Bell Communications Research, Inc.

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation

Sharad Singhal

Hiroshi Watanabe

Hirohisa Jozawa

E Scott Soper

David J Pepper

A system and method that allow a subscriber to have incoming telephone calls automatically screened and directed is described. The system allows a subscriber to automatically manage his incoming communications in a way that is easy to control and which requires a minimum of unnecessary interruptions. The system includes a graphical user interface (GUI) which is accessible through the subscriber's personal digital assistant (200), a Network Interface (304), a service control module (306), and a database (308). The system and method allow a subscriber to have all of his incoming telephone calls screened in order to identify those that are of the high importance to the subscriber. The subscriber controls this system by user-friendly interfaces to a name and telephone number database and an appointment calendar database. By entering schedule information into an appointment calendar (including times and locations of meetings and other events) and by entering client's information into the name and telephone number database, the subscriber indicates how to locate the subscriber so that important calls will reach him immediately. These databases also tell the system which clients are of high priority to the subscriber so that lower priority calls can be directed to a voice mail system for access at the subscriber's convenience or routed to an attendant for action.

System and method for automatically screening and directing incoming

A motion compensating coder which includes a control section for setting quantizer step size accounts for both the buffer occupancy and the texture of the image being coded. The coding control method, using well-accepted assumptions relating to the human visual sensitivity to quantization distortion in an image, employs a recursive strategy that maintains a coding rate which closely approximates the number of target bits.

Motion compensating coder employing an image coding control method

Our overlapped motion compensation unit and method, which is a motion compensation mechanism employing an overlapped block structure, minimize blocking effects prevalent in convention motion compensation. Our overlapped motion compensation unit and method are implemented on the basis of analysis/synthesis filter banks employed for coding resulting in compatibility between the block structure used for motion compensation and for coding. Our encoder, decoder, and coding method employ our novel overlapped motion compensation technique in combination with analysis/synthesis filter banks such as LOT to achieve improvements in coding efficiency and image quality above that of conventional image coders and coding methods. Specifically, in our encoder, decoder, and coding method, blocking effects prevalent in coders employing conventional motion compensation techniques and discrete cosine transforms are minimized and coding efficiency and image quality are maximized.

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Mendham, NJ, United States of America

Sharad Singhal