4121 results about "Public place" patented technology

Abstract of the Disclosure The invention presents a networked system for identifying an individual, communicating information to the individual, and remotely monitoring the individual. The system includes a remotely programmable apparatus that occasionally connects to a server via a communication network such as the Internet. The remotely programmable apparatus interacts with the individual in accordance with a script program received from the server Among other capabilities, the script program may instruct the remotely programmable apparatus to identify the individual, to communicate information to the individual, to communicate queries to the individual, to receive responses to the queries, and to transmit information identifying the individual and the responses from the remotely programmable apparatus to the server. Information identifying the individual may be obtained via a biometrics sensor, a data card, a remote monitoring device, or the interception of data from a separate information system. The information identifying the individual may be used by either or both the server system and remotely programmable apparatus for security, customization and other purposes. As the present invention has multi-user capabilities, it can be used in a public place, such as a pharmacy or health care clinic. The multi-user capabilities also allow collection and tracking of user data for the healthcare industry.

A method and system for measuring and reacting to human interaction with elements in a space, such as public places (retail stores, showrooms, etc.) is disclosed which may determine information about an interaction of a three dimensional object of interest within a three dimensional zone of interest with a point cloud 3D scanner having an image frame generator generating a point cloud 3D scanner frame comprising an array of depth coordinates for respective two dimensional coordinates of at least part of a surface of the object of interest, within the three dimensional zone of interest, comprising a three dimensional coverage zone encompassing a three dimensional engagement zone and a computing comparing respective frames to determine the time and location of a collision between the object of interest and a surface of at least one of the three dimensional coverage zone or the three dimensional engagement zone encompassed by the dimensional coverage zone.

The invention is a new method and apparatus that can be used to detect, recognize, and analyze people or other objects in security checkpoints, public-places, parking lots, or in similar environments under surveillance to detect the presence of certain objects of interests (e.g., people), and to identify their activities for security and other purposes in real-time. The system can detect a wide range of activities for different applications. The method detects any new object introduced into a known environment and then classifies the object regions to human body parts or to other non-rigid and rigid objects. By comparing the detected objects with the graphs from a database in the system, the methodology is able to identify object parts and to decide on the presence of the object of interest (human, bag, dog, etc.) in video sequences. The system tracks the movement of different object parts in order to combine them at a later stage to high-level semantics. For example, the motion pattern of each human body part is compared to the motion pattern of the known activities. The recognized movements of the body parts are combined by a classifier to recognize the overall activity of the human body.

The present invention is a system and method for detecting and analyzing motion patterns of individuals present at a multimedia computer terminal from a stream of video frames generated by a video camera and the method of providing visual feedback of the extracted information to aid the interaction process between a user and the system. The method allows multiple people to be present in front of the computer terminal and yet allow one active user to make selections on the computer display. Thus the invention can be used as method for contact-free human-computer interaction in a public place, where the computer terminal can be positioned in a variety of configurations including behind a transparent glass window or at a height or location where the user cannot touch the terminal physically.

Collecting images of a patron in an entertainment venue is performed by facial recognition of the patron's face within the images, simplifying the storage and distribution of the images for a patron. In order to enhance the reliability of the facial recognition system, information about the patron that is not directly related to most facial recognition systems, including clothes, height, other associated people, use of glasses and jewelry, disposition of facial hair, and more, can be used. Some of the characteristics used can be specific to a particular date or event, and which will not be more generally characteristic of the patron. The facial recognition system can also be used to identify the patron requesting images to be collected. The present invention also relates to the use of facial recognition in sorting and collecting images from an electronically-stored image collection, enabling the easy retrieval of images that are related to a particular person or set of people.

