Did You Know...
...that several people are credited with the invention of the flush toilet? Most people have heard of Thomas Crapper (1837-1910), the sanitary engineer who invented the valve-and-siphon arrangement that made the modern toilet possible. Another claimant to "the throne" was British inventor Alexander Cumming who patented a toilet in 1775. Then there's a nameless Minoan (a native of ancient Crete) who lived 4,000 years ago who supposedly was ahead of his time and created the first flush toilet!
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 |
| 8179453 | Imaging method and imaging apparatus An imaging method includes a step of setting, when a digital zoom operation mode for enlarging an image imaged by a imaging part of an X-Y address type is selected, a zoom magnification and enlarging the image at the zoom magnification set. The imaging method includ... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8169507 | Image recording apparatus with electronic zoom and recording size setting, and control method and program therefor An image recording apparatus for recording an image captured by use of electronic zoom, comprises an electronic-zoom setting unit configured to set a zoom magnification when using the electronic zoom, a recording-mode selection unit configured to select at least eit... | 05/01/2012 |
| 8159564 | Signal-processing method, signal-processing system, and semiconductor device configured to detect physical-quantity distribution A signal-processing method adapted to perform predetermined signal processing based on a unit signal transmitted from a semiconductor device that includes at least two unit components arranged in a predetermined order, where each of the unit components includes a de... | 04/17/2012 |
| 8154625 | Camera with multiple viewfinders A novel method and apparatus for controlling the display of a portable electronic device having a user input device and a camera function; the portable electronic device including a photosensor chip having a sensor array of a predetermined number of rows and columns... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8154626 | Imaging apparatus having enhanced zoom operation An imaging apparatus includes a zoom operation unit operable to perform a zoom operation, an extraction unit configured to extract a main object from an captured image plane, and a control unit configured to control a zoom speed by using the size of a region occupie... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8111305 | Apparatus for photographing having multiple zoom devices and associated method A photographing apparatus includes a first digital zoom device, a second digital zoom device capable of zooming at a higher magnification power than the first digital zoom device, a manipulation unit for performing manipulation of zoom, and a conversion unit for per... | 02/07/2012 |
| 8077226 | Data processing apparatus having parallel processing zoom processors A data processing apparatus includes a zoom circuit for displaying and a zoom circuit for recording. The zoom circuit for displaying performs a zoom process using a least square method or linear interpolation on image data from a YUV conversion circuit so as to crea... | 12/13/2011 |
| 8054344 | Imaging system and method with intelligent digital zooming A system and method for zooming an image. In the illustrative embodiment, the system includes a memory for receiving first and second frames of image data; a motion detector for detecting motion in said first or said second frame of image data; and an intelligent zo... | 11/08/2011 |
| 8054345 | Electronic zooming apparatus and digital camera A digital camera includes a memory, and pixel data cut out from the memory is subjected to ½ horizontal thinning processing by a ½ horizontal thinning circuit when a zooming magnification is equal to or larger than “2”, and the thinned pixel data is written to... | 11/08/2011 |
| 7990437 | Color correction in CMOS image sensor For color correction in an image sensor, an image sensor processing block generates a plurality of color correction parameters corresponding to a plurality of selected pixels of the image sensor for defining a plurality of areas of a sample image. In addition, a col... | 08/02/2011 |
| 7978235 | Electronic zooming device A vertical zooming unit vertically resizes image data by a tap number m. A horizontal zooming unit horizontally resizes the vertically-resized image data outputted from the vertical zooming unit by a tap number n. A tap coefficient setting unit arbitrarily sets resp... | 07/12/2011 |
| 7956907 | Image capture device with low-frequency noise suppression An image capture device which can reduce low-frequency noise even circuitry of a small scale is provided. An image capture device includes: an acquisition section which is used to acquire sensitivity information concerning a sensitivity; an imager for generating fir... | 06/07/2011 |
