Object information derived from object images

• US 8,331,679 B2
• Filed: 08/10/2011
• Issued: 12/11/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/06/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Nant Holdings IP, LLC (NantWorks, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Nant Holdings IP, LLC (NantWorks, LLC)
• Inventors: Boncyk, Wayne C., Cohen, Ronald H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Sherali, Ishrat I
• Application Number:
  US13/207,211
• Publication Number:
  US 20110292204A1
• Time in Patent Office: 489 Days
• Field of Search: 382/181, 382/224, 382/305, 382/100, 382/165, 348/239, 3482112-2116, 348/207.1, 348/223.1, 348/231.6, 348/460, 348/552, 455/414.3, 455/411, 455/414.2, 455/412.1, 705/26.1, 705/27.1, 705/7.33
• US Class Current: 382/181
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/22 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24554 Unary operations; Data partitioning operations
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/50 of still image data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/532 Query formulation, e.g. graphical querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/583 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5838 using colour
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5854 using shape and object relationship
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5866 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, manually generated location and time information
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/7335 Graphical querying, e.g. query-by-region, query-by-sketch, query-by-trajectory, GUIs for designating a person/face/object as a query predicate end-user interface involving hot spots associated with the video H04N21/4725; end-user interface for selecting a Region of Interest H04N21/4728
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/904 Browsing; Visualisation therefor for navigating the web G06F16/954; browsing optimisation for the web G06F16/957
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 18/25 Fusion techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2218/08 Feature extraction
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/017 Gesture based interaction, e.g. based on a set of recognized hand gestures interaction based on gestures traced on a digitiser G06F3/04883
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0261 based on user location
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0267 Wireless devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 : Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0613 : Third-party assisted
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0623 : Item investigation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0625 : Directed, with specific intent or strategy
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0635 : Processing of requisition or of purchase orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/00 : Image analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/10 : Image acquisition document image scanning and transmission H04N1/00; control of digital cameras H04N23/60
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/255 : Detecting or recognising potential candidate objects based on visual cues, e.g. shapes
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/768 : using context analysis, e.g. recognition aided by known co-occurring patterns
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/00 : Scenes; Scene-specific elements control of digital cameras H04N23/60
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/10 : Terrestrial scenes scenes under surveillance with static cameras G06V20/52; scenes perceived from the exterior of a vehicle G06V20/56; scenes perceived from the interior of a vehicle G06V20/59
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/20 : in augmented reality scenes
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/46 : Extracting features or characteristics from the video content, e.g. video fingerprints, representative shots or key frames
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/80 : Recognising image objects characterised by unique random patterns
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 2201/07 : Target detection
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/16 : Human faces, e.g. facial parts, sketches or expressions
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/18 : Eye characteristics, e.g. of the iris
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/80 : Camera processing pipelines; Components thereof
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/44 : Receiver circuitry for the reception of television signals according to analogue transmission standards H04N5/14 takes precedence

Abstract

Search terms are derived automatically from images captured by a camera equipped cell phone, PDA, or other image capturing device, submitted to a search engine to obtain information of interest, and at least a portion of the resulting information is transmitted back locally to, or nearby, the device that captured the image.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a sensor device capable of acquiring a digital representation of a scene, the digital representation comprising non-visual information; and

a processing platform coupled with the sensor device and that;

receives transmitted information related to the digital representation, including the non-visual information, from the sensor device;

derives a search term directly from at least one of the transmitted information and the non-visual information, the search term including a key allowing a search engine to access its indexing system; and

causes a result set related to search term to be returned to at least one of the sensor device and the processing platform upon submission of the search term to the search engine.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the non-visual information comprises a sound.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the sound comprises a natural sound.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the non-visual information comprises speech.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing platform further discriminates among objects in the scene based on the transmitted information.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the result set enables a transaction between at least one of the sensor device and the processing platform and an account.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the account comprises at least one of the following accounts:

an account linked to the sensor device, an account linked to user of the sensor device, a bank account, and a credit card account.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the result set comprises at least one of the following types of data:

video data, image data, audio data, streamed data, and text data.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein a sensor device comprises the processing platform.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein a server comprises the processing platform.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the sensor device comprises one of the following devices:

a terminal, a digital camera, a computer, and a mobile phone.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the result set enables the sensor device to speak a portion of the result set.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the spoken portion comprises a name of an item in the scene.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the spoken portion comprises a price of an item in the scene.

15. The system of claim 12, wherein the spoken portion comprises a printed article in the scene.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the transmitted information comprises image data of the scene.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the search term is derived based on the image data and the non-visual information.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein the key comprises a non-text key.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the non-text key comprises an image.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the non-text key comprises a sound.