Did You Know...
...that Charles Goodyear performed some of his experiments on rubber while in debtor's prison? He was there so often he referred to it as his "hotel". Chronically in debt because of poor business sense and ill health, Goodyear depended on the generosity of friends and family. Even after he unlocked the secret to vulcanizing rubber, he was unable to improve his financial situation. When he died, his estate was $200,000 in debt.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8155205 | Dynamic decoder switch A method provides for dynamic changes in a software video player. The method includes learning of a dynamic change from an input pin of a decoder filter, recording states of the decoder filter and a renderer filter, stopping the decoder and the renderer filters with... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8150149 | Automatic determination of exciting segments from a video A method is provided to automatically determine “exciting” segments from a video. The method includes calculating image features of each frame in the video, determining a difference for each pair of adjacent frames, calculating a sum of differences for each grou... | 04/03/2012 |
| 8123365 | One-way display using color filter A one-way display system includes a transparent screen and a transparent color filter. An image is emitted by the screen or projected onto the screen. The image is formed from a combination of colored lights. Instead of spanning all the wavelengths of each color, ea... | 02/28/2012 |
| 8104895 | One-way transparent display systems A display system includes a projection screen and a projector. The projection screen includes a retarder plate between a polarizer and a transparent screen. The projector projects an image through the polarizer and the retarder plate onto the transparent screen. The... | 01/31/2012 |
| 8094892 | Automatic photo orientation detection A method determining image orientation includes determining if an image includes an orientation tag and if the tag indicates the image is rotated +90 or −90 degrees. When the image does not include the tag or the tag does not indicate the image is rotated, the met... | 01/10/2012 |
| 8091718 | Cap for sealing nipple A cap includes a cavity for receiving the rounded tip of a nipple. The cavity narrows from an open end to a neck, and widens from the neck to a closed end. The neck forms an interference fit with the rounded tip, and the interference fit forms a sealed compartment i... | 01/10/2012 |
| 8082788 | MEMS load cell and strain sensor A sensor includes at least one stationary pad with comb teeth, a hub, at least one actuator spoke coupled to a location on the hub, and at least one sensing spoke extending from the hub. The sensing spokes have comb teeth generally interdigitated with the comb teeth... | 12/27/2011 |
| 8061692 | Floor isolation system A floor isolation system includes a platform and a multidirectional spring unit. The platform has rolling supports that isolate the platform from lateral movements of a substrate. The platform further has sliding supports that (1) prevent the platform from moving fr... | 11/22/2011 |
| 8035874 | MEMS device with off-axis actuator A micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) mirror device has a mirror, a frame rotatively coupled to the mirror, and a uniaxial actuator rotatively coupled to the frame where the rotational axis of the actuator is offset from the rotational axes of the mirror and the ... | 10/11/2011 |
| 8018999 | Algorithm description on non-motion blur image generation project A method for simulating an image captured at a long exposure time (“simulated image”), includes (1) capturing each of first, second, and third images at a short exposure time, (2) determining a first relative motion between the first and the second images, (3) t... | 09/13/2011 |
| 7969637 | MEMS mirror driven by one motion with oscillations of different frequency for bidirectional rotation A micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) mirror system has an actuator that imparts a motion with a first periodic movement of high frequency superimposed a second periodic movement of low frequency to a frame and a mirror coupled to the frame so that the mirror rot... | 06/28/2011 |
| 7953253 | Face detection on mobile devices A method for detecting a facial area on a color image includes (a) placing a search window on the color image, (b) determining if a center pixel of the search window is a skin color pixel, indicating that the search window is a possible facial area candidate, (c) ap... | 05/31/2011 |
| 7913849 | Lunch box with configurable handle, accessories, containers, and display inserts A lunch box system includes a hollow body, two lids, a handle, and interchangeable display inserts. The hollow body has an external rib around the sides of the hollow body. The external rib defines holes along its length. The handle detachably secures to any two of ... | 03/29/2011 |
| 7911222 | Mix mode driver for traces of different lengths A method for a mix mode driver to accommodate traces of different lengths includes storing in the mix mode driver a set of one or more control signals and coefficient signals for a trace length. The one or more control signals select a number of the stages to genera... | 03/22/2011 |
| 7896143 | Selectively removable pull bar for a portable container A portable container system includes a collapsible frame, a shell attached to the frame and defining a volume, wheels attached to the bottom of the frame, and a pull bar assembly comprising a removable attachment member that removably attaches the pull bar assembly ... | 03/01/2011 |
| 7886119 | Time and space efficient technique for creating virtual volume copies A chain of snapshots includes a more recent snapshot with a data block copied from a base volume, a less recent snapshot with a skip-pointer that leads to the data block in said more recent snapshot, and one or more intermediate snapshots between the more recent sna... | 02/08/2011 |
| 7874598 | Auto latch for window sash A latch for a window sash includes a fixed plate and a latch head slidably coupled to the fixed plate. The latch head is symmetrically spring loaded to minimize rotation when the latch head translates. When the latch head retracts toward the fixed plates, hooks from... | 01/25/2011 |
| 7865014 | Video auto enhancing algorithm A method for enhancing a video includes applying a linear histogram stretch, a gamma correction, and sigma row, column, and temporal filters to the video. ... | 01/04/2011 |
| 7854513 | One-way transparent display systems A display system includes a projection screen and a projector. The projection screen includes a retarder plate between a polarizer and a transparent screen. The projector projects an image through the polarizer and the retarder plate onto the transparent screen. The... | 12/21/2010 |
| 7852377 | Automatic red eye removal A method for removing a red eye from an image includes (1) calculating a weighted red value for each pixel in the image from red, green, and blue color values and a luminance value of each pixel in the image, (2) selecting a plurality of pixels in the image having w... | 12/14/2010 |
