Texas Instruments Corporation

Qualcomm Incorporated

Biscotti Inc.

Alantro Communications, Inc.

Matthew Brendan Shoemake

Syed Nadeem Ahmed

Sridhar Rajagopal

Jie Liang

Sidney Brower Schrum, Jr

Chris Heegard

Craig D Smith

Yonghe Liu

Anuj Batra

Jin-Meng Ho

Carl Michael Panasik

John D Terry

Kofi Dankwa Anim-Appiah

Khaled Turki

John M Hughes

Jack R Ring

Francois D Nguyen

William Robert Krenik

Felix Carlos Fernandes

Harshal Shantanu Chhaya

Lior Ophir

Michele B Gammel

Fred S Stivers

Nasir Ahmed

Nadeem Ahmed

S Nadeem Ahmed

David Brenner

Lee Bradshaw

Greg Christison

Sid B Schrum

Scott Petler

Christopher M Reed

Jr Sidney B Schrum

Novel tools and techniques are described for providing remote control of consumer electronics devices, and, more particularly, to tools and techniques for providing virtual remote control of consumer electronics devices that do not have dedicated remote controllers.

Virtual remote functionality

Novel tools and techniques are provided for displaying video. In some embodiments, novel tools and techniques might be provided for sensing the presence and/or position of a user in a room, and/or for customizing displayed content (including video call content, media content, and/or the like) based on the sensed presence and/or position of the user. In particular, in some aspects, a user device (which might include, without limitation, a video calling device, an image capture device, a gaming console, etc.) might determine a position of a user relative to a display device in communication with the user device. The user device and/or a control server (in communication with the user device over a network) might adjust an apparent view of video or image(s) displayed on the display device, based at least in part on the determined position of the user relative to the display device.

Virtual window

Novel tools and techniques for collecting and using presence information. In accordance with some techniques, a presence detection device ('PDD') at a customer premises and/or another computer (such as a control server) can identify and/or authenticate a user. Once identified and/or authenticated, the user's profiles and/or media content may be sent to the PDD, and/or access to the user's profiles and/or media content may be provided to the PDD.

Mobile presence detection

Novel tools and techniques are provided for enabling or implementing video mail capture, processing, and distribution. In response to a first video calling device receiving a video call from a caller at a second video calling device, the first video calling device, which is associated with a user or callee, might determine whether the user is available to answer the video call. If not, one of the first or second video calling devices might prompt the caller to leave a videomail message, and might record and upload the videomail message to a server over a network for post-processing and/or storage. A notification may be sent to the user regarding the videomail message. The user may be provided with options to view the videomail message and/or to respond to the videomail message. In some cases, the first and second video calling devices might be of different make or model.

Video mail capture, processing and distribution

Novel tools and techniques for implementing remote control of image and video capture devices, and/or for implementing remote control of processing and sharing functions associated with captured image and/or video data. In accordance with some techniques, a first image capture device ('ICD') at a customer premises and/or another computer (such as a control server) can identify and/or authenticate a user. Once identified and/or authenticated, the user is provided options to remotely control one or more second ICDs over the network. The user may also be provided options for displaying, processing, creating time lapse videos of, or sharing captured image data or video data.

Video capture, processing and distribution system

One embodiment is an enhanced power supply including electronic power supply circuitry within a housing. The enhanced power supply further includes one or more sockets operatively associated with the housing providing for the connection of an external apparatus to the enhanced power supply such that the external apparatus may communicate data or another signal through the connection to an output cable. The output cable may to be connected to a device such that both power and at least one signal will be provided to the device through the output cable. Systems featuring an enhanced power supply and methods of providing power and one or more other signals to a device with a reduced number of cables are also disclosed.

Enhanced power supply

Novel tools and techniques for implementing distributed infrastructure are provided. In some techniques, a plurality of user devices, each at a customer premises, can provide video calling services over a network. In some embodiments, each of one or more user devices might be established as a distributed infrastructure element for cloud computing, cloud-based application hosting, and/or cloud-based data storage. One or more software applications, customer data, and/or media content (collectively, 'hosted content') might be provided to the one or more user devices for hosting thereon. Resource usage information and/or network connectivity information might be collected for each user device, and suitability of a user device to host the hosted content might be determined based at least in part on the collected resource usage information and/or network connectivity information. One or more courses of action may be determined, and invoked, based on performance metrics of the user devices.

Distributed infrastructure

The convenience of a wireless network is tempered by the concern that a rogue device can listen in on the wireless communications. Determining the position of the home device and other devices within range allows the user of the home device to choose the specific wireless devices with which to communicate. The distance to the other devices within wireless communications range is helpful and allows the user to sort between safe and unsafe or rogue devices. Distance can be determined by a variety of methods including use of trusted references, signal strength, and error rate. Once the safe device is selected, the system will then establish a communications path with that device.

Position based enhanced security of wireless communications

A method for providing wireless Ethernet connectivity over an UWB link includes providing an adapter coupled to an external network via an Ethernet port, monitoring, by the adapter, a plurality of communication channels in an UWB spectrum, establishing a wireless link on a preferred communication channel, and exchanging data between the adapter and a UWB-enabled device over the wireless link.

Wireless ethernet adapter

A system, method and computer-readable medium for reducing the required throughput in an ultra-wideband system is provided. A temporal sub-sampling routine limits the number of frames, or portions thereof, to be transmitted to a sink over an RF link. The temporal sub-sampling routine may have a fixed, or static, sub-sampling rate that specifies the rate at which frames are discarded. In accordance with another embodiment, an automatic temporal sub-sampling mechanism is provided. Additionally, a tile copying mechanism may be implemented for reducing the throughput of the RF link. A WDV subsystem may include an interface to an external frame buffer that facilitates the temporal sub-sampling and tile copy routines disclosed herein.

System, method, and computer-readable medium for reducing required throughput in an ultra-wideband system

The present invention provides a method for enabling side channel communication between wireless devices. In one embodiment of the invention the guard tones in wireless OFDM signals are used for side channel communication. In another embodiment of the invention, unused bits in OFDM symbols are used as side channels instead of being padded with zeros or random bits.

Virtual side channels for digital wireless communication systems

Remote control device

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for detecting interference in a wireless communications system. The invention compares the receiver FFT output of a received signal against known sequences such as the packet synchronization sequence, frame synchronization sequence, and channel estimation sequence. By comparing the reference signal to the known sequences, the invention estimates the instantaneous signal to noise ratio (SNR) for each tone of a wireless transmission. To improve the SNR estimate, the invention computes a weighted average across multiple OFDM symbols. The invention looks for significant increases (spikes) in the SNR as a way of distinguishing interfering signals from noise. The invention can store separate SNR estimates for each transmitter in a wireless network. One embodiment of the invention uses Viterbi branch metrics in conjunction with the estimated SNR to determine the presence of an interfering signal. If interference is detected the invention feeds the inverse of the SNR estimate into the Viterbi decoder or declares and erasure for that symbol.

Detection and mitigation of interference and jammers in an OFDM system

Novel tools and techniques for providing video calling solutions. In some such solutions, a video calling device resides functionally inline between a set-top box and a television set. Such solutions can provide, in some cases, high performance video calling, high video quality, simplified installation, configuration and/or use, and/or the ability to enjoy video calling in an inclusive, comfortable environment, such as a family room, den, or media room.

Growing community of inventors

Allen, TX, United States of America

Matthew Brendan Shoemake