Beginning at NYU in Jan 2013 within the context of a Patents Translation course delivered online, this blog seeks to uncover the patents that rock our daily lives....
ROSH333, aka Raoul Gandolfo, commissioned to paint the 2023 Young Inventor Award sail trophies, on the occasion of the European Inventor Awards Ceremony, on July 4th 2023, in Valencia, Spain, is one of Spain’s most famous street artists (in Spanish, artista callejero).
OKUDA, aka Okuda San Miguel, is a Spanish painter and sculptor, known for his distinctive colorful figurative geometric art.
Below, the YouTube video of a 2014 Okuda + ROSH333 project. The project involves a 300-square-meter mural, decorating the Paco de Lucía Metro Station in Madrid Spain. The mural depicts a portrait of Paco de Lucía, legendary virtuoso flamenco and classical guitar player, and composer (1947-2014).
The latest Internet-connected and haptic
technology-enabled piece of fashionwear from CuteCircuit is the Music Shirt™. Nominated one of Time Magazine’s 100 Best Inventions of the Year, on November 19, 2020, the CuteCircuit Music Shirt™ enables wearers to immerse themselves into music, and deaf wearers in
particular, to feel the sounds of music.
Using the principles of actuator technology, also invoked to mastermind the Hug Shirt™, the Music Shirt™ is equipped
with sixteen actuator motors that generate varying vibrations and pulses, according to sounds. Thus, the Music Shirt™ algorithm is
able to translate music sounds, captured and recorded digitally, into
strategically placed vibrations on a Bluetooth®-connected Music Shirt™, enabling wearers, deaf in
particular, to experience music viscerally. For example, an orchestra floor is
mapped into different recording sections, the converted sounds of which will be distributed variously on a Bluetooth®-connected Music Shirt™. As a result, sensations of the lowest drum sounds
are translated into vibrations felt in the abdomen area, while all the higher
frequency sounds of flutes and violins are felt as vibrations on the upper
body, including the intensities and variations of rhythm and beat.
The Music Shirt™ is available for individual purchase,
and at various music venues, offering an immersive music experience. For example, the following YouTube video shows several deaf wearers' haptic experiences, in
collaboration with the Junge Symphoniker Hamburg, in Germany.
The CuteCircuit Music Shirt™ was created by Francesca
Rosella (Italy) and Ryan Genz (USA), founders of the pioneering, wearable
technology, fashion brand company CuteCircuit. The Music Shirt™ functions using
the Hug Shirt™ app, where users might select music pieces to playback on a Bluetooth®-connected Music Shirt™. The Music Shirt™ also functions using the QPro music software,
enabling musicians to create music that includes the haptic sensory experience
of the Music Shirt™.
The patent-pending Music Shirt™ invention
arises at the intersection of several patented domains such as 3D Spatial
Audio, Haptics for Augmented Reality, Interactive Luminous Garments,
Multimedia Wearable Telecommunication Devices, and Sensor Enhanced Fabric
constructions.
Prior to the COVID19 pandemic, the onscreen mosaic view of a virtual music performance probably conjured up Eric Whitacre’s hauntingly beautiful virtual choirs. For example, the Virtual Choir pieces Lux Arumque (Virtual Choir 1.0), Sleep (Virtual Choir 2.0), and Water Night (Virtual Choir 3.0), that bring together an increasingly larger number of voices, from 185 in the first Virtual Choir, to as many as 2000 singers in the Virtual Choir 3.0, spread across the globe, in as many 73 countries.
At the height of the COVID19 pandemic, when more than one-third of the 7.8 billion world population is on lockdown, virtual music has taken on an exponentially different significance. The electronic feats that make it possible to bring performers together in a single visually captivating mosaic have become both medium and message in an art form of its own. Using several, to hundreds of video files, usually captured via cell phone, and processed with software such as Abobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects and Pyramix Merging Technologies, the media compositions take many additional bench hours to put together.
Virtual music redux, under pandemic conditions of stay-at-home production, has become a life-line for performers worldwide, such as those working in orchestras, symphonies, operas, choirs, and other sorts of performing groups. Performers have become enabled, in collaboration with production studios, to continue rehearsing, performing and creating together, in contact with an audience, albeit virtual. No small deal, since concert halls and other venues are all shuttered, meaning that the programs of a whole season of live public performances have been canceled, leaving performers essentially cut-off, both from their audiences, and each other. 2020 is also supposed to be the 250th anniversary of Beethoven, a year that both classical musicians, and lovers of classical music, had probably planned to glamorously celebrate.
