A telephone answering device that is activated by a proximity sensor when a user crosses its field of detection and whose operation is controlled by simple voice commands. The device incorporates speaker-independent voice recognition circuitry to respond to spoken commands of the user that are elicited by a system generated voice request menu. The telephone answering device performs all the basic functions of a telephone answering machine in response to these simple commands and there is no need...

The present invention provides an acoustic echo canceler for use in a telephone set having a handsfree conversation function. This acoustic echo canceler simultaneously achieves both the stabilization and speedup of an estimation operation and also attains the more improvement of speech quality. Moreover, the present invention provides a handsfree telephone set employing this acoustic echo canceler. Furthermore, this acoustic echo canceler is operative to cancel an echo generated by inputting an...

A wireless terminal for personal communication systems is provided with handsfree and handset receive modes of operation utilizing a single transducer. The transducer is mounted within a specially designed enclosure having front and back chambers separated by a partition. The partition contains strategically located internal vents and the front chamber contains strategically located acoustic ports for shaping the frequency response and providing good audio quality in each mode. The back chamber ...

In a device having a sound source within an enclosure and a first microphone for picking up sounds outside the enclosure, a system for improving acoustic separation between the sound source and first microphone comprising an additional microphone located approximately equidistant from the sound as the first microphone for picking up sounds within the enclosure, and a circuit connected to the first microphone and the additional microphone for subtracting the sounds within the enclosure from the s...

Handsfree fieldglasses providing increased clarity and magnification of a visual target in an outdoor application are disclosed. The handsfree fieldglasses can include eyeglasses, binoculars, and a customized connector coupling the eyeglasses and binoculars. The eyeglasses may include prescription lenses and/or polarized lenses. The lenses can have antireflective coatings, hydro-phobic coatings and/or a reduced or substantially flat base curve. The binoculars include adjustable separate lens arr...

A handsfree video phone system includes a video phone terminal and a car device in which a microphone, a speaker, and a camera are connected with an instrument panel via a cable. The video phone terminal is connected with the instrument panel via a wireless communication medium. When the video phone terminal is brought into the vehicle, the instrument panel informs the video phone terminal of the attribute information on the system structure. According to the attribute information, the video pho...

An ultrasound diagnostic system with a display wearable by a user such that the display does not fully occupy a user's hand during system operation. In one embodiment, the display is provided in a main unit that is shaped to fit on top of the forearm of the system user. An attachment mechanism of the main unit encircles the forearm. The main unit mounted on the arm receives data from a handheld scanhead used to obtain the ultrasonic images. In an alternate embodiment, the main unit may be operat...

A fishing rod supporting device allows a fisherperson to wear it at waist-level for hands-free support of a fishing rod. The fishing rod supporting device includes a cylindrical holder having an hollowed inside and a top open end and a bottom open end. A linked member is provided on the bottom of the cylindrical holder to selectively close and open the bottom open end of the cylindrical holder. A cushion pad having at least a pair of belts is provided for strapping the cushion pad to the body of...

A handset comprising a sealed unit receiver and a loudspeaker, first apparatus for providing sound from the receiver to the ear of a user when the ear of the user is sealed to the handset, and second apparatus for providing sound from both the receiver and from the loudspeaker to the ear of the user when the ear of the user is only partly sealed to the handset.

Conversational dialog with a computer or other processor-based device without requiring push-to-talk functionality, wherein computer-implemented methods probabilistically determines a user desire to engage in a dialog, and/or the context of the desire. Based thereon the method either turns on a speech recognition functionality for a period of time referred to as a listening horizon, or facilitates the user's desire. Upon the listening horizon expiring, the method turns off the speech recognition...