2044results about "Musical toys" patented technology

A method for recognizing an audio sample locates an audio file that most closely matches the audio sample from a database indexing a large set of original recordings. Each indexed audio file is represented in the database index by a set of landmark timepoints and associated fingerprints. Landmarks occur at reproducible locations within the file, while fingerprints represent features of the signal at or near the landmark timepoints. To perform recognition, landmarks and fingerprints are computed for the unknown sample and used to retrieve matching fingerprints from the database. For each file containing matching fingerprints, the landmarks are compared with landmarks of the sample at which the same fingerprints were computed. If a large number of corresponding landmarks are linearly related, i.e., if equivalent fingerprints of the sample and retrieved file have the same time evolution, then the file is identified with the sample. The method can be used for any type of sound or music, and is particularly effective for audio signals subject to linear and nonlinear distortion such as background noise, compression artifacts, or transmission dropouts. The sample can be identified in a time proportional to the logarithm of the number of entries in the database; given sufficient computational power, recognition can be performed in nearly real time as the sound is being sampled.

The present invention relates to systems and / or methods that generate playlist(s) for a library or collection of media items via selecting a plurality of seed items, at least one of which is an undesirable seed item. Some of the seed items are desirable indicating that a user prefers additional media items similar to the desirable seed items and others are undesirable indicating that the user prefers additional media items dissimilar to the undesirable seed items. Additionally, the seed items can be weighted to establish a relative importance of the seed items. The invention compares media items in the collection with the seed items and determines which media items are added into the playlist by computation of similarity metrics or values. The playlist can be regenerated by adding desirable seed items to the playlist and removing media items from the playlist (e.g., undesirable seed items).

A music recommendation system receives a user selection of desired music, retrieves analysis data associated with the selected music, and generates a playlist of songs based on the analysis data. The analysis data is generated based on a processing of one or more audio signals associated with the selected music. The analysis data may downloaded from a central server. If the analysis data is not available from the central server, it is generated locally at a user end, and uploaded to the central server. A plurality of user-selectable shuffling mechanisms are provided to allow the order of the songs to be shuffled according to the selected shuffling mechanism. The end user device may also receive recommendation of new music from different providers based on the analysis data of music for which the recommendation is to be based.

Systems and methods for adjusting playback and graphical representations of media files are provided. The systems and methods can monitor playback and access of media files to create usage metadata. The usage metadata can then be used to adjust the playback of the media file. For example, the usage metadata may indicate that a user skips, on average, the first 22 seconds of a particular song so the next time that song is played, the first 22 seconds will automatically be skipped. The usage metadata can additionally or alternatively be used to adjust a graphical representation of the media file. For example, the usage metadata may indicate that a user rarely accesses a particular song so the graphical representation of that song will be small and faded. This change in graphical representation can help a user find more commonly used media files.

A World Wide Web-based melody retrieval system takes a sung melody as a query and retrieves the song's title or other information from a music database over a WWW network which comprises a method of obtaining search clues with the maximum quantity of information from pitch and span (dynamic threshold determination) and a method of effectively reducing the number of answer candidates (coarse-to-fine matching), thus increasing the matching accuracy, and it is characterized in that a user can retrieve music or media with music by singing.

A media organizer and entertainment center includes an importer for importing individual media / data selections and automatically assigning each selection at least one associated category flag pursuant to predetermined or user defined criteria. The center also includes a storage device for storing compressed data corresponding to the plurality of individual media / data selections and the associated category flags and a retriever for retrieving selections from the storage device based upon user selection of one or more of the associated category flags, and a data decompresser that translates the compressed data into playable digital or audio media data. With the center, playable digital or audio media data can be advantageously transported, organized, played or recorded through or on a variety of products or devices.

Music piece sequence data are composed of a plurality of event data which include performance event data and user event data designed for linking a voice to progression of a music piece. A plurality of voice data files are stored in a memory separately from the music piece sequence data. In music piece reproduction, the individual event data of the music piece sequence data are sequentially read out, and a tone signal is generated in response to each readout of the performance event data. In the meantime, a voice reproduction instruction is output in response to each readout of the user event data. In accordance with the voice reproduction instruction, a voice data file is selected from among the voice data files stored in the memory, and a voice signal is generated on the basis of each read-out voice data.

