Information
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Patent Grant
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6313386
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Patent Number
6,313,386
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Date Filed
Thursday, February 15, 200123 years ago
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Date Issued
Tuesday, November 6, 200122 years ago
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Inventors
-
Original Assignees
-
Examiners
Agents
- Mayer Fortkort & Williams, PC
- Fortkort; Michael P.
- Williams, Esq.; Karin L.
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CPC
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US Classifications
Field of Search
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International Classifications
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Abstract
One exemplary embodiment of the present invention includes an apparatus for playing music. The apparatus includes a manually movable spring, a generator mechanically coupled to the manually movable spring, and a controller electrically coupled to the generator. The apparatus also includes a memory interface coupled to the controller, the memory interface, in an operative configuration, coupled to a removable memory device containing digital music data. The apparatus can further include an audio interface coupled to the controller, the audio interface, in an operative configuration, coupled to a speaker.
Description
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to devices, methods, and systems for playing music, and more particularly to at least one device, method, and system for playing music from a digital storage media.
BACKGROUND
Known music boxes tend to have poor audio quality. Moreover, known music boxes tend to have a very limited and unchangeable choice of music.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
One exemplary embodiment of the present invention includes an apparatus for playing music. The apparatus includes a manually movable spring, a generator mechanically coupled to the manually movable spring, and a controller electrically coupled to the generator. The apparatus also includes a memory interface coupled to the controller, the memory interface, in an operative configuration, coupled to a removable memory device containing digital music data. The apparatus can further include an audio interface coupled to the controller, the audio interface, in an operative configuration, coupled to a speaker.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1
is a block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a system of the present invention.
FIG. 2
is a block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a controller
1400
of the present invention.
FIG. 3
is a flowchart of an exemplary embodiment of a method
300
of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
Certain embodiments of the present invention can advantageously provide a digital music box that aesthetically simulates classic mechanical music boxes, yet provides the greatly improved audio quality of a digital music player. Moreover, certain embodiments of the present invention can allow a user to remove digital music-containing media from the music box and replace that media with a media containing different music. Further, certain embodiments of the present invention can avoid the use of batteries, and instead rely upon a manually wound spring to provide mechanical energy to a small generator that supplies electrical power to the circuitry of the music box.
FIG. 1
is a block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a system
100
of the present invention. System
100
, or any of its components, can be contained in an enclosure
1000
, such as a music box, which can include a handle
1100
or the like for manually applying a mechanical force to a spring
1200
. The work performed by the application this mechanical force can be stored in spring
1200
as potential mechanical energy. For example, handle
1100
can be grasped to wind-up a spiral or coil spring
1200
. As another example, handle
1100
can be pushed or pulled linearly to apply an axial compressive or expansive force to a helical spring
1200
. The material of spring
1200
can be any traditional spring material, such as carbon steel, and/or any shape memory material, such as niconel. Other spring styles and materials can be employed as well, such as those described in Marks Handbook of Mechanical Engineering, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
In any event, as spring
1200
returns to its natural position, spring
1200
can release the vast majority of the originally applied mechanical energy by, either directly or indirectly (such as via a gearbox (e.g., a planetary gear arrangement, a rack and pinion arrangement, etc.), turning an input shaft of a well-known fractional horsepower generator
1300
. From this supplied mechanical energy, generator
1300
can generate electrical energy. Although generator
1300
can be replaced by an alternator whose AC output is converted into DC power, for example by a diode bridge and/or a rectifier, for simplicity, only generator
1300
is referred to henceforth.
The electrical energy of generator
1300
can be stored in a battery
1350
, and/or provided directly to controller
1400
. The electricity from generator
1300
, and/or the electricity provided to controller
1400
, can be regulated by any known power, voltage, and/or current regulator (not shown in FIG.
1
). Likewise, any known power, voltage, and/or current protector (not shown in FIG
1
), such as an isolation transformer, surge protector, thyristor, breaker, and/or fuse, can protect controller
1400
.
