Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.

International Business Machines Corporation

Sony Corporation

Steven Osman

Jeffrey Roger Stafford

Richard Lee Marks

Yunpeng Zhu

Olga Rudi

Mahdi Azmandian

Jorge Arroyo Palacios

Xiaodong Mao

Ruxin Chen

Javier Fernandez Rico

Todd Tokubo

Xavier Menendez-Pidal

Katrine Chow

Glenn T Black

Xiadong Mao

Gustavo Hernandez-Abrego

Saket Kumar

Jeansoo Khim

Michael G Taylor

Eric James Larsen

Brielle Powell

Rishi Deshpande

Care Michaud-Wideman

Crusoe Xiadong Mao

Charles McCoy

Dominic Saul Mallinson

Celeste Bean

Victoria Dorn

Yuichiro Nakamura

Frederick Umminger

Danjeli Schembri

Richard B Stenson

Jun Murakawa

Vlad Stamate

Victoria Walker

Christopher Ho

Morgan Fryer-McCulloch

Mark Evan Cerny

Seiji Maeda

Victor Octav Suba Miura

Brian King Flachs

Anton Mikhailov

Jason Scanlin

Angela Bartolome

Alessandra Luizello

Katie Egeland

Bethany Tinklenberg

Lachmin Singh

Geoff Norton

Jeff Stafford

Mark Sherry

Rizwana Rahman

Dmitri Shtilman

Jasmine Roberts

Kazuyuki Arimatsu

Aslanta Chen

Phoenix Nitta-Hill

Ravi Coimbatore Madhavan

Tooba Ahsen

A method performed for evaluating activity in a video game, including: executing a multi-player session of a video game; during the multi-player session, receiving flag event data from a first player device, the flag event data indicating that a first player has flagged a gameplay incident occurring during the multi-player session as potentially inappropriate; responsive to receiving the flag event data, then sending a request to a plurality of second player devices, wherein responsive to said request each of the plurality of second player devices renders a voting interface to obtain voting input from each of a plurality of second players regarding whether the gameplay incident is inappropriate; receiving said voting input from the plurality of second player devices, and responsive to said voting input identifying a threshold amount of the plurality of second players considering the gameplay incident to be inappropriate, then administering a penalty for the gameplay incident.

Reporting and crowd-sourced review whether game activity is appropriate for user

Systems and methods for customized dialogue support in virtual environments are provided. Dialogue maps stored in memory may specify dialogue triggers each associated with a corresponding dialogue instruction. Data regarding an interactive session associated with a user device may be monitored based on one or more of the stored dialogue maps. The presence of one of the dialogue triggers specified by the one or more dialogue maps may be detected based on the monitored data. Customized dialogue output may be generated in response to the detected dialogue trigger and based on the dialogue instruction corresponding to the detected dialogue trigger. The customized dialogue output may be provided to the interactive session in real-time with detection of the detected dialogue trigger.

Customized dialogue support

Techniques are described for smooth switchover of computer game control. The current states of game input is communicated to a new player assuming control. The new player is allowed time to catch up to the game. New player control is detected, and any errors are communicated to the new player. If there are differences between the old control scheme and that of the new player, they are reconciled. The outgoing player is adjusted to the transition.

Smooth switchover of computer game control

To protect a user's privacy by reducing a malicious developer's ability to eavesdrop on unwitting HMD users by converting signals from a motion sensor in the HMD to speech or speaker recognition, a microphone can record ambient sound and voice which is subtracted from the motion sensor data before the sensor data is made available to the game developer. In another technique, a band pass filter subtracts frequency in the sensor signals within the voice range. Still a third technique blends statistical noise into the motion sensor signal before passing to game developers to obfuscate the user's speech. The amount by which voice components in the motion signal are eliminated or obfuscated can be tuned by a person or app.

Tunable filtering of voice-related components from motion sensor

A method, and system for controlling a computer program are disclosed. One or more images are presented on a display device in response to execution of the computer program on a computing device. Gaze tracking information corresponding to a location of a user's gaze with respect to the one or more images presented on the display device is collected over time. The gaze tracking information over time is analyzed to detect a pattern of the user's gaze characteristic of reading and upon detecting the pattern of the user's gaze characteristics of reading, a reading control mode is activated. In the reading control mode location and duration of the user's gaze triggers commands affecting execution of the computer program.

Filtering of gaze tracking information to trigger reading control mode

A method including executing game logic of a video game to generate a plurality of video frames for a game play of the video game by a player, wherein game state data is generated during the executing the game logic. The method including identifying an effect that is generated for at least one video frame in the plurality of video frames based on the game state data. The method including translating the effect to a haptic response presentable to the player simultaneous with the at least one video frame, wherein the haptic response is communicating a gaming experience that is rendered by the effect in the at least one video frame.