| 7840067 | Color matching and color correction for images forming a panoramic image A method for color matching a first image and a second image, wherein a first region of the first image and a second region of the second image overlap, includes removing overlapping pixels in the first and the second regions that have pixel values are too different... | 11/23/2010 |
| 7837241 | Two point lock for doors and windows A two point lock includes two pivotally mounted security hooks having sliding faces that engage sliding faces of a spring-loaded mishandling pin when the mishandling pin is vertically extended and the security hooks are rotatably retracted. The mishandling pin is ve... | 11/23/2010 |
| 7836329 | Communication link protocol optimized for storage architectures A communication link protocol is provided for communicating between nodes of an interconnect system via a communication link. In one embodiment, the communication link protocol includes a direct memory access (DMA) command for writing a block of data from a local no... | 11/16/2010 |
| 7836150 | Point-to-point communication using UPnP protocol A first device in a first local area network (LAN) searches for a first Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) enabled router with a first public network address. If found, the first device obtains the first public network address of the first router and configures a first ... | 11/16/2010 |
| 7830600 | Electric roll-up limit detection device An electric roll-up limit device includes a tube coupled by a tube rotor to an electric motor. The tube rotor contains a rocker bar that extends from the tube and activates a lower limit switch when a sheet of material is fully unrolled from the tube. A base below t... | 11/09/2010 |
| 7823003 | Voltage referencing clock for source-synchronous multi-level signal buses An input circuit is provided for coupling to a source-synchronous multi-level bus carrying data, clock, and complementary clock signals. The clock and complementary clock signals have a less than full voltage swing than the data signal so they can act as reference v... | 10/26/2010 |
| 7821693 | MEMS mirror with rotation amplification and electromagnetic drive A micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) mirror device includes a mirror coupled to an actuator by a first torsional hinge along a rotational axis. The actuator has a body and a group of coils extending from the body. An anchor is coupled another end of the actuator... | 10/26/2010 |
| 7813357 | Regional service by phone A method is provided to communicate regional services to a telephone gateway device over a public computer network. The method includes a distribution server sending a list of entities offering a desired service in a desired region to the telephone gateway device. T... | 10/12/2010 |
| 7808713 | Intensity-based one-way visible display system A one-way display system includes a partially reflective screen with a first image, and a partially absorptive screen with a second image that is an inverse of the first image. The two screens can be stacked on top of each other or separated by a small distance. A p... | 10/05/2010 |
| 7802153 | Trainable link A method is provided to align clock and data signals over a source-synchronous link. The method includes sending header data and a default clock signal over the link. The header indicates a start of a training packet and the default clock signal ensures that the hea... | 09/21/2010 |
| 7796787 | Face component replacement A method is provided for cloning a facial feature template image into an original image including a face to form a new image. The method includes detecting the face and facial features in the original image, reducing the original and the template images, cloning the... | 09/14/2010 |
| 7796315 | MEMS mirror made from topside and backside etching of wafer A process for constructing a micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) device includes etching the topside of a silicon wafer to form a first support layer having asymmetric pads. The backside of the silicon wafer is etched to form a top layer with a mirror, beam struc... | 09/14/2010 |
| 7792802 | Archiving logs with snapshots for data recovery A method for archiving a log for a data storage system includes the steps of logging host inputs/outputs to the log, creating a snapshot of the log when it is full, resetting a next write offset to the start of the log after the snapshot is created while continuing ... | 09/07/2010 |
| 7778261 | Using PSTN to communicate IP address for point-to-point text, voice, video, or data communication A first device uses a PSTN to send its public IP address to a second device to setup point-to-point communication over the Internet. The first device calls the second device over the PSTN. In one embodiment, the second device answers the call and the first device tr... | 08/17/2010 |
| 7764287 | Graphic engine for approximating a quadratic bezier curve in a resource-constrained device A method is provided for approximating a quadratic Bezier curve represented by two anchor points and a control point that are fixed-point binary numbers. If a first flatness of a line formed between the two anchor points of the Bezier curve is less than a threshold,... | 07/27/2010 |
| 7752929 | Mass velocity and area weighted averaging fluid compositions sampler and mass flow meter A sampling device and method for use with a conduit for fluid which has at least one sampling nozzle or sample hole. The sample collected is directed to a manifold where an analysis is conducted and flow rates are measured. The sampled fluid is returned to the condu... | 07/13/2010 |
| 7743031 | Time and space efficient technique for creating virtual volume copies A snapshot tree structure includes a base volume storing a current user data at a current time, a first read-only snapshot descending from the base volume, and a second read-only snapshot descending from the first read-only snapshot. The first read-only snapshot is ... | 06/22/2010 |
| 7742659 | Edge based auto order supporting rotation algorithm A method is provided to automatically arrange scanned images so they can be stitched into a composite image. Initially the scanned images are reduced to low resolution and a gradient filter is applied. One scanned image is selected as a possible first image in a sti... | 06/22/2010 |
| 7737514 | MEMS pressure sensor using area-change capacitive technique A micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) pressure sensor includes a silicon spacer defining an opening, a silicon membrane layer mounted above the spacer, and a silicon sensor layer mounted above the silicon membrane layer. The silicon membrane layer forms a diaphra... | 06/15/2010 |
| 7711183 | Photomontage using multiple layer placement and color variation A method generates a composite image by painting unfilled regions between micro-objects with other micro-objects to create a multiple layer effect. Another method generates a composite image from as few as one micro-object by changing the average color and/or intens... | 05/04/2010 |