Also, a mechanical switch (not shown in
FIG. 1
) can be utilized to prevent the movement of spring
1200
and/or generator
1300
. Likewise, an electrical switch (not shown in
FIG. 1
) can be utilized to prevent the flow of power from generator
1300
and/or battery
1350
.
Coupled to controller
1400
can be a memory interface
1500
, which can be coupled to a memory device
1550
, such as, for example, ROM, RAM, floppy disk, hard disk, CD, DVD, MD, tape, flash memory, Memory Stick™ removable memory device, etc. In some embodiments, memory device
1550
is removable by the user. In other embodiments, memory device
1550
is non-removable by the user. Memory device
1550
can contain digital audio data, such as digital voice and/or digital music that has been stored in, for example, the MP3 format using OpenMG™ software. OpenMG™ software is a copyright-protection software platform used to manage recording and playback of digital audio content. It can convert music data from CDs, as well as MP3 and other formats into ATRAC3 format, which can then be transferred to a portable player. Memory device
1550
can also incorporate MagicGate™ software technology, which is an intelligent new copyright protection technology that allows encryption and authentication of encrypted data between products and media. Both OpenMG™ software and MagicGate™ software can comply with the international Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI).
In addition to audio data, memory device
1550
can contain digital video, graphic, animation, and/or photographic data stored in, for example, the MPEG, JPEG, QuickTime™ video file format, Flash™ video rile format, HTML, SGMT., and/or BNP formats. Moreover, in certain embodiments, memory device
1550
can contain analog data.
Controller
1400
can also be coupled to an audio interface
1600
, which can be coupled to one or more audio output devices
1650
, such as for example, a wired speaker, a wireless speaker, and/or a headphone. Thus, for example, controller
1400
can decode MP3 music data stored on memory device
1550
, convert the resulting digital signal to analog, amplify the resulting analog signal, and output that signal in stereo to a pair of wireless speakers
1650
.
Controller
1400
can also be coupled to a video interface
1700
, which can be coupled to one or more known video devices
1750
(e.g., an LCD, an organic LCD, an organic light-emitting diode display (OLED), etc.). Thus, for example, controller
1400
can decode QuickTime™ video file format video data stored on memory device
1550
and output the resulting signal via video interface
1700
to an OLED
1750
.
Video device
1750
can be adapted to show a famous person, place, or color pattern either in an action state, steady state, or a combination thereof. Further, the video and/or graphical image provided on video device
1750
can be synchronized with audio provided by audio output devices
1650
. Also, the visuals provided by video display
1750
, as well as the sound content provided by audio output device
1650
, can be set to repeat at a predetermined interval. One potential advantage of using OLED's for the video display is the technology's ability to take on unique shapes and forms, which can be designed to fit enclosure
1000
.
In part because of the adaptability of video display
1750
, enclosure
1000
can be physically constructed in such a way as to lend itself to be a collectable item. For example, enclosure
1000
can be designed to look like a famous person or place. By way of further example, enclosure
1000
can be a figurine shaped like a popular musical star. Yet further examples of embodiments of enclosure
1000
can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,973,250 (Zirille), which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Although not shown in
FIG. 1
, enclosure
1000
can include a lid having a latch-like switch, such that when the lid is raised, any pre-stored energy in spring
1200
can be released to generator
1300
, and thereby begin the playing of the stored audio and/or video data. The lid of enclosure
1000
can contain video display
1750
. Moreover, the lid and/or another portion of enclosure
1000
can have a changeable external cover (e.g., “skin”) that portrays, for example, a musical theme.
Although not shown in
FIG. 1
, a user interface can be coupled to controller
1400
and can provide a user of system
100
with a mechanism for entering commands, such as, for example, repeat, skip forward, next song, freeze video, and/or next video, etc. This user interface can also provide the user with tactile, audio, and/or visual feedback concerning whether system
100
and/or controller
1400
have received the command. This feedback can also provide status information concerning system
100
, such as how much time remains before spring power is exhausted, what volume the system is outputting, the name of the song currently playing, the name of the artist starring on a currently playing video, etc.
FIG. 2
is a block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of controller
1400
of FIG.