However, beyond the wizardry of the technology that is making it possible for orchestras, symphonies, bands, choirs and other performance groups to continue creating and connecting with audiences, it is the graciousness of the momentum that is so extraordinary in this new locked-down virtual music. Pieces, for the most part, are dedicated to the essential and front-line workers “out there”, taking risks to keep the world humming, while everyone else, performers included, are safely locked down at home. Some Philharmonic orchestras and symphonies worldwide are indeed playing Beethoven in 2020, but it has become Beethoven in quarantine, or socially distant Beethoven, as a tribute to essential workers. Indeed, what is most elevating, in these quasi-barbaric times, is the solidarity. Some of the finest performers on earth are opening their homes and lives to the public, via the cameras of their cellphones, playing for free, for janitors, couriers, warehouse clerks, doctors, and nurses alike, in gratitude, and by the same token, enchanting anyone with an Internet connection, able to logon to Youtube.
The beauty of virtual music on lockdown in all of its vibrant forms, is that it is triumphant. Despite the disruption, sorrow, hardship and even horrors of the pandemic, “the bands play on”, bringing back energy, rhythm, wonder, faith in a better tomorrow, and even humor into daily lives.
If the first wave of lockdown music sprung from the heart, as a gift for frontline healthcare and essential workers, perhaps that a second wave might be commissioned in honor of all the COVID19 victims - already more that 50,000 sacred individuals — in the US alone (JHU CV Resource Center).
Above, musicians of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra playing Maurice Ravel's Boléro as a special tribute to healthcare workers. As a reminder, New York is the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States, with the highest number of infections and deaths, currently (on April 26 2020), reported for New York City alone at 12,827 casualties and 156,100 cases (NYC Health).
References (abridged shortlist)
Arctic Philharmonic - Greig's Holberg Suite - Praeludium à la quarantine
Bamberger Symphony (Germany) - Stronger together - Social symphony
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZHOJHP33Ps&t=55s Buchholz, K. (April 23, 2020) - what share of the population is already on COVID19 lockdown? www.statista.com/chart/21240/enforced-covid-19-lockdowns-by-people-affected-per-country/
Cellists of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra - Bach in quarantine
Still spiking, with more than53,000 cases and more than 4500 deaths (WHO COVID19 Pandemic), a
nation on lockdown has spontaneously launched balcony concerts and virtual
orchestras.
Below, a virtual choir, a compilation of voices on lockdown, singing Va pensiero
from Giuseppe Verdi’s 1842 Opera Nabuco.
Too little or too old to manipulate mobile phone or
tablet playlists? Strong desire to play and listen to music or favorite songs?
Muuselabs Ltd., a Belgian startup has invented a screenless and connected smart
music player with linked playlists that even toddlers can play. This music
player, marketed exclusively for little kids, is called Jooki®, short for “jukebox”. A WIFI and Bluetooth connected jukebox speaker for small kids, invented by former Google, Huawei, and Barco, “tender-hearted
geek daddies” with plenty of hands-on-at-home experience, in collaboration with
a combined total of six very small
beta-version testing children.
Toddlers choose a toy character linked to playlists, and
just position it on the speaker player. It
is as simple as that. Parents
do the leg work by creating the playlists and connecting them to the anchoring
toy characters and player. The fact that Jooki® is designed without a screen pleases many parents, as
screens are perceived as devices that isolate. Jooki® is also specially designed to give parents a
break from responding to ever-pressing requests for playing favorite songs and
music from an adult tablet or mobile phone, while offering complete control on the
content. The player speaker includes a headset jack, rechargeable battery lasting 8 hours, an SD card slot, and an app for programming the playlists, and setting up the WIFI connection. Jooki® is robust and interactive, allowing even the smallest child to play
favorite songs and music wirelessly, inside or outdoors, simply placing toy characters
linked to playlists onto a player that dubs as a high-quality sound
speaker.
The below YouTube video shows children at play with Jooki®, the jukebox for kids.
