International Business Machines Corporation

Alexandra E Wishart

Giacomo Giuseppe Chiarella

Ruth K Ayers

Chris R Bean

Kevin Christopher Brown

John Jesse Wood

Andrew Michael Lees

Keira Louise Hopkins

Adam Michael Farley

Perry A Harwood

Thomas D F Appleyard

Gibson Fahnestock

Eunjin Lee

Daniel Thomas Cunnington

Julian D Williams

Eleanor G Kelly

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and control thereof to assemble into flexible, dynamic structures. A UAV includes a flexible screen retractable between extended and retracted positions, connector(s) for coupling to another UAV that can pull the flexible screen from a retracted position to an extended position, and a coupling portion for coupling to connector(s) of yet another UAV to connect to and extend a flexible screen thereof. Chain(s) of coupled UAVs with extended flexible screens thereof form a structure that can change shape and size based on UAV movement. Local wireless communication with a group control UAV facilitates coordinated positioning and control of a UAV group. A group control UAV with a power supply and an electrical conducting lead can power UAVs of a group while it and they are in-flight, and can perform real-time management of the group UAVs in forming and maintaining a desired shape of the structure.

Unmanned aerial vehicles and control thereof

A hand-wearable haptic interface device for simulating interaction with a virtual object in a Virtual Reality (VR) or Augmented Reality (AR) environment is provided. The hand-wearable haptic interface device can provide improved simulation of an obstruction caused by a virtual object in a virtual or augmented reality environment. The device comprises a joint-movement restrictor adapted to be positioned adjacent a finger joint when the device is worn on a hand of a user. The movement restrictor is adapted to provide different magnitudes of flexion resistance force for resisting flexion of the finger joint based on a flexion resistance control signal.

Simulating obstruction in a virtual environment

A method for reviewing content previously displayed on a display screen includes capturing at least one screenshot of at least part of a display screen in response to an occurrence of a trigger event based on a change in displayed content. A value of at least one criterion of the displayed content is stored in association with each captured screenshot. A request is received, based on at least one of the stored criteria, to review a captured screenshot. A screenshot corresponding with the request may be superimposed on the display screen as an overlay. Content displayed on the screen for the occurrence of the trigger event is monitored. A screenshot in response to each occurrence of the trigger event is captured. The request to review a screenshot may be a request to review a selection from a plurality of captured screenshots.

Review of previously displayed content

Synchronizing an augmented reality video stream with a displayed video stream includes: accessing an augmented reality video stream which corresponds to a displayed video stream and accessing synchronizing metadata associated with the augmented reality video stream for synchronizing the augmented reality video stream to the displayed video stream; the synchronizing metadata includes processed key frames of the displayed video stream. Processed key frames are selected frames from the displayed video stream which have been processed to provide data usable to compare images of frames. The displayed video stream is tracked by capturing and processing a frame of the displayed video stream. The augmented reality video stream is synchronized to the displayed video stream by matching the captured and processed frame of the displayed video stream with a processed key frame of the metadata at a known location in the augmented reality video stream.

Synchronizing an augmented reality video stream with a displayed video stream

Censoring a video recording of an environment, the environment containing a protected entity displaying protected content to be censored. Video of the environment is processed in accordance with an entity recognition process to identify the presence of at least part of an entity in the environment. It is determined if the identified entity is to be censored based on based on entity information of a received VLC signal. Based on the identified entity being determined to be censored, the video recording is modified to replace at least a portion of the identified entity with a graphical element adapted to obscure the portion of the identified entity in the video stream. By modifying a video stream to obscure an entity, protected content in the environment may be prevented from being displayed to a viewer of the video recording.

Video censoring

Growing community of inventors

Hampshire, United Kingdom

Alexandra E Wishart