1
. Power can enter controller
1400
at electricity control unit
1402
and thereby be supplied, as necessary and/or appropriate, to other components of controller
1400
. Electricity control unit
1402
can regulate power, voltage, and/or current. Thus, power can be provided from electricity control unit
1402
to processor
1410
, with which certain electricity control information can be exchanged as well.
Processor
1410
can be a general-purpose microprocessor and/or a digital signal processor. Processor
1410
can execute instructions
1422
stored in memory
1420
, which can also store data
1424
. In certain embodiments, memory
1420
can be firmware, such as ROM, Flash ROM, EPROM, etc.
Audio and/or video data can enter controller
1400
via memory control unit
1430
. When audio data is encoded, audio decoder
1432
can decode the data. Likewise, when video data is encoded, video decoder
1434
can decode that data. Other controllers, not shown in
FIG. 2
, can be utilized as necessary for graphical, photographical, and/or animation data.
For audio data, digital to analog converter
1450
can convert a decoded digital audio signal to an analog format. Then, audio amplifier
1460
can boost the power of the resulting analog audio signal prior to outputting the signal to an audio interface (shown in
FIG. 1
) connected to one or more audio output devices (shown in FIG.
1
).
For video data, video controller
1470
can manage a decoded digital video signal prior to outputting the signal to a video interface (shown in
FIG. 1
) connected to one or more video display devices (shown in FIG.
1
).
Controller
1400
can be adapted to decode audio data, such as music data, formatted using adaptive transform acoustic coding (ATRAC). This format is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,552,896 (Yoshida), which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Through a combination of various techniques including psychoacoustics, sub-band coding, and transform coding, ATRAC can code digital audio with virtually no perceptual degradation in sound quality. Listening tests indicate that the difference between ATRAC sound and the original source are not perceptually different and that ATRAC does not reduce the sound quality. Furthermore, an ATRAC decoding system is sufficiently compact to be installed in portable consumer products such as described herein. Also, in certain embodiments, controller
1400
can decrypt encrypted data using any known and appropriate decryption technique. Further, in certain embodiments, controller
1400
can decompress compressed data using any known and appropriate decompression technique.
Controller
1400
can be embodied as a large-scale integrated (LSI) circuit component. For example, currently available LSI circuit components can be modified to enable construction of controller
1400
. An example is a STA015 MPEG Layer III decoder from STMicroelectronics, Inc. This device has low power consumption, typically 85 mW at 2.4 V while decoding a 320kbits/s bitstream; compact SO28, FP44 BGA8×8 packages; and is based on a VLIW DSP core specially optimized for audio and/or video applications. This device can also serve as an ADPCM codec.
FIG. 3
is a flowchart of an embodiment of a method
300
of the present invention. At activity
3100
, a Memory Stick™ removable memory device or other removable media is inserted into a dock (memory interface) of the music box, At activity
3200
, the spring of the music box is energized, such as by winding. At activity
3300
, playing of the music box is initiated, such as by opening a lid of the music box, or flipping a switch.
At activity
3400
, additional mechanical energy is manually supplied to the spring, such as by re-winding the spring. At activity
3500
, the playing of the music box can be stopped by a release of the mechanical energy stored in the spring, closing the lid of the music box, or flipping a switch to the “off” position.
Thus, certain embodiments of the present invention can provide a digital music box that simulates many features of classic collectable mechanically-powered music boxes, with the exception that the mechanical spring power can first be converted to electrical power before driving a high quality audio decoder amplifier circuit.
According to another aspect of the present invention, an exemplary embodiment of a system for playing digital music includes the above-described mechanically-powered music box as well as a processor-controlled apparatus for downloading digital music data from a computer network, such as the Internet, into the mechanically-powered music box. The digital music data is then stored in the memory of the music box. This enables the memory to be either of the removable or non-removable type, as the memory can be rewritten at any time without necessitating removal from the music box.
The digital music data may in MP3 format or any other music data format. The processor-controlled apparatus may be a personal computer, for example, which can couple to the computer network. The processor-controlled apparatus can be any personal computer capable of accessing the Internet and receiving digital music data. Preferably, the computer includes a data output port.
