Intel Corporation

Semiconductor Components Industries, LLC

Aptina Imaging Corporation

Innurvation Inc.

Thinkoptics, Inc.

Scenterra, Inc.

Nanoscopia (cayman), Inc.

Kenneth Edward Salsman

William Robert Bandy

Michael R Arneson

Anders Grunnet-Jepsen

Kevin James Powell

John N Sweetser

Robert F Kwasnick

Michael Francis O'Connor

Cynthia S Bell

Dmitry Vasily Bakin

Daniel W So

Devon Tirpack

Henning Braunisch

Ulrich C Boettiger

Thomas E Willis

Oleg B Rashkovskiy

Robert Charles Schober

Brian Jamieson

Steven J Kirch

Curtis William Stith

John Weitzner

Robert J Gove

Paul Winer

Michael Kozhukh

Serge Rutman

Brian Glenn Jamieson

An electronic device may have a touch panel. The touch panel may detect touch events using one or more cameras. The touch panel may include a planar exterior surface, such as a cover glass, that extends over an active region of a display and an inactive peripheral region. The cameras may be located underneath the inactive peripheral region. The cameras may include a light turning element to allow the cameras to detect touch events, without being raised above the exterior surface of the active region of the display (e.g., without having a raised profile). The touch panel may detect touch events using dynamic zooming techniques. As an example, the touch panel may divide the active region into sections, search for touch events in each section, zoom into sections in which touch events are found, and further search the sections in which touch events were found.

Touch panels with dynamic zooming and low profile bezels

An ingestible scanning device includes, in an embodiment, a capsule housing having a transparent window and sized so as to be ingestible, a photo-sensing array located within the capsule housing, a mirror located within the housing and oriented to direct an image from a surface outside the transparent window to the photo-sensing array, and a light source for illuminating the surface outside the transparent window.

Ingestible endoscopic optical scanning device

An ingestible image scanning pill captures high resolution images of the GI tract as it passes through. Images communicated externally have exact location determination. Image processing software discards duplicate information and stitches images together, line scan by line scan, to replicate a complete GI tract as if it were stretched out in a straight line. A fully linear image is displayed to a medical professional as if the GI tract had been stretched in a straight line, cut open, laid flat out on a bench for viewing&#x2014;all without making any incisions in a live patient.

Displaying image data from a scanner capsule

Imaging systems may include an image sensor and a microelectromechanical systems array. The microelectromechanical systems array may be mounted over the image sensor. The system may include an infrared lens that focuses infrared light onto a first surface of the microelectromechanical systems array and a visible light source that illuminates an opposing second surface of the microelectromechanical systems array. The image sensor may capture images of the opposing second surface of the microelectromechanical systems array. The system may include processing circuitry that generates infrared images of a scene using the captured images of the microelectromechanical systems array. Microelectromechanical systems elements in the microelectromechanical systems array may change position or shape in response to infrared light that is absorbed by the microelectromechanical systems elements. Each microelectromechanical systems element may include infrared absorbing material on a metal layer. The system may include optical elements that focus visible light onto the image sensor.

Optical and infrared imaging system

A handheld diagnostic system may include a disposable sample holder for receiving and containing a biological sample and an analysis module having a chip-scale microscope. The sample holder may include a plurality of uniformly spaced tick marks. The analysis module may include a sensor for detecting the tick marks as the sample holder is inserted into the analysis module. The chip-scale microscope may include an image sensor for capturing images of the sample. Each time the sensor detects a tick mark, control circuitry may issue a control signal to the image sensor to capture an image of the biological sample. This type of automated image capture mechanism ensures that images are captured at a uniform spatial distribution even when the sample holder is inserted into the analysis module at variable speed. The analysis module may transmit sample imaging data to a portable electronic device.

Handheld diagnostic system with chip-scale microscope and automated image capture mechanism

Optical accelerometers may be provided that detect acceleration in up to six axes. An optical accelerometer may include an image sensor and optical elements such as light pipes that extend over the image sensor. Light may be injected into the optical elements by a light source. The optical elements may guide the light onto corresponding portions of an image pixel array on the image sensor. The image pixels may be used to detect changes in the location, size, and intensity of illuminated portions of the pixel array when the optical elements move due to acceleration of the optical accelerometer. The optical accelerometer may include multiple light pipes having various lengths and thicknesses. Light pipes of matching length and thickness may be formed over opposing sides of a pixel array. The light pipes may be coated with a material that responds to electric or magnetic fields.

Optical accelerometers

A system may include computing equipment and a handheld video overlay accessory. A video overlay accessory may include one or more light sources, an image sensor, and processing circuitry. The video overlay accessory may include an image projector that projects images onto external objects. The video overlay accessory may include a partially transparent beam splitter and a display that projects display content onto the partially transparent beam splitter. A user that views a scene through the partially transparent beam splitter may view the display content apparently overlaid onto the scene. Light sources in the video overlay accessory may be laser diodes or other light-emitting diodes that project tracking spots such as infrared tracking spots on to external objects. The image sensor may be used to capture images of the tracking spots. The processing circuitry may determine distance and position information based on the captured images.

