...that the Slinky toy was the result of a failed attempt by engineer Richard James to produce an antivibration device for ship instruments? His goal was to develop a spring that would instantaneously counterbalance the wave motion that rocks a ship at sea. Instead, he developed the Slinky.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7656423 | Imaging device and visual recognition support system employing imaging device An imaging device stores and photoelectric-converts incoming light from an object of which an image is to be captured with a CCD, and controls an output level of a picture signal obtained by signal processing an image signal output from the CCD. An output adjustment... | 02/02/2010 |
| 7652686 | Device for image detecting objects, people or similar in the area surrounding a vehicle A device for detecting objects, persons or the like, including, for example, in the surroundings of a vehicle, has a stereo-sensitive image recording unit which includes at least two image sensors and an evaluation unit to evaluate the signals, supplied by the image... | 01/26/2010 |
| 7643054 | Directed guidance of viewing devices Techniques for directed guidance of viewing devices which enable a spectator to be guided toward points of interest using guidance cues from viewpoint control sources including other viewing devices or event directors. A viewing system according to the present techn... | 01/05/2010 |
| 7633519 | Method and apparatus for simplifying marshalling with a vehicle A marshalling method and apparatus (2) for a motor vehicle including a camera (3), a display screen (4) and a control unit (5) connected to one another. The display screen shows a picture taken with the camera of the area immediately behi... | 12/15/2009 |
| 7629996 | Industrial truck with a camera device An industrial truck, in particular a fork lift truck, has a driver's seat that is oriented in the forward direction, at least one screen that is located in the vicinity of the driver's seat, a first camera pointing toward the rear of the industrial truck and at leas... | 12/08/2009 |
| 7619649 | Vehicle front-view monitoring system A vehicle front-view monitoring system determines whether there is a fail occurring on the monitoring system based on luminance data on an image of a front view taken by camera and takes fail-safe measures if the fail is occurring. The luminance data indicates lumin... | 11/17/2009 |
| 7612797 | Vehicle display apparatus for displaying information of a forward view of the vehicle The present invention is to provide a vehicle display apparatus having a clear view. When a vehicle runs on a flat road, a standard FOE (focus of expansion) is set so as that a horizon line is positioned at a central portion of a display area. When the vehicle appro... | 11/03/2009 |
| 7612798 | Photographing system for a moving apparatus A photographing system having plural image pickup units for a moving apparatus with enhanced user's visibility of images for a driver of the apparatus. A system control part controls the image pickup units. Image pickup unit picks up images ahead of the moving appar... | 11/03/2009 |
| 7605842 | Vehicular optical communications system Described are a vehicle optical communications system and network to exchange high bandwidth optical data between vehicles or between a vehicle and a stationary host. The vehicle optical communications system includes a communications module and a sensor having pixe... | 10/20/2009 |
| 7564479 | Rearview camera display mounted on a vehicle overhead console A video display system for a vehicle includes a first video display for providing an image projection to a rearview mirror of the vehicle, and a second video display mounted behind the first video display. A camera can provide an image feed to the first video displa... | 07/21/2009 |
| 7561181 | Vehicular vision system A vehicle vision system includes a vehicle having first and second spatially separated image capture sensors. The first image capture device has a first field of view haying a first field of view portion at least partially overlapping a field of view portion of a se... | 07/14/2009 |
| 7561180 | Movable body safety system and movable body operation support method A beam radiator for radiating a visible light beam on a road surface with a pattern determined according to a predetermined rule in order to inform others of the existence of a subject vehicle. In addition, an imaging device having an effective imaging region for ge... | 07/14/2009 |
| 7532233 | Vehicle monitoring apparatus A vehicle monitoring device includes an image taking device for attaching to a vehicle, such as a four-wheeled vehicle, a tricycle, a motorcycle, a bicycle or other two-wheeled vehicles, and having a motor attached to the vehicle, and a follower attached to the moto... | 05/12/2009 |
| 7511734 | Monitoring apparatus and method of displaying bird's-eye view image A monitoring apparatus for providing the driver with the image of blind-spot areas of a moving body. The monitoring apparatus includes: at least one of fish-eye camera mounted on a moving body, to image fish-eye image around the moving body; a dewarping unit configu... | 03/31/2009 |
| 7502048 | Method for arranging cameras in a vehicle surroundings monitoring system The invention provides a vehicle surroundings monitoring system for synthesizing and displaying images captured by a plurality of cameras to provide images that, near the border between partial images, are more accurate and more readily understood by the user than h... | 03/10/2009 |
| 7466339 | Vehicle-mounted camera apparatus A stable display of an image on a screen with no motion blur which is obtained without providing a camera with a sensor for detecting vibration. A vehicle-mounted camera apparatus detects vibrations transferred to a vehicle from signals detected by a road surface se... | 12/16/2008 |
| 7466337 | Construction machine A construction machine comprises a lower traveling body and an upper revolving body rotatably attached to the lower traveling body via a revolving mechanism 2, wherein a rear surveillance camera is arranged on a back surface side of the upper revolving body b... | 12/16/2008 |
| 7466338 | Wide-angled image display system for automobiles A wide-angled display system for automobiles incorporates the use of multiple cameras whose captured images are processed to produce an integrated view, as if viewed directly by human eyes. This integrated view avoids the blind spots inherent in the 3 rear view mirr... | 12/16/2008 |
| 7463281 | Smart vehicle video management A method includes selecting a video source view from at least one of a plurality of vehicle-mounted video sources based on detection of a vehicle event. The video source view may be displayed according to a presentation mode. The method may include associating a plu... | 12/09/2008 |
| 7446798 | Real-time obstacle detection with a calibrated camera and known ego-motion A method and system of real-time obstacle detection from a moving vehicle is provided. The method and system use a calibrated image capturing device. The method and system use a motion estimation technique to pick points with reliable image motion flows, and perform... | 11/04/2008 |