Impaired player accessability with overlay logic providing haptic responses for in-game effects

A method for assisting game play. The method includes monitoring game play of the user playing a gaming application, wherein the user has a defined task to accomplish, wherein the task is associated with a task type. The method includes determining a task type proficiency rule for the task type based on results of a plurality of players taking on a plurality of tasks having the task type. The method includes determining a player proficiency score for accomplishing the task based on the task type proficiency rule. The method includes determining a user predictive rate of success in accomplishing the task based on the player proficiency score, the task type proficiency rule, and the task. The method includes determining a recommendation for the user based on the user predictive rate of success.

Automated artificial intelligence (AI) personal assistant

Certain aspects of the present disclosure include systems and techniques for generating content that indicates a sensation associated with audio. One example method generally includes monitoring audio to be played during display of an associated portion of an interactive content stream provided over a communication network to at least one viewing device during an interactive session, and analyzing, via a machine learning component, the audio to determine a sensation associated with at least a portion of the audio. The method may also include determining an effect indicating the sensation, wherein the effect is associated with one or more output devices associated with the at least one viewing device, and outputting an indication of the effect to the associated output devices, wherein the effect is configured to be output along with the audio in real-time with the display of the associated portion of the interactive content stream.

Contextual scene enhancement

Privacy of a conversation between a computer game player and an entity such as a person or virtual assistant is preserved by various techniques so that other players of the computer game who are not part of the conversation cannot apprehend the conversation. The conversation may be voice or txt but is not an online chat associated with the computer game.

SMS, phone and video call support while gaming

A map of a person's spatial vision abilities, including areas of low acuity and areas of high acuity, may be generated from medical records or from a calibration phase. During presentation of a computer simulation such as a computer game, the map is provided to a foveated renderer to optimize which areas should be rendered most crisply. Content placement may be optimized to ensure that any critical elements to the game, for instance, any text that needs to be seen or treasures or special pickups that need to be seen clearly can be moved into regions of the player's field of view that the person has higher acuity in.

Eye tracking for accessibility and visibility of critical elements as well as performance enhancements

Methods and systems are provided for providing navigation assistance using eye gaze of a user. An example method provides assistive navigation in a video game. The method includes receiving input from a user device during a gameplay session of the video game. The method further includes capturing eye gaze of the user during the gameplay to identify a region of a scene of the video game associated with said eye gaze. Then, activating gaze navigation to move a focus of the scene to the region identified using the captured eye gaze. The gaze navigation is triggered automatically without said input from the user device.

Methods and systems to activate selective navigation or magnification of screen content

The present disclosure generally relates to systems and methods to for encouraging spectator participation by permitting audience participation to provide different types of in-game help or hindrance to eSport players or teams when certain tiers or thresholds of spectator engagement are reached. In one example, a player's fanbase may cheer by pressing a button or providing other input/feedback. When a specific number of spectators or a level of participation is reached, a helpful object, power-up, or other in-game advantage may be given to the player. Conversely, a harmful item, loss of an object, or other in-game hindrance may be given to the player.

Triggering virtual help or hindrance based on audience participation tiers

A player who is interrupted during play of a computer simulation such as a computer game and must attend to other matters (colloquially referred to herein as being 'away from keyboard' or “AFK”) is assisted in three phases. A first type of assistance is rendered when entering AFK, as in, at the start of the interruption. A second type of assistance is rendered during AFK, while the player is away. A third type of assistance is rendered when the player returns from AFK to the computer simulation.

Away from keyboard (AFK) helper for game players

To improve the fidelity of a motion sensor, voice-induced components in signals from the motion sensor as well as haptic-induced components in signals from the motion sensor are canceled prior to outputting the final motion signal to an app requiring knowledge of device motion, such as motion of a HMD for a computer game.

Fidelity of motion sensor signal by filtering voice and haptic components

A method for gaming. The method includes assigning a default game play profile to a user, wherein the default game play profile includes a default game play style that simulates human game play, and wherein the default game play profile is configured to control game play for the user based on the default game play style. The method includes monitoring a plurality of game plays of the user playing a plurality of gaming applications. The method includes generating a user game play profile of the user by adjusting the default game play style based on the plurality of game plays, wherein the user game play profile incudes a user game play style customized to the user. The method includes controlling an instance of a first gaming application based on the user game play style of the user game play profile.

Generation of an artificial intelligence (AI) model for automatic control of characters during game plays of gaming applications

Growing community of inventors

San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Steven Osman