and apparatus for tilting by applying effects to a number of computer-generated characters. Some embodiments of the invention provide a method for presenting computer-generated characters. The method defines several frames for a character and sequentially presents the frames. Each frame depicts a particular representation of the character. Also, at least two of the frames provide different representations of the character. Some embodiments provide a method for applying effects to computer-generated characters. This method applies an effect to the computer-generated characters by first generating an effect script. It then selects the generated effect script to apply to the computer-generated characters. The inventors are Tom Langmacher, Mary E. Massey and David Howell.

Patent number 7643789 involves multimedia data transfer for a personal communications device. In a portable multimedia device, data is passed between a sender and receiver unit by way of voice channel only. Multimedia data is vocalized and then forwarded to a receiver unit by way of the voice channel without the use of a backend server. Once received at the receiver unit, the vocalized data can be converted to an audio signal that can then output by way of an audio output device (such as a speaker, earphone, etc.). The inventor is Anthony M. Fadell.

Patent number 7643693 is for a fast, lossless encoder for digitized analog data. Lossless compression and the corresponding decompression of image and audio data are enabled using a combination of dynamic prediction and Golomb coding. First, data is converted from the RGB domain into the YUV domain. Next, a dynamic prediction algorithm is run to express pixel values as differential values rather than original bit values. Prediction coefficients are re-evaluated on the fly enabling additional compression because of more accurate predictors. An Adaptive Golomb Engine next performs an additional compression step, using an adaptive form of Golomb encoding in which mean values are variable across the data. The use of variable mean values reduces the deleterious effects found in conventional Golomb encoding in which localized regions of similar data are inefficiently coded if their bit values are uncommon in the data as a whole. The inventors are Richard E. Crandall, Evan T. Jones, Jason Klivington and Mitchell Oslick.

Patent number 7642442 is for methods, programs, storage media and systems for recording and compiling a music section. The patent relates to a method for recording and compiling a music section, wherein multiple takes of the music section are recorded; and wherein the method uses a take folder to store the multiple takes. The take folder may belong to a single track. Sections of one or more takes can be selected to be part of a resulting compilation which is composed of the selected sections. In one embodiment, a method automatically ensures that selected sections do not overlap in time and that there are no breaks between adjacent selections. In addition, the present invention relates to programs, a storage media and data processing systems having the above features as well as to a storage medium containing the music produced thereby. The inventors are Thorsten Adam, Jens Altfelder and Robert Hunt.

Patent number 7641498 involves universal serial bus plug and receptacle coupling arrangements. A Universal Serial Bus socket-equipped arrangement (USB-SEA) configured for mating with a Universal Serial Bus (USB) plug having a plug metal housing and an aperture disposed in the plug metal housing. The arrangement includes a plug-receiving cavity configured to receive the USB plug. The arrangement further includes a spring-loaded mechanism disposed within the plug-receiving cavity. The spring-loaded mechanism is biased toward an interior region of the plug-receiving cavity. The spring-loaded mechanism is also configured to slide along the connector metal housing of the USB plug when the USB plug is inserted into the plug-receiving cavity and to movably mate with the aperture disposed in the plug metal housing when the USB plug is in a terminal mating position with the USB socket assembly. The spring-loaded mechanism represents one of a spring-loaded ball and a spring-loaded pin. The inventors are Evans Hankey, Rico Zorkendorfer, John Benjamin Filson, Douglas Joseph Weber and Stephen Zadesky.

Patent number 7643706 is for an image management tool with a calendar interface. Techniques are provided for automatically organizing and presenting photographs based on the date information associated with photographs. In one embodiment, a calendar-like user interface is provided. By interacting with the user-interface, the user can select specific dates. In response to the user's selections of the specific dates, the image organization tool displays all photographs that are associated with date information that falls within the specific dates. The inventors are Peter K. Wagner, Jeffry L. Robbin, Joshua D. Fagans, Timothy B. Martin and Timothy E. Wasko.

Patent number 7643010 involves peripheral pixel noise reduction. Techniques for identifying and discriminating between different input patterns to a multi-touch touch-screen device are described. By way of example, large objects hovering a short distance from the touch-surface (e.g., a cheek, thigh or chest) may be identified and distinguished from physical contacts to the surface. In addition, rough contacts due to, for example, ears and earlobes, may be similarly identified and distinguished from contacts due to fingers, thumbs, palms and finger clasps. In one implementation, a unique technique to reduce the noise in segmented image peripheral pixels. The inventors are Carl Wayne Westerman and Steve Hotelling.

Patent number 7643698 involves image sharpening using diffusion. The invention involves an improved sharpening technique sharpens an image using diffusion rather than a Gaussian blur in the smearing phase. After an appropriate radius or number of passes is determined for the pixels of an image, a diffusive process is applied to the image in the smearing phase to generate a blurred image. The values of each pixel in the original image are differenced with the values of each corresponding pixel in the blurred image. The difference may be weighted by input from a user. The resulting value is added to the original image and a sharpened version of the original image is created. The inventor is Russell M. Reid.

Patent number 7644397 involves software performance analysis using data mining. system, method, and computer program for analyzing code execution and software performance characteristics are disclosed. Samples of code during run-time or from crash logs can be displayed as both a top-down tree of calls from a particular function and a bottom-up tree of calls to the particular function. Data mining techniques, including filtering and focusing, remove code that is not of interest and display code that is more relevant to performance analysis. In particular, functions contained in libraries such as system libraries can be stripped from view. The cost associated with an excluded function can be propagated to a calling function, in either the top-down or bottom-up tree. The inventors are Christina E. Warren, David V. Payne, Darin Adler, Maciej Stachowiak, Bertrand P. Serlet and Christopher J. Wolf.

Patent number 7643990 is for global boundary-centric feature extraction and associated discontinuity metrics. Via the patent, portions from time-domain speech segments are extracted. Feature vectors that represent the portions in a vector space are created. The feature vectors incorporate phase information of the portions. A distance between the feature vectors in the vector space is determined. In one aspect, the feature vectors are created by constructing a matrix W from the portions and decomposing the matrix W. In one aspect, decomposing the matrix W comprises extracting global boundary-centric features from the portions. In one aspect, the portions include at least one pitch period. In another aspect, the portions include centered pitch periods. The inventor is Jerome R. Bellegarda.

Patent number 7643698 is for the ornamental design of an electronic device holder. The inventors are Bartley K. Andre, Daniel J. Coster, Daniele De Iuliis, Evans Hankey, Richard P. Howarth, Jonathan P. Ive, Steve Jobs, Duncan Robert Kerr, Shin Nishibori, Matthew Dean Rohrbach, Peter Russell-Clarke, Douglas B. Satzger, Christopher J. Stringer, Eugene Antony Whang and Rico Zorkendorfer.

For more info on patents, check out Patents.com, a free patent search site.image

 
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