TRACKING DEVICE WITH SOUND EMITTER FOR USE IN OBTAINING INFORMATION FOR CONTROLLING GAME PROGRAM EXECUTION

• US 20060274911A1
• Filed: 05/08/2006
• Published: 12/07/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 07/27/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Computer Entertainment Incorporated (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Marks, Richard L., Zalewski, Gary M., Mao, Xiadong
• Granted Patent: US 7,803,050 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 381/334
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/215 comprising means for detecting acoustic signals, e.g. using a microphone
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/1081 Input via voice recognition
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2430/23 Direction finding using a sum-delay beam-former
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 3/005 for combining the signals of two or more microphones specially adapted for hearing aids H04R25/407

Abstract

A tracking device for use in obtaining information for controlling an execution of a game program by a processor for enabling an interactive game to be played by a user and related apparatus are disclosed.

Claims

1. A tracking device for use in obtaining information for controlling an execution of a game program by a processor for enabling an interactive game to be played by a user, comprising:

a body;

a sound emitter operable to emit a sound.

2. The tracking device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the body is mountable to a game controller, the game controller including a game controller body and at least one input device assembled with the game controller body, the input device manipulable by a user to register an input from the user.

3. An apparatus including the tracking device and the game controller as claimed in claim 2.

4. The tracking device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the body of the tracking device is mountable to the user'"'"'s body.

5. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1 and a processor operable to execute the game program for enabling the interactive game to be played by the user, the apparatus further comprising an acoustic transducer, wherein the processor is operable to register input to the game program based on acoustic information produced by the acoustic transducer in response to a sound emitted by the sound emitter.

6. The apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the sound emitter includes at least one of a speaker, a buzzer, a horn or a pipe.

7. The apparatus as claimed in claim 5, wherein the processor is operable to register the input when the acoustic information satisfies a predetermined criterion.

8. The apparatus as claimed in claim 7, wherein the sound emitter is operable to emit a sound specific to a particular user associated with the tracking device and the processor is operable to register input specific to the particular user when the specific sound is emitted.

9. The apparatus as claimed in claim 7 or 8, wherein the predetermined criterion includes at least one criterion selected from the group consisting of pitch, audio pulse frequency, audio pulse shape, audio pulse duty cycle, beat frequency, or spectral signature including a spectral content characteristic of a distinctive sound.

10. The tracking device as claimed in claims 1, 2 or 3, further comprising a communications interface operable to conduct digital communications with at least one of the processor, the game controller or both the processor and the game controller.

11. The tracking device as claimed in claim 10, wherein the communications interface includes a universal asynchronous receiver transmitter (“

UART”

).

12. The tracking device as claimed in claim 11, wherein the UART is operable to perform at least one of receiving a control signal for controlling an operation of the tracking device, or for transmitting a signal from the tracking device for communication with another device.

13. The tracking device as claimed in claims 10 or 11, wherein the communications interface includes a universal serial bus (“

USB”

) controller.

14. The tracking device as claimed in claim 13, wherein the USB controller is operable to perform at least one of receiving a control signal for controlling an operation of the tracking device, or for transmitting a signal from the tracking device for communication with another device.