International Business Machines Corporation

Other

Joseph David Aaron

Robert Bruce Mahaffey

Catherine Keefauver Laws

Samuel Roy Detweiler

Peter Thomas Brunet

Paul S Luther

Guido Corona

Frederik C M Kjeldsen

Carlos Victor Pinera

Randall Horwitz

Eddie W DeLoach

James M DeLoach, Jr

Frances Ann Hayden

A dissipator for providing controlled water drainage from a downspout. The dissipator comprises a base and a cover plate. The base provides engagement with a downspout and the cover plate is configured to mount to a portion of the base, defining at least one drainage hole. A skirt portion of the base couples to the downspout so that the at least one drainage hole of the cover plate provides controlled water drainage by dissipating the water flowing within the downspout and through the dissipator.

Downspout dissipator

A system and computer program product provides an intermediary access engine between a specific document and a renderer for assisting individuals with vision impairment. The access engine is instantly activated responsive to the initiation of an event within an application. In response to instantiation of the access engine, the renderer queries the access engine to determine supported navigation modes for serving the document to the individual. The access engine receives navigation and commands from the renderer and sends rendering information for the current focus within the document to the renderer. The renderer uses the received information to render an output via one or more enhanced capabilities of the renderer. The rendered output may then be utilized by individuals with vision impairment. The output, for example, may be a speech output, brail output, or font enlargement output for application data.

Providing extensible document access to assistive technology providers

A system and method for user-defined control of the operation and appearance of a computerized instant messaging service and associated user interface is disclosed, providing ease of use, control over presentation and access to instant messaging services, particularly for unsighted and other users requiring assistive technologies. A instant messaging (IM) application includes an active sessions list (ASL) comprised of algorithmically ordered identifiers of all communicants in current active chat sessions with the user. The list is presented on the desktop and focused by a predefined first hot-key. By selecting identifiers from the list and activating a predefined second hot-key, chat windows associated with the communicants are opened and focused for receipt of responsive messages from the user.

System and method for instant messaging

A data processing system collects video and audio samples of acceptable speech production. A video camera focuses on a speaker's face and, particularly, articulation visible in the area of the mouth or other body movements associated with speech production. Video files are used to archive acceptable and unacceptable productions. These files may then be used to provide feedback about acceptable and unacceptable ways to produce speech. A speech professional or language teacher may play a model speech production and a subject speech attempt simultaneously to compare articulation, audio analysis, and appearance of articulators. A subject may play a model speech production and record a speech attempt simultaneously to attempt to mimic the appearance of articulators. Image processing may be used to create a mirror image of a video model or a current attempt or both to avoid left-right confusion.

Method and apparatus for providing visual feedback of speed production

A note facility which documents the progress of a student in producing human speech. The facility stores a set of notes in a note file in a computer memory. Each of the set of notes contains textual information generally descriptive of the human speech produced at a given time during the training. A set of speech samples is also stored and attached to selected ones of the set of notes. Each of the speech samples is a digitized version of the human speech produced. The facility analyzes the human speech produced at least one of the given times to produce speech statistics which are presented to the user interface. The speech statistics can be stored in a note and the statistics note attached to the set of notes containing the descriptive text. Navigation through the note file can review each of the notes for the subjective opinion of the student's progress, statistics of an objective acoustic analysis of the speech and listen to the speech file on which the opinion is based. The facility creates reports by allowing the user to select particular notes within the set of notes for inclusion in the report. When the report function is invoked, the selected notes are incorporated within the report.

Computer note facility for documenting speech training

Selecting human speech samples for a speech model of human speech is preformed. The system presents a graphic representing a human speech sample on a computer display, e.g., an amplitude vs. time graph of the speech sample. Through user input, the system marks a segment of the graphic. The marked segment of the graphic represents a portion of the human speech sample. The system plays the portion of the human speech sample represented by the marked segment back to the user to allow the user to determine its acceptability for inclusion in the speech model. If so indicated by the user, the portion of the human speech sample represented by the marked segment is selected for inclusion in the speech model. The system also analyzes the portion of the human speech sample represented by the marked segment for acoustic properties. These properties are presented to the user in a graphic of the analyzed portion representative of the acoustic properties, e.g., a spectral analysis of the sample graphed as a set of spectral lines. Thus, the user can select the analyzed portion for inclusion in the speech model due to the presence of desired acoustic properties in the analyzed portion.

Growing community of inventors

Jonestown, TX, United States of America

Joseph David Aaron