A vending machine for dispensing telecommunications access is disclosed. A customer interested in using the telecommunications access makes a payment into the payment processing unit which forwards the payment information to the central control unit. The central control unit reports the transaction information to a central computer system via its modem connected to a telecommunication channel. Access to the same telecommunication channel or another channel can be made available to the customer via a switchable telecommunications access circuit which is also controlled by the central control unit. The customer connects to the telecommunications channel via the telecommunications access connector. The central control unit provides information on the progress of the vending transaction to the customer via the user interface. The central control unit determines when the transaction is completed by sensing the cessation of usage via the usage detection circuit or via customer action at the user interface.

The present invention provides methods and apparatus to protect user privacy while accessing information in public places, using both public and personal devices. This is achieved by employing a mechanism that prevents private information from being displayed on public devices. Instead, this type of information is made available only to a user's personal device(s) that the user carries and/or trusts. An example embodiment of the invention shows relevant parts of the information content, referred to also as information documents or simply documents, to multiple devices based on privacy level and user preferences. Embodiments of the present invention also provide personalized services based on privacy levels defined by users. These users can for example be customers of a retail store. The service provided is sometimes also based on user history of accessing information documents. It permits personalized information to be sent to a customer's personal device.

One aspect of the invention is a method for updating the version of software resident on a computer that includes providing a kiosk in a public place. A communication path is established between the kiosk and a computer to be tested. It is determined, using the kiosk, whether at least one program resident on the computer is a preferred version.

An advertising system for displaying adaptive advertisements that can change the displayed content in response to external inputs can be used in public places such as transit stations, arenas, stadiums, retail stores, and squares. The advertising system can also be deployed in transit vehicles. The advertisements make use of a decision engine to select from a plurality of advertising scenarios to generate the content that is rendered on displays. The system has a processor that executes the decision engine and provides the decision engine with the external inputs, such as time of day, weather conditions and forecast, current, past or next transit station, required to select one of the stored advertising scenarios. These input scenarios can be either stored by the system or obtained in real-time. A system for distributing advertisement content to displays for playback based on the correlation between the attributes of the Content, attributes of the displays, and other factors.

The present invention is a system and method for printing facial images of people, captured automatically from a sequence of images, onto coupons or any promotional printed material, such as postcards, stamps, promotional brochures, or tickets for movies or shows. The coupon can also be used as a means to encourage people to visit specific sites as a way of promoting goods or services sold at the visited site. The invention is named UCOUPON. A plurality of Computer Vision algorithms in the UCOUPON processes a plurality of input image sequences from one or a plurality of means for capturing images that is pointed at the customers in the vicinity of the system in an uncontrolled background. The coupon content is matched by the customer's demographic information, and primarily, the UCOUPON system does not require any customer input or participation to gather the demographic data, operating fully independently and automatically. The embodiment of the UCOUPON system can be integrated into any public place that requires the usage of coupons, such as existing checkout counters of the retail store environment. The UCOUPON can also be integrated into a stand-alone system, such as a coupon Kiosk system.

A terminal device, a memory module and a system for and method of distributing electronic content. A content provider stores a number of multimedia files. A first integrated circuit card interface receives a host integrated circuit card containing first authorization information, and a second integrated circuit card interface receives a user integrated circuit card containing second authorization information. An input device permits selection of one or more multimedia files from the stored of multimedia files. A control unit is responsive to insertion into the second integrated circuit card interface of a user interface card containing second authorization information compatible with the first authorization information contained in a host integrated circuit card inserted in the first integrated circuit card interface to actuate an output device to provide the content of multimedia files selected by the input device. The content provider, control unit, input device, and output device might be a laptop computer, a wireless personal terminal, or a personal computer. The multimedia content delivery system might be provided in a kiosk in a public place, permitting a user to wirelessly download an electronic copy of the selected media to a laptop computer or wireless personal terminal.

The invention discloses an apparatus and system for establishing an Augmented Reality (AR) Kiosk (ARK) in public places or social venues such as, shopping mall, public transportation terminal, hotel, trade show, conference, convention center, expo, museum, library, college/university campus, amusement park, etc. Categories of ARKs disclosed include, Public and Private ARK, Web and Mobile Ark and their variants. ARK deploys a camera to capture, in real time, user's physical world environment, augments camera view by overlaying one or more layers of contextual computer-generated virtual content, and allows user/users to interact with the virtual content by positioning at a predefined spot in front of a digital display and the camera. Such interaction is recorded in real time, requiring zero post-production time, as composite media file, personalized with recipient's credentials, and instantly sent via Internet to one or more user specified destinations for future use and sharing with friends and family.