| 7952620 | Image processing apparatus, image playing method, image pick-up apparatus, and program and storage medium for use in displaying image data Upon continuously displaying a plurality of image data read from a recording medium, printing setting information including trimming information is set for the image data recorded to the recording medium with a corresponding relation to the image data. The displayin... | 05/31/2011 |
| 7952619 | Electronic zooming apparatus and digital camera A digital camera includes a memory, and pixel data cut out from the memory is subjected to ½ horizontal thinning processing by a ½ horizontal thinning circuit when a zooming magnification is equal to or larger than “2”, and the thinned pixel data is written to... | 05/31/2011 |
| 7920180 | Imaging device with burst zoom mode A method of capturing images in an imaging device in a burst zoom operation includes zooming the imaging device from a first zoom setting to a second zoom setting, and automatically capturing a plurality of still images during the zooming, each of the plurality of s... | 04/05/2011 |
| 7898580 | Camera apparatus with magnified playback features An embodiment of a camera apparatus includes transferring a compressed playback streaming signal output from a recording medium to a map defined in a memory circuit, decoding the transferred playback streaming signal by a decoder, converting the decoded signal to a ... | 03/01/2011 |
| 7868934 | Image capturing apparatus, control method therefor, program, and storage medium for providing a limited extraction range of a video image This invention can appropriately control the relationship between the electronic zoom magnification and the resolution of a displayed image in electronic zoom. An image capturing apparatus includes an image sensor which photo-electrically converts an image of an ima... | 01/11/2011 |
| 7852382 | Electronic zooming device A vertical zooming unit vertically resizes image data by a tap number m. A horizontal zooming unit horizontally resizes the vertically-resized image data outputted from the vertical zooming unit by a tap number n. A tap coefficient setting unit arbitrarily sets resp... | 12/14/2010 |
| 7817195 | Apparatus and method for automatic conversion to digital zoom mode An apparatus and method of automatic conversion to a digital zoom mode allow a digital zoom to be executed by automatically converting from a high-resolution mode that does not support a digital zoom to a highest resolution mode supporting the digital zoom when a di... | 10/19/2010 |
| 7782376 | Imaging method and imaging apparatus An imaging method includes a step of setting, when a digital zoom operation mode for enlarging an image imaged by a imaging part of an X-Y address type is selected, a zoom magnification and enlarging the image at the zoom magnification set. The imaging method includ... | 08/24/2010 |
| 7746390 | Method and device for processing pixel array data of mobile terminal equipped with digital camera function Disclosed is a technique for processing pixel array data of a mobile terminal with a digital camera function. A device for processing pixel array data includes: an image sensor having (x×y)-sized pixel capacity, converting an optical signal received via a lens into... | 06/29/2010 |
| 7746391 | Resolution proportional digital zoom A resolution proportional digital zoom system comprises a CCD imaging device with over a million pixels resolution. A standard fixed-1X optical lens is fitted to the imager. A communication channel with a limited bandwidth is used to transmit video. Such bandwidth i... | 06/29/2010 |
| 7733389 | Image capturing apparatus having electronic zoom function An image capturing apparatus includes an image capturing element which outputs a captured image signal including pixels, a magnification setting unit which sets an electronic zoom magnification, a mode setting unit which sets one of reading modes which vary in a num... | 06/08/2010 |
| 7710469 | Image acquisition apparatus An image acquisition apparatus includes an optical system having such distortion aberration characteristics as a central region is expanded and a peripheral region is compressed. An imaging element converts a subject image formed image data. A first memory stores fi... | 05/04/2010 |
| 7701492 | Image-capturing apparatus and image capturing method To provide an image-capturing apparatus and an image-capturing method which keeps, even when an object or a photographer moves, the object-missing capturing to a minimum and which allows recording for a longer period of time. The image-capturing apparatus (100 | 04/20/2010 |
| 7701491 | Image pickup device with zoom function When a continuous-zoom-photographing mode is selected, a through image of a subject and first and second continuous-zoom-photographing frames are produced on an image-display section. When a user operates a cross key, recorded information about a trimming position o... | 04/20/2010 |
