Did You Know...
...that Robert Adler has the dubious distinction of being the Father of the Couch Potato? Back in 1955 Adler was employed by what was then Zenith Radio Corp., where he was charged to invent something that would allow viewers to turn down the TV volume without leaving their chairs. After a series of flops (such as a wired contraption that people tripped over), Adler hit on the idea of using sound waves. Thus the Remote Control was born...
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8185296 | Driving assisting apparatus and driving assisting method A driving assisting apparatus and driving assisting method for predicting the state of a traffic light at the time when a vehicle enters an intersection includes predicting vehicle speed change of a vehicle in front of an intersection. The driving assisting apparatu... | 05/22/2012 |
| 8184008 | On-board warning apparatus and warning method An on-board warning apparatus of the invention includes an inattentive time measuring device that measures a duration of an inattentive state of a driver; a dozing time measuring device that measures a duration of a dozing state of the driver; a first warning output... | 05/22/2012 |
| 8183837 | Control device and control method for electric system In an electric system including a first converter and a second converter connected in parallel, an ECU executes a program including a step of selecting a charging mode for a first battery pack connected to the first converter and a charging mode for a second battery... | 05/22/2012 |
| 8181548 | Power transmission apparatus A power transmission apparatus includes a rotating electric device including a rotor and a stator; a speed reducer; and a case. The speed reducer includes a first drive gear provided on a first shaft connected to the rotating electric device; a first driven gear tha... | 05/22/2012 |
| 8181358 | Energy management apparatus and method An energy management apparatus manages energy consumption of a machine, which has a supply part (14) for supplying energy and a consume part (10) for consuming the energy supplied by the supply part, so that the energy consumed by the consume part is p... | 05/22/2012 |
| 8180510 | Control apparatus of vehicle drive apparatus and plug-in hybrid vehicle A hybrid control controller stores vehicle speed influence values that have been set according to vehicle speeds, a first threshold value of a sum value of the vehicle speed influence values, a second threshold value lower than the first threshold value, and an engi... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8179086 | Control apparatus and control method To properly resume charging when insertion and removal of a charging cable connector are repeated, a control apparatus includes a power control unit that turns on a charging mode signal when a signal state changes from a state with no change for a certain period of ... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8178995 | Power supply system and method of controlling power supply system A power supply system that includes: a power supply coil and a power supply-side resonance coil that are provided at a facility; a power receiving coil and a power receiving-side resonance coil that are provided for a mobile unit; a power supply-side detection unit ... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8177681 | Control device for vehicular power transmitting apparatus A control device for a vehicular power transmitting apparatus, having engaging devices including a one-way clutch, is disclosed which prevents a locked state of the one-way clutch from causing the occurrence of slippages of other engaging devices to avoid a drop in ... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8177679 | Control device for vehicular drive system A drive system has an electrically controlled differential portion (11) in which a differential state between an input-shaft rotation speed and an output-shaft rotation speed is controlled upon controlling a first electric motor (M1), and a shifting po... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8177254 | Vehicle airbag device A vehicle airbag device has: a pad cover provided at the center of a steering wheel constituted of a spoke, a rim, and a hub and secured to the hub or to the spoke; an airbag that is provided, in a folded state, at the pad cover and deploys upon collision of the veh... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8175788 | Control unit of diesel engine A diesel engine is provided with an exhaust fuel addition valve capable of adding fuel from an exhaust passage on an upstream side of an exhaust post-treatment device. An ECU, which is a control unit of the diesel engine, has a function to estimate biofuel concentra... | 05/08/2012 |
| 8174244 | Charging device and charging system A test circuit first detects whether or not a relay unit is normal, and then examines an operation of leakage detecting circuit. This allows relay unit to interrupt an electric power supply path including power lines more securely if electrical leakage occurs in the... | 05/08/2012 |
| 8173325 | Functional membrane and electrolyte membrane for fuel cells and method for producing the same A functional membrane is provided, which has high functionality combined with the gas barrier performance and mechanical strength inherent in a polymer film substrate. In particular, a polymer electrolyte membrane is provided, which is excellent in terms of high pro... | 05/08/2012 |
| 8172721 | Powertrain and method of controlling the same When a reduction in a supply hydraulic pressure to a second shift portion is sensed, an engagement command of C0 clutch is generated so that a power split device (electrical differential portion) is brought into a locked state. In the locked state, a sun gear, a car... | 05/08/2012 |
| 8172026 | Vehicle pedal support system A vehicle pedal support system includes: a pedal bracket mechanism that is disposed between body-side components and pivotably supports a vehicle pedal, the body-side components being displaced relative to each other so that a mutual distance between the body-side c... | 05/08/2012 |
| 8169340 | Parking assist device and a method for electric vehicle power transmission and reception between a vehicle and a ground apparatus A parking assist device has a touch display (58) including a display unit for displaying a situation around a vehicle and an input unit for entering a target parking position of a vehicle, and also has a control device (60) performing parking assist co... | 05/01/2012 |
| 8169305 | Vehicle warning device A warning device (610) includes a horn A (630) for generating a first horn sound having a volume level satisfying the legal standard and a horn B (632) for generating a second horn sound satisfying at least one of a condition that it has a volum... | 05/01/2012 |
| 8169199 | Power supply with overvoltage protection by zero current stagnation detection It is determined that a periodic zero current stagnation state is reached to correct a voltage command of a smoothing capacitor downward by a predetermined voltage when a state where a current (reactor current) flowing through a coil in a dead time when switching el... | 05/01/2012 |