Video overlay systems

An electronic device may have a camera module. The camera module may include a camera sensor capable of capturing foveated images. The camera sensor may be hardwired to capture foveated images with fixed regions of different quality levels or may be dynamically-reconfigurable to capture foveated images with selected regions of different quality levels. As one example, the camera module may be hardwired to capture a center region of an image at full resolution and peripheral regions at reduced resolutions, so that a user can merely center objects of interest in the image to capture a foveated image. As another example, the camera module may analyze previous images to identify objects of interest and may then reconfigure itself to capture the identified objects of interest at a high quality level, while capturing other regions at reduced quality levels.

Imaging system with foveated imaging capabilites

Electronic devices may include touch-free user input components that include camera modules having overlapping fields-of-view. The overlapping fields-of-view may form a gesture tracking volume in which multi-dimensional user gestures can be tracked using images captured with the camera modules. A camera module may include an image sensor having an array of image pixels and a diffractive element that redirects light onto the array of image pixels. The diffractive element may re-orient the field-of-view of each camera module so that an outer edge of the field-of-view runs along an outer surface of a display for the device. The device may include processing circuitry that operates the device using user input data based on the user gestures in the gesture tracking volume. The processing circuitry may operate the display based on the user gestures by displaying regional markers having a size and a location that depend on the user gestures.

Electronic devices with camera-based user interfaces

An electronic device may be provided with imaging modules or communications modules. Imaging modules and communications modules may be improved with the use of plasmonic light collectors. Plasmonic light collectors exploit the interaction between incoming light and plasmons in the plasmonic light collector to redirect the path of the incoming light. Plasmonic light collectors may be used to form lenses for image pixels in an imaging module or to form light pipes or lenses for use in injecting optical communications into a fiber optic cable. Plasmonic lenses may be formed by lithography of metallic surfaces, by implantation or by stacking and patterning of layers of materials having different dielectric properties. Plasmonic image pixels may be smaller and more efficient than conventional image pixels. Plasmonic light guides may have significantly less signal loss than conventional lenses and light guides.

Plasmonic light collectors

An electronic device may be provided a plasmonic light sensor. Plasmonic light sensors may include arrays of plasmonic image pixels that detect evanescent electron density waves, or plasmons, generated in the plasmonic image pixel through an interaction with incoming light. Plasmonic image pixels may include microlenses that focus the light onto conducting wires in the plasmonic image pixel. Plasmons generated on the surface of the conducting wire may propagate along the conducting wire. Detector circuitry may be coupled to the wire on which the plasmons propagate to detect the light through detection of the evanescent electron density wave. Detector circuitry may include a biasing component for biasing a photodiode such that a small amount of light results in an avalanche of charge, or a sudden increase in current, produced in the detector circuitry in response to the evanescent wave.

Plasmonic light sensors

Methods and apparatuses for a free-space multi-dimensional absolute pointer using a projection marker system are described herein. In one embodiment, a presentation system includes, but is not limited to, a projection-based marker apparatus to project one or more optical spots on a display surface for displaying machine generated content capable of being manipulated via a cursor of a pointing device, a handheld device to wirelessly capture the projected optical spots from the display surface, and a control unit communicatively coupled to the projection-based marker apparatus and the handheld device to determine coordinates of the cursor based on characteristics of the captured light spots. Other methods and apparatuses are also described.

Free-space multi-dimensional absolute pointer using a projection marker system

A method is described that involves identifying one or more images of respective one or more fixed markers. Each marker is positioned on or proximate to a display. The images appear on a pixilated sensor within a handheld device. The method also involves determining a location on, or proximate to, the display where the handheld device was pointed during the identifying. The method also involves sending from the handheld device information derived from the identifying of the one or more images of respective one or more fixed markers. The method also involves triggering action taken by electronic equipment circuitry in response to the handheld device's sending of a signal to indicate the action is desired.

Handheld vision based absolute pointing system

Electronic devices may be provided with imaging modules that include plasmonic light collectors. Plasmonic light collectors may be configured to exploit an interaction between incoming light and plasmons in the plasmonic light collector to alter the path of the incoming light. Plasmonic light collectors may include one or more spectrally tuned plasmonic image pixels configured to preferentially trap light of a given frequency. Spectrally tuned plasmonic image pixels may include plasmonic structures formed form a patterned metal layer over doped silicon layers. Doped silicon layers may be interposed between plasmonic structures and a reflective layer. Plasmonic image pixels may be used to absorb and detect as much as, or more than, ninety percent of incident light at wavelengths ranging from the infrared to the ultraviolet. Plasmonic image pixels that capture light of different colors may be arranged in patterned arrays to form imager modules or imaging spectrometers for optofluidic microscopes.

Growing community of inventors

Pleasanton, CA, United States of America

Kenneth Edward Salsman