Amazon Technologies, Inc.

Google Inc.

Realtime Music Solutions, LLC

Other

Max-planck-gesellschaft Zur Forderung Der Wissenschaften E.v.

David Allen Smith

Emilio Ian Maldonado

Sudarshan Narasimha Raghavan

Ammar Chinoy

Engin Cinar Sahin

Pranab Mohanty

Matthew Maverick Loper

George Andrei Mihaila

Fred Bianchi

Kojiro Umezaki

Yasser Baseer Asmi

Timothy Thomas Gray

Nishitkumar Ashokkumar Desai

Daniel Bibireata

Abhijit Satchidanand Savarkar

Michael Julian Black

Frank Florian Liberato, Jr

Prithviraj Banerjee

Joachim Sebastian Stahl

Shrivatsan Vasudhevan

Pahal Kamlesh Dalal

Eliav Kahan

Nicolas Heron

Eric Rachlin

Javier Romero Gonzalez-Nicolas

Charles W Hickin

Joel Toledano

Alexander Weiss

Matthew Fuller Sly

Xiaochen Hu

Min Xu

Kevin Kar Wai Lai

Evan Lee

Techniques for selectively requesting feedback from users are described. A system may receive a user input and perform an action responsive to the user input. The system may determine whether feedback should be requested from the user. Such determination may be based on various signals such as the user's present emotional state, whether the user input included profanity, whether the user input interrupted an output of the system, etc. When the system determines feedback should be requested, the system may select a feedback prompt pre-established by a domain, skill, or the like. After the system outputs the response to the user input, the system may output the feedback prompt.

Prompts for user feedback

Described is a multiple-camera system and process for detecting a user within a materials handling facility and tracking a position of the user as the user moves through the materials handling facility. In one implementation, a plurality of depth sensing cameras are positioned above a surface of the materials handling facility and oriented to obtain a top-down view of the surface of the materials handling facility, along with any objects (e.g., users) on the surface of the materials handling facility. The depth information from the cameras may be utilized to detect objects on the surface of the materials handling facility, track a movement of those objects and determine if those objects are users.

Collecting user pattern descriptors for use in tracking a movement of a user within a materials handling facility

A system configured to perform an accurate and fast estimation of an object shape from a single input image. The system may process image data representing a first surface of an object using image-to-image translation techniques. A first trained model may generate depth information for the object, such as front distance estimates and back distance estimates. The system may use the depth information to generate an output mesh shaped like the object, such as, in the case of a pliable object a reposable avatar. The system may improve depth estimation by including a loss on surface normals in the first trained model. A second trained model may generate color information to be applied to the output mesh to accurately represent the object. The output mesh may include detailed geometry and appearance of the object, useful for a variety of purposes such as gaming, virtual/augmented reality, virtual shopping, and other implementations.

Detailed 3D estimation from a single image

Described is a multiple-camera system and process for re-identifying a user located in a materials handling facility based on user patterns and/or descriptors representative of the user. In one implementation, a user pattern and/or a plurality of descriptors representative of a user are maintained as a position of a user is tracked through a materials handling facility. If the tracking of the user is lost, the last known position is stored with the user pattern and/or descriptors. If a new object is detected and confirmed to be a user, a user pattern and/or descriptors of the new object are compared with the stored user pattern and/or descriptors to determine if the new object is the user.

Segmenting a user pattern into descriptor regions for tracking and re-establishing tracking of a user within a materials handling facility

Described is a multiple-camera system and process for disambiguating between multiple users and identifying which of the multiple users performed an event. For example, when an event is detected, user patterns near the location of the event are determined, along with touch points at the location of the event. User pattern orientation and/or arm trajectories between the event location and the user patterns may be determined and processed to disambiguate between multiple users and determine which user pattern is involved in the event.

