RandomFailure

Applications published on July 26, 2007.

20070174310 Methods and systems for managing data (76 pages)
Related to Spotlight searching. Claims are directed to determining whether to automatically index a newly mounted device.

20070173231 Multimedia data transfer for a personal communication device (11 pages)
Sending multimedia data over a voice channel and vocalizing the multimedia data. Usable on an iPhone.

20070171233 Resolution independent user interface design (19 pages)
Mapping GUI objects so they can be scaled to various screen resolutions.

Patents issued on July 24, 2007.

7,249,168 Method and apparatus for automated remote volume mounting using a plug-in installed on a client (14 pages)
Remotely and automatically mounting volumes over a network.

7,248,476 Apparatus for air cooling of an electronic device (11 pages)
Air cooling for the MacPro case design. Claims cover a contoured panel used to channel air through the case.

7,248,265 System and method for processing graphics operations with graphics processing unit (44 pages)

Patents issued on July 17, 2007.

7,246,226 Method and apparatus rendering user accounts portable (11 pages)
Storing user account information on portable devices.

7,246,225 Method and apparatus for implementing a sleep proxy for services on a network (7 pages)

7,244,129 Connection system (12 pages)
An expandable connector port (for example, for a USB connector) in a low-profile laptop. The connector port is in a compact configuration when there’s no plug, and expands to fit the height of the plug.

20070162842 Selective content imaging for web pages (12 pages)
Relates to creating Web pages with iWeb.

20070162839 Syndicated audio authoring (11 pages)

20070162589 File sharing using instant messaging applications (32 pages)
File sharing using iChat.

20070162574 Data serialization in a user switching environment (16 pages)
Switching user sessions under OS X.

20070162298 Systems and methods for presenting data items (77 pages)
Showing data items based on the significance of the item. One way to indicate significance is by the number of times that the item was accessed within a given period of time (for example, the number of times in a day or week). The one claim (which I imagine will be replaced) is directed to using this type of display on a Web page.

20070162855 Movie authoring (20 pages)
Movie authoring via iMovie, including automated movie authoring. Claims are directed to adding themes, the iMovie UI, and a method for automatically authoring parts of a movie.

20070162850 Sports-related widgets (22 pages)
Aggregating sports-related information from one or more sources into a single widget. Not sure why they focuses on sports for this widget, but paragraph 0078 includes the catch-all, saying that this invention also applies to “any type of news item”.

20070162848 Predictive styling (13 pages)
Determining style attributes for objects added to a document based on a template used for the document.

A side note to the author of this application: get formal drawings before you file the case or at least on file in plenty of time to make sure the formals get published.

20070162846 Automatic sub-template selection based on content (12 pages)
Creating or editing a Web page using iWeb. A user selects a content item to be added to the Web page and the code to include the item in the Web page is automatically created.

20070162845 User interface for webpage creation/editing (16 pages)
UI for iWeb, including updating pages as they would appear on the Web in real time based on changes made by the user. Claims are directed to using a template to create the Web page and real time updating.

7,240,223 Method and apparatus for dynamic power management in a processor system (11 pages)
Select processor run state (related to power consumption by the processor based on processor load. Can also predict future anticipated processor load based on historical use.

7,239,721 Adaptive motion estimation (14 pages)
Motion estimation for MPEG encoding.

20070143762 Assigning tasks in a distributed system based on ranking (12 pages)
Performing distributed computing on an Xgrid. A utility program is sent to several systems, which run the utility and report back a value. A coordinating process selects the system that returned the highest value to perform a task.

20070140505 Method and apparatus for masking acoustic keyboard emanations (8 pages)
Mask typing noises from a keyboard to provide security, such that what a user types cannot be determined based on the typing sounds. Apparently, the sound generated by typing can be analyzed to determine what keys on a keyboard were pressed and in what order. See the researchers’ Web site (not much there) and the paper (a PDF) on which this is all based. Claims are directed to outputting a masking signal to cover the typing sounds.

20070140504 Method and apparatus for masking acoustic keyboard emanations (8 pages)
Same as the previous publication. There don’t appear to be many differences in the claims, just that this publication has fewer claims than the previous one. Not really sure why that was done; I may have missed something on my review.

20070138999 Protecting electronic devices from extended unauthorized use (13 pages)
Disables the recharging circuit of a device if its use is unauthorized.

20070138806 Magnetic latching mechanism (17 pages)
Magnetic latch for a laptop display. Opens (magnets repel) and closes (magnets attract) by magnet positioning.

7,234,067 Autonomous thermal management (9 pages)
Managing the temperature of peripherals by regulating power consumption.

7,234,026 Media player with instant play capability (13 pages)
Playing a media file before it is fully loaded into memory, using caching.

7,233,985 Providing a reliable operating system for clients of a net-booted environment (23 pages)
One example is a network computer booting from a boot image stored on a server. See Figure 3.

Claims priority back to October 1999.

7,233,972 Method and apparatus for coordination of client/server processes (16 pages)
Making sure that processes, including I/O requests, are completed. Claims priority back to September 1998.

7,233,832 Method and apparatus for expanding audio data (19 pages)
Time stretching methods for audio. Useful for creating sound effects in movies, for example.

7,233,318 Multi-button mouse (24 pages)
Structure for providing multi-button mouse functionality in a unibody mouse. For example, the Mighty Mouse (but without the track nub). Various button arrangements are possible; see Figure 6.

The claims are all directed to a unibody mouse.

20070129828 Portable audio device providing automated control of audio volume parameters for hearing protection (9 pages)
Automatically setting a maximum playback volume level in an iPod.

20070130541 Synchronization of widgets and dashboards (34 pages)
This title is self-explanatory.

20070118813 Management of user interface elements in a display environment (45 pages)
Relates to widget management.

20070118651 Trusted index structure in a network environment (81 pages)

20070116437 Region-based processing of predicted pixels (12 pages)

20070116126 Multipass video encoding and rate control using subsampling of frames (10 pages)

20070116124 Regulation of decode-side processing based on perceptual masking (14 pages)

20070116117 Controlling buffer states in video compression coding to enable editing and distributed encoding (18 pages)

20070115293 Method and apparatus for transforming display data using multiple frame buffers in a display device (7 pages)

20070114968 Power source switchover apparatus and method (12 pages)
Battery switching where a device has, for example, two batteries. This prevents the user from having to change batteries as often.