Hitachi, Ltd.

Sony Corporation

Takao Ohsawa

Hideki Takayama

Atsuhiko Urushihara

Moritaka Taniguchi

Gen Nagai

Takashi Matsubara

Koichi Kimura

Nobukazu Kondo

Hiroaki Aotsu

Hiroki Kitagawa

Masaki Takano

Takashi Maruyama

Isao Sasaki

Hisashi Ohashi

Hiroshi Ohsugi

Noriyoshi Ogura

Keiji Hikino

Hikaru Kaji

Masao Takahashi

Yoshinobu Ueda

Junpei Kimura

Tetuya Fukunaga

Chihiro Tsuchiya

Yoshio Kakihi

Mitsuji Suzuki

Sadao Nakatsuka

Toshio Shibata

Toshiyuki Edakawa

Shoji Matsui

Michikazu Isono

Jun Furuta

Yo Miyamoto

A drive device for a piezoelectric element includes a transformer, a driver circuit, and a control circuit. The transformer has a primary side and a secondary side. The drive circuit causes the secondary side to generate a drive signal whose frequency varies in accordance with a control signal input to the primary side and to supply the generated drive signal to the piezoelectric element. The control circuit changes a frequency of the control signal in a predetermined frequency range multiple times, detects an impedance change in the piezoelectric element each time the control-signal frequency is changed, determines a resonant frequency of the piezoelectric element on the basis of a transition of the impedance change, and controls the control-signal frequency so that the determined resonant frequency is obtained.

Piezoelectric element drive device, electronic apparatus, and method for controlling piezoelectric element drive frequency

The recording operation can be rapidly started and a notification about the operating state during the recording operation can be realized without adding a new component, whereby a target scene of a subject can be recorded reliably. When a video signal captured by a camera unitis compressed and encoded and is recorded on a DV tape, a control unitcontrols a compression/decompression unitand a tape deck unitto compress and encode the video signal and record as DV data without using compressed data already recorded on the DV tape. In other words, the control unitcontrols the operation of compressing and encoding video data to be newly recorded in such a manner that compressed data already recorded on the DV tape is not read out, thus reducing the time until recording of the video data on the DV tape is started.

Imaging device and recording control method

An electronic money system has an IC card for electronic money having a memory for maintaining money deposit and money debit information and another memory, such as an EPROM, for storing transaction data, including detailed information of transactions, such as the content of a typical receipt received from a retail store. The transaction information can be used at a later time in a personal computer so that an electronic record of household expenses can be maintained The transaction data that is stored includes the product name, price of the product, quantity of the product purchased and similar details of the transaction. The IC card memory can record the name and telephone number of a retail store where the card has been used or a network address can be recorded in the memory for use by a customer to access electronic direct-mail information by using a PC. Also, a store can determine whether a particular purchase is within a range of average purchases in terms of the number of products being purchased in a transaction and the total cost of the transaction, based on the stored transaction information.

Electronic money system

A data processing apparatus comprising a disk unit, a power supply unit, at least one printed circuit board, a heat-exhaust fan, and a box accommodating the disk unit, the power supply unit, the printed circuit board, the heat-exhaust fan. Both the depth and height of the box are larger than the width and has first and second side surfaces defined by the depth and height, bottom and top surfaces defined by the depth and width, and front and rear surfaces defined the height and width. The disk unit and the power supply unit are disposed adjacent to the first side surface. The printed circuit board is disposed adjacent to the second side surface. The disk unit is disposed on the front surface, and the power supply unit is disposed on the rear surface. The apparatus is supported by a first leg and a second leg. Cooling air is exhausted through the first leg which includes a cut-out which communicates with a hollow portion. The second leg includes two non-aligned ends which extend beyond the sides of the apparatus and allow two of the apparatuses to be placed side by side.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Takao Ohsawa