| 8169183 | Electric power supply system and vehicle An electric automobile has a battery and also has a travel motor and a vehicle interior load device which operate using electric power from the battery. In response to a request for a start of electric power supply to the vehicle interior load device with the automo... | 05/01/2012 |
| 8169177 | Electric vehicle An electric vehicle includes a control unit having overcurrent generation judgment unit, inverter selection unit, and inverter drive control unit. The overcurrent generation judgment unit judges whether an overcurrent is generated in an inverter for generation or an... | 05/01/2012 |
| 8167064 | Control apparatus for vehicular drive apparatus A control apparatus for a vehicular drive apparatus including an engine and a motor is provided. The control apparatus includes a controller that determines the operating point of the engine and the operating point of the motor based on the characteristic of the veh... | 05/01/2012 |
| 8164301 | Charging control apparatus for electrically powered vehicle, electrically powered vehicle, method for charging control for electrically powered vehicle, and computer-readable recording medium having program recorded thereon for computer to execute the charging control An energy cost prediction unit predicts an energy cost for the next travel. A lifetime prediction unit uses a charge amount—lifetime map to predict the lifetime of a power storage device according to an amount of charge to the power storage device. A usage cost pr... | 04/24/2012 |
| 8164282 | Motive power output apparatus and vehicle with the same An object of the present invention is to provide a motive power output apparatus including a motor with a permanent magnet and a motor without a permanent magnet. A boost device (10) is connected to a power storage device (B). A first drive device (30)... | 04/24/2012 |
| 8162794 | Mechanism for converting rotational motion into linear motion A rotation/linear motion conversion mechanism provided with an annular shaft, a sun shaft arranged inside the annular shaft, planetary shafts arranged around the sun shaft, and a first gear mechanism and a second gear mechanism, which transmit force between the annu... | 04/24/2012 |
| 8161940 | Spark ignition type internal combustion engine Provided is a spark ignition type internal combustion engine comprising a variable compression ratio mechanism (A) capable of changing a mechanical compression ratio, and a variable valve timing mechanism (B) capable of controlling the closing timing of an intake va... | 04/24/2012 |
| 8161794 | Sulfur component detecting device A metal or metal compound able to trap a sulfur component in exhaust gas is arranged in a flow passage of exhaust gas in an internal combustion engine. When the amount of sulfur component trapped in the metal or metal compound increases over the passage of time, a p... | 04/24/2012 |
| 8160814 | Map distribution systems, methods and programs Map information distribution systems, methods, and programs that update map information based and distribute the update information, send update request information for requesting the update information of the map information, receive the update request information,... | 04/17/2012 |
| 8160797 | Control apparatus and control method of a vehicle An HV_ECU executes a program including a step of calculating an estimated gradient, a step of performing rate limit processing on a change in the estimated gradient when on a hill and an absolute value of the vehicle speed is equal to or below V(0), a step of... | 04/17/2012 |
| 8160298 | Display device A display device includes a display panel and a control unit. The control unit is configured to control a display condition of the display panel by successively switching a plurality of frames, thereby to display a pointer image indicating a pointer and a path image... | 04/17/2012 |
| 8157045 | Occupant protection device and control method thereof An occupant protection device includes a seat belt that restrains an occupant, an adjusting device that relatively adjusts a positional relationship between the seat belt and the occupant, a collision predicting portion that predicts a collision, and a control porti... | 04/17/2012 |
| 8157036 | Mounting structure of part A breather device provided on the outer peripheral section of a case of an in-wheel motor is located at a position above the rotation shaft of the in-wheel motor, between the in-wheel motor and a wheel. The position is inside the wheel in the width direction of a ve... | 04/17/2012 |
| 8156731 | Exhaust purification device of internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine in which a front end catalyst (12) and rear end catalyst (14) comprising NOx storing catalysts are arranged in an engine exhaust passage. When these catalysts (12, 14) should recover from SOx p... | 04/17/2012 |
| 8154254 | Power supply system providing electric power to a vehicle and vehicle including the same A converter ECU obtains a temperature increase start signal indicating start of temperature increase of a power storage unit from each sensor and ECU provided in a vehicle. In addition, the converter ECU obtains allowable electric power of the power storage unit fro... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8153332 | Fuel cell system Fuel cells 100 of the invention are operable at a temperature of about 500° C. The unit cell has a solid oxide electrolyte layer formed on a hydrogen separable metal layer. An anode has a catalyst supported thereon to accelerate a reforming reaction of metha... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8153321 | Fuel cell system having switching fuel flow A fuel cell system (100) includes two supply passages (30, 32) for supplying the hydrogen to the anode (14). Valves (22, 23) which control flow amounts of the hydrogen passing through the two supply passages (30, 32) are provided. ... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8153314 | Alert method relating to remaining fuel amount of fuel cell system and fuel cell system using the same An alert method capable of preventing problems due to excessive lowering of a remaining fuel amount of a fuel cell system is provided. The alert method includes the following steps of: switching over operation/stopped states of the fuel cell system, detecting that t... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8152667 | Control device for vehicular drive system A control device for a vehicular drive system is disclosed as including reverse drive for suppression means operative to preclude output member, such as an output shaft and drive wheels, of an automatic transmission portion from inputting a reverse drive force to a ... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8151917 | Cooling system, control method of cooling system, and vehicle equipped with cooling system A cooling system is equipped with a circulation flow path arranged to flow a coolant into an engine, a motor drive system flow path branched off from the circulation flow path and arranged to flow the coolant into a motor drive system, a flow rate distribution regul... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8151779 | Control device of an internal combustion engine Liquid ammonia is fed from an ammonia storage tank to a vaporizer where it is vaporized. Gaseous ammonia vaporized inside the vaporizer is on the one hand injected from an ammonia injector and on the other hand reformed by a reformer, then injected from a reformed g... | 04/10/2012 |
