Recent Patents on Computer Science - Volume 1, Issue 2, 2008

Recently, a variety of 3D sensors have been developed for rapid freeform surface measurement. However, an automated dimensional inspection system is required by automotive industry to bring this state-of-the-art technology into applications. This paper introduces a robot-integrated area sensing system that is developed to meet this industrial requirement. The dimensional inspection system includes a sensor planner, an error map generator, and a sensor affixed to a robot. The sensor planner is adapted to automatically generate robot path based on the CAD model of a workpiece. The path data is indicative for moving the sensor in relation to the surface of the workpiece. Based on the measured point clouds, the sensor planner is able to further modify the path data for the area sensor to improve the measurement performance. The error map generator is adapted to calculate the deviation of 3D shapes between measurement point clouds and the CAD information.

Recently, the mobile device industry has embraced haptic feedback in the form of vibrotactile sensations. With the advances in actuator and control design, a great variety of tactile stimuli such as short pulses and various vibrations can be conveyed to users. Natural interfacing methods have become an important issue in this field, because gestures in relation to mobile devices are the most informative means of expressing the user's intention. Haptic feedback can then notify the user of the success of a gestural input. The development of mobile devices that incorporate haptic feedback may mutually affect the development of application software such as web-based programs, games, and location-sensitive media. For more realistic haptic interaction, the development of new haptic interfaces for mobile devices should be based not only on system performance but also on further fundamental research into human perception and usability. This paper will cover interaction methods and application areas in mobile devices, followed by discussion of the trends for various devices equipped with tactile feedback, such as touchpad- and pen-based systems.

This paper reviews recent patents that make use of Interactive Evolutionary Computation (IEC) technology. The patents are classified into optimisation in engineering design, health management, consumer surveying, music generation and image processing. It is pointed that the coupling of multi-objective optimisation and IEC in engineering design, the use of prediction tools to reduce user fatigue, engaging multiple users in consumer product surveys are the new areas in IEC research that has shown a trend for commercialisation. The increasing number of recent patents in these areas shows that IEC continues to be a promising solution to meet humanised computational intelligence requirements today and tomorrow.

By now, biometric systems find already home in a broad range of commercial and institutional applications. They are typically employed to authenticate users before allowing access to restricted areas or services. The interest in biometrics is mainly due to their potential advantages over traditional authentication procedures. Such advantages extend across: security, accuracy, reliability, usability, and friendliness. Unfortunately, with the benefits also possible risks arise. A main concern in the design of biometric authentication systems is the protection of the biometric templates. In fact, potential threats to users’ privacy might derive from the abuse of biometric information. These privacy concerns are the subject of current discussions and often prevent the adoption of biometric systems on a large scale. The aim of this paper is to present the latest advances in the area of biometric authentication systems comprising the construction of biometric templates from actual samples. The discussion will cover research results published in the open literature and patents recently filed with inventions related to the field.

The field of computational intelligence is the successor of artificial intelligence. It combines elements of learning, evolution and fuzzy logic to create programs that can exhibit, to some degree, intelligent behaviour. The last few years have seen a growth in theoretical and practical developments in this field. This paper presents an extensive survey of the latest patents in the domain of computational intelligence. It discusses and summarises some of these latest developments in terms of patents. The patents are categorised by their domain of application: Artificial Neural Networks, Fuzzy Logic and Evolutionary Algorithms and further classified by the application area.

The distributed video coding (DVC) is a new type of video coding scheme which is fundamentally different from conventional video coding schemes. The key feature of the DVC is separate encoding and joint decoding which is attractive in many cases when communications between encoders are prohibited. The DVC is based on Slepian and Wolf's and Wyner and Ziv's information-theoretic results from the 1970s. This paper reviews the recent patents on practical distributed video coding schemes. The key components in a DVC system, such as Slepian-Wolf coding, quantization, spatial and temporal decorrelation, correlation noise modeling, encoder rate control, etc., are discussed. Some practical DVC systems are introduced as examples. This paper also points out future works on this issue.

Programming languages are the way for a person to express a mental plan to understanding by a computer. In this paper, recent patents and novelties on programming languages are described and discussed. First section of this literature includes histories, relation with hardware enhancement of computer languages. Then, various subject categories of programming languages such as functional, object oriented, scripting, concurrent, procedural, applicative, visual and dataflow introduced, completely. Generation classes are also discussed from first generation to fifth generation languages. Finally, current and future of recent patents on programming languages and their characteristics will be discussed.

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