Patent application number | Description | Published |
20080320131 | Method, Apparatus or Software for Managing Propagation of the Performance of a Node in a Network - A method, apparatus and software are disclosed for managing a network of nodes in a manner that enables the effect of the performance of one node on its neighbouring nodes in the network to be controlled. | 12-25-2008 |
20090051681 | Monitoring User Attention in a Computer-Simulated Environment - Provided are methods, data processing systems and computer program product for monitoring user activity and monitoring the effectiveness of objects within a virtual environment such as an immersive, computer-simulated | 02-26-2009 |
20090158174 | Method and Apparatus for a Computer Simulated Environment - This invention relates to a computer simulated environment, such as a virtual world, and to the identification of a user entering the virtual world and user context in the virtual world model. An output of the virtual world model may be rendered using objects in the virtual world model. Previous versions of the rendered objects may then be located in associated user memory and specified differences between the rendered objects and the previous versions of the objects may be identified. A layer of the identified differences may then be rendered on the rendered output of the virtual world model. | 06-18-2009 |
20120306873 | MONITORING USER ATTENTION IN A COMPUTER-SIMULATED ENVIRONMENT - Provided are methods, data processing systems and computer program product for monitoring user activity and monitoring the effectiveness of objects within a virtual environment such as an immersive, computer-simulated 3D environment. An embodiment of the invention monitors the attention given to a virtual object by one or more avatars, by associating a viewing region with each object that requires attention monitoring, and detecting when an avatar is within the viewing region of the object simultaneously with the object being within an attention region (typically a clipped field of view) of the avatar. The viewing region is a 3D volume within which a surface of the virtual object is deemed to be effectively viewable. | 12-06-2012 |
20130309969 | AUTHENTICATION FOR NEAR FIELD COMMUNICATIONS - Methods, computer program products, and systems for use in near field communications systems for authenticating at a near field communications receiver, a user of a near field communications transmitter. The system includes a data receiver for receiving a signal comprising a first unique identifier from a near field communications transmitter. The system also includes a received signal strength indicator for measuring a signal strength of the received signal. The system further includes a signal strength tracker for tracking a variation with time of the signal strength of the received signal and converting the variation with time into a second unique identifier. The system further includes a comparator for comparing the received first unique identifier and the tracked and converted second unique identifier and for outputting a signal indicating the result of the comparison. The user is authenticated if the signal indicates that the first and second identifiers correlate correctly. | 11-21-2013 |
20140237510 | PERSONALIZED AUGMENTED A/V STREAM CREATION - A personalized audio and/or video (AV) stream is created for a user. A first stream of AV data is selected by reference to predetermined user preferences. One or more further data streams having a predetermined relation to the first stream are selected. Portions of the first stream are identified and captured by reference to identifying predetermined indicia in a group of streams consisting of the first stream and the one or more further data streams, where the capturing comprises capturing one or more timestamps from the group of streams. A personalized AV stream, comprising a captured portion of the first stream and data selected by reference to the predetermined indicia from at least one of the further data streams is generated, where the data selected is based on each captured timestamp. | 08-21-2014 |
20140249816 | METHODS, APPARATUS AND COMPUTER PROGRAMS FOR AUTOMATIC SPEECH RECOGNITION - An automatic speech recognition (ASR) system includes a speech-responsive application and a recognition engine. The ASR system generates user prompts to elicit certain spoken inputs, and the speech-responsive application performs operations when the spoken inputs are recognised. The recognition engine compares sounds within an input audio signal with phones within an acoustic model, to identify candidate matching phones. A recognition confidence score is calculated for each candidate matching phone, and the confidence scores are used to help identify one or more likely sequences of matching phones that appear to match a word within the grammar of the speech-responsive application. The per-phone confidence scores are evaluated against predefined confidence score criteria (for example, identifying scores below a ‘low confidence’ threshold) and the results of the evaluation are used to influence subsequent selection of user prompts. One such system uses confidence scores to select prompts for targetted recognition training—encouraging input of sounds identified as having low confidence scores. Another system selects prompts to discourage input of sounds that were not easily recognised. | 09-04-2014 |
20150161598 | ASSIGNING DESCRIPTORS TO TRANSACTIONS - A transaction is received containing a plurality of sub-transactions. Each of the plurality of sub-transactions is associated with a category and a value. Each of the sub-transactions is assigned to one of a plurality of groups based on the associated category. A total value of the sub-transactions for each group is calculated. A dominant group is calculated based on the calculated total value of the sub-transactions for each group. The merchant identification descriptor associated with the dominant group is assigned to the transaction. The transaction is submitted to a payment merchant with the assigned merchant identification descriptor. The transaction may be split into multiple transactions with each assigned a merchant identification descriptor. | 06-11-2015 |