A method and apparatus are provided for classification of information and using the classification information in search and retrieval of information. In one embodiment, musical compositions having various highly subjective characteristics and features are classified according to a schema of objective attributes that are associated with the characteristics and features. Categorizers carry out the classification and create and store attribute information in a database. A search and retrieval system can receive information that characterizes the features of a desired composition and can locate a matching composition. As a result, information having subjective characteristics, such as musical compositions, may be compared and similar musical compositions can be located.

A programmable sound effects device which utilizes a motion-sensitive mechanism for selecting unique sound effects. The device is comprised of an electronic motion-sensitive actuator, a sound effect storage media for storing a plurality of predetermined sound effects, and a playback mechanism for audibly emitting the motion-activated sound effects. This device is designed to be used with amusement and entertainment type products such as toys, games, dolls, and props, with exemplary uses in toy swords, drumsticks, magic wands, and the like. A preferred embodiment is comprised of a unit which is physically incorporated into the handle of a toy sword. As the user moves the toy sword in a predefined manner, the motion-sensitive actuator senses the motion and plays out a plurality of unique sound effects as a function of the user's movements. The motion-detection algorithm which triggers the different sound effects is programmable. In another embodiment, the device is contained within a single housing unit that is worn on the user's body. This embodiment is well suited for many toys, props, games, and the like that do not have any sound effects capability but would benefit from such capability.

In a self-operated karaoke recording booth a user is provided with a selection of background scenes from which to choose and also with the option of having the lyrics of the karaoke selection displayed or suppressed. A video camera positioned at the user's eye level is located on the nonreflective side of a one-way mirror and is directed at a specified performer location through the one-way mirror, which is inclined at a forty-five degree angle relative thereto. Messages and video displays are provided to the user by a video display monitor connected to a computer that faces the reflective side of the one-way mirror and is also located at a forty-five degree angle relative thereto. The system is designed to maintain the visual focus of the performer directly into the lens of the video camera throughout the performance and to combine the video camera images with the background scene in such a way as to avoid a double exposure or phantom image of the performer against the background. The performer can choose to have the lyrics of the selected karaoke composition displayed or suppressed. If the election is for a display, the lyrics are displayed at the center of the viewing screen, directly in line with the video camera.

Identification information is extracted from a current broadcast of a piece or music or other type of information of interest to a user, and stored in a memory or other storage device, in response to a user command. The identification information includes sufficient information to identify at least one deliverable information item associated with the current broadcast, e.g., a CD or MP3 file which contains the particular piece of music. When the user later has access to a wired or wireless network connection, the extracted identification information is delivered over a network connection to a server which processes the delivered information to identify the deliverable information item associated with the broadcast. The user can then purchase the deliverable information item by appropriate interaction with the server. The extracted identification information may be stored in a removable memory device associated with a receiver which receives the broadcast. In this case, the removable memory device is subsequently removed from the receiver and inserted into another device which establishes the network connection for delivery of the identification information to the server.

A digital audio player, including a casing, a memory within said casing for storing digital audio including songs and a commercial, a digital-to-analog converter within said casing and operatively connected to said memory for converting digital audio to analog audio, an analog audio player within said casing and operatively coupled to said digital-to-analog converter, for playing the songs in response to manual user commands, and for automatically playing the commercial, and a processor for stopping the automatic playing of the commercial after a specific event has occurred. A method and a computer-readable storage medium are also described.

Automated creation of new music by listening is disclosed. A method to create new music may comprise listening to a plurality of music, learning from the plurality of music, and performing concatenative synthesis based on the listening and the learning to create the new music. The method may be performed on a computing device having an audio interface, such as a personal computer.

An electronic image visualization system, such as a music stand system and display, management and communications methodologies relating thereto are presented. The electronic music stand system is comprised of a performer subsystem comprising a processing subsystem, librarian logic, performance logic, and communications management logic. The communications management logic provides management of communication via the communications interface with external apparatus responsive to the performance logic and the librarian logic. The user input apparatus and the display apparatus can be integrated into a touch-screen input display. The user input apparatus can alternatively be at least one of a touch-tablet, a stylus-based writing tablet, a mouse, a keyboard, a joystick, a game controller, and a switch. In a preferred embodiment, the librarian logic, the performance logic and the communications management logic are defined by program data stored in the data storage apparatus, and the processor is responsive to the program data for managing data formatting, displaying music, and management of communications of data with the external apparatus. In one embodiment, two Performer subsystems are operable alternatively as one of a single appliance as a linked set a linked mode and as two independent appliances a stand-alone mode, wherein in the linked mode each of the two Performer subsystems operate cooperatively with each other as a linked set to provide a two page display on the video presentation, and wherein in the stand alone mode each of the two Performer subsystems operates independently and mutually exclusive of the other to provide two independent and mutually exclusive single page displays on the video presentation. The present invention also relates to a method for providing for video display of music responsive to the music data stored in a music database. The method is comprised of defining a page of music image data from the music database; defining ordered logical sections; storing the mapping in a memory for selective retrieval; and providing for the video display of the music responsive to the mapping and the storing.