A universal automated order processing system represents multiple (e.g., hundreds or thousands) participating merchants who offer their products through the system. Customers become qualified for using the system by supplying a set of information (e.g., name, credit card number, shipping address) that is stored in a customer database. When a customer wishes to order a product, the customer calls the system, customer identity is automatically confirmed, the customer enters a product order number and the complete order is routed to the appropriate merchant with the information necessary for the merchant to fulfill the order. Available credit verification and other aspects of credit card transactions may be handled by either the system operator or the merchant. The system operator may offer revolving credit. The system may also be used to provide potential customers of the merchants with free product information. In certain embodiments, the processing system may be used to verify customer identity at security check-in at public transportation sites (e.g., airports) or other public venues (e.g., concerts, sporting events).

A system and a method for dynamically unlocking a mobile device are provided. The method includes displaying various lock images, where at least one of the parts is altered, when an attempt is made to unlock the mobile device, determining whether a lock image, detected according to a user input, matches a preset image, and unlocking the mobile device according to the result of matching between the detected lock image and the preset image. The system and method increases the level of security when an unlock attempt is made in a public place.

The invention provides an LED atmosphere illumination control system, which adopts the standard DMX512 control protocol and a bus type network structure. A controller intensively controls all LED lamps. The system comprises an embedded light synchronous controller, an indoor atmosphere illumination controller, a general high-power LED drive, a transmission medium and the LED lamps. The system canperform scene mode control by network control mode, remote control mode, automatic control mode, manual control mode and various control modes; no less than nine scene modes are preset or can be freely set according to individual preference; digital diming can be achieved by an embedded program, and the illumination and the color tone of the light can be controlled precisely; and each lamp can beindependently controlled or can be controlled by networking. The system can ensure the evenness of the illumination effect while achieving the energy-saving illumination control and is widely applicable to local intensive illumination control of public places and families.

The invention relates to a system and a method for monitoring crowd situation. The system comprises a signal acquisition unit, a signal preprocessing unit, a crowd situation analysis center, a client and a transmission network, wherein the crowd situation analysis center is used for comprehensively analyzing feature extraction results output by the signal preprocessing unit to extract the quantity, the density and the flow direction of the crowd in the region, and obtaining a dredging and managing model of the crowd in the monitoring region according to sentiment indexes and congestion spots obtained by estimation; and the client can be used for displaying monitoring signals, preprocessed results of the signal preprocessing unit and comprehensive analysis results of the crowd situation analysis center, and giving an alarm. The technical scheme of the invention can realize the purpose of early warning the crowd congestion situation of important exits and entrances or square regions, then compute a decision model for dredging and managing the crowd in the monitoring regions, and set flow control schemes for different monitoring regions, thus the crowd situation of large public places can be simultaneously displayed, analyzed, responded and processed in real time.

A method and a system for dispensing software programs from a networked software dispensing kiosk device or ATM. Software developers can place software for sale within the network thereby causing various remote software ATMs to offer the software. The user causes a display of a list of different categories of software titles available through a remotely located software ATM, e.g., located in a retail market place, or other public place. The user makes a selection from the list and may optionally execute the selected software using an on-screen emulation of the user's device. If the user is satisfied with the execution of the selected software, the user can purchase or rent the selected software using automated vending equipment of the software ATM. Purchased or rented software titles are electronically communicated from the software ATM to the user's portable computer system. The software ATM can also provide backup and archiving services for a portable computer user.

