Patent ID: 8390445

Claim:
A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer program code instructions for a personal electronic device (PED) that can be transported with a user, the PED having a computer based architecture with a processor designed to execute the computer program code instructions, the PED designed to perform a first electronic based intelligence function, the first electronic based intelligence function enabling the user to initiate and receive wireless telephone calls over a telephone network, the computer program code instructions designed to enable the PED to perform a second electronic based intelligence function that is different than the first electronic based intelligence function, the second electronic based intelligence function involving detection of an event in an environment associated with the PED, the PED comprising a transducer designed to sense an environmental condition, the computer program code instructions comprising: instructions designed to detect the event in the environment associated with the PED by comparing sensed data from the transducer with reference data and determining detection of the event based upon the sensed data and the reference data, the computer program code instructions comprising instructions for initiating a notification upon detection of the event, the computer program code instructions comprising instructions for acquiring the reference data from the environment associated with the PED with the transducer and storing the reference data in memory associated with the PED prior to detecting the event; detection engine software comprising instructions that correlate the sensed data and the reference data to produce a correlation value that is indicative of a relationship between the sensed data and the reference data; and instructions that initiate a detection indication when the correlation value is above a predefined threshold; and wherein the correlation is performed by storing the reference data in the frequency domain; storing the sensed data in the time domain; converting the sensed data from the time domain to the frequency domain by performing a fast Fourier transform on the sensed data that is stored in the time domain; comparing the frequency domain sensed data with the frequency domain reference data to produce a correlation result; determining detection of the event when the correlation result surpasses the predefined threshold, which indicates that the frequency domain sensed data matches the frequency domain reference data; and wherein the frequency domain sensed data and the frequency domain reference data are each numerical arrays of magnitudes or vectors.