| Microsoft Corporation Patent applications |
| Patent application number | Title | Published |
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| 20120131681 | RELIABLE SOFTWARE PRODUCT VALIDATION AND ACTIVATION WITH REDUNDANT SECURITY - Systems, methods, and apparatus for validating product keys. In some embodiments, a product key includes security information and identification information identifying at least one copy of a software product. The security information may include a first portion to be processed by a first validation authority using first validation information and a second portion to be processed by a second validation authority using second validation information. The second validation information may be stored separately from the first validation information and may not be accessible to the first validation authority. In some embodiments, the first validation authority randomly determines whether a product key is to be audited by the second validation authority. Alternatively, the first validation authority may determine whether to audit based on a type of the software product associated with the product key and/or a perceived level of security risk. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131661 | BACK-END CONSTRAINED DELEGATION MODEL - A client can communicate with a middle tier, which can then, in turn, communicate with a back end tier to access information and resources on behalf of the client within the context of a system that can scale well. Each individual back end can establish a policy that defines which computing device can delegate to that back end. That policy can be enforced by a domain controller within the same administrative domain as the particular back end. When a middle tier requests to delegate to a back end, the domain controller to which that request was directed can either apply the policy, or, if the domain controller is in a different domain than the targeted back end, it can direct the middle tier to a domain controller in a different domain and can sign relevant information that the middle tier can utilize when communicating with that different domain controller. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131660 | USING CACHED SECURITY TOKENS IN AN ONLINE SERVICE - A security token service generates a security token for a user that is associated with a client and stores the full security token within a memory. The security token includes an identity claim that represents the identity of the generated security token. Instead of passing the entire security token back to the client, the identity claim is returned to the client. For each request the client makes to the service, the client passes the identity claim in the request instead of the full security token having all of the claims. The identity claim is much smaller then the full security token. When a computing device receives the identity claim within the request from the user, the identity claim is used to access the full security token that is stored in memory. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131652 | HARDWARE-BASED CREDENTIAL DISTRIBUTION - This document describes various techniques for distributing credentials based on hardware profiles. A resource access request including a hardware profile is transmitted to a remote entity having access to a previous hardware profile and a credential useful to access a resource is received if at least a portion of the hardware profile matches the previous hardware profile. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131636 | Security Context Lockdown - A method and system for locking down a local machine zone associated with a network browser is provided. Placing the local machine zone in a lockdown mode provides stricter security settings that are applied to active content attempting to publish within a local page open in the network browser. The stricter setting are provided in a new set of registry keys that correspond to the lockdown mode of the local machine zone. The original security settings remain unchanged so that other systems and applications functionality that depends on the original security settings remains unaffected for the local machine zone. A user may also selectively allow active content to render despite the local machine zone being locked down. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131605 | HYBRID TUNER CONTROL - A hybrid tuner, comprising multiple individual tuners having differing capabilities of receiving programs or channels of broadcast audio or video content, can be controlled by periodically determining the capabilities of each individual tuner to receive broadcast channels, storing such information into a guide database and then utilizing such information to select appropriate individual tuners to tune in desired programs. If the tuners that can receive a desired program are already in use, the program they are currently receiving can be switched to a different tuner to free up the tuner that can receive the desired program without interrupting the consumption of the program currently being received. When determining the capabilities of an individual tuner to receive a particular channel, one or more tokens associated with such a channel, and utilized to prevent unauthorized access to such a channel, can be obtained from the guide database and provided to the tuner. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131599 | COMPLEX EVENT PROCESSING (CEP) ADAPTERS FOR CEP SYSTEMS FOR RECEIVING OBJECTS FROM A SOURCE AND OUTPUTING OBJECTS TO A SINK - Methods, systems, and computer-readable media are disclosed for implementing adapters for event processing systems. A particular system includes an input adapter configured to store event objects received from a source at an input queue. The system also includes a query engine configured to remove event objects from the input queue, to perform a query with respect to the removed event objects to generate result objects, and to insert result objects into an output queue. The system also includes an output adapter configured to remove result objects from the output queue and to transmit the result objects to a sink. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131566 | EFFICIENT VIRTUAL APPLICATION UPDATE - Efficient virtual application updating is enabled. An old version of a virtual application can be compared to a new version of the virtual application and updated as a function thereof. A file unchanged from the old version to the new version can be hard linked from the new version to the old version. For a changed file, matching portions of the file can be copied from the old version to the new version, and remaining un-matching portions can be acquired from another source. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131559 | Automatic Program Partition For Targeted Replay - Program partitioning of an application can include creating execution flow graphs and static flow graphs of targeted functions or operations of the application. Based on the execution flow graphs or static flow graphs, replay interfaces are created. The replay interfaces provide data flows that are usable in re-execution of the application during program development. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131557 | INTERACTIVE TROUBLESHOOTING FLOWCHARTS - An interactive troubleshooting system is described herein that provides a dynamically changing user interface that readers click through to solve problems. Each click changes the display of the flowchart so that irrelevant troubleshooting options are unavailable and the reader's path through the overall flowchart is clearly shown. By showing the path, the reader can see the process and the interrelationships between system components and understand more deeply the troubleshooting process beyond the step-by-step troubleshooting tasks. The interactive troubleshooting system clearly displays a path taken through the flowchart, and reduces visual clutter. Upon following a path, sections of the flowchart that cannot be followed due to the steps taken are made unavailable. The interactive troubleshooting system provides a visual indication of areas of troubleshooting focus. The system can record the user's path through the flowchart. Once a root cause is identified, the system can query the user to capture end-of-process feedback information. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131552 | READ-ONLY COMMUNICATION OPERATOR - A high level programming language provides a read-only communication operator that prevents a computational space from being written. An indexable type with a rank and element type defines the computational space. For an input indexable type, the read-only communication operator produces an output indexable type with the same rank and element type as the input indexable type but ensures that the output indexable type may not be written. The read-only communication operator ensures that any attempt to write to the output indexable type will be detected as an error at compile time. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131546 | CODE DEPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE - Computer programming is aided by way of automatic code generation, and more specifically generation of deployment code automatically. An application can be analyzed and deployment code, including installation, maintenance (e.g., update/upgrade), and removal (e.g., un-install) code, can be generated as a function of the analysis as well as a particular execution environment. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131537 | REUSING EXPRESSION GRAPHS IN COMPUTER PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES - A reusable expression graph system and method that generates reusable expression graphs that can be used with potentially different input parameters in order to achieve computational efficiency and ease of programming. Reusable expression graph mitigate the need to rebuild an expression for each new value. This is achieved in part by creating a node called a “parameter node.” The parameter node acts as a generic placeholder for a leaf node in the expression graph. In addition, the parameter node acts as a proxy for a bindable term of the leaf node, and the bindable term can be either a value or one or more additional expressions. The parameter node then is bound to the bindable term and the expression is evaluated with that bindable term instead of the placeholder. The parameter node created by embodiments of the reusable expression graph system and method works across many different programming languages. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131514 | Gesture Recognition - Gesture recognition is described. In one example, gestures performed by a user of an input device having a touch-sensitive portion are detected using a definition of a number of regions corresponding to zones on the touch-sensitive portion, each region being associated with a distinct set of gestures. Data describing movement of the user's digits on the touch-sensitive portion is received, and an associated region for the data determined. The data is compared to the associated region's set of gestures, and a gesture applicable to the data selected. A command associated with the selected gesture can then be executed. In an example, comparing the data to the set of gestures comprises positioning a threshold for each gesture relative to the start of the digit's movement. The digit's location is compared to each threshold to determine whether a threshold has been crossed, and, if so, selecting the gesture associated with that threshold. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131513 | Gesture Recognition Training - Gesture recognition training is described. In an example, a gesture recognizer is trained to detect gestures performed by a user on an input device. Example gesture records, each showing data describing movement of a finger on the input device when performing an identified gesture are retrieved. A parameter set that defines spatial triggers used to detect gestures from data describing movement on the input device is also retrieved. A processor determines a value for each parameter in the parameter set by selecting a number of trial values, applying the example gesture records to the gesture recognizer with each trial value to determine a score for each trial value, using the score for each trial value to estimate a range of values over which the score is a maximum, and selecting the value from the range of values. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131474 | Switching of Emails in a Conversation Thread - A method is disclosed for rendering messages in an email application on a client computer. A plurality of email messages is received from a server computer, including a first email message, a second email message and a third email message. The first email message is rendered on the client computer with a first conversation icon that identifies the first email message as being part of an email conversation thread. When the first conversation icon is selected on the first email message, a view is rendered showing one or more email messages in the conversation thread. When the second email message is selected, the second email message is rendered on the client computer with a second conversation icon. When the second conversation icon is selected on the second email message, the view showing the one or more email messages in the conversation thread is rendered. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131470 | Integrated Application Feature Store - An application feature store may be integrated with an application. The feature store may be accessed by a user through a feature storefront hosted within the application. The user may search the feature store for additional desired features available for the augmentation of the productivity application. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131464 | Sections of a Presentation having User-Definable Properties - In general, this disclosure describes techniques that employ user-defined values of properties of sections of an electronic presentation. As described herein, a user may configure a presentation to include a plurality of sections. Each of the sections includes zero or more slides of the electronic slide presentation. In addition to the slides associated with each section, each of the sections is associated with one or more properties having values that can be defined by an author of the presentation. Because the values of the properties of the sections are user-definable, these properties may, in some implementations of these techniques, enable the author of the presentation to use the sections in ways not possible in presentation applications that merely use sections as a means of grouping thumbnail images of slides for navigation among slides in an authoring interface. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131456 | Capture and Playback for GUI-Based Tasks - Described herein are techniques for capture and playback of user-performed GUI-based (Graphical User Interface) tasks across multiple GUI-based applications. The described techniques include performing the playback of such tasks without depending upon the playback environmental conditions matching the original capture conditions. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131387 | MANAGING AUTOMATED AND MANUAL APPLICATION TESTING - An application for which approval is requested is identified and multiple automated tests are applied to the application in groups of automated tests. Each of the groups of automated tests includes multiple ones of the multiple automated tests. If one or more automated tests in a group of automated tests returns an inconclusive result, then a manual check is initiated for the application based on the one or more automated tests that returned the inconclusive result. If one or more automated tests in a group, or a manual test applied in the manual check, returns a fail result then an indication that the application is rejected is returned, the indication that the application is rejected including an identification of why the application is rejected. If none of the multiple automated tests returns a fail result, then a manual testing phase is initiated. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131349 | SECURE SOFTWARE PRODUCT IDENTIFIER FOR PRODUCT VALIDATION AND ACTIVATION - Systems, methods, and apparatus for generating and validating product keys. In some embodiments, a product key includes security information and identification information identifying at least one copy of a software product. The identifying information may be used to access validation information from at least one source other than the product key, and the validation information may be used to process the identification information and the security information to determine whether the product key is valid. In some further embodiments, the security information includes a first portion to be processed by a first validation authority using first validation information and a second portion to be processed by a second validation authority using second validation information, wherein the second validation information is stored separately from the first validation information. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131326 | SECURING PARTNER-ENABLED WEB SERVICE - The claimed subject matter provides a method for securing a partner-enabled web service. The method includes receiving a request to access the partner-enabled web service. The request is received from a browser client for a partner application. The browser client is associated with a user. Additionally, the method includes determining that the user is authorized to access the partner application. The method further includes generating a token that associates the user with the partner application. Also, the method includes sending the token to the browser client. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131303 | Thin Provisioned Space Allocation - A storage monitoring system may reside between a file system and a storage system in a thin provisioned storage system. The storage monitoring system may create space holder files within a volume, where the space holder files contain an address space not backed up with physical storage. As requests for storage space are received from a file system, the storage monitoring system may allocate physical space to the volume by provisioning portions of the physical storage device to the volume and by removing one of the space holder files. The storage monitoring system may present alerts when physical storage space is low, as well as return an amount of physical space available to a volume size request. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131178 | Multimedia Aware Cloud for Mobile Device Computing - Techniques for configuring and operating a multimedia aware cloud, particularly configured for mobile device computing, are described herein. In some instances, clusters of servers are organized for general computing, graphic computing and data storage. A load balancing server may be configured to: identify multimedia types currently being processed within the multimedia edge cloud; determine desired quality of service levels for each identified multimedia type; evaluate individual abilities of devices communicating with the multimedia edge cloud; and assess bandwidth of each network over which the multimedia edge cloud communicates with a mobile device. With that information, multimedia data may be adapted accordingly, to result in an acceptable quality of service level when delivered to a specific mobile device. In one example of the techniques, graphic computing server clusters may be configured to process workload using a configuration that includes elements of both parallel and serial computing. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131171 | INVITE ABUSE PREVENTION - Techniques for invite abuse prevention are described. In an implementation, data that describes mutual activities of the clients with one or more resources available via a service provider is obtained from multiple clients. The service provider may use this data regarding mutual activities to ascertain activity scores between clients that interact directly. The ascertained activity scores may then be used to compute a score between two subject clients to control invites and/or other interactions between the clients. Computing the score may include determining one or more connections between the two clients through clients that interact directly, calculating candidate values for the one or more connections, and selecting one of the candidate values as the computed score using various techniques. The computed score may be used in various ways to control invites and/or other interactions between the clients using the one or more resources. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131152 | MANAGING RICH PRESENCE COLLECTIONS IN A SINGLE REQUEST - A method and system for increasing the computational and network efficiency of presence servers having collections of publications is provided. The presence system uses several techniques that enable a presence server to provide rich presence information without requiring expensive processing. First, the presence system accepts batches of publication updates in a single presence update request. Similarly, the presence system accepts batches of subscription requests. Next, the presence system supports new expiration types for publication update requests that eliminate the need for a publishing user to continually refresh presence information that has not changed. Finally, the presence system accepts access lists that contain membership groups rather than an individual list of users that are to have access to a particular presence collection. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131129 | NETWORK LATENCY ESTIMATION FOR MOBILE DEVICES - Embodiments calculate an estimated latency between computing devices. A latency service aggregates latency records defining latency measurements and corresponding latency factors from a plurality of computing devices. From the aggregated latency records, the latency service defines relationships between the latency measurements and the corresponding latency factors. Responsive to a request for an estimated latency from a mobile computing device, the latency service applies the defined relationships to estimate the latency based on the latency factors associated with the received request. In some embodiments, the estimated latency includes three portions: a first latency value representing the latency from the mobile computing device to a cell site, a second latency value representing the latency from the cell site to an access point, and a third latency value representing the latency from the access point to a destination computing device. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131128 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR GENERATING A CONSISTENT USER NAME-SPACE ON NETWORKED DEVICES - Implementing a consistent user name-space on networked computing devices includes various components and methods. When a network connection between a local or host computing device and one or more remote computing devices is present, remote items are represented using the same methodology as items located on the host computing device. To the user, remote and local items are indistinguishable. When the network connection is lost or items located on a remote computer are otherwise unavailable, the unavailable items remain represented on the host computing device. Unavailable items are represented in a way that informs the user that the items may not be fully accessed. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131107 | Email Filtering Using Relationship and Reputation Data - The subject disclosure is directed towards reducing the amount of resources needed to scan email messages for spam. In general, the previous email relationship between a sender and recipient, if any, may be considered in determining how aggressive the filtering level is set for scanning a message for spam, e.g., which filters will be used in the scan. For existing relationships where there has been no previously detected spam (there is good reputation data associated with the relationship), a less aggressive filtering level may be used, thereby saving resources. A relationship may be directly between the sender and recipient, or may be indirect, e.g., via a common third party. Also described is differentiating email from bulk senders from other email messages, for different handling, including spam filtering. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131087 | CONCURRENTLY APPLYING AN IMAGE FILE WHILE IT IS BEING DOWNLOADED USING A MULTICAST PROTOCOL - A system and a process for deploying a computer file involves a client computer applying the computer file concurrently with downloading the computer file from a file server. The concurrent operations can be performed even when the data of the computer file is downloaded out of order. The computer file includes a plurality of file segments. The client computer obtains information defining the file segments and monitors the received data of the computer file during downloading. When downloading of a file segment is complete, the client computer applies the completed segment concurrently with receiving other segments of the computer file from the file server. The process can be used when the computer file is downloaded using a multicast protocol, but is not limited to use with multicast protocols. The client computer can request only needed segments of the computer file. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131039 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DEPLOYING LOGIC IN DATA FILES - The described implementations relate to computer programming. One implementation provides a technique that can include storing logic expressions in a data file. The technique can also include executing application code. The executing can include receiving a query, reading an individual logic expression from the data file, processing the query using the individual logic expression to determine a query result, and providing the query result in response to the query. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131037 | ASYNCHRONOUS ONLINE SEARCHES - The claimed subject matter provides a method for generating asynchronous search results. The method includes receiving an asynchronous search request from a browser. The method also includes requesting asynchronous results from an asynchronous query system. Additionally, the method includes performing a synchronous search based on the asynchronous search request. The synchronous search generates initial results. The method further includes providing the initial results to the browser. Also, the method includes providing, to the browser, an estimated completion time when the asynchronous results are made available. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131031 | DEPENDENCY-BASED QUERY EXPANSION ALTERATION CANDIDATE SCORING - An alteration candidate for a query can be scored. The scoring may include computing one or more query-dependent feature scores and/or one or more intra-candidate dependent feature scores. The computation of the query-dependent feature score(s) can be based on dependencies to multiple query terms from each of one or more alteration terms (i.e., for each of the one or more alteration terms, there can be dependencies to multiple query terms that form at least a portion of the basis for the query-dependent feature score(s)). The computation of the intra-candidate dependent feature score(s) can be based on dependencies between different terms in the alteration candidate. A candidate score can be computed using the query dependent feature score(s) and/or the intra-candidate dependent feature score(s). Additionally, the candidate score can be used in determining whether to select the candidate to expand the query. If selected, the candidate can be used to expand the query. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131025 | SCALABLE CHUNK STORE FOR DATA DEDUPLICATION - Data streams may be stored in a chunk store in the form of stream maps and data chunks. Data chunks corresponding to a data stream may be stored in a chunk container, and a stream map corresponding to the data stream may point to the data chunks in the chunk container. Multiple stream maps may be stored in a stream container, and may point to the data chunks in the chunk container in a manner that duplicate data chunks are not present. Techniques are provided herein for localizing the storage of related data chunks in such chunk containers, for locating data chunks stored in chunk containers, for storing data streams in chunk stores in localized manners that enhance locality and decrease defragmentation, and for reorganizing stored data streams in chunks stores. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131009 | ENHANCING PERSONAL DATA SEARCH WITH INFORMATION FROM SOCIAL NETWORKS - The personal data search technique uses data input by users for a given user's personal data on a social networking site to enrich the given user's personal data. The technique annotates personal data stored on a personal computing device or in a computing cloud with data obtained from social networking sites (for example, tags, comments, likes/dislikes and so forth) provided by friends/other users in the given user's social network or networks. Such annotations can later are used by search engine to enhance the search functionality and/or to improve the ranking of search results. Since the data is entered by actual human users it is very accurate and since the data is already readily available on social networks the cost to obtain it is very inexpensive. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131008 | INDENTIFYING REFERRING EXPRESSIONS FOR CONCEPTS - Referring expressions are identified for concepts by analyzing search query and result selection information. An ontology of concepts is identified, and at least one document is associated with each concept. The document associated with a concept is representative of the concept. Search query information from a search engine is analyzed to identify search queries that resulted in user selections of documents associated with the concepts. Referring expressions that refer to the concepts are identified based on the search queries that resulted in user selections of documents corresponding with the concepts. After identifying referring expressions for concepts, search queries may be mapped to referring expressions to identify concepts to which the search queries pertain, and search result pages may be generated based on knowledge of the concepts. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120131005 | File Kinship for Multimedia Data Tracking - Kinship between electronic files among personal networked devices may be ascertained between the files by determining an operational relationship between the files and with a similarity measurement. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130997 | HYBRID-DISTRIBUTION MODEL FOR SEARCH ENGINE INDEXES - Methods and systems are provided for using a hybrid-distribution system to identify relevant documents based on a search query. A group of documents is assigned to a particular segment. The group of documents is indexed both by atom and by document to form a reverse index and a forward index. Both indexes are divided amongst each node in that segment so that each node is responsible for storing and accessing a different portion of both the reverse and forward indexes. The reverse index portion is accessed on each of a first set of nodes to identify a first set of documents that is relevant to a particular search query. Document identifications associated with the first set of documents are used to identify a second set of nodes that access their forward index portions to limit the number of relevant documents to a second set of documents. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130996 | TIERING OF POSTING LISTS IN SEARCH ENGINE INDEX - A search index includes tiered posting lists. Each posting list in the search index corresponds with a different atom and includes a list of documents containing the particular document. Additionally, a rank is stored with each document listed in a posting list for a given atom representing the relevance of the atom to the context of each document. At least some of the posting lists in the search index are tiered. A tiered posting list is divided into a number of tiers with the tiers being ordered by document while each tier is internally ordered by document. Employing tiered posting lists within the search index allows a search engine to evaluate search queries in a manner that allows for a number of efficiencies and precise stopping. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130995 | EFFICIENT FORWARD RANKING IN A SEARCH ENGINE - Methods and computer storage media are provided for generating entries for documents in a forward index. A document and its document identification are received, in addition to static features that are query-independent. The document is parsed into tokens to form a token stream corresponding to the document. Relevant data used to calculate rankings of document is identified and a position of the data is determined. The entry is then generated from the document identification, the token stream of the document, the static features, and the positional information of the relevant data. The entry is stored in the forward index. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130994 | MATCHING FUNNEL FOR LARGE DOCUMENT INDEX - Search results are identified and returned in response to search queries by evaluating and pruning candidate documents in multiple stages. The process employs a search index that indexes atoms found in documents and pre-computed scores for document/atom pairs. When a search query is received, atoms are identified from the search query and a reformulated query is generated based on the identified atoms. The reformulated query is used to identify matching documents, and a preliminary score is generated for matching documents using a simplified scoring function and pre-computed scores in the search index. Documents are pruned based on preliminary scores, and the remaining documents are evaluated using a final ranking algorithm that provides a final set of ranked documents, which is used to generate search results to return in response to the search query. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130991 | HYBRID APPROACH TO FEDERATED SEARCH - Techniques to provide a hybrid federated search are described. A web server may receive a search query from a client and select an immediate search source to perform the search. A script may be generated that causes the client to re-send the search query for a delayed search source. The script may execute on the client when the client displays the results from the immediate search source. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130984 | DYNAMIC QUERY MASTER AGENT FOR QUERY EXECUTION - A preliminary segment root and a final segment root are selected for each segment. Each time a search query is received, a set of nodes in each segment that will be used to resolve the search query is identified. A preliminary segment root is selected from the set of nodes. Based on statistical data from each node in the set of nodes indicating each node's capability to act as a final segment root that assembles query-execution data, the preliminary segment root algorithmically selects the final segment root. The other nodes in the set of nodes are notified regarding the identity of the final segment root. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130983 | EFFICIENT STRING PATTERN MATCHING FOR LARGE PATTERN SETS - A string matching system is described herein that provides for very fast and efficient pattern matching against large sets of certain types of pattern strings. If a set of pattern strings is comprised of strings that can be logically divided into segments, these pattern strings can be stored efficiently in a tree-like data structure, segment by segment, storing pattern-match syntax segments separately from literal string segments. After segmentation, individual match candidate strings are compared, segment by segment, against elements in the tree. The system uses a data structure that is conceptually a combination of a tree and a hash table. Using a hash table to implement the branching elements at each level in the tree contributes to quick matching speed at each level. By consistently separating strings into segments, the system can also share storage locations for like elements in the data structure. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130981 | SELECTION OF ATOMS FOR SEARCH ENGINE RETRIEVAL - Methods are provided for populating search indexes with atoms identified in documents. Documents that are to be indexed are identified, and for each document, atoms are identified and are categorized as unigrams, n-grams, and n-tuples. A list of atom/document pairs is generated such that an information metric can be computed for each pair. An information metric represents a ranking of the atom in relation to the particular document. Based on the information metric, some atom/document pairs are discarded and others are indexed. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130972 | CONCEPT DISAMBIGUATION VIA SEARCH ENGINE SEARCH RESULTS - Concept disambiguation is provided for search queries by analyzing search results in conjunction with an ontology of concepts. An ontology of concepts is identified, and at least one document is associated with each concept. The document associated with a concept is representative of the concept and used to generate a concept signature. When a search query is received, it is processed to obtain search results. The search results are used to generate a search results signature, which is compared to the concept signatures to identify one or more concepts that are relevant to the search query. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130969 | GENERATING CONTEXT INFORMATION FOR A SEARCH SESSION - Methods, systems, and computer-readable media for providing an enhanced search experience to a user by determining a user's presumptive intentions for an ongoing search session. A user's activities during the search session reveal clues to the user's intent for the search session. Embodiments of the present invention assign values to various context characteristics by analyzing the user's activities during a search session. The context characteristics describe different manifestations of user intent revealed by the user's actions. Embodiments of the present invention distribute the context information to applications that consume the context information and provide enhanced search results. This allows multiple context-based applications to have access to context information without accessing signal data or needing to independently process the signal data to determine an intent of the search session. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130967 | CLASSIFICATION OF TRANSACTIONAL QUERIES BASED ON IDENTIFICATION OF FORMS - A method for identifying transactional queries includes associating user queries with forms clicks on by users who employ a search engine to place the queries during query sessions. A score is assigned to each user query. The score reflects a likelihood that the respective query is a transactional query. The query is classified as a transactional query if the score exceeds a threshold value. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130958 | HETEROGENEOUS FILE OPTIMIZATION - Techniques are described herein that are capable of heterogeneously optimizing a file. Heterogeneous optimization involves optimizing regions of a file non-uniformly. For example, the regions of the file may be optimized to different extents. In accordance with this example, a different optimization technique may be used to optimize each region or subset of the regions. In one aspect, optimization designations are assigned to respective regions of a file based on access patterns that are associated with the respective regions. The file may be a database file, a virtualized storage file, or other suitable type of file. Each optimization designation indicates an extent to which the respective region is to be optimized. Each region may be optimized to the extent that is indicated by the respective optimization designation that is assigned to that region. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130945 | TECHNIQUES TO CROSS-SYNCHRONIZE DATA - Techniques to cross-synchronize data are described. An apparatus may comprise a cross-synchronization component to synchronize multiple data items for different application programs between multiple client devices synchronized using multiple synchronization circuits. The cross-synchronization component may determine whether changes to the multiple data items made at a first client device are propagated to a second client device using consistency information maintained by a consistency group item for a consistency group including the data items. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130932 | SYMBOLIC FINITE AUTOMATA - Described are symbolic finite automata for symbolically expressing and analyzing regular expression constraints, such as for use in program analysis and testing. A regular expression or pattern is transformed into a symbolic finite automaton having transitions that are labeled by formulas that denote sets of characters (rather than individual characters). Also described is composing two or more symbolic finite automata into a resulting symbolic finite automaton that is fully satisfiable. A constraint solver may be used to ensure satisfiability. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130925 | DECOMPOSABLE RANKING FOR EFFICIENT PRECOMPUTING - Methods and computer storage media are provided for generating an algorithm used to provide preliminary rankings to candidate documents. A final ranking function that provides final rankings for documents is analyzed to identify potential preliminary ranking features, such as static ranking features that are query independent and dynamic atom-isolated components that are related to a single atom. Preliminary ranking features are selected from the potential preliminary ranking features based on many factors. Using these selected features, an algorithm is generated to provide a preliminary ranking to the candidate documents before the most relevant documents are passed to the final ranking stage. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130860 | REPUTATION SCORING FOR ONLINE STOREFRONTS - Systems and techniques to provide an improved reputation scoring for products in an online storefront are described. A technique may include obtaining at least one objective measure and at least one subjective measure about a product in an online storefront; calculating a reputation level for the product from the subjective and objective measures; and displaying a listing for the product in the online storefront according to the reputation level. A technique may further include providing feedback to product developers about the reputation level of the product. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130850 | TECHNIQUES AND SYSTEM FOR REVENUE SHARING IN AN ONLINE STOREFRONT - Techniques to provide dynamic revenue sharing among product providers in an online storefront are described. In an embodiment, products are bundled into packages. When a package is purchased, licensed or subscribed to, the payment received may be shared with online storefront, and among the product providers according to the rank of the products in the package. Partners of the online storefront may design their own packages and receive a portion of the payment. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130822 | COMPUTING COST PER INTERACTION FOR INTERACTIVE ADVERTISING SESSIONS - Described herein are technologies related to charging advertisers for advertisements presented to a user in an interactive advertising session. An advanced interactive system captures gestures, spoken words, facial expressions, and the like, and advertisements are presented to a user based upon such captured gestures, spoken words, facial expressions and the like. User interactions with respect to these advertisements are then captured, and advertisers are charged fees per captured interactions between the user and the advertisements. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130820 | PROVIDING ALTERNATIVE CONTENT IN A WINDOWED ENVIRONMENT - Embodiments of the invention relate to an architecture or extension to a window manager. In particular, the extension can provide for a window rotation feature that can be exposed as a rotate button. Additionally or alternatively, the rotation feature can be activated based upon a diverse set of conditions, events, and/or commands. Upon activation of the rotation feature, the window manager can rotate a window about an axis to expose a secondary surface that can be populated with alternative content that is distinct from the content of the primary surface of the window. In addition, the architecture provides techniques for identifying both double-sided graphical objects and potentially double-sided objects. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130808 | SELECTION COMPRESSION - A method of generating a compressed video stream, comprising: providing a plurality of display commands which represents a display; generating a plurality of quantized transform coefficients from said display commands, wherein said quantization is different for different display commands; and creating a compressed video stream utilization said coefficients. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130725 | AUTOMATIC UPGRADE SCHEDULING - Automatic system upgrades are provided to a customer by a service provider based on the customer's preferences and parameters. The automatic upgrade system may manage customer preferences for the scheduling of automatic upgrades according to parameters such as date, time, and capacity. The upgrade system may automatically provide system upgrades to customer systems according to the customer preferences taking into account system health and status, customer parameters, and customer priority as determined by the service provider. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130721 | DIGITAL MEDIA UNIVERSAL ELEMENTARY STREAM - Described techniques and tools include techniques and tools for mapping digital media data (e.g., audio, video, still images, and/or text, among others) in a given format to a transport or file container format useful for encoding the data on optical disks such as digital video disks (DVDs). A digital media universal elementary stream can be used to map digital media streams (e.g., an audio stream, video stream or an image) into any arbitrary transport or file container, including optical disk formats, and other transports, such as broadcast streams, wireless transmissions, etc. The information to decode any given frame of the digital media in the stream can be carried in each coded frame. A digital media universal elementary stream includes stream components called chunks. An implementation of a digital media universal elementary stream arranges data for a media stream in frames, the frames having one or more chunks. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130717 | Real-time Animation for an Expressive Avatar - Techniques for providing real-time animation for a personalized cartoon avatar are described. In one example, a process trains one or more animated models to provide a set of probabilistic motions of one or more upper body parts based on speech and motion data. The process links one or more predetermined phrases that represent emotional states to the one or more animated models. After creation of the models, the process receives real-time speech input. Next, the process identifies an emotional state to be expressed based on the one or more predetermined phrases matching in context to the real-time speech input. The process then generates an animated sequence of motions of the one or more upper body parts by applying the one or more animated models in response to the real-time speech input. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130710 | ONLINE DISTORTED SPEECH ESTIMATION WITHIN AN UNSCENTED TRANSFORMATION FRAMEWORK - Noise and channel distortion parameters in the vectorized logarithmic or the cepstral domain for an utterance may be estimated, and subsequently the distorted speech parameters in the same domain may be updated using an unscented transformation framework during online automatic speech recognition. An utterance, including speech generated from a transmission source for delivery to a receiver, may be received by a computing device. The computing device may execute instructions for applying the unscented transformation framework to speech feature vectors, representative of the speech, in order to estimate, in a sequential or online manner, static noise and channel distortion parameters and dynamic noise distortion parameters in the unscented transformation framework. The static and dynamic parameters for the distorted speech in the utterance may then be updated from clean speech parameters and the noise and channel distortion parameters using non-linear mapping. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130554 | DYNAMICALLY PLACING COMPUTING JOBS - This document describes techniques for dynamically placing computing jobs. These techniques enable reduced financial and/or energy costs to perform computing jobs at data centers. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120129546 | PATH PROGRESSION MATCHING FOR INDOOR POSITIONING SYSTEMS - A path progression matching system and method that uses path progression to find a current position of a mobile device in an indoor environment and a path history to find the path of the mobile device to get to the current position. Embodiments of the system and method use path history information, constraints, and optimization measures such as the use of received signal strength indicator (RSSI) weighted correlation coefficients. Embodiments of the system and method include a unified probabilistic model that uses path history and allows multiple constraints to be applied simultaneously. Embodiments of the system and method also include a path progression module having a first-stage progression module, which finds a starting location for the path progression matching, a second-stage module, which begins building a path history, and a third-stage progression module, which uses the path history to find the current position and path. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120129506 | DESKTOP TO MOBILE DATA AND ACTION TRANSFER - Methods and systems for utilizing tags to transfer data are provided. Digital tags may be presented on a display device of a first computing device such that the tags are selectable by a second computing device. The tags may include tag content that is associated with a target item indicated by a user. The tag content may be identified based on actions performed by the second computing device. Upon selection of the tag by the second computing device, the tag content is communicated to the second computing device. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120129493 | ACCESS TECHNIQUES USING A MOBILE COMMUNICATION DEVICE - Access techniques using a mobile communication device are described. In implementations, a mobile communication device comprises a processor, hardware configured to implement multi-mode wireless communication in which at least one of the modes involves telephone communication, tamper-resistant hardware implementing a secure element as storing one or more credentials, and memory having instructions stored therein. The instructions are executable by the processor to cause the mobile communication device to perform operations comprising forming a communication having data that was generated using the one or more credentials stored in the secure element, the communication to be transmitted wirelessly using the hardware implementing the multi-mode wireless communication to initiate function of a physical lock or vehicle. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120128249 | SCRIPT-AGNOSTIC TEXT REFLOW FOR DOCUMENT IMAGES - Script-agnostic text reflow technique embodiments are presented that generally reflow text found in an image of a document in a manner that functions across multiple scripts, multiple fonts of a script and multiple languages using the same script. This generally involves segmenting regions of text in a document image into individual words and doing this without relying on any script-specific characteristics or requiring any form of character recognition. While segmenting text, the possible presence of accents, diacritics and punctuation marks is considered. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120128208 | Human Tracking System - An image such as a depth image of a scene may be received, observed, or captured by a device. A grid of voxels may then be generated based on the depth image such that the depth image may be downsampled. A background included in the grid of voxels may also be removed to isolate one or more voxels associated with a foreground object such as a human target. A location or position of one or more extremities of the isolated human target may be determined and a model may be adjusted based on the location or position of the one or more extremities. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120128201 | BI-MODAL DEPTH-IMAGE ANALYSIS - A depth-image analysis system calculates first mode skeletal data representing a human target in an observed scene if a portion of the human target is observed with a first set of joint positions, and calculates second mode skeletal data representing the human target in the observed scene if the portion of the human target is observed with a second set of joint positions different than the first set of joint positions. The first mode skeletal data and the second mode skeletal data have different skeletal joint constraints. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120128176 | SPATIAL NOISE SUPPRESSION FOR A MICROPHONE ARRAY - A noise reduction system and a method of noise reduction includes utilizing an array of microphones to receive sound signals from stationary sound sources and a user that is speaking. Positions of the stationary sound sources relative to the array of microphones are estimated using sound signals emitted from the sound sources at an earlier time. Noise is suppressed in an audio signal based at least in part on the estimated positions of the stationary sound sources. A position of the user relative to the array of microphones can also be estimated | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120128162 | MIXED LOSSLESS AUDIO COMPRESSION - A mixed lossless audio compression has application to a unified lossy and lossless audio compression scheme that combines lossy and lossless audio compression within a same audio signal. The mixed lossless compression codes a transition frame between lossy and lossless coding frames to produce seamless transitions. The mixed lossless coding performs a lapped transform and inverse lapped transform to produce an appropriately windowed and folded pseudo-time domain frame, which can then be losslessly coded. The mixed lossless coding also can be applied for frames that exhibit poor lossy compression performance. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120128010 | MINIMIZING NETWORK LATENCY IN INTERACTIVE INTERNET APPLICATIONS - A method and system that enhances a user's performance while interacting with an interactive internet application such as a Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game is provided. The network latency experienced by users participating in the MMO game is minimized by dynamically determining an optimal transmission action for a message generated by the MMO game. In one embodiment, determining the optimal transmission action for a message includes dynamically determining the optimal number of redundant Forward Error Correction (FEC) packets to add to a message prior to transmitting a message to a receiving device. The optimal number of FEC packets is determined based on a wide range of varying network conditions. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120127995 | BACKBONE NETWORK WITH POLICY DRIVEN ROUTING - A source device obtains a data packet that includes both a destination address and a payload. The source device selects an exit point address of multiple exit point addresses corresponding to the destination address based on one or more policies. The source device encapsulates the data packet with a header that includes the selected exit point address, and the encapsulated data packet is provided to the backbone network. The encapsulated data packet is routed through the backbone network based on the exit point address, and an edge router of the backbone network identifies an interface of the edge router that corresponds to the exit point address. The header is removed from the encapsulated data packet, and the data packet is added to a buffer of the interface for routing to one or more other devices outside of the backbone network. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120127914 | Full-Rate Cooperative Relay - Techniques and systems that improve throughput between a pair of nodes by using two multi-hop paths of one-way flows regardless of the one-way flows interfering with each other are described herein. These techniques enable nearly full-rate data flow through frame transmissions, even though these frame transmissions can interfere with substantially concurrent relay transmissions. In some implementations, relays on the two paths forward mixed frame signals to the next hop without trying to decode the mixed frame signals of interfered frames. The destination successfully recovers the useful information from the mixed frame signals by canceling out interference based on previously received frames. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120127512 | BRANCH OFFICE DIRECT PRINTING - Methods and apparatus for printing by a client computer reduce network usage and print delay, while performing print configuration and management at a centralized print server. The print server controls enablement of a branch office printing mode. When the branch office printing mode is enabled, the client computer sends spooled print data directly to a selected printer in the branch office. When the branch office printing mode is disabled, the client computer sends the spooled print data to the centralized print server, and the print server routes the print data to the selected printer. The print server performs configuration and management functions for the client computer in both operating modes. The print server may enable and disable the branch office printing mode on a per queue basis. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120127198 | SELECTION OF FOREGROUND CHARACTERISTICS BASED ON BACKGROUND - A text colorization system is described herein that automatically sets foreground text color based on one or more background colors over which the text is displayed. The text colorization system identifies a background color neighboring each pixel of a string of text. For each pixel region, the system selects a color to satisfy one or more colorization criteria. Next, the system sets the text color at each region based on the selected color. The system then displays the layered image to the user, such as through a computer display or mobile device display. Thus, the text colorization system provides readable text in the presence of layered graphics displays. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120127182 | PARALLEL PROCESSING OF PIXEL DATA - One or more techniques and/or systems are disclosed for processing vector-based information for an image. From a set of pixels that comprises the image, a first subset of one or more pixels that are used in a raster representation of an element in the image, such as pixel values used to render the image, is identified. A first operation is performed in parallel for the respective one or more pixels in the first subset, such as by evaluating a batched first subset of pixels using stacked instruction for the first operation. The first operation comprises instructions for at least a first portion of a function for generating an image pixel value used to represent the element in the image. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120127178 | MAINTAINING GRAPHICAL PRESENTATIONS BASED ON USER CUSTOMIZATIONS - A method and system for rendering graphics based on user customizations in a computer graphics application are disclosed. The customizations relate to various properties of one or more graphical elements in the graphic. Such properties include positioning, size, formatting and other visual attributes associated with the graphical elements. These properties may be defined as either semantic properties or presentation properties. Semantic properties are persistent across all graphic definitions. Presentation properties are specific to the graphic definition to which each particular graphic belongs. Thus, a customization to a semantic property of a displayed graphic is preserved in memory for application not only to the currently displayed graphic, but also to all other graphic definitions that may be displayed in the future. In contrast, a customization to a presentation property is only preserved for the currently displayed graphic, and thus not preserved for all other graphic definitions. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120127177 | CONTROLLING EDGE ROUTING USING LAYOUT CONSTRAINTS - A system and method for creating or editing a graph diagram. A system provides a mechanism to specify constraints on edge way points. Constraints may specify alignment with other way points, distribution of way points, spacing from other way points or nodes, or other types of constraints. A system may automatically determine edge way point constraints based on edge direction, edge type, target nodes or regions of nodes, or other characteristics of edges. The system enables a combination of constraints specified by a user and automatically determined by the system. Way points are positioned based on associated constraints, and edges are routed based on their associated way points. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120127176 | Systems And Methods For Applying Model Tracking to Motion Capture - An image such as a depth image of a scene may be received, observed, or captured by a device and a model of a user in the image may be generated. The model may then be adjusted to mimic one or more movements by the user. For example, the model may be a skeletal model having joints and bones that may be adjusted into poses corresponding to the movements of the user in physical space. A motion capture file of the movement of the user may be generated in real-time based on the adjusted model. For example, a set of vectors that define the joints and bones for each of the poses of the adjusted model may be captured and rendered in the motion capture file. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120127128 | HOVER DETECTION IN AN INTERACTIVE DISPLAY DEVICE - Embodiments are disclosed that relate to hover detection in interactive display devices. One embodiment provides an interactive display device comprising a display panel configured to display an image on an interactive surface, an imaging optical wedge disposed adjacent to the display panel, an image sensor configured to capture an image of an object located in front of the interactive surface and spaced from the interactive surface by capturing the image through the imaging optical wedge, a logic subsystem, and a data-holding subsystem comprising instructions executable by the logic subsystem to operate the display panel and the image sensor, and to detect a hover input based upon one or more images received from the image sensor. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120127127 | SINGLE-CAMERA DISPLAY DEVICE DETECTION - Various embodiments related to determining a distance of an object from a surface of an interactive display device are disclosed herein. For example, one disclosed embodiment provides a method comprising, directing infrared (IR) light to the object above the surface which is reflected by the object back to the interactive display device, and refracting IR light reflected from the object into two rays travelling in different directions based on a polarization state of the reflected IR light. The method further comprises switching a polarization state of an LCD device to allow one of the two refracted rays to pass through the LCD device, and receiving, at a detector, the one of the two refracted ray that passes through the LCD device. Further, the method comprises estimating a distance of the object from the surface based on triangulation. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120127084 | VARIABLE LIGHT DIFFUSION IN INTERACTIVE DISPLAY DEVICE - Embodiments are disclosed that relate to variable diffusers in interactive display devices. One embodiment provides an interactive display device comprising a display panel configured to display an image on an interactive surface, an image capture device configured to capture an image of the interactive surface, a variable diffuser disposed optically between the display panel and the image capture device, a logic subsystem comprising one or more logic devices, and memory comprising instructions executable by the logic subsystem to operate the display panel, the image capture device, and the variable diffuser. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120125178 | SCALABLE MUSIC RECOMMENDATION BY SEARCH - An exemplary method includes providing a music collection of a particular scale, determining a distance parameter for locality sensitive hashing based at least in part on the scale of the music collection and constructing an index for the music collection. Another exemplary method includes providing a song, extracting snippets from the song, analyzing time-varying timbre characteristics of the snippets and constructing one or more queries based on the analyzing. Such exemplary methods may be implemented by a portable device configured to maintain an index, to perform searches based on selected songs or portions of songs and to generate playlists from search results. Other exemplary methods, devices, systems, etc., are also disclosed. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120124677 | COLLECTION USER INTERFACE - Collection user interface techniques are described. In one or more implementations, a plurality of inputs are recognized as gestures received via interaction with a user interface to navigate through a file system of a computing device and select representations of objects managed by file system of the computing device, at least two of which are accessible via different devices. In response, copies of the representations are displayed by the computing device in a collection portion of the user interface. An option is output in conjunction with the collection portion by the computing device that is selectable to initiate a command to be performed using the objects that have corresponding representations included in the collection portion. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124604 | AUTOMATIC PASSIVE AND ANONYMOUS FEEDBACK SYSTEM - A system for generating passive and anonymous feedback of multimedia content viewed by users is disclosed. The multimedia content may include recorded video content, video-on-demand content, television content, television programs, advertisements, commercials, music, movies, video clips, and other on-demand media content. One or more of the users in a field of view of a capture device connected to the computing device are identified. An engagement level of the users to multimedia content being viewed by the users is determined by tracking movements, gestures, postures and facial expressions performed by the users. A report of the response to viewed multimedia content is generated based on the movements, gestures, postures and facial expressions performed by the users. The report is provided to rating agencies, content providers and advertisers. In one embodiment, preview content and personalized content related to the viewed multimedia content is received from the content providers and advertisers based on the report. The preview content and personalized content are displayed to the users. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124564 | MAP TRANSFORMATION IN DATA PARALLEL CODE - A high level programming language provides a map transformation that takes a data parallel algorithm and a set of one or more input indexable types as arguments. The map transformation applies the data parallel algorithm to the set of input indexable types to generate an output indexable type, and returns the output indexable type. The map transformation may be used to fuse one or more data parallel algorithms with another data parallel algorithm. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124558 | SCENARIO TESTING COMPOSABILITY ACROSS MULTIPLE COMPONENTS - Testing of multi-layered software using a scenario description that includes multiple action descriptions that are each interrelated in accordance with a scenario flow. Test software is run against each of at least some of the layers in the software. For each layer, an execution context is identified. Code is then identified and run for each action description and each execution context. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124557 | AUTO RETRACT AND BACKGROUND WARM UP - Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to software development. In aspects, code is deployed to a target and debugged. After the debugging has ended, instead of waiting for another version to be deployed to the target, the code is retracted from the target and warm up of the target is performed as needed potentially in parallel with other software development activities with respect to the code. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124524 | Quick Data Share - The subject disclosure is directed towards allowing a phone or other mobile device, or a computer user, to select some portion of content and then quickly share that selected content with a message recipient. A user selects content, and then interacts with the program that displays the content to select a recipient corresponding to a program, such as an SMS, email, instant message or social network recipient. The selected content is automatically provided to the program for sending in a message, including first launching the program if not already running. Also described is queuing selected content, such that multiple pieces of selected content may be combined and sent in a single message. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124519 | Facilitating Interaction with System Level Search User Interface - A system level search user interface that includes both a data entry portion and a search identification portion is displayed. Data input by a user as a search term is displayed in the data entry portion, and identifiers of each of one or more scopes on the computing device that can be searched using the search term are displayed in the search identification portion. Search results based on a selected scope are displayed in a search results portion of the system level search user interface. A set of keyboard shortcuts allow users to quickly search using any of the scopes, and see previews of a number of results that each of the scopes return. Additionally, the system level search user interface allow users to easily focus on different search result entries, and efficiently change scopes for searching. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124518 | Managing Operations via a User Interface - Techniques for managing operations via a user interface are described. In implementations, a user interface is displayed that includes an option to cause serial processing of multiple operations. In response to a user selection of the option, the multiple operations are processed serially. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124514 | PRESENTATION FOCUS AND TAGGING - Architecture that facilitates the directing of viewer focus on selected content in the presentation document. Focus is visually represented using a focus viewport, which provides a bounded area in which the content of focus is enhanced for viewing, while content outside the viewport is impaired from being viewed. Selecting on a particular point or location in the document automatically activates the focus viewport and applies focus (e.g., enlarged viewing) to an area proximate the selection point. The content selected for focus can be tagged as a landmark section, which is then stored with other content tagged as landmark sections, some or all of which can then be run as frames in a movie strip for continuous review. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124504 | DEBUGGING IN A MULTI-PROCESSING ENVIRONMENT - Technology is described for debugging in a multi-processor environment. An example system can include a plurality of process icons representing processes executing on compute nodes. A plurality of relationship arc icons between the process icons can represent messages being sent between source processes and destination processes on the compute nodes. A tabular display control can have rows to display attributes for relationship arc icons representing the messages being sent. In addition, a grouping module can be used to identify groups of messages that are related and to highlight relationship arc icons which are part of a group. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124502 | FILE MANAGEMENT USER INTERFACE - File management user interface techniques are described. In one or more implementations, properties of a file are displayed in a user interface by a computing device. In response to selection of a particular one of the properties in the user interface, one or more representations of one or more other files that include a corresponding value of the particular property are displayed, respectively, of the file. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124492 | Display and Resolution of Incompatible Layout Constraints - User interface layout is defined using constraints on the position and size of visual elements. Constraints may be explicit and/or implicit. Interactive design code helps designers create constraints without conflict or redundancy. The design code determines whether a proposed layout constraint is incompatible with established constraints, receives a designer's selection of an incompatible constraint, and displays user interface elements in previews of alternate layouts having different constraints. A designer can interactively explore possible resolutions of constraint incompatibilities as soon as the constraints are detectable. The design code animates a transition between possible layouts, highlights the incompatible constraints, and hides the compatible constraints. A subset of constraints may be shown, such as only the recently added constraints and closely related constraints. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124487 | ISSUING BEHAVIORAL AND CONTEXTUAL NOTIFICATIONS - The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or method for issuing behavioral and contextual notifications in browser toolbars. An exemplary method comprises discovering usage behaviors and usage context. A trigger event may be defined based on the usage behaviors or the usage context. The trigger may be stored in an application. Information is rendered related to the usage behavior or usage context when the trigger event occurs. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124477 | Alerting users to personalized information - The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or method for alerting users to personalized information. An exemplary method comprises storing information relating to a subscription to an alert type from a content provider. An alert of the alert type may be received from the content provider and added to a queue. Alerts may be prioritized relative to other alerts within the queue and then rendered from the queue in order of priority to a user. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124465 | HIGH FIDELITY CONVERSION OF DOCUMENTS - One or more techniques and/or systems are disclosed for high fidelity conversion of a document to a less rich format. A bounding area can be identified in the document that comprises an unsupported element, and/or a blending of elements that is not supported in the less rich format. The bounding area that comprises the unsupported element(s) can be rasterized, by creating an image and identifying raster data for the image. Those elements in the document that are outside the bounding area are not rasterized, and their vector data-based format is retained in the converted document. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124461 | TECHNIQUES TO ANNOTATE STREET VIEW IMAGES WITH CONTEXTUAL INFORMATION - Techniques to annotate street level images with contextual information are described. A map application may comprise a street level component that when executed by a processor is operative to generate annotated street view images of a location. The street level component may comprise a street view component operative to generate a street view image from multiple street level images, the street view image having one or more objects located within the street view image. The street level component may further comprise a metadata component communicatively coupled to the street view component, the metadata component operative to generate a horizontal metadata panel having object metadata positioned in approximate vertical alignment with a corresponding object in the street view image, and combine the horizontal metadata panel with the street view image to form an annotated street view image. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124459 | Predictive Cursor Interaction - Embodiments include providing multiple discernible indicia that provide an indication of behaviors associated with selection of a particular link. The multiple discernible indicia may include visually-discernible graphical icons configured to be displayed as a pictorial image that visually represents a behavior associated with selection of the particular link. The visually-discernible graphical icons may include a first icon that, when selected, causes a default behavior associated with the link selection to occur, and a second icon that, when selected, causes an alternative behavior associated with the link selection to occur. Also, responsive to receiving a user-provided modifier, the first or second icon may be replaced with a third icon that visually represents a different alternative behavior to occur that is different than both the default and alternative behaviors. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124457 | PRESENTATION PROGRESS AS CONTEXT FOR PRESENTER AND AUDIENCE - A presentation tool that includes visual progression graphics which represents progress of a presentation. The presentation tool automatically creates and presents the progression graphics for viewing by the presenter and the audience. As the presentation progresses, animation can be applied to the progression graphics to track the progress through the presentation materials. An option is also provided to hide the progression graphics. The progression graphics can also be utilized to navigate across the presentation materials. Thus, the presenter can select portions of the progression graphics as a means to navigation or jump between sections of the materials. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124456 | AUDIENCE-BASED PRESENTATION AND CUSTOMIZATION OF CONTENT - A system and method are disclosed for delivering content customized to the specific user or users interacting with the system. The system includes one or more modules for recognizing an identity of a user. These modules may include for example a gesture recognition engine, a facial recognition engine, a body language recognition engine and a voice recognition engine. The user may also be carrying a mobile device such as a smart phone which identifies the user. One or more of these modules may cooperate to identify a user, and then customize the user's content based on the user's identity. In particular, the system receives user preferences indicating the content a user wishes to receive and the conditions under which it is to be received. Based on the user preferences and recognition of a user identity and/or other traits, the system presents content customized for a particular user. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124442 | STORAGE DEVICE FAILURE MANAGEMENT - Techniques involving failure management of storage devices are described. One representative technique includes encoding data to enable it to be stored in a storage block that includes at least one storage failure. The data is encoded such that it traverses the storage failures when stored in the storage block. When it is determined that a storage access request has requested the data stored in a storage block having such failures, the data is decoded to restore it to its original form. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124426 | DEBUGGING IN A CLUSTER PROCESSING NETWORK - A technology is described for debugging in a cluster processing network. A scheduler can dispatch a process that is part of the cluster job for execution. Further, a compute node can be used to execute the process dispatched by the scheduler to the compute node. A debugger can be activated in response to an unhandled suspension event in the process on the compute node. In addition, the debugger can send notification messages regarding the unhandled suspension event. A job monitor can receive a notification from the debugger that an unhandled suspension event has occurred. The notification can be displayed to a user via the job monitor. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124422 | DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE FOR IDENTIFYING PERFORMANCE ISSUES IN EVENT TRACES - A description language and a tool for identifying, analyzing and addressing performance issues in event traces. With this language, a behavior descriptor may be defined to describe a simple behavior within a performance trace, by specifying values for a relatively small number of attributes. Even a relatively unsophisticated user can define behavior descriptors, but complex behaviors may be defined based on interactions between multiple behavior descriptors. A trace analysis tool may use a library of behavior descriptors to identify performance issues in performance traces by matching behavior descriptors to the performance trace. This analysis may be used in any number of ways, including reporting to a user detected performance issues reflected in a set of performance traces, filtering a set of performance traces to remove those performance traces corresponding to known performance issues or prioritizing efforts to resolve performance issues. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124412 | Systems and Methods of Providing Fast Leader Elections in Distributed Systems of Simple Topologies - Systems and computer-implemented methods of electing a new leader node in distributed systems of simple topologies connecting a plurality of nodes on at least one computer system. The computer-implemented method comprises several steps including at least one node, which detected the absence of a leader, starting a first round for its approval as an Approved Election Initiator. If a quorum accepts the StartElection request during the first round, then the Election Initiator starts a second round to set the leader. If a quorum of all nodes has not been reached during the first round, then the first round fails. The method repeats until a leader is set and is repeated each time a node discovers that the network does not have an active leader. Also provided herein is a computer readable medium having computer executable instructions stored thereon for performing the computer-implemented method. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124384 | HTTP Signing - A system and method for signing data transferred over a computer network is described. In one aspect, the HTTP header of an HTTP response message is extended to include a content identifier, a content expiration time, and a digital signature. The digital signature may be generated from the content identifier, the content expiration time, and the message body of the HTTP response message. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124363 | ANALYZING PERFORMANCE OF COMPUTING DEVICES IN USAGE SCENARIOS - Techniques for conducting an automated analysis of operations carried out during the critical path for a usage scenario and suggesting ways in which the configuration of the computing device could be changed to affect performance of the computing device. Computing devices can be operated in a variety of usage scenarios and users may notice the performance of a computing device in certain usage scenarios more particularly. Critical path analysis of operations conducted in these usage scenarios can be used to identify a critical path of the usage scenario, from which changes that could be made to the computing device to affect performance could be identified. Once the changes that could be made are identified, suggestions can be made to the user, such that a user is able to make changes to the configuration to affect performance when the user has little knowledge about how to improve configurations. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124247 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DETECTING THE TYPE OF INTERFACE TO WHICH A PERIPHERAL DEVICE IS CONNECTED - A peripheral device is connectable to a computer having one of a first interface and a second interface. The first interface communicates with the peripheral device over a differential data connection having a first data conductor and a second data conductor. The second interface communicates with the peripheral device over a clock conductor and a single ended data connection which includes a data conductor. The peripheral device has first and second communication conductors. The peripheral device includes an interface detection component coupled to the first and second communication conductors and configured to detect which of the first and second interfaces the peripheral device is connected to. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124223 | GENERALIZED PROXIMITY SERVICE - A system and method for identifying network endpoints that provide a service of interest orders endpoints according to their network proximity to a requesting client. The requesting client may then contact the closest available providing endpoint, thus increasing the efficiency of usage of network resources while decreasing latency and enhancing reliability. In an embodiment of the invention, when a connection to the nearest providing endpoint cannot be established, a mechanism for locating a next-closest alternative endpoint is provided. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124215 | APPARATUS AND COMPUTER-READABLE MEDIA FOR PROCESSING HTTP REQUESTS - Various embodiments of the invention are directed to closely integrating functionality between an internet server and a WebDAV tool. Areas of specific focus in this document include delegation of duties between the internet server and the WebDAV tool, efficient management of a resource's content-type, support for segregation of a namespace into separate virtual roots, and determinations of whether to invoke certain processing extensions to handle requests for a given HTTP verb. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124190 | SHARING A PORT WITH MULTIPLE PROCESSES - A port listening service operating in at system level is assigned to listen on a static port. The static port can index a plurality of unique IDs associated with a plurality of applications operating in a session level. The server application can then provide to a client the unique connection ID, the IP address of the server, and the static port number for a connection. If the client connects by referencing the unique connection ID, the port listening service can forward a corresponding socket for the connection to the appropriate application instance, such that the application still operates in a session level. As such, the port listening service can dispatch connection services for a single static port to multiple different application instances running in a session level. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124144 | COOPERATIVE SESSION-BASED FILTERING - Various embodiments provide session-based filtering to filter messages in a cooperative manner between a client and a service provider. In at least some embodiments, a service provider can establish a messaging session with a client and deliver messages to the client. The client can implement various client-side techniques to filter some of the messages based on various client designated criteria. The service provider can obtain feedback from the client indicative of one or more of the delivered messages that have been filtered. The service provider can dynamically create a session-based list based on the feedback and use the list during the session to block messages on the server-side according to the client designated criteria. When the session concludes, the session-based list can be discarded. In this manner, message filtering can occur without persistent storage of state data for the filtering at the service provider. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124143 | RICH EMAIL ATTACHMENT PRESENTATION - One or more techniques and/or systems are disclosed for providing a rich email experience for an email with an attachment. Intention metadata that is associated with an attachment to an email is identified, where the intention metadata indicates a sender intention for the attachment. The intention metadata may be identified prior to sending the email and included with the email, or identified after receipt of the email. Further, the intention metadata is applied to the attachment so that the attachment is presented in a rich format to the recipient that reflects the sender intention for the attachment, such as highlighting portions, and/or presenting images, for example, in a desired sequence. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124126 | CONTEXTUAL AND TASK FOCUSED COMPUTING - Concepts and technologies are described herein for contextual and task-focused computing. In accordance with the concepts and technologies disclosed herein, a discovery engine analyzes application data describing applications, recognizes tasks associated with the applications, and stores task data identifying and describing the tasks in a data storage location. The task data is searchable by search engines, indexing and search services, and task engines configured to provide tasks to one or more client devices operating alone or in a synchronized manner, the tasks being provided on demand or based upon activity associated with the one or more client devices. A task engine receives or obtains contextual data describing context associate with the client devices and/or social networking data associated with one or more users of the client devices. Based upon the contextual data and/or the social networking data, the task engine identifies one or more relevant tasks and provides to the client devices information for accessing the relevant tasks, or packaged data corresponding to the relevant tasks. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124123 | EXTENSIBLE VIDEO PLAYER SELECTION VIA SERVER-SIDE DETECTION OF CLIENT APPLICATION - A web server receives from different client applications HTTP requests for the same webpage in which video content is to be embedded. The web server provides to each of the client applications an HTTP response to the HTTP request. The HTML or XHTML text included in the response references the video content solely in a manner that is specific to a single video player. The HTML or XHTML text returned in a response to a request may be different for different client applications, even though the different client applications all requested the same webpage or portion of webpage. The video file referenced by the HTML or XHTML text returned in a response may be different for different client applications, even though the video files encode the same video content. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124091 | APPLICATION FILE SYSTEM ACCESS - Application file system access techniques are described. In implementations, a request is received by one or more modules via an application programming interface from an application that is executed on the computing device to access a file system of a computing device. A portion is exposed in a user interface by the one or more modules, the portion having an option that is selectable by a user to confirm that access is to be granted, the portion exposed such that the application is not aware of what is contained in the portion. Responsive to selection of the option, access is granted to the application by the one or more modules such that the application is not aware of where in the file system the access is granted. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124086 | Domain Constraint Path Based Data Record Extraction - Described herein are techniques for extracting data records containing user-generated content from documents. The documents may be processed into document trees in which sub-trees represent the data records of the document. Domain constraints may be used to locate structured portions of the document tree. For example, anchor trees may be located as being sets of sibling sub-trees with similar tag paths that contain the domain constraints. The anchor trees may then be used to determine a record boundary (e.g., the start offset and length) of the data records. Finally, the data records may be extracted based on the anchor trees and the record boundaries. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124077 | Domain Constraint Based Data Record Extraction - Embodiments for a Mining Data Records based on Anchor Trees (MiBAT) process are disclosed. In accordance with at least one embodiment, the MiBAT process extracts data records containing user-generated content from web documents. The web document is processed into a Document Object Model (DOM) tree in which sub-trees of the DOM tree represent the data records of the web document. Domain constraints are used to locate structured portions of the DOM tree. Anchor trees are then located as being sets of sibling sub-trees which contain the domain constraints. The anchor trees are then used to determine a record boundary (i.e. the start offset and length) of the data records. Finally, the data records are extracted based on the anchor trees and the record boundaries. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124072 | SYSTEM LEVEL SEARCH USER INTERFACE - A system level search user interface that includes both a data entry portion and an application identification portion is displayed. User data input as a search term is displayed in the data entry portion, and identifiers of each of one or more applications of multiple applications on the computing device that can be searched using the search term are displayed in the application identification portion. The search term is provided to one application of the multiple applications for that one application to generate and display search results based on the search term while the display of at least the data entry portion of the system level search user interface is maintained. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124071 | EXTENSIBLE SEARCH TERM SUGGESTION ENGINE - A search term suggestion engine of a computing device receives characters of user data as the characters are input. The user data is at least part of a search term to be provided to one of multiple applications to search for the search term. An indication of multiple suggestion sources is received from the one application, and one or more suggested search terms are obtained, from the multiple suggestion sources, based on the received characters. One or more suggested search terms can also be obtained from the multiple suggestion sources based on one or more linguistic alternatives for the received characters. The one or more suggested search terms are combined into a combined set of suggested search terms, and the combined set of suggested search terms is returned to a search user interface for presentation to the user. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124070 | RECOMMENDING QUERIES ACCORDING TO MAPPING OF QUERY COMMUNITIES - A set of queries, such as a search log, is divided into commercial queries and non-commercial queries. A first set of query communities is determined from the non-commercial queries and a second set is determined from the commercial queries. The query communities are correlated based on the users who submitted the queries and instances where a query from the first set of query communities was followed by a query from the second set to generate a mapping between the first set of query communities and the second set. Later, a non-commercial query is received from a user, and the mapping is used to predict one or more commercial queries that the user is likely to submit in the future based on the non-commercial query. One or more of the commercial queries are presented to the user according to the mapping with search results responsive to the non-commercial query. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124064 | TRANSFORMATION OF REGULAR EXPRESSIONS - Techniques to transform regular expressions are described. An apparatus may comprise a processor circuit and a key terms identifying module operative on the processor circuit to generate a set of one or more regular expression key terms from enabled features of a regular expression based on a set of configuration parameters, and filter one or more electronic messages using the set of regular expression key terms. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124062 | Application Transfer Protocol - An application transfer protocol allows users to find applications relevant to a search query in an application search system. The application transfer protocol is used with an index that maintains a database of applications that includes parameters, such as features and/or content of the application. When a user submits a query, the system determines one or more applications relevant to the search query and implements the application transfer protocol to identify and present results to a user. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124061 | Rich Search Over and Deep Integration with Applications - An application search system may maintain an index of applications available from multiple different application stores, and includes parameters, such as features and/or content of the applications. When a user submits a query, the system may derive contextual information pertaining to a user device used to submit the query, applications installed on a particular user device and/or usage information for installed applications. The system then may, in one example, determine one or more applications relevant to the search query and, depending on the contextual information derived, may provide an entry point to access a particular application at a task level, may prompt the user to install the application, or may provide a web result related to the particular application. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124043 | PERIOD TO DATE FUNCTIONS FOR TIME INTELLIGENCE FUNCTIONALITY - A system for extending a Time Intelligence language to provide support for period-to-date functions and for generating member sets in response to data queries is provided. The system may apply member aggregation functions and queries across a plurality of heterogeneous data sources. Each data source is aligned to a reference dimension and is said to organize data according to at least one level of granularity. In some embodiments, a member aggregation function specifies a period (e.g., year, quarter, month) and retrieves data from a data source starting with the current specified period and ending with the most recently completed period equal to the granularity of the data source. The system may allow a user to further customize a member aggregation function by specifying a granularity, a period offset, or a granularity end offset. Additionally, the system may generate a caption to display in association with the retrieved data. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124036 | BROWSING RELATED IMAGE SEARCH RESULT SETS - Methods are provided for displaying image results responsive to a search query. In addition to displaying responsive results for a query, responsive results are also provided for related queries. The results are ordered along a plurality of display axes, including at least one axis corresponding to the ordering of the various search queries. The results can be displayed in an aligned or non-aligned manner. The results can then be translated along one or more of the display axes to allow a user to browse the various results. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124035 | REGISTRATION FOR SYSTEM LEVEL SEARCH USER INTERFACE - A system level search module receives system level search user interface registration information for an application of the computing device. The registration information includes an indication of how the system level search module can launch the application. The registration information is added to a registration store, and the application is included as one of one or more applications that can be searched using the system level search user interface. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124028 | Unified Application Discovery across Application Stores - Techniques for discovery of applications across a plurality of application stores are described herein. The discovery may be in response to a query and intent process, which may be initiated by a search query. The search query may reveal user intent to discover an application by operation of a search engine. The user intent may be matched with indexed application content. The application content may be obtained by operation of a discovery and indexing process. A crawler may discover and crawl a plurality of application stores. Additionally or alternatively, a feed store may receive direct feeds of application information and links to download locations from a plurality of application stores. Both the discovered data and direct feeds may be sent to an indexer, to create and maintain an index. Search results pages may be returned to provide users with information, links to developer websites and links to download pages from a plurality of application stores. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124024 | EXTENSIBLE DATA PROVIDER QUERYING AND SCHEDULING SYSTEM - Embodiments provide a query and aggregation layer that is communicatively coupled to, and independent of, a presentation layer and a storage layer. The query and aggregation layer includes a data model configured to expose an access mechanism that is usable to access different data sources in the storage layer. A search query is received from the presentation layer, and one or more data providers identified in the search query are ascertained. At least some of the data providers are creatable on a same thread as that of the data model. Also, the search query is issued to identified data providers in the query and aggregation layer effective to cause the identified data providers to execute the search query on data sources associated with the identified data providers. Additionally, search results are received at the data model from the identified data providers and returned to the presentation layer. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124006 | METHOD, SYSTEM, AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING RESILIENT DATA TRANSFER IN A DATA PROTECTION SYSTEM - A method for transmitting records of changes to data from a production location to a storage location is provided. The method stores in a log, records of changes to data stored at a production location. Those records are transmitted and a transmitted records checkpoint is generated that is transmitted at the end of the transmitted records. A records checkpoint confirmation is received and the plurality of transmitted records are purged from the log. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124001 | INCREASING DATABASE AVAILABILITY DURING FAULT RECOVERY - Embodiments are directed to providing database access during database reconfiguration and to maintaining replication connections during database reconfiguration. In an embodiment, a computer system establishes multiple quorum sets of replicas to replicate the data of a data partition. The quorum sets of replicas ensure that at least a minimum number of replicas are operating to commit pending transactions during partition reconfiguration. The computer system determines that a data partition reconfiguration has been initiated and provides access to the data partition's data during reconfiguration of the data partition using at least a quorum of replicas in each of the quorum sets of replicas. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120124000 | Data Cube High Availability - The subject disclosure is directed towards making cube data highly available and efficient to access by separating the read cube server from the processing cube server, on different physical machines. The read cube server may be mirrored, and the write cube server may be mirrored. When the primary read cube server is not operational (e.g., has failed) or is having its read cube synchronized, the read queries are handled by the mirror read cube server. When a processing cube server (or its write cube) is not operational, its mirror processing cube server takes over and performs cube processing operations via its mirror write cube. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120123993 | Action Prediction and Identification Temporal User Behavior - User behavior modeling can include determining temporal- or time-based actions performed by various users. From the mined temporal-based user actions, future actions can be predicted. Certain implementations include providing information and/or services based on the predicted future actions. Some implementations, include providing relevant information, services, and/or goods regarding the predicted future action. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120123976 | Object-Sensitive Image Search - Methods and systems for object-sensitive image searches are described herein. These methods and systems are usable for receiving a query for an image of an object and providing a ranked list of query results to the user based on a ranking of the images. The object-sensitive image searches may generate a pre-trained multi-instance learning (MIL) model trained from free training data from users sharing images at websites to identify a common pattern of the object, and/or may generate a MIL model “on the fly” trained from pseudo-positive and pseudo-negative samples of query results to identify a common pattern of the object. As such, the user is presented with query results that include images that prominently display the object near the top of the results. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120123975 | Automatic Batching of GUI-Based Tasks - Described herein are techniques for automatically batching GUI-based (Graphical User Interface) tasks. The described techniques include automatically determining whether a user is performing batchable tasks in a GUI-based environment. Once detected, the described techniques include predicting the next tasks of a batch based upon those detected batchable tasks. With the described techniques, the user may be asked to verify and/or correct the predicted next tasks. Furthermore, the described techniques may include performing a batch and doing so without user interaction. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120123674 | DISPLAYING PRODUCT RECOMMENDATIONS ON A MAP - Described herein are technologies pertaining to presenting a map to a user that comprises graphical icons that are representative of retail stores. The user has performed a search for a product, wherein the product has a parameter corresponding thereto, and the parameter has a constraint corresponding thereto. Inventories of multiple retail stores can be searched over by relaxing the constraint, thereby allowing a recommended product to be located. A graphical icon representative of a retail store that has the recommended product in stock is included in the map together with data indicative of the price of the recommended product at the retail store. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120123673 | GENERATING A MAP THAT INCLUDES LOCATION AND PRICE OF PRODUCTS IN A SHOPPING LIST - Described herein are technologies pertaining to presenting a map to a user that comprises graphical icons that are representative of retail stores. The user has provided a shopping list, wherein the shopping list includes a plurality of products that are desirably purchased by the user. Inventories of retail stores in a geographic region of interest to the user are searched, and a map is generated that includes graphical icons representative of the retail stores, data that indicates that product(s) in the shopping list are available at the retail stores, and price data that indicates prices of product(s) in the shopping list at the respective retail stores. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120121182 | RECOGNITION OF TABULAR STRUCTURES - A number of regions and partitions may be created based on input handwritten atoms and a grammar parsing framework. Productions for tabular structures may be added to the grammar parsing framework to produce an extended grammar parsing framework. Each of the regions may be searched for a tabular structure. Upon finding a tabular structure, a type of tabular structure may be determined. Configuration partitions may be created, based on the added productions, and added to the created partitions. A set of configuration regions may be created based on the configuration partitions and added to the created regions. The productions for tabular structures and productions of the grammar parsing framework may be applied, as rewriting rules, to the atoms to produce possible recognition results. A best recognition result may be determined and displayed. A mechanism for correcting misrecognition errors, which may occur while recognizing tabular structures, may be provided. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120121181 | INLINE HANDWRITING RECOGNITION AND CORRECTION - As a user writes using a handheld writing device, such as an electronic pen or stylus, handwriting input is received and initially displayed as digital ink. The display of the digital ink is converted to recognized text inline with additional digital ink as the user continues to write. A user may edit a word of recognized text inline with other text by selecting the word. An enlarged version of the word is displayed in a character correction user interface that allows a user to make corrections on an individual character basis and also provides other correction options for the word. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120121175 | CONVERTING CONTINUOUS TONE IMAGES - One or more techniques and/or systems are disclosed for converting an unsupported continuous tone image file with an opacity layer to an application supported image. An opacity mask is created from an extracted alpha channel portion of the unsupported image file, where the alpha channel comprises transparency (opacity) information for the image. The unsupported image file can comprise an eight-bit alpha channel that indicates transparency for one or more portions of the image. The remaining channels of the unsupported image, after the alpha channel is extracted, can be used to create an image, which is combined with the opacity mask, to generate a supported image with a transparency layer. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120121172 | In-Image Accessibility Indication - Methods and systems for in-image accessibility indication are described herein. These methods and systems are usable to receive an image being designed, locate colorblind inaccessible regions of the image based on located colorblind inaccessible points, and indicate the located colorblind inaccessible regions in the image to a designer while the designer is creating the image. As such, the designer is able to quickly identify regions of the designed image that may be difficult for colorblind viewers to see and, with this information, the designer is able to modify the image accordingly. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120121030 | Compressive Wireless Modulation - A projection code is applied to encode symbols as weighted arithmetic sums of approximately random subsets of binary source bits. Pairs of the symbols are combined to form constellation points, which are sequentially mapped through a constellation to modulate a data signal. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120121025 | BITSTREAM MANIPULATION AND VERIFICATION OF ENCODED DIGITAL MEDIA DATA - Disclosed herein are representative embodiments of methods, apparatus, and systems for manipulating bitstreams of digital media data compressed according to a compression standard. Also disclosed are representative embodiments of methods, apparatus, and systems for evaluating compliance of an encoded bitstream of digital media data with a compression standard. In one exemplary embodiment, a conforming bitstream of compressed digital media data is input. One or more of the parameters in the bitstream are selectively altered into parameters that do not conform to the video compression standard. The selective alteration can be performed such that parameters that would make the bitstream non-decodable if altered are bypassed and left unaltered. A non-conforming bitstream that includes the one or more selectively altered parameters is output. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120120618 | HINGE MECHANISM FOR MOBILE ELECTRONIC DEVICE - A hinge mechanism for a mobile electronic device includes a first leaf comprising first and second fixed pivot axes and a second leaf comprising third and fourth fixed pivot axes, the four pivot axes being substantially parallel to one another. A first linkage is pivotally coupled to the first leaf at the first pivot axis and pivotally coupled to the second leaf at the fourth pivot axis. A second linkage is pivotally coupled to the first leaf such at the second pivot axis and pivotally coupled to the second leaf at the third pivot axis. The first and second leaves are pivotable at least about 180° relative to one another. A cam mechanism can be included to bias the pivotal motion of the leaves. An FPC or other electrical connector linking the leaves can pass through a passage in at least one of the linkages. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120120097 | Clipart Cartoon Techniques - Techniques for generating a personalized cartoon by using a few text queries are described herein. The present disclosure describes efficiently searching multiple images from a network, obtaining clipart image from the multiple images, and vectorization of the clipart image. The present disclosure also describes techniques to change a style of the cartoon such as recoloring one or more cartoon objects. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120120093 | TARGET DISPLAY FOR GAMMA CALIBRATION - User interfaces are provided that allow for the display of a target element that may be used to adjust a gamma value of a display device. The target element includes three layers. These layers include a bottom static layer, a gray static layer, and a progressive layer that gradually changes from a fully transparent are to an opaque area. Additionally, a manipulation area is provided, which may be a sliding mechanism. The user may adjust the gamma to a higher value when the fully transparent area appears lighter than the opaque area, and may adjust the gamma to a lower value when the fully transparent area appears darker than the opaque area. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120120086 | Interactive and Scalable Treemap as a Visualization Service - Techniques for providing a visualization of an interactive and scalable treemap are described. A service provider hosts large-scale hierarchical data and supports online users who desire to visualize the large-scale hierarchical data in a treemap format on their computing devices. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120117662 | FILE SYSTEM OPERATION AND DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT (DRM) - A file system is configured for use with files protected by digital rights management (DRM) content controls and to interact both with applications that are, and are not, DRM aware. The file system may be configured for use by two applications, in a manner that may provide the second application with protected files if the first application was previously allowed access. In one example, a user context cache of DRM-protected files is created. The files in the cache may have been decrypted in response to a request(s) from the first application. Subsequent requests from the second application may be received for files within the user context cache of DRM-protected files. At least one of the files within the user context cache of DRM-protected files may be provided to the second application if the second application has a joint user context with the first application. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117625 | SECURITY SYSTEM FOR COMPUTING RESOURCES PRE-RELEASES - Technology is provided for provisioning a user computer system with membership in a privilege set in order to execute a pre-release resource. Some examples of pre-release resources are alpha and beta versions of firmware or software which can be downloaded to user computer systems. The pre-release resources are associated with different privilege sets based on their security risk levels. In one example, a security risk level may represent a number of user computer systems at risk of an integrity failure of the pre-release resource. In other examples, the security risk may represent an operational layer of the user computer system affected by the resource or a level of security testing certification success for the pre-release resource. A privilege set identifier indicates membership in one or more privilege sets. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117609 | Pluggable Claim Providers - A server system receives and installs multiple claim provider plug-ins. Each of the claim provider