Did You Know...
...that the first rickshaw was invented in 1869 by an American Baptist minister, the Rev. E. Jonathan Scobie, to transport his invalid wife around the streets of Yokohama?
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8126706 | Music detector for echo cancellation and noise reduction An audio signal is divided among exponentially related subband filters. The spectral flatness measure in each subband signal is determined and the measures are weighted and combined. The sum is compared with a threshold to determine the presence of music or noise. I... | 02/28/2012 |
| 8126177 | Modular charger for hearing aid A battery charger for a hearing aid includes a housing that defines at least one socket for receiving any one of a plurality of adapters. Each adapter closely fits and at least partially contains one hearing aid to hold the hearing aid in place during charging. The ... | 02/28/2012 |
| 8045738 | System for managing feedback Feedback detection, adaptive notch filtering, and gain adjustment are combined for managing feedback. Feedback detection includes detection of short term and long term spectral peaks and assessing their magnitude, shape, rate of growth, and power concentration ratio... | 10/25/2011 |
| 7974427 | Method for identifying a hearing aid A hearing aid is identified by storing a binary code in the hearing aid, receiving a transmitted code, reading out a subset of bits from the stored binary code, and comparing the transmitted code with the subset for identification. The reading step preferably reads ... | 07/05/2011 |
| 7876399 | Liquid crystal display with split electrode A light shutter includes a first electrode, a second electrode, and a third electrode, wherein the first and second electrodes are capacitively coupled to each other by the third electrode. The first electrode and the second electrode can be segmented and the segmen... | 01/25/2011 |
| 7843140 | AC switch with zero off current for EL panel A power supply for driving an EL panel includes an inverter that produces a polarity reversing voltage at a pair of output terminals. A switching circuit coupled to the output terminals and to at least one EL lamp applies alternating current to the at least one EL l... | 11/30/2010 |
| 7754091 | Custom lamp from finished EL panel A two step etch is used to provide access to the front electrode of an EL panel cut from a larger EL panel. The two step etch produces a set back that electrically isolates the front electrode and enables a conductive layer to be easily deposited on the front electr... | 07/13/2010 |
| 7747030 | Method for identifying a hearing aid A hearing aid is identified by storing a first binary code in the hearing aid as a first identification code, storing a second binary code in the hearing aid as a default code, and replacing the default code with a second identification code if a second hearing aid ... | 06/29/2010 |
| 7742125 | Light switch having plural shutters A display includes a light switch overlying a backlight and having at least two light shutters which do not, by themselves, convey information by the shape thereof. The lit area of the backlight is equal to or greater than the sum of the areas of the shutters within... | 06/22/2010 |
| 7684915 | Controlled access for light duty motor vehicle A control module operates a ramp in coordination with a powered sliding door. The control module couples to the OEM network and includes at least one microprocessor, a connector array coupled to at least one microprocessor, and interface circuitry. The microprocesso... | 03/23/2010 |
| 7683836 | Antenna with thermally transferred element An antenna includes an element that is made by thermally bonding a patterned conductive layer to a dielectric sheet. The antenna can be redesigned easily for prototype or low volume production yet the invention is suitable for volume production as well. The antenna,... | 03/23/2010 |
| 7649988 | Comfort noise generator using modified Doblinger noise estimate A background noise estimate based upon a modified Doblinger noise estimate is used for modulating the output of a pseudo-random phase spectrum generator to produce the comfort noise. The circuit for estimating noise includes a smoothing filter having a slower time c... | 01/19/2010 |
| 7640087 | Shunt for control network in light duty motor vehicle A programmed microprocessor has a learning mode of operation wherein data to and from a circuit coupled to a wiring harness in a vehicle is stored by the microprocessor. After the learning mode is completed, removal of the circuit does not cause an error condition b... | 12/29/2009 |
| 7620195 | Rechargeable hearing aid A hearing aid having a rechargeable battery and a charger for charging the battery includes a first microphone and a first speaker in the hearing aid and a second microphone and a second speaker in the charger for acoustically transferring data between the hearing a... | 11/17/2009 |
| 7570937 | Comfort noise generator Comfort noise is derived from a white noise signal by filtering the white noise signal in a QMF bank to produce comfort noise signal that is selectively coupled to at least one channel in a telephone. Preferably, a plurality of QMF banks are used and the magnitude o... | 08/04/2009 |
| 7555117 | Path change detector for echo cancellation A path change is detected by multiplying the energy of a signal on the output of a summation circuit in one channel of a telephone by a constant to produce a product. The product is compared with the energy of a signal on the input of the summation circuit. A path c... | 06/30/2009 |
| 7543954 | Large area EL lamp The unlit margin of a first EL lamp is covered by the lit edge of a second EL lamp to provide a substantially seamless lit area. The lamps are joined mechanically. The EL lamps are connected in parallel electrically by conductive tape overlying at least a portion of... | 06/09/2009 |
| 7492889 | Noise suppression based on bark band wiener filtering and modified doblinger noise estimate In a noise suppresser, an input signal is converted to frequency domain by discrete Fourier analysis and divided into Bark bands. Noise is estimated for each band. The circuit for estimating noise includes a smoothing filter having a slower time constant for updatin... | 02/17/2009 |
| 7454010 | Noise reduction and comfort noise gain control using bark band weiner filter and linear attenuation A combination of noise suppression using a Bark band modified Weiner filter and linear noise reduction improves elimination of noise in a telephone. A detector for detecting long, non-speech intervals is coupled to the output of the noise suppresser and controls sel... | 11/18/2008 |