The Jooki® invention is recited in the PCT WIPO patent application WO2015078923 (A1) titled Interactive Media System. The invention arises
out of the observation that MP3 players and other conventional media players
require skills unsuitable for small children and perhaps no longer suitable for
the elderly or disabled. Skills such as reading tiny screen information and fine
motor coordination for scrolling and selecting information using pushbuttons
and click wheels. Thus, the Jooki® invention is an improvement on prior media
players. It is designed without a screen, and easy to manipulate playlist-linked
characters, in the shape of-easy-to-grasp objects that the user can simply place
onto the music player.
While the scope
of the invention extends to various user populations, the marketed Jooki®
targets young children. Similarly, while the scope of the invention extends to
books, music, images and video, the marketed Jooki® is an audio jukebox –
without excluding future more diversified manufacturing.
The patent describes the various components
of the invention and their operation. The components comprise such items as the
anchors, sensors and the player speaker; the computer chip suitable for media
decoding, playing and for controlling the media player, also for decrypting unique
anchor identifiers received by the device sensor using an anchor association database
with a look-up table that associates a unique anchor identifier with media files
or sets of file; the media storage device for storing media files; the audio
amplifier, speaker, microphone, and the user controls for on/off, volume and
forward/backward functions; as well as the media management software executed
by the player, enabling storage of playlists onto the device.
The abstract of the invention is included below together with the
patent Figure 5 drawing, showing the Jooki® Interactive Media System 100
with two linked figurative anchors, depicting a cello 105A and a drum 105B. The linked anchors are placed on the player, where a sensor 120
is designed to detect the unique anchor identifier linked to a particular playlist, enabling to play the music files. An image of the marketed Jooki® player with its lined-up
play toy anchors is also included next to the patent figure drawing. For this invention, the below juxtaposition of images highlights differences between prototype design and the final marketed product.
The present disclosure provides an interactive media system. The system includes a set of anchors. Each anchor in the set of anchors is associated with an interactive audio/video composition. Each anchor includes an anchor identifier device includes an anchor
identifier. The system also includes an anchor sensor configured to: detect the anchor identifier device of one anchor; read
the anchor identifier device of the detected anchor to obtain the unique anchor identifier from the detected anchor identifier device; and transmit the unique anchor
identifier. The system also includes a media player configured to: receive the unique anchor identifier from the sensor; identify a media
file that is associated with the unique anchor identifier, the media file being part of a playlist that forms the interactive audio/video composition; obtain the media file; and play the media file. [Abstract WO2015078923 (A1)]
Bottom
line… Jooki® was voted best ever
music player for kids! It received the Best Family Tech Award at CES 2017; the
Most Innovative Product Award at Distree Connect 3rd Edition, in
Paris, in April 2017, after convincing judges in less than 60 seconds; and one
of 8 awards at the Copenhagen Most Creative Business Competition, in 2016.
How about a family of 7 kids, each one a music prodigy!
The Kanneh Masons are British, hailing from Sierra Leone. The children are all musicians, classical musicians. Their names are Isata (21 – pianist), Braimah (20 – violinist), Sheku (19 – cellist), Konya (17 - pianist and violinist), Jeneba (15 – pianist and cellist), Aminata (12 - violinist and pianist) and Mariatu (8 – cellist and pianist).
They are making waves. Here is a video of their performance at Britain's 2017 Classroom Heroes.
The Microsoft Hands-Free Music Program is a participatory design project intended to extend access to music performance and composition, to musicians stricken with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also called Lou Gehrig’s or Charcot’s disease), spinal chord injuries or other sorts of paralysis conditions. Thus, the project has developed a suite of three eye-controlled applications called The Microsoft Hands Free (Red-Eye) Sound Studio. These applications require no mouse, no keyboard, or other touchscreen interaction, to operate.
Hands-Free Sound Jam is an electronic eye-controlled music environment for loop-based music performance and composition. The program offers a “clip launcher”, small musical fragments that can be edited or written, and then strung or looped together into a composition.
Hands-Free Sound Machine is a 16-step sound sequencer that supports the output of musical compositions to musical instruments, and stage effects.
Hands-Free Expressive pixels enables authoring and rendering of static and animated LED matrix displays. Used together with Sound Machine, Expressive Pixels augments the musical composition output with visual effects.