The present method incorporates audio and visual cues from human gesticulation for automatic recognition. The methodology articulates a framework for co-analyzing gestures and prosodic elements of a person's speech. The methodology can be applied to a wide range of algorithms involving analysis of gesticulating individuals. The examples of interactive technology applications can range from information kiosks to personal computers. The video analysis of human activity provides a basis for the development of automated surveillance technologies in public places such as airports, shopping malls, and sporting events.

When large numbers of children play in a playground, part of the power of their play could be usefully harnessed resulting in large energy storage. This stored energy can then be converted for basic, low-power, applications in the school such as lighting, communication, or operating fans. Energy can be produced through the use of pneumatic (i.e., compressed air) systems such as cylinders, motors, valves, and regulators for the conversion of human power of children's play in school playgrounds and other public places. The energy of the compressed air can then be converted to electricity for purposes such as lighting and communication. This provides a low-cost, low-resource means of generation of electricity, especially for use in developing countries.

A method, a system and a computer program product for enabling a customer response speech recognition unit to dynamically receive customer feedback. The customer response speech recognition unit is positioned at a customer location. The speech recognition unit is automatically initialized when one or more spoken words are detected. The response statements of customers are dynamically received by the customer response speech recognition unit at the customer location, in real time. The customer response speech recognition unit determines when the one or more spoken words of the customer response statement are associated with a score in a database. An analysis of the words is performed to generate a score that reflects the evaluation of the subject by the customer. The score is dynamically updated as new evaluations are received, and the score is displayed within graphical user interface (GUI) to be viewed by one or more potential customers.

The invention discloses a derusting and polishing device for the outer surface of a steel pipe. The device comprises a rack part (1), a polishing part (2), a polisher locking mechanism (3), a rack locking mechanism (4), a guide rail part (5) and a reciprocating mechanism (6); a high-speed motor drives a steel wire brush to rotate for polishing and derusting the outer surface of the steel pipe, and the reciprocating mechanism (6) drives the polishing part (2) to rotate around a shaft of the steel pipe in a reciprocating manner to achieve the purposes of derusting and polishing the outer surface of the whole circumference of the cylindrical steel pipe; the device is suitable for steel pipes with different diameters due to the adjustable structure; the device is convenient and quick to mount and dismount due to the arrangement of the polisher locking mechanism (3) and the rack locking mechanism (4). The device can be applied to derusting and polishing of the outer surfaces of cylindrical metal guard railings and suspended metal pipelines in public places.

Video surveillance systems are used to monitor public places, streets, buildings, cities and other premises or surroundings and comprise a multitude of cameras which are monitoring relevant points in the surroundings. One of the problems of surveillance systems is, that the multitude of cameras produce a large amount of video data to be monitored, which requires a lot of human observers resulting in high personnel costs. A video retrieval system (1) connectable to a plurality of surveillance cameras (2) for monitoring a surroundings is proposed, the video retrieval system (1) comprising: displaying means (12) realized to display a graphical overall description (100, 130, 140) of the surroundings under surveillance, whereby the graphical overall description (100, 130, 140) comprises a plurality of monitored areas (110), whereby the areas are allocated to different surveillance cameras (2) and whereby the graphical overall description (100, 130, 140) is displayed in a single perspective view, and querying means (10) realized to formulate a trajectory-specific search (150, 160) query adapted to retrieve data about a moving object in the surroundings with a matching trajectory.

The invention discloses a health-care electronic cigarette liquid for medical use, which mainly comprises: 3-5%w/v of tobacco leaf extract, 40-50%w/v of propanediol, 10-15%w/v of pure water, 3-5%w/v of tobacco essence, 0.2-1.0%w/v of stabilizer, 3-8%w/v of thickener, 15-20%w/v of medicament. Because of no harm of second-hand smoke, the invention can be used at public places without influence to body health of others. The invention is capable of treating cough, hacking cough, itchy throat, abundant expectoration, sensitive cough cause by acute upper respiratory tract infection of fever, influenza or the like while enjoying smoking, having treatment function to oral therapy, cough relieving, nasal and pharyngeal mucosa congestive swelling relieving and sneezing.