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...
PatentStorm News
Make the Most of Our Site
See this month's Top Inventors and Most Cited Patents.
Stay on top of the latest innovations by subscribing to an RSS feed.
Registered users: Manage your profile.
| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8155965 | Time warping frames inside the vocoder by modifying the residual In one embodiment, the present invention comprises a vocoder having at least one input and at least one output, an encoder comprising a filter having at least one input operably connected to the input of the vocoder and at least one output, a decoder comprising a sy... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8108216 | Speech synthesis system and speech synthesis method In a speech synthesis, a selecting unit selects one string from first speech unit strings corresponding to a first segment sequence obtained by dividing a phoneme string corresponding to target speech into segments. The selecting unit performs repeatedly generating,... | 01/31/2012 |
| 8036894 | Multi-unit approach to text-to-speech synthesis Methods, apparatus, systems, and computer program products are provided for synthesizing speech. One method includes matching a first level of units of a received input string to audio segments from a plurality of audio segments including using properties of or betw... | 10/11/2011 |
| 8024192 | Time-warping of decoded audio signal after packet loss A technique is described for use in a decoder configured to decode a series of frames representing an encoded audio signal. The technique is for transitioning between a lost frame and one or more received frames following the lost frame in the series of frames. In a... | 09/20/2011 |
| 8015012 | Data-driven global boundary optimization Portions from segment boundary regions of a plurality of speech segments are extracted. Each segment boundary region is based on a corresponding initial unit boundary. Feature vectors that represent the portions in a vector space are created. For each of a plurality... | 09/06/2011 |
| 8005678 | Re-phasing of decoder states after packet loss A technique is described herein for updating a state of a decoder configured to decode a series of frames representing an encoded audio signal. In accordance with the technique, an output audio signal associated with a lost frame in the series of frames is synthesiz... | 08/23/2011 |
| 7742920 | Variable voice rate apparatus and variable voice rate method A variable voice rate apparatus to control a reproduction rate of voice, includes a voice data generation unit configured to generate voice data from the voice, a text data generation unit configured to generate text data indicating a content of the voice data, a di... | 06/22/2010 |
| 7680666 | Speech recognition system, speech recognition method, speech synthesis system, speech synthesis method, and program product The object of the present invention is to keep a high success rate in recognition with a low-volume of sound signal, without being affected by noise. The speech recognition system comprises a sound signal processor 10 configured to acquire a sound sign... | 03/16/2010 |
| 7596497 | Speech synthesis apparatus and speech synthesis method A speech synthesis apparatus and a speech synthesis method, in which a waveform of a desired formant shape may be generated with a small volume of computing operations. A voiced sound generating unit of the speech synthesis apparatus includes n single formant genera... | 09/29/2009 |
| 7526430 | Speech synthesis apparatus A speech synthesis apparatus, which can embed unchangeable additional information into synthesized speech without causing a deterioration of speech quality and restriction by bands, includes a language processing unit which generates synthesized speech generation in... | 04/28/2009 |
| 7451087 | System and method for converting text-to-voice A method for converting text to concatenated voice by utilizing a digital voice library and a set of playback rules is provided. The method includes receiving and expanding text data to form a sequence of text and pseudo words. The sequence of text and pseudo words ... | 11/11/2008 |
| 7418389 | Defining atom units between phone and syllable for TTS systems A method for identifying common multiphone units to add to a unit inventory for a text-to-speech generator is disclosed. The common multiphone units are units that are larger than a phone, but smaller than a syllable. The method slices each syllable into a plurality... | 08/26/2008 |
| 7412390 | Method and apparatus for speech synthesis, program, recording medium, method and apparatus for generating constraint information and robot apparatus The emotion is to be added to the synthesized speech as the prosodic feature of the language is maintained. In a speech synthesis device 200, a language processor 201 generates a string of pronunciation marks from the text, and a prosodic data generati... | 08/12/2008 |