| 7295976 | Voice activity detector for telephone Voice activity is detected by comparing a signal with two thresholds and producing data representing the energy of the signal. The data, in binary form, is compared with thresholds to determine voice activity. In accordance with another aspect of the invention, the ... | 11/13/2007 |
| 7294966 | Variable thickness EL lamp An EL panel on a rigid substrate is thinned in selected areas, or overall, to provide a backlight for keypads and other applications that would otherwise require a more flexible panel or additional structure. Lamp materials are deposited on one side of a rigid subst... | 11/13/2007 |
| D547465 | Smoke seal | 07/24/2007 |
| 7238535 | Test cell for evaluating phosphor An test cell is adapted for both making and testing samples. The cell includes a bottom plate and a top plate having concentric apertures defining a central test cavity. A post attached to the bottom plate closes off the bottom of the test cavity. A slide closes off... | 07/03/2007 |
| 7202600 | Dimensionally stable electroluminescent lamp without substrate An electroluminescent panel includes a release layer, a first insulating layer on the release layer, a plurality of lamp layers on the first insulating layer, and a second insulating layer overlying the lamp layers. In accordance with one aspect of the invention, th... | 04/10/2007 |
| 7190600 | Single output EL driver producing reduced current spikes An inverter for supplying alternating current to an EL lamp includes a first charging path, a first discharging path, a second charging path, a second discharging path, the paths intersecting at a node, wherein the node is the output of the inverter from which the a... | 03/13/2007 |
| 7046792 | Transmit/receive arbitrator The amplitudes of a signal on the microphone input of a telephone and a signal on the line input of the telephone are compared with each other and with two thresholds. The comparisons are sampled and the samples control an up-down counter. The count in the counter i... | 05/16/2006 |
| 7033127 | Powered, folding ramp for minivan A drive mechanism under the floor of a minivan is coupled to the folding ramp by a rotating arm linkage, also located beneath the floor. The extension of the folding ramp is partially controlled by dynamic braking, i.e. using the electric motor as a generator and co... | 04/25/2006 |
| 7031461 | Robust adaptive filter for echo cancellation An adaptive filter is programmed with an algorithm based on a normalized Least Mean Squares (nLMS) algorithm that adapts each sample time. The algorithm is modified to be more efficient in a variety of DSPs by computing multiple errors, one per sample, before updati... | 04/18/2006 |
| 7009346 | Driving an EL panel without DC bias An inverter is coupled to an EL lamp by a high pass filter including a series capacitor and a shunt resistor. The resistor is coupled in parallel with the EL lamp. The high pass filter has a time constant greater than 0.005 seconds and the capacitor has a capacitanc... | 03/07/2006 |
| 6990194 | Dynamic balance control for telephone A telephone includes a transmit channel and a receive channel, each including a bank of sub-band filters having a VAD coupled one to each sub-band filter. Each VAD measures the spectral energy in a sub-band, compares the spectral energy to a first threshold, and pro... | 01/24/2006 |
| 6963642 | Band-by-band full duplex communication A telephone includes a first channel having a microphone input and a line output, a second channel having a line input and a speaker output, and each channel having a plurality of band pass filters with their outputs coupled to a multiplex circuit. The multiplex cir... | 11/08/2005 |
| 6931124 | Soft mute circuit A soft mute circuit includes a programmable amplifier controlled by a register. Data is stored in the register from an adder that combines the current data in the register with a second number for increasing or decreasing the gain of the amplifier. A summation circu... | 08/16/2005 |
| 6928160 | Estimating bulk delay in a telephone system A bulk delay estimating circuit matches time intervals representing a signal with time intervals representing an echo of the signal to identify the echo and estimate bulk delay. Bulk delay is estimated by computing (1, 2, . . . n) intervals representing the signal, ... | 08/09/2005 |
| 6904146 | Full duplex echo cancelling circuit Sub-band filtering, adaptive echo cancellation, and residual echo suppression are selectively and separately applied in hierarchical order under the control of a circuit that monitors four separate signals to determine n machine states. The number of machine states ... | 06/07/2005 |
| 6891809 | Background communication using shadow of audio signal Data is transferred by delaying an audio signal less than fifty milliseconds to produce a shadow signal and combining the shadow signal with the audio signal. The shadow represents the data to be transferred A telephone constructed in accordance with the invention h... | 05/10/2005 |
| 6887027 | Scooter lift with load detector and load lock An external lift for a scooter includes a load sensor actuated by rotation of the platform as a load is applied anywhere on the platform, a lock mechanism for preventing the platform from rotating in a loaded and raised position, and a lock mechanism for preventing ... | 05/03/2005 |
| 6847930 | Analog voice activity detector for telephone Voice activity is detected by comparing an analog signal with two voltage thresholds and producing data representing the energy of the signal. The data, in binary form, is compared with thresholds to determine voice activity. In accordance with another aspect of the... | 01/25/2005 |
| 6818326 | EL lamp with flexible areas An EL panel includes a substrate 1-5 mils (0.25-1.26 mm) thick supported by a reinforcing frame screen printed or otherwised deposited in or on the panel. ... | 11/16/2004 |
| 6806642 | Light source with cascading dyes and BEF A light source producing predominantly blue light is tuned to the transmission bands of color LCD subpixels for optimum light transmission and color separation. The spectral output of the light source has three peaks located in the same areas of the spectrum where L... | 10/19/2004 |
| 6798881 | Noise reduction circuit for telephones A system for processing audio signals in two channels, wherein each channel includes a plurality of band pass filters for dividing the signal in each channel into a plurality of bands and a plurality of variable gain amplifiers coupled one each to a band pass filter... | 09/28/2004 |