The present invention provides a music playback system which uses an interface to easily play back a characteristic musical structure section with a music audio data playback apparatus. The interface 13 includes a function of selecting an arbitrary characteristic music structure section from a plurality of characteristic music structure sections, and a function of visualizing a characteristic music structure section. The characteristic music structure section specifying data for specifying the selected arbitrary characteristic music structure section is given to a music audio data playback apparatus 3. The music audio data playback apparatus 3 changes a playback position of the music audio data to the characteristic music structure section specified by the characteristic music structure section specifying data given by a specifying data providing means 12.

Our invention is an apparatus and method to identify and simultaneously visualize and hear musical notes contained in an analog or digital sound wave. Musical notes are expanded into a language for the eye as well as the ear. An analog-to-digital converter processes an analog sound wave to provide a digital sound wave. Component frequencies of the digital sound waves are identified, filtered and translated to their corresponding musical note and volume. As the original digital sound wave is sent through a digital-to-analog converter and output to an audio device, the identified musical notes are synchronously output to a display device. User-specified parameters, adjustable at any time before, during or after the music-playing process, control frequency filtering, the graphic display of the identified musical notes and the graphical background on which the musical notes are displayed. Users may also utilize existing, or create their own, computer programming code software modules, known as plug-ins, or hardware components, to interface with the invention to extend and control the invention's functionality. Because the synchronous musical note identification and visualization process occurs extremely quickly, the method applies and works in real-time for live music.

A digital music system according to the present disclosure is a single processor system with a drag and drop interface that permits different digital content to be performed simultaneously in two or more performance zones. The user interface may be further optimized for use with a touchscreen display. Each performance zone may have a performance queue independent of other performance zones. Performance queues may be altered at any time during a performance. Transition between each item of digital content in a performance queue is accomplished using a crossfade with user-defined parameters. Additionally, a user in either performance zone may identify a digital content item for preview and the preview may be accomplished while the music management system is performing digital content in the two or more zones.

There is provided herein a system and method for enabling a user of digital video editing software to automatically create an emotionally controlled soundtrack that is matched in overall emotion or mood to the scenes in the underlying video work. In the preferred arrangement, the user will be able to control the generation of the soundtrack by positioning emotion tags in the video work that correspond to the general mood of each scene. The subsequent soundtrack generation step will utilize these tags to prepare a musical accompaniment to the video work that generally matches its on-screen activities.

A toy system comprises a surface (1) provided with position encoding information; and a toy (2, 20) arranged to be movable across the surface (1), said toy (2, 20) comprising at least one sensor (4) for reading said position encoding information, and processing means (3) arranged to process the position encoding information read by the sensor (4) and to determine the position of the toy (2, 20) on said surface (1) on the basis of said position encoding information.

A personalized audio system and method that overcomes many of the broadcast-type disadvantages associated with conventional radio stations. According to one embodiment, the personalized audio system includes the following: (1) a user interface that enables a user of the personalized audio system to specify a profile for a personalized audio channel, (2) a sound recording library comprising a plurality of sound recordings, (3) a playlist generator that (a) selects a plurality of sound recording identifiers from a set of sound recording identifiers, wherein each of the plurality of sound recording identifiers identifies a sound recording that matches the profile and that is stored in the library, and that (b) creates a playlist that lists the plurality of sound recording identifiers in a particular order, and (4) a sound recording reproducing device for reproducing the plurality of identified sound recordings according to the particular order in which the sound recording identifiers are listed in the playlist so that the user can listen to the sound recordings. Advantageously, the personalized audio system does not provide the user with a way to determine the plurality of sound recording identifiers prior to the reproducing means reproducing the plurality of sound recordings, and the personalized audio system does not provide the user with a way to directly control which sound recording identifiers in the set are selected by the playlist generator to be included in the plurality of sound recording identifiers.