| 7409347 | Data-driven global boundary optimization Portions from segment boundary regions of a plurality of speech segments are extracted. Each segment boundary region is based on a corresponding initial unit boundary. Feature vectors that represent the portions in a vector space are created. For each of a plurality... | 08/05/2008 |
| 7373299 | Variable voice rate apparatus and variable voice rate method A variable voice rate apparatus to control a reproduction rate of voice, includes a voice data generation unit configured to generate voice data from the voice, a text data generation unit configured to generate text data indicating a content of the voice data, a di... | 05/13/2008 |
| 7367826 | Compound connector for two different types of electronic packages Disclosed is a smart card connector for transmitting signals between a smart card and an external electronic system, wherein the smart card has contacts on one of two major surfaces thereof, the connector comprising: guiding structure defining a storage space having... | 05/06/2008 |
| 7362770 | Method and apparatus for using and combining sub-frame processing and adaptive jitter-buffers for improved voice quality in voice-over-packet networks A method and apparatus for using and combining sub-frame processing and adaptive jitter-buffers for improved voice quality in voice-over-packet networks. Data is placed in a jitter buffer, where the data has a frame-length consisting of a plurality of samples. Some ... | 04/22/2008 |
| 7363175 | Query based electronic battery tester An electronic battery tester for testing a storage battery provides a test output indicative of a condition of the battery. Electronic measurement circuitry provides a measurement output related to a condition of the battery. The battery condition is determined base... | 04/22/2008 |
| 7349846 | Information processing apparatus, method, program, and storage medium for inputting a pronunciation symbol An information processing apparatus for inputting a pronunciation symbol corresponding to an English notation includes pronunciation symbol information holding means for holding pronunciation symbol information indicating a relationship between a predetermined alpha... | 03/25/2008 |
| 7349847 | Speech synthesis apparatus and speech synthesis method A speech synthesis apparatus appropriately transforms a voice characteristic of speech. The speech synthesis apparatus includes an element storing unit in which speech elements are stored, and a function storing unit in which transformation functions are stored, an ... | 03/25/2008 |
| 7340392 | Multiple sound fragments processing and load balancing A method, system and article of manufacture of recognizing a voice command. One embodiment of the invention comprises: receiving a voice input; using the number of sound fragments, determining a number of sound fragments to be processed in a first set of sound fragm... | 03/04/2008 |
| 7337108 | System and method for providing high-quality stretching and compression of a digital audio signal An adaptive “temporal audio scaler” is provided for automatically stretching and compressing frames of audio signals received across a packet-based network. Prior to stretching or compressing segments of a current frame, the temporal audio scaler first computes ... | 02/26/2008 |
| 7337109 | Multiple step adaptive method for time scaling A multiple step adaptive method for time scaling. Synthesizing S3[n] signal from signal S1[n]signal and S2[n]signal. Comprising following steps: (a) calculating a first magnitude of a cross-correlation function of S1[n]sig... | 02/26/2008 |
| 7319304 | Shunt connection to a PCB of an energy management system employed in an automotive vehicle A method of coupling a shunt to a printed circuit board (PCB) of an energy management system is provided. The method includes coupling flexible electrical connectors to the shunt and soldering the flexible electrical connectors to connection points on the PCB of the... | 01/15/2008 |
| 7299182 | Text-to-speech (TTS) for hand-held devices There is provided an Ebook. The Ebook includes a memory device, a text-to-speech (TTS) module, and at least one speaker. The memory device stores files. The files include text. The TTS module synthesizes speech corresponding to the text. The at least one speaker out... | 11/20/2007 |
| 7295936 | Electronic battery tester with relative test output An electronic battery tester for testing a storage battery determines a condition of the battery. The condition is a relative condition and is a function of a dynamic parameter of the battery and an empirical input variable. ... | 11/13/2007 |
