The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 20, 2014
Filed:
Jun. 08, 2010
Ahmet Karakas, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Ahmet Karakas, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Nvidia Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
In a class of embodiments, a method and apparatus for detecting freefall of a disk device (thereby predicting that the disk device will likely suffer imminent physical impact) and typically also preventing damage that a disk drive of the device would otherwise suffer if and when a predicted impact occurs. In some embodiments, a disk device includes a freefall detection processor and a CPU. The freefall detection processor is configured to monitor acceleration data to determine whether the disk device is in freefall and to perform at least one other operation (e.g., decoding of MP3-encoded audio data to generate decoded audio data) while the CPU performs at least one other task. Other embodiments pertain to a portable device including a digital audio processing subsystem and an accelerometer. The digital audio processing subsystem is configured to monitor acceleration data to identify any rhythm associated with motion of the portable device and to modify the playback of audio data in response to any such identified rhythm.