The invention provides methods for leveraging data in the graphics pipeline of a 3D graphics application for use in a haptic rendering of a virtual environment. The invention provides methods for repurposing graphical information for haptic rendering. Thus, at least part of the work that would have been performed by a haptic rendering process to provide touch feedback to a user is obviated by work performed by the graphical rendering process.

Systems and methods for a creating a music-based video game are described as is a portable music and video device housing a memory for storing executable instructions and a processor for executing the instructions. Creating video game content using musical content supplied from a source other than the game includes analyzing musical content to identify at least one musical event extant in the musical event; determining a salient musical property associated with the at least one identified event; and creating a video game event synchronized to the at least one identified musical event and reflective of the determined salient musical property associated with the at least one identified event.

A method for playing a song in a handheld device is disclosed. A visual representation for a plurality of musical components is provided. The visual representation includes a plurality of lanes, with each lane corresponding to one of the musical components. User input is received for one or more musical components, and musical characteristics corresponding to the musical components are modified in accordance with the user input. In order to modify musical characteristics corresponding to a particular musical component, the user selects the particular lane corresponding to the particular musical component. A first user input may be received to modify musical characteristics corresponding to a particular musical component, and the user enters a first level of the visual representation beneath the particular lane and provides user input to modify the musical characteristics corresponding to the particular musical component. A second user input may be received, and in response to the second user input, at least a second level of the visual representation is entered beneath the first level. Program instructions may be executed, and one or more music composition algorithms may be applied to song data in accordance with a song data structure to generate music output for the song. The visual representation may include an animated display synchronized with one or more of the musical components. Modifications to musical data corresponding to a particular musical component may be accompanied by a change in a visual effect corresponding to the modifications to the musical characteristics.

Systems and methods for providing real-time feedback to karaoke users are provided. The systems and methods for providing users with real-time feedback while they are singing karaoke generally relate to receiving the user's vocals, determining whether the user is singing on key / pitch and providing real-time feedback to the user while the karaoke song is being sung. The feedback will be positive feedback if user is on key / pitch and it will be negative feedback if user is off key / pitch. For example, the feedback signal if the user is singing too low can be an exaggerated low signal of the user's own voice. This will encourage the user to sing at a higher pitch.

A computer-aided learning system to facilitate a human to control the pitch and rhythm of their voice. In a preferred embodiment for learning how to sing a song in tune, a display provides visual, real-time depiction of the singer's actual pitch compared to the “target” pitch they should be singing, thereby allowing the singer to interactively raise or lower the pitch of their voice.

A system and method for generating a list is provided. The system includes a seed item input subsystem, an item identifying subsystem, a descriptive metadata similarity determining subsystem and a list generating subsystem that builds a list based, at least in part, on similarity processing performed on seed item descriptive metadata and user item descriptive metadata and user selected thresholds applied to such similarity processing. The method includes inexact matching between identifying metadata associated with new user items and identifying metadata stored in a reference metadata database. The method further includes subjecting candidate user items to similarity processing, where the degree to which the candidate user items are similar to the seed item is determined, and placing user items in a list of items based on user selected preferences for (dis)similarity between items in the list and the seed item.

A song-matching system, which provides real-time, dynamic recognition of a song being sung and providing an audio accompaniment signal in synchronism therewith, includes a song database having a repertoire of songs, each song of the database being stored as a relative pitch template, an audio processing module operative in response to the song being sung to convert the song being sung into a digital signal, an analyzing module operative in response to the digital signal to determine a definition pattern representing a sequence of pitch intervals of the song being sung that have been captured by the audio processing module, a matching module operative to compare the definition pattern of the song being sung with the relative pitch template of each song stored in the song database to recognize one song in the song database as the song being sung, the matching module being further operative to cause the song database to download the unmatched portion of the relative pitch template of the recognized song as a digital accompaniment signal; and a synthesizer module operative to convert the digital accompaniment signal to the audio accompaniment signal that is transmitted in synchronism with the song being sung.

A method for facilitating real-time interaction between a first and second player of a music-based video game via a network having unpredictable delivery latency, the first player located remotely from the second player, includes displaying to a first player target musical data associated with a musical composition, receiving music performance input from the first player via a controller resembling a first musical instrument, displaying to a second player, the second player located remotely from the first player, target musical data associated with the musical composition, and receiving music performance input from the second player.