Sony Corporation

Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.

Sony Group Corporation

Sony Electronics Inc

Saturn Licensing LLC

William Clay

Peter Rae Shintani

Morio Usami

Fred Ansfield

Keith Resch

Bibhudendu Mohapatra

Pablo Antonio Espinosa

Jose Omar Gonzalez Hernandez

James Richard Milne

Gregory Carlsson

Mahyar Nejat

Justin Kenefick

A computer-implemented method for a first auditory device to connect with a second auditory device that includes determining that a user requests that the first auditory device connect to the second auditory device. The method further includes transmitting a request for a connection to the second auditory device. The method further includes responsive to receiving an acknowledgement, subscribing to the connection. The method further includes communicating with the second auditory device until the first auditory device is done or out of a communication range with the second auditory device.

Auditory device to auditory device communication linking

A first hearing aid includes a first sensor that receives first sensor data associated with a mobile device. The first hearing aid determines, based on the first sensor data, that a first distance between the first hearing aid and the mobile device is below a first distance threshold. The first hearing aid changes a first preset associated with the first hearing aid to a second preset. A second hearing aid changes a first preset associated with the second hearing aid to a third preset.

Hearing aid proximity detection and action to optimize a call

Audio speaker angular determination is made using sensor fusion technology involving an accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer (compass). All speakers in an audio system use their magnetometers to determine their orientation relative to magnetic north. A group owner (typically the center channel or sound bar) gathers the orientation information from all speakers in the system. The group owner determines the angle of orientation of all speakers relative to its own orientation. Changes in angular orientation are sensed by the gyroscopes. For example, during calibration, the user can be told to rotate a certain speaker in the system, and the gyroscope measures the change and reports to the group owner. An indication is presented as to whether the new angle is good, or more is required. The gyroscope in combination with the accelerometer senses changes of angular orientation to aim height speakers downward towards the listening position or bottom speakers upward.

Angular sensing for optimizing speaker listening experience

Each of plural devices includes a laser emitter and a camera for detecting reflections of laser light emitted by the device, so that plural of the devices can generate their own depth maps showing images within the field of view of their cameras. The resolution of each depth map may be improved by accessing a data store of prior images of objects and combining the prior images using super-resolution with current images of the depth maps.

Using super imposition to render a 3D depth map

A camera based depth mapping system. Depth information is coded with colors to make a laser-generated 3D depth map easier to interpret. In the event that the laser illumination is not sufficient, the depth information can have a low signal to noise ratio, i.e., the depth map can be noisy. Color noise reduction techniques are used to alleviate this problem.

Color noise reduction in 3D depth map

A micro mirror assembly widens the field of view (FOV) of a 3D depth map sensor, alleviating the limitation of limited laser illumination power and limitations on the resolution of the available imaging device.

Using micro mirrors to improve the field of view of a 3D depth map

Multiple camera systems which use laser illumination for ranging benefit from a heartbeat to synchronize the timing of the individual lasers to eliminate collisions of multiple simultaneous laser emissions. An optical micromesh system provides for the dynamic entry and egress of mobile and stationary nodes. The optical communication between nodes may be controlled using time domain multiplexing (TDM) to avoid cross talk and communication collision due to overlapping laser illumination. By using an optical, laser based micromesh network, laser ranging can be used to dynamically map node location.

Optical micromesh for computerized devices

To reduce the random noise in a depth map that is rendered using colors to convey the various depths, pattern recognition may be used to selectively apply noise reduction or to modulate the strength of the noise reduction. In this way, the potential adverse effect on the detail/sharpness of the image can be ameliorated. For example, in an image of a person, the skin does not have any sharp edges so noise reduction can be applied to such an image with little adverse consequence, whereas noise reduction applied to the image of a person's eye can cause loss of the detail of the iris, eyelashes, etc. Using pattern recognition on objects in the image, the appropriate level of noise reduction can be applied across an image while minimizing blurring/loss of detail.

Using pattern recognition to reduce noise in a 3D map

Each of plural devices includes a laser emitter and a camera for detecting reflections of laser light emitted by the device, so that plural of the devices can generate their own depth maps showing images within the field of view of their cameras. The resulting 3D depth maps from multiple cameras at potentially arbitrary locations can be aggregated to create a more accurate 3D depth map of the area covered by all the individual cameras. Each device/camera may be assigned a unique identification such as a unique number and a mechanism to identify, either electronically or visually, devices in its field of view. Using this information, the relative locations of the cameras can be calculated for purposes of aggregating the multiple depth maps.

Using multiple cameras to stitch a consolidated 3D depth map

A remote control (RC) has two ultra-wideband tags arranged along the axis of the RC at a known distance 'd' from each other. An appliance to be controlled can use a UWB anchor to ping the tags and determine the distance to each tag. The distances are then subtracted and if the difference substantially equals the known distance 'd', this represents an indication that the RC is pointed directly at the appliance, and the appliance accordingly will execute commands from the RC. Otherwise, the appliance ignores the RC commands.

Directional remote control based on ranging

A multi-display device comprising: a plurality of display panels wherein each display panel is arranged in a housing; and a single video processor arranged within one of the housings and configured to output a different video signal to each of the plurality of display panels.

Multi-display device and method therefore

Service mode data is stored in a television chassis or set by duplicating all the data that is accessible by service mode, i.e. by storing the same data twice, in two separate areas of a single memory device or two separate memory devices. A 'working memory' is always accessible by the chassis. A 'reserved memory' is normally not accessible by the chassis. At the factory, the same service mode data is input to both the working memory and the reserved memory. The chassis microprocessor would normally only access the working memory. If any data in the working memory is changed (intentionally or not), the original factory data can be recovered from the reserved memory and copied to the working memory by executing a specific access operation.

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San Diego, CA, United States of America

William Clay