| 7688363 | Super-resolution device, super-resolution method, super-resolution program, and super-resolution system An albedo estimating section produces an albedo image of an object from an original image captured by an image-capturing section by using light source information estimated by a light source information estimating section and shape information of the object obtained... | 03/30/2010 |
| 7679657 | Image sensing apparatus having electronic zoom function, and control method therefor In an image sensing apparatus having an image sensing element that senses an object and outputs image data and an electronic zoom function, either a first processing mode or a second processing mode is set and an angle of view is designated. In the first processing ... | 03/16/2010 |
| 7671907 | Image-capturing apparatus A digital camera enables high-speed zooming operation without use of a zoom lens. Light originating from a fixed-focal-length lens is split into two beams by a beam splitter, to thus form respective images on a first image sensor and a second image sensor. The first... | 03/02/2010 |
| 7643071 | Digital zooming apparatus and method This invention discloses a digital zooming apparatus for adjusting the size of a sensed image sensed by a sensor. The digital zooming apparatus includes an adjusting module, a first image-processing module, a storage module and a second image-processing module. The ... | 01/05/2010 |
| 7573514 | Digital imaging system with digital zoom warning Digital imaging system and method in which user operation of a digital zoom selection switch to increase digital zoom of a portion of an evaluation image is interrupted for at least an interval of time as a warning to the user that the digital zoom selection has rea... | 08/11/2009 |
| 7561192 | Image capturing apparatus, control method therefor, program, and storage medium An image capturing apparatus includes an image sensor, a switching unit which switches between the first read mode in which pixel signals within the first range are read out by decreasing the number of pixel signals at the first reduction ratio, and the second read ... | 07/14/2009 |
| 7561191 | Camera phone using multiple lenses and image sensors to provide an extended zoom range A camera phone includes a phone stage for generating voice signals, a first image sensor for generating a first sensor output, a first fixed focal length wide angle lens for forming a first image of the scene on the first image sensor, a second image sensor for gene... | 07/14/2009 |
| 7525580 | Image processing apparatus, image playing method, image pick-up apparatus, and program and storage medium for use in displaying image data Upon continuously displaying a plurality of image data read from a recording medium, printing setting information including trimming information is set for the image data recorded to the recording medium with a corresponding relation to the image data. The displayin... | 04/28/2009 |
| 7511745 | Imaging apparatus, and image display method and program for the imaging apparatus Disclosed herein is an imaging method and apparatus that provide facility to verify focus condition of images obtained without missing the chance of snapping a shot. A series of image data sets are obtained by an imaging device through a consecutive imaging method o... | 03/31/2009 |
| 7450165 | Multiple-view processing in wide-angle video camera A motion video camera that removes the need for mechanical pan, tilt, and zoom apparatus is disclosed. The video camera includes the following. A wide-angle optical system is configured to receive an optical image. An image sensor is coupled to the optical system an... | 11/11/2008 |
| 7436441 | Method for down-scaling a digital image and a digital camera for processing images of different resolutions A digital camera for capturing and processing images of different resolutions and a corresponding method for down-scaling a digital image are provided. The method includes forming an image of a real scene on an image sensor that is made up of a plurality of pixels a... | 10/14/2008 |
| 7420598 | Apparatus and method for recording image data and reproducing zoomed images from the image data The sizes of images obtained by electronic zoom processing are rendered constant to a certain degree. To accomplish this, an image within a zoom area is enlarged or reduced to the size of a super-extended graphics array (SXGA), and the resulting image data is record... | 09/02/2008 |
| 7411618 | Wireless terminal comprising a camera and having fine and coarse electronic zooming functions A camera installed in a wireless terminal comprises a first electronic zooming means to operate by hardware and a second electronic zooming means to operate by software. The first electronic zooming means quickly select one of several pictures with predetermined sca... | 08/12/2008 |
| 7397502 | Imaging apparatus including control device for controlling white balance An imaging apparatus includes an imaging device to photograph an object and to convert an image of the object into an electronic image signal, a feature detection device to conduct a feature detection for a white balance control in accordance with the image signal, ... | 07/08/2008 |
