Systems and methods for positioning a user of a hands-free intercommunication
First Claim
1. A hands-free intercommunication system for automatically connecting a user to an entity of interest, the system comprising:
- a user-tracking sensor that determines a location of the user;
a directional microphone that measures vocal emissions by the user, wherein the measured vocal emissions include identifying the entity of interest with which the user would like to communicate;
a communication interface that communicatively couples the directional microphone and a directional sound emitter to a communication device of the entity of interest, wherein the communication interface determines whether to couple the communication device of the entity of interest to the user based on the location of the user; and
a directional sound emitter that delivers audio received at the communication device of the entity of interest to the user, wherein the directional sound emitter emits audio received the entity of interest using a plurality of inaudible ultrasonic sound waves that frequency convert to produce audible audio corresponding to the received audio the entity of interest for the user at the location of the user.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A hands-free intercom may include a user-tracking sensor, a directional microphone, a directional sound emitter, a display device, and/or a communication interface. The user-tracking sensor may determine a location of a user so the directional microphone can measure vocal emissions by the user and the directional sound emitter can deliver audio to the user. The hands-free intercom may provide privacy to the user. The hands-free intercom may prevent an eavesdropper from hearing the user'"'"'s vocal emissions, for example, by canceling the vocal emissions at the eavesdropper'"'"'s ear. The directional sound emitter may deliver out-of-phase sound to cancel the vocal emissions. The hands-free intercom may also, or instead, cancel ambient noise at the user'"'"'s ear. The hands-free intercom may measure or predict a filtration of the sound to be canceled and compensate for the filtration when canceling the sound.
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Citations
35 Claims
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1. A hands-free intercommunication system for automatically connecting a user to an entity of interest, the system comprising:
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a user-tracking sensor that determines a location of the user; a directional microphone that measures vocal emissions by the user, wherein the measured vocal emissions include identifying the entity of interest with which the user would like to communicate; a communication interface that communicatively couples the directional microphone and a directional sound emitter to a communication device of the entity of interest, wherein the communication interface determines whether to couple the communication device of the entity of interest to the user based on the location of the user; and a directional sound emitter that delivers audio received at the communication device of the entity of interest to the user, wherein the directional sound emitter emits audio received the entity of interest using a plurality of inaudible ultrasonic sound waves that frequency convert to produce audible audio corresponding to the received audio the entity of interest for the user at the location of the user. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A hands-free intercommunication system for automatically connecting a user to an entity of interest, the system comprising:
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a user-tracking sensor that; determines a location of the user, identifies a non-tactile gesture by the user, and determines the entity of interest with which the user would like to communicate based on the non-tactile gesture; a directional microphone that measures vocal emissions by the use; a communication interface that communicatively couples the directional microphone and the directional sound emitter to a communication device of the entity of interest to the user based on the location of the user; and a directional sound emitter that delivers audio received at the communication device of the entity of interest to the user, wherein the directional sound emitter emits audio received the entity of interest using a plurality of inaudible ultrasonic sound waves that frequency convert to produce audible audio corresponding to the received audio from the entity of interest for the user at the location of the user.
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18. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising program code configured to cause a processor to perform a method for automatically connecting a user to an entity of interest, the method comprising:
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determining a location of the user; measuring vocal emissions by the user using a directional microphone, wherein the measured vocal emissions includes identifying the entity of interest with which the user would like to communicate; determining whether to forward a connection request to a user device based on the location of the user; communicatively coupling the user device to a communication device of the entity of interest; and delivering audio received at the communication device of the entity of interest to the user device via a directional sound emitter, wherein the directional sound emitter emits audio received from the entity of interest using a plurality of inaudible ultrasonic sound waves that frequency convert to produce audible audio corresponding to the received audio from the entity of interest for the user at the location of the user. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34)
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35. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising program code that causes a processor to perform a method for automatically connecting a user to an entity of interest, the method comprising:
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determining a location of the user, identifying a gesture by the user; determining the entity of interest with which the user would like to communicate based on the gesture; communicatively coupling the user to the entity of interest; measuring vocal emissions by the user using a directional microphone; delivering the measured vocal emissions by the user to the entity of interest; and delivering audio from the entity of interest to the user, wherein the delivery is performed by emitting a plurality of inaudible ultrasonic sound waves from a directional sound emitter that frequency convert to produce audible audio corresponding to the audio the entity of interest for the user at the location of the user.
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Specification