Sound library and method

• US 9,602,938 B2
• Filed: 02/01/2016
• Issued: 03/21/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/16/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Staton Techiya, LLC
• Original Assignee: Personics Holdings, Inc.
• Inventors: Keady, John P, Goldstein, Steven, Boillot, Marc, Hoshizaki, Gary
• Primary Examiner(s): Chin, Vivian
• Assistant Examiner(s): Jerez Lora, William A
• Application Number:
  US15/012,838
• Publication Number:
  US 20160150333A1
• Time in Patent Office: 414 Days
• Field of Search: 381/14, 381/26, 381/56, 381/58, 381/380, 340/952, 709/203
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/68 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/683 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/686 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, title or artist information, time, location or usage information, user ratings
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/687 using geographical or spatial information, e.g. location
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/165 Management of the audio stream, e.g. setting of volume, audio stream path
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 17/05 Geographic models
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/223 Execution procedure of a spoken command
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/51 for comparison or discrimination
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/10527 Audio or video recording; Data buffering arrangements G11B20/12 - G11B20/18 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2020/10546 specifically adapted for audio data
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/6066 including a wireless connection
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72454 according to context-related or environment-related conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72457 according to geographic location
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/10 including a GPS signal receiver
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/12 including a sensor for measuring a physical value, e.g. temperature or motion telephones including GPS signal receivers H04M2250/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 1/083 Special constructions of mouthpieces
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 1/1083 Reduction of ambient noise active noise reduction per se G10K11/175; protective devices for the ear, e.g. providing acoustic protection A61F11/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2499/11 Transducers incorporated or for use in hand-held devices, e.g. mobile phones, PDA's, camera's
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 29/00 Monitoring arrangements; Testing arrangements for hearing aids H04R25/30; detection of loudspeaker connection H04R5/04; sound-field adaptation dependent on speaker detection H04S7/308

Abstract

At least one exemplary embodiment is directed to an electronic device configured to collect acoustic information or a method including the steps of collecting acoustic data by a microphone communicatively coupled to a mobile device, analyzing the acoustic data for a sound signature, tagging the sound signature with metadata, sending the sound signature with metadata to an acoustic database, associating sounds within the acoustic data with information, presenting the information on a map on the mobile device, and accessing at least audio from the acoustic database when a cursor is placed over a specific location on the map corresponding to captured ambient sounds from a geographic location and wherein acoustic information can be retrieved corresponding to the geographic location and for different selected periods of time.

Claims

1. An electronic device configured to collect acoustic information, comprising:

at least one or more processors; and

a non-transitory computer readable medium communicatively coupled to the at least one or more processors, the execution of the instruction by the at least one or more processors causing the at least one or more processors to perform operations comprising;

collecting acoustic data by a microphone communicatively coupled to a mobile device;

analyzing the acoustic data for a sound signature;

tagging the sound signature with metadata;

sending the sound signature with metadata to an acoustic database;

associating sounds within the acoustic data with information;

presenting the information on a map on the mobile device; and

accessing at least audio from the acoustic database when a cursor is placed over a specific location on the map corresponding to captured ambient sounds from a geographic location and wherein acoustic information can be retrieved corresponding to the geographic location and for different selected periods of time.

2. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein acoustic information can be retrieved corresponding to the geographic location and for different selected times of a day or for different selected times of a year.

3. The electronic device of claim 1, further comprising audibly presenting the audio from the acoustic database when placing the cursor over the specific location on the map corresponding to the geographic location and representative of the captured ambient sound collected at the specific location.

4. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the information on the map is visual information and wherein the electronic device is further configured for searching audio content associated with the map related to the visual information where the searching includes downloading or streaming media to the mobile device for analysis of the audio content.

5. The electronic device of claim 1, where the map comprises at least a picture or text and where the metadata includes at least time information or location information when the acoustic data was collected.

6. The electronic device of claim 1, further comprising searching the acoustic database for acoustic information related to a topic, and providing information posted with the location information corresponding to the map related to the topic including time information.

7. The electronic device of claim 1, further comprising:

storing the acoustic data as an audio record of at least a portion of a user'"'"'s day;

uploading events in the audio record determined in the user'"'"'s day; and

sharing the audio record of events for social networking.

8. The electronic device of claim 1, further comprising storing the acoustic data as an audio segment and linking discussion topics on the audio segment across social websites.

9. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the step of collecting comprises automatically and continuously capturing acoustic data responsive to the trigger event by the microphone communicatively coupled to the mobile device and wherein the step of presenting comprises presenting a topic associated with the acoustic data and the map.

10. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the different selected periods of time correspond to sample frames of information.

11. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors further to perform operations comprising at least one of storing the acoustic data or metadata temporarily or storing the acoustic data or metadata permanently.

12. An electronic device configured to collect acoustic information, comprising:

at least one or more processors;

a location module operatively coupled to the one or more processors and configured to determine a location of the electronic device;

a transducer operatively coupled to the one or more processors and configured to receive acoustic data; and

a non-transitory computer readable medium communicatively coupled to the at least one or more processors, the execution of the instruction by the at least one or more processors causing the at least one or more processors to perform operations comprising;

collecting acoustic data via the transducer;

analyzing the acoustic data for a sound signature;

tagging the sound signature with metadata;

sending the sound signature with metadata to an acoustic database;

associating sounds within the acoustic data with locations on a map; and

accessing at least audio from the acoustic database when a cursor is placed over a specific location on the map corresponding to captured ambient sounds from a geographic location and wherein acoustic information can be retrieved corresponding to the geographic location and for different selected periods of time.

13. The electronic device of claim 12, wherein the transducer is a microphone.

14. The electronic device of claim 12, wherein the execution of the instruction by the at least one or more processors further causes the at least one or more processors to perform operations comprising searching for content in the map related to the sounds responsive to voice activation of spoken words.

15. The electronic device of claim 12, wherein the execution of the instruction by the at least one or more processors further causes the at least one or more processors to perform operations comprising searching for content from an acoustic map of the world for a selected period of time of a day.

16. The electronic device of claim 12, wherein the execution of the instruction by the at least one or more processors further causes the at least one or more processors to perform operations comprising storing acoustic information in a secure sound locker.

17. The electronic device of claim 12, wherein the execution of the instruction by the at least one or more processors further causes the at least one or more processors to perform operations comprising linking topics on the map across social websites including an overlay of geocoded and time stamped sounds on the maps representative of the captured ambient sounds from the geographical locations.

18. A method of collecting acoustic information, comprising:

collecting, by a server, acoustic data via a microphone communicatively coupled to a mobile device;

analyzing sounds within the acoustic data for a sound signature;

tagging the sound signature with metadata;

storing the sound signature with metadata to an acoustic database;

associating sounds within the acoustic data with information on a map; and

providing access to at least audio from the acoustic database responsive to a signal corresponding to when a cursor is placed over a specific location on the map corresponding to captured ambient sounds from a geographic location for different selected periods of time.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the different selected periods of time correspond to one or more of a selected time of a day, a selected time of a year, or a selected frame of information.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the map comprises a real-time three-dimensional acoustic map that is produced or updated using searchable sound content including real-time acoustically mapped information from the geographical location.