| 7436431 | Terminal apparatus and image information server On a vehicle, such as a car, etc., a camera, a navigation, communication function are mounted, and an image picked up from the car is uploaded to a server. Road information uploaded from each the car is collected up to the server. Each the car downloads the informat... | 10/14/2008 |
| 7436982 | Vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus A vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus, includes: an infrared imaging device that captures an image; a binarized object extraction device that extracts a binarized object by binarizing the image; an extraction region setting device that sets, as an extraction r... | 10/14/2008 |
| 7432799 | Driving support apparatus and driving support method By applying an observing-point conversion and s synthesis to images captured by respective cameras capturing the surroundings of a vehicle and by placing a figure representing the vehicle on the synthesized image, an overhead-image generating unit generates an image... | 10/07/2008 |
| 7429918 | Vehicle lighting system A vehicle lighting system for illuminating ahead of a vehicle is provided with a plurality of light sources each adapted to illuminate a different illumination area to thereby form a predetermined light distribution pattern as a whole and a control unit for determin... | 09/30/2008 |
| 7429998 | Method and apparatus for monitoring vehicle rear, and signal processor Disclosed is a method for monitoring a vehicle rear which permits a user to grasp the position of the vehicle concerned easily without a sense of incongruity even in the case where plural display modes on a monitor are provided and switched from one to another. ... | 09/30/2008 |
| 7425983 | Security system A simple outdoor security system which uses sensors to monitor an area around a building to detect intruders while reducing the number of sensors necessary for ensuring detection accuracy, which has at least a detection means for radiating light or an electric wave ... | 09/16/2008 |
| 7423665 | Vehicle pathway vision system having in-path delineation reticle A vehicle vision system displays a vehicle pathway image that includes a reticle for visually identifying the in-path portion of the image. A reticle array is disposed between a video camera chip and a lens, and includes a conical or frustro-conical region of substa... | 09/09/2008 |
| 7421112 | Cargo sensing system A cargo sensing system is configured to determine if cargo is present within a container. In one implementation, the cargo sensing system senses lines within an image of a cargo space. The lines may be straight, curved or otherwise configured, and are evaluated for ... | 09/02/2008 |
| 7417666 | 3-D imaging system The invention is directed to a remote 3-D imaging system which uses a novel illumination source to establish the relationship of the image features to the system, which is displayed by virtue of calculations. In addition to static surfaces, moving surfaces may be st... | 08/26/2008 |
| 7411486 | Lane-departure warning system with differentiation between an edge-of-lane marking and a structural boundary of the edge of the lane A driver assistance device for warning a driver of a motor vehicle of a risk of departure from the lane or from the lane is described, having at least one image-transmitting sensor, an evaluation device, connected to the image-transmitting sensor, for detecting edge... | 08/12/2008 |
| 7408478 | Area of representation in an automotive night vision system A method for detecting surroundings by an automotive night vision system comprising several areas, including a detection area (3) in which surroundings related data is detected, an evaluation area within which the surroundings-related data detected by the nig... | 08/05/2008 |
| 7406182 | Image capturing apparatus, image capturing method, and machine readable medium storing thereon image capturing program An image capturing apparatus provided to a movable body for capturing a clear image without blurring even if it is the case where it is moving. The image capturing apparatus includes: an image capturing unit which captures an image; a speed measurement unit which me... | 07/29/2008 |
| 7405746 | Image navigation device An estimate image is generated from a position and an angle of a camera and the estimate image is stored. A collating unit collates an estimate image with a scenery image, and corrects estimate values of a position and angles of the camera according to a result of t... | 07/29/2008 |
| 7403219 | Driving lane recognizer and driving lane recognizing method A driving lane recognizer 1 is arranged to detect a white line 30 on a driving road 20 on the basis of an image taken of the driving road 20. The driving lane recognizer 1 sets a near region 41 and a far region 42 adj... | 07/22/2008 |
| 7400343 | Apparatus and method for generating image An apparatus for generating an image includes a vehicle moving at a predetermined direction; and a plurality of cameras arranged on the vehicle along a linear line parallel to the predetermined direction and at different angles from each other with respect to the pr... | 07/15/2008 |
| 7397496 | Apparatus system for recovering evidence of extrinsic wrongful acts in vehicular incidents A total perimeter view auto security monitoring system which includes a pair of fixed viewing lenses at each corner of a vehicle, a central digital camera receiving optical data from all corners of the vehicle, a multiplexer to separate the data channels in real tim... | 07/08/2008 |
| 7394356 | Information presenting apparatus and method An information presenting method and apparatus for a vehicle which may process display information based on a predicted direction of movement of the vehicle, detect an object near the vehicle, determine whether the object is a dangerous object, and control a present... | 07/01/2008 |
| 7394355 | Vehicle collision detector A collision prevention detector (22), and a method therefor, to be mounted on a vehicle (10), transmits a sequence of transmissions of IR signals. The signals are transmitted in sequences alternating between at least one at the right and to the left po... | 07/01/2008 |
| 7391317 | Apparatus and method for transmitting digital data over various communication media A system is described for transmitting video signals over various communication media using digital signal processing techniques. An embodiment of the system uses an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation process that enables high-speed data co... | 06/24/2008 |
| 7389171 | Single vision sensor object detection system A sensing system (10) for a vehicle (12) includes a single vision sensor (14) that has a position on the vehicle (12). The single vision sensor (14) detects an object (40) and generates an object detection signal. A controll... | 06/17/2008 |