Patent ID: 7803050

Claim:
A tracking device for use in obtaining information for controlling an execution of a game program by a processor for enabling an interactive game to be played by a user, comprising: a movable body; a sound emitter operable to emit a sound attached to the body; and a processor operable to execute the game program for enabling the interactive game to be played by the user, the apparatus further comprising an acoustic transducer, wherein the acoustic transducer includes a microphone array having two or more microphones, each microphone being coupled to a plurality of filters, the filters being configured to filter input signals corresponding to sounds detected by the microphones thereby generating a filtered output, wherein the processor is configured to: pre-calibrate plurality of sets of filter parameters for the plurality of filters to determine a corresponding plurality of pre-calibrated listening zones, wherein each set of filter parameters is selected to detect portions of the input signals corresponding to sounds originating within a given listening zone and filter out sounds originating outside the given listening zone; and select a particular pre-calibrated listening zone at a runtime by applying to the plurality of filters sets of filter parameters corresponding to two or more different pre-calibrated listening zones; determine a value of an attenuation of the input signals for the two or more different pre-calibrated listening zones; select a particular zone of the two or more different pre-calibrated listening zones for which the attenuation is closest to an optimum value; and apply the filter parameters for the particular zone to the plurality of filters; wherein the processor is operable to register input to the game program based on acoustic information produced by the acoustic transducer in response to a sound emitted by the sound emitter.