An improved portable media device and methods for operating a media device are disclosed. According to one aspect, the portable media device has the capability to store media device status information in persistent memory before powering down. Thereafter, when the portable media device is again powered up, the stored media player status information can be retrieved and utilized. According to another aspect, the portable media device can form and/or traverse a media asset playlist in an efficient manner.

Techniques for improved playlist processing on media devices

An improved portable media device and methods for operating a media device are disclosed. According to one aspect, the portable media device can also function as a solid-state drive for data storage. The form factor of the portable media device can be hand-held or smaller, such that it is highly portable. The portable media device can use one or more status indicators. The portable media device can also include a peripheral bus connector, a rechargeable battery, and one or more input devices. According to another aspect, the portable media device has the capability to store media device status information in persistent memory before powering down. Thereafter, when the portable media device is again powered up, the stored media player status information can be retrieved and utilized. According to still another aspect, the portable media device can form and/or traverse a media asset playlist in an efficient manner.

Highly portable media device

Improved techniques for presenting sound effects at a portable media device are disclosed. The sound effects can be output as audio sounds to an internal speaker, an external speaker, or both. In addition, the audio sounds for the sound effects can be output together with other audio sounds pertaining to media assets (e.g., audio tracks being played). In one embodiment, the sound effects can serve to provide auditory feedback to a user of the portable media device. A user interface can facilitate a user's selection of sound effect usages, types or characteristics.

Techniques for presenting sound effects on a portable media player

A communications device includes at least one memory device for storing complex exponential functions as approximations of sine and cosine basis waveforms A logic circuit adds and subtracts the complex exponential functions to generate an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed (OFDM) communications signal as a plurality of N data subcarriers that carry communications data The logic circuit provides efficient and accurate implementation of the IFFT for use as an OFDM modulator using additions of stored complex exponentials and modulation of the integer-valued QAM data symbols using logic shifts and sign changes (2's complement)

System and method for communicating data using efficient fast fourier transform (FFT) for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation

Improved techniques for interaction between a host device (e.g., host computer) and a portable media device (e.g., media player) are disclosed. According to one embodiment, interaction between the host device and the portable media device can be performed over a network. The network can include wired and/or wireless components. The network can also be local, regional or global in geographic coverage. The interaction over the network can be initiated by the portable media device, manually or automatically, so as to request a content update from the host device. In response to the requested content update, updated content is received at the portable media device from the host device, provided a network connection between the portable media device and the host device is available through the network.

Remote content updates for portable media devices

Multiple subbands of a transmission band are continuously occupied by an OFDM signal that would otherwise occupy only a single subband. Steps may include producing an OFDM symbol (309); transforming the OFDM symbol to produce an OFDM signal (311); upsampling the OFDM signal to produce an upsampled OFDM signal (321); applying a pseudorandom code (323) to the upsampled OFDM signal to produce a coded OFDM signal; and upconverting (317) the coded OFDM signal to produce a radio frequency signal. Alternatively, steps may include upconverting the OFDM signal to produce a radio frequency signal; wherein the radio frequency signal occupies multiple ones of the following subbands: about 3200MHz to about 3700MHz; about 3700MHz to about 4200MHz; and about 4200MHz to about 4800MHz. In another embodiment, steps may include producing a sequence of N consecutive identical OFDM symbols.

Charles Razzell

Papers

Multi-carrier ofdm uwb communications systems