Hands-free selection of virtual objects, or the use of eye control to interact with the computer, is an AR (Augmented Reality) invention disclosed in US9201578, titledGaze swipe selection. The system comprises a connected head-mounted display device (HMD), such as a pair of glasses, equipped to track eye or gaze movements, for example using two or more infrared position sensitive detectors (IR PSD) to track glint position. The eye tracking information is then processed and translated into visual pointer information that has an impact on the virtual objects of thesoftware.
The abstract of this invention is included below, together with the patent drawing 3A, showing an embodiment of a portion of the HMD (Head Mounted Device) that detects user eye movements.
Methods for enabling hands-free selection of virtual objects are described. In some embodiments, a gaze swipe gesture may be used to select a virtual object. The gaze swipe gesture may involve an end user of a head-mounted display device (HMD) performing head movements that are tracked by the HMD to detect whether a virtual pointer controlled by the end user has swiped across two or more edges of the virtual object. In some cases, the gaze swipe gesture may comprise the end user using their head movements to move the virtual pointer through two edges of the virtual object while the end user gazes at the virtual object. In response to detecting the gaze swipe gesture, the HMD may determine a second virtual object to be displayed on the HMD based on a speed of the gaze swipe gesture and a size of the virtual object.[AbstractUS9201578]
Pandora's invention consists in designing your favorite music station as one that might contain a record of all your favorite musicians and songs, plus quite a few more that were generously suggested to you, based on an analysis of the musical "genes" and "chromosomes" of your initial likes and favorites.
From the user’s perspective, Pandora is all about a personalized music experience, not only listening to all your existing favorites, but also discovering new music that you really like, based on personal preferences. From the distributor's perspective, Pandora offers a new method of distributing a much wider range of music by targeting individual consumer preferences directly. And, from the inventor's perspective, 23 patents are on file to disclose the various aspects of the Pandora platform, combining digital music analysis and archiving, methods of matching source songs with user preferences, playlist generation, Internet broadcasting, and satellite radio station.
The following is a list of the 23 patents pending and awarded to Pandora Media Inc.
WO2017132589(A1) ― 2017-08-03 - Presenting artist-authored messages directly to user via a content system
US2017206569(A1) ― 2017-07-20 - Reviewing Messages Presented During a Stream of Media Content
WO2017087333 (A1) ― 2017-05-26 - Procedurally generating background music for sponsored audio
WO2017087012 (A1) ― 2017-05-26 - Selecting media for a social event according to specified event parameters
US2017134498 (A1) ― 2017-05-11 - Selecting media using vehicle information
US2017054779(A1) ― 2017-02-23 - Media Feature Determination for Internet-based Media Streaming
US2017053298 (A1) ― 2017-02-23 - Increasing the Likelihood of Receiving Feedback for Content Items
US2017041656 (A1) ― 2017-02-09 - Media channel creation based on free-form media input seeds
US2016381103 (A1) ― 2016-12-29 - Media Content Delivery over Telephone Networks
US2016379274 (A1) ― 2016-12-29 - Relating Acoustic Features to Musicological Features For Selecting Audio with Similar Musical Characteristics
US2016365936(A1) ― 2016-12-15- Internet radio and broadcast via crowdsourcing apparatus and system
WO2016186718 (A1) ― 2016-11-24 - Internet radio song dedication system and method
WO2016053892 (A2) ― 2016-04-07 - Estimation of true audience size for digital content
WO2016053895 (A1) ― 2016-04-07 - Selecting media using inferred preferences and environmental information
WO2016053888 (A1) ― 2016-04-07 - Country-specific content recommendations in view of sparse country data
WO2016053555 (A1) ― 2016-04-07 - Dynamically selected background music for personalized audio advertisement
WO2016053554 (A1) ― 2016-04-07 - Dynamically generated audio in advertisements
WO2016049361 (A1) ― 2016-03-31 - Advertisement selection based on demographic information inferred from media item preferences
KR20150054917 (A) ― 2015-05-20 - System and method for combining inputs to generate and modify playlists
US2013179439 (A1) ― 2013-07-11 - Methods and Systems for Utilizing Contextual Feedback to Generate and Modify Playlists
