Smartphone-based methods and systems

• US 9,424,618 B2
• Filed: 07/18/2012
• Issued: 08/23/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 11/04/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Digimarc Corporation
• Original Assignee: Digimarc Corporation
• Inventors: Rodriguez, Tony F.
• Primary Examiner(s): Patel, Nirav G
• Application Number:
  US13/552,265
• Publication Number:
  US 20120284339A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,497 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 18/21 Design or setup of recognition systems or techniques; Extraction of features in feature space; Blind source separation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/1443 locating of the code in an image
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/0021 Image watermarking
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/0064 Geometric transfor invariant watermarking, e.g. affine transform invariant
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2201/0052 Embedding of the watermark in the frequency domain
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/34 Indicating arrangements indicating means incorporated in magazine or cassette G11B23/046 and G11B23/0875; indicating measured values in general G01D
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/0264 for a camera module assembly
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/635 Region indicators; Field of view indicators
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/70 Circuitry for compensating brightness variation in the scene
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/77 between a recording apparatus and a television camera
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/18 Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/50 Service provisioning or reconfiguring
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/22 Processing or transfer of terminal data, e.g. status or physical capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H05B 47/11 by determining the brightness or colour temperature of ambient light
• CPC Class Codes: H05B 47/12 by detecting audible sound
• CPC Class Codes: Y02B 20/40 Control techniques providing energy savings, e.g. smart controller or presence detection

Abstract

Arrangements involving portable devices (e.g., smartphones and tablet computers) are disclosed. One arrangement enables a content creator to select software with which that creator'"'"'s content should be rendered—assuring continuity between artistic intention and delivery. Another utilizes a device camera to identify nearby subjects, and take actions based thereon. Others rely on near field chip (RFID) identification of objects, or on identification of audio streams (e.g., music, voice). Some technologies concern improvements to the user interfaces associated with such devices. Others involve use of these devices in connection with shopping, text entry, sign language interpretation, and vision-based discovery. Still other improvements are architectural in nature, e.g., relating to evidence-based state machines, and blackboard systems. Yet other technologies concern use of linked data in portable devices—some of which exploit GPU capabilities. Still other technologies concern computational photography. A great variety of other features and arrangements are also detailed.

Claims

1. A method comprising the acts:

accessing image data captured by a camera of a person'"'"'s device, the image data depicting plural physical objects;

transforming the image data to derive multi-bit image feature data therefrom, said transforming including applying a non-linear filtering operation to the image data;

using the derived multi-bit image feature data, in conjunction with reference data stored in a reference data structure, to identify plural physical objects depicted in said image data;

in an electronic memory device, establishing a graph data structure representing nodes connected by links, said data structure identifying relationships between the person and the plural physical objects;

from the graph data structure, discerning relative importance of one or more of said physical objects to the person; and

filtering media content directed to the person, to pass said media content for presentation to the person, based on said discerned relative importance;

wherein a first of said nodes represents a first physical object depicted in said image data; and

a link connecting to said first node indicates a “

like”

or “

owns”

relationship between the person and said first physical object.

2. The method of claim 1 in which the media content comprises email addressed to the person.

3. The method of claim 2 in which the filtering comprises deciding which of said email to present to the person, and which of said email to route to a junk mail collection.

4. The method of claim 1 in which the media content comprises a feed from a social network.

5. The method of claim 1 that further includes assigning a confidence value to said discerned relative importance of one of said physical objects to the person.

6. The method of claim 1 that further includes updating an aging score for said discerned relative importance of one of said physical objects to the person, based on time elapsed since said one of said physical objects was depicted in image data captured by the person'"'"'s device.

7. The method of claim 1 that further includes establishing, on a social networking service, an affinity social group of plural persons whose respective graph data structures identify relationships with a particular type of physical object.

8. The method of claim 1 in which:

one of said nodes represents a physical object depicted in said image data;

one of said links indicates a “

like”

relationship; and

one of said links indicates an “

owns”

relationship.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein a number of links connecting to a particular node indicates the relative importance of a physical object corresponding to said particular node.

10. The method of claim 1 that further includes issuing a notification to a social network when the person interacts with one of said physical objects.

12. The method of claim 1 that includes:

developing plural hypotheses about interests of the person; and

in response to a newly-accessed image captured by said camera, reinforcing one of said hypotheses and discounting another of said hypotheses.

13. The method of claim 1 in which the act of discerning relative importance of the first physical object includes determining a number of graph links that connect to said first node.

14. The method of claim 1 in which the link to the first node indicates an “

owns”

relationship with said first physical object.

15. The method of claim 14 that includes determining said relationship of “

owns”

based on vehicle registration data obtained from a database.

16. The method of claim 14 that includes determining said relationship of “

owns”

based on geolocation data provided by the device, said geolocation data indicating the first physical object is located at a residence of the person.

11. A portable device including a camera, a processor, and a memory, the memory including software instructions enabling the device to perform actions including:

accessing image data captured by a camera of a person'"'"'s device, the image data depicting plural physical objects;

transforming the image data to derive multi-bit image feature data therefrom, said transforming including applying a non-linear filtering operation to the image data;

using the derived multi-bit image feature data, in conjunction with reference data stored in a reference data structure, to identify plural physical objects depicted in said image data;

establishing a graph data structure comprising nodes connected by links, said data structure identifying relationships between the person and the plural physical objects;

from the graph data structure, discerning relative importance of one or more of said physical objects to the person; and

filtering media content directed to the person, to pass said media content for presentation to the person, based on said discerned relative importance;

wherein a first of said nodes represents a physical object depicted in said image data; and

a link connecting to said first node indicates a “

like”

or “

owns”

relationship between the person and said first physical object.