| 7292902 | Frame-based audio transmission/storage with overlap to facilitate smooth crossfading Methods for splicing PCM audio frames form modified frames by appending to each frame either a portion of the next preceding frame or the next following frame. According to a first approach, splices are obtained by fading up and fading down a frame end and a frame a... | 11/06/2007 |
| 7280967 | Method for detecting misaligned phonetic units for a concatenative text-to-speech voice A method of filtering phonetic units to be used within a concatenative text-to-speech (CTTS) voice. Initially, a normality threshold can be established. At least one phonetic unit that has been automatically extracted from a speech corpus in order to construct the C... | 10/09/2007 |
| 7280968 | Synthetically generated speech responses including prosodic characteristics of speech inputs A method for digitally generating speech with improved prosodic characteristics can include receiving a speech input, determining at least one prosodic characteristic contained within the speech input, and generating a speech output including the prosodic characteri... | 10/09/2007 |
| 7275035 | System and method for speech generation from brain activity In a method of assisting a subject to generate speech, at least one first neural impulse is sensed from a first preselected location in the subject's brain. A first preselected sound is associated with the first neural impulse. The first preselected sound is generat... | 09/25/2007 |
| 7269400 | Wireless peripheral interface with universal serial bus port A wireless peripheral interface is used for coupling with a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port for connecting a wireless peripheral with a host computer or controller. Wireless peripheral devices (e.g., keyboard, mouse, trackball, touch pad, joysticks, and game control... | 09/11/2007 |
| 7269153 | Method for minimizing time critical transmit processing for a personal computer implementation of a wireless local area network adapter A personal computer's (PC) microprocessor is used to provide both the physical layer (PHY) and media access control (MAC) processing functions required to implement a wireless local area network (WLAN) adapter. This technique uses the microprocessor within the perso... | 09/11/2007 |
| 7269557 | Coarticulated concatenated speech Described are methods and systems for reducing the audible gap in concatenated recorded speech, resulting in more natural sounding speech in voice applications. The sound of concatenated, recorded speech is improved by also coarticulating the recorded speech. The re... | 09/11/2007 |
| 7266286 | Editing system and method and distribution medium Temporarily storing audio data to be reproduced in the block form, temporarily storing synthesized audio data in the block form, generating and supplying a reference signal, and calculating the first address of the block of audio data, the editing system of the pres... | 09/04/2007 |
| 7263488 | Method and apparatus for identifying prosodic word boundaries A method and computer-readable medium are provided that identify prosodic word boundaries for a text. If the text is unsegmented, it is first segmented into lexical words. The lexical words are then converted into prosodic words using an annotated lexicon to divide ... | 08/28/2007 |
| 7260533 | Text-to-speech conversion system The system according to the invention comprises a text-to-speech conversion processing unit, and a phrase dictionary as well as a waveform dictionary, connected independently from each other to the conversion processing unit. The conversion processing unit is for co... | 08/21/2007 |
| 7251314 | Voice message transfer between a sender and a receiver A method and system forwards voice messages from a sender to a receiver through a network. A voice-mail device records a phone number of a receiver and a voice message of a sender within a digital file. The voice message and phone number are encapsulated within an e... | 07/31/2007 |
| 7249022 | Singing voice-synthesizing method and apparatus and storage medium There are provided a singing voice-synthesizing method and apparatus capable of performing synthesis of natural singing voices close to human singing voices based on performance data being input in real time. Performance data is inputted for each phonetic unit const... | 07/24/2007 |
| 7249020 | Voice synthesizing method using independent sampling frequencies and apparatus therefor A method and a system of producing a synthesized voice is provided. A voice sound waveform is provided at a voice sampling frequency based on pronunciation informations. A voice-less sound waveform is produced at a voice-less sampling frequency based on the pronunci... | 07/24/2007 |
| 7249021 | Simultaneous plural-voice text-to-speech synthesizer A multiple-voice instructing unit (17) instructs pitch deforming ratio and mixing ratio to a multiple-voice synthesis unit (16). The multiple voice synthesis unit (16) generates a standard voice signal by means of waveform superimposition based ... | 07/24/2007 |