Disambiguating between multiple users

Disclosed is a method including receiving visual input comprising a human within a scene, detecting a pose associated with the human using a trained machine learning model that detects human poses to yield a first output, estimating a shape (and optionally a motion) associated with the human using a trained machine learning model associated that detects shape (and optionally motion) to yield a second output, recognizing the scene associated with the visual input using a trained convolutional neural network which determines information about the human and other objects in the scene to yield a third output, and augmenting reality within the scene by leveraging one or more of the first output, the second output, and the third output to place 2D and/or 3D graphics in the scene.

Machine learning systems and methods for augmenting images

A computer-implemented method can include identifying one or more candidate topics from a query. The method can generate, for each candidate topic, a candidate topic-answer pair that includes both the candidate topic and an answer to the query for the candidate topic. The method can obtain search results based on the query, wherein one or more of the search results references an annotated resource. For each candidate topic-answer pair, the method can determine a score for the candidate topic-answer pair for use in determining a response to the query, based on (i) an occurrence of the candidate topic in the annotations of the resources referenced by one or more of the search results, and (ii) an occurrence of the answer in annotations of the resources referenced by the one or more search results, or in the resources referenced by the one or more search results.

Determining question and answer alternatives

Graphical elements displayed on a two-dimensional display screen have an appearance that is consistent with a three-dimensional view of those elements over a range of viewing angles. A current viewing angle of a user is determined, and a view of an element to be rendered can be determined that includes an orientation appropriate for the current viewing angle. An image manipulation process is applied in order to enable the element to have the determined view from the current viewing angle of the user, taking into account the angle of the display screen with respect to the user. In at least some embodiments, an anamorphic skewing process can be used to correlate locations on the display screen with apparent positions of those locations at the current viewing angle, and cause the graphical elements to be rendered on the display screen with a skew or distortion based on the correlated locations.

Creating realistic three-dimensional effects

A method and apparatus for producing a musical output is disclosed. The method and apparatus permit the creation, storage and retrieval of a first data structure representing a musical piece. The first data structure includes digital music information that represent musical notes of the musical piece. A second data structure can be created, stored and retrieved as well. The second data structure can include information different than the first data structure and the second data structure can be used to modify the first data structure and to produce a modified musical output. The apparatus and method also permit reuse of the first data structure.

Music performance system

A method and apparatus for producing a musical output is disclosed. The method and apparatus permit the creation, storage and retrieval of a first data structure representing a musical piece. The first data structure includes digital music information that represent musical notes of the musical piece. A second data structure can be created, stored and retrieved as well. The second data structure can include information different from the first data structure and the second data structure can be used to modify the first data structure and to produce a modified musical output. The apparatus and method also permit repeated use of the first data structure.

A cathode ray tube caligraphic display system is described which automatically varies the beam intensity as a function of the writing or 'stroke' rates to provide automatic brightness compensation as the symbol or vector write rates vary. The X and Y write rate signals are provided in digital form and converted to ramp voltages of varying slopes to 'stroke' the line segments for the desired symbols, vectors or other indicia. The digital X and Y write rate signals are also applied to a Read Only Memory (ROM) which has brightness compensation data stored therein for various combinations of X and Y write rates. The digital signals representing the X and Y write rates function as addresses to the Read Only Memory to read out brightness compensation control signals to control the brightness of the symbol or other displayed object as a function of the write rates. For example, if the write rate increases, which would normally decrease the brightness of the symbol displayed on the cathode ray tube, the video signal applied to the cathode ray tube gun is increased to increase the beam intensity and maintain the brightness constant even though the write rate has increased. Similarly, a decrease in the write rate which would normally cause the intensity or brightness of the symbol, or object, to increase results in a video signal which reduces the brightness to maintain the overall brightness constant. In addition to controlling the brightness as a function of the write rates, provisions are made for modifying or controlling brightness as a function of the symbol size by simultaneously varying the write rates to adjust the symbol size and the beam intensity to maintain constant brightness even though the symbol size may be deliberately changed. In addition, yet another modification of the brightness control and compensation circuit contemplates suitable control of the cathode ray display when the brightness of any symbol or display is programmed to be different from that of the remaining symbol or displays.

Brightness control and compensation circuitry for cathode ray tube

Growing community of inventors

Seattle, WA, United States of America

David Allen Smith