This processor-controlled apparatus receives digital music data from the computer network and forwards the digital music data to the music box controller for storage in the memory. The processor-controlled apparatus couples to the music box controller via a port on the music box, such as an RS-232 serial data interface, a Universal Serial Bus, a parallel port, or any other Input/Output interface.
As in the above exemplary embodiments, the music box includes a manually movable spring and a generator mechanically coupled to the manually movable spring to generate power for the controller to play the digital music data. The controller is electrically coupled to the generator and to the processorcontrolled apparatus when connected via the data interface. The memory interface is coupled to the controller and to the memory device, which stores the digital music data received via the computer network. An audio interface is coupled to the controller and to a speaker.
It is worthy to note that any reference herein to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the invention. The appearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” in various places in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment.
Although various embodiments are specifically illustrated and described herein, it will be appreciated that modifications and variations of the invention are covered by the above teachings and are within the purview of the appended claims without departing from the spirit and intended scope of the invention. For example, while several of the embodiments depict the use of specific data formats and storage protocols, any formats for storing and replaying music will suffice. Moreover, while some of the embodiments describe specific embodiments of memory media, any media, including digital and analog media, can be employed by the invention described herein. Furthermore, these examples should not be interpreted to limit the modifications and variations of the invention covered by the claims but are merely illustrative of possible variations.
Claims
- 1. An apparatus for playing music, comprising:a manually movable spring; a generator mechanically coupled to said manually movable spring; a controller electrically coupled to said generator; a memory interface coupled to said controller, said memory interfaces, in an operative configuration, coupled to a removable memory device containing digital music data; an audio interface coupled to said controller, said audio interface, in an operative configuration, coupled to a speaker; and a display coupled to said controller.
- 2. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:a switch mechanically coupled to said manually movable spring and, in an operative configuration, adapted to resist a movement of said manually movable spring.
- 3. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:a switch mechanically coupled to said generator and, in an operative configuration, adapted to resist a movement of said generator.
- 4. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:a switch electrically coupled to said generator and said controller and adapted to control electrical power from said generator to said controller.
- 5. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:a switch electrically coupled to said generator and said controller and, in an operative configuration, adapted to resist a flow of electrical power from said generator to said controller.
- 6. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:a voltage regulator coupled to said generator in an operative configuration adapted to regulate electrical power from said generator.
- 7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said manually movable spring is a wind-up spring.
- 8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said controller includes a memory manager, and further wherein audio and video data enters said controller via said memory manager.
- 9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said controller includes a music data decoder.
- 10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said controller includes a digital music data decoder.
- 11. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said controller includes an ATRAC decoder.
- 12. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said controller includes a digital to analog converter.
- 13. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said controller includes an audio amplifier.
- 14. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said controller is constructed as a large scale integrated circuit (LSI).
- 15. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:a memory device coupled to said memory interface, said memory device containing music data.
- 16. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:a memory device coupled to said memory interface, said memory device containing copy protected music data.
- 17. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:a memory device coupled to said memory interface, said memory device containing compressed music data.
- 18. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:a memory device coupled to said memory interface, said memory device containing MP3 music data.
- 19. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:a speaker coupled to said audio interface.
- 20. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:a pair of stereo speakers coupled to said audio interface.
- 21. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said display is an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display.
- 22. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:copy protection instructions within said controller for playing copy protected music data.
- 23. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:an electrical power storage device coupled to said controller.
- 24. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:an enclosure surrounding at least said controller.
- 25. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:a figurine-shaped chassis surrounding at least said controller.
- 26. A system for playing digital music, comprising:a) a processor controlled apparatus for coupling to a computer network and for receiving digital music data from the computer network, and b) a mechanically-powered music box including: (i) a manually movable spring; (ii) a generator mechanically coupled to said manually movable spring; (iii) a controller electrically coupled to said generator and to said processor controlled apparatus; (iv) a memory interface coupled to said controller and coupled to a memory device storing the digital music data; (v) an audio interface coupled to said controller and coupled to a speaker; and (vi) a display coupled to said controller.
US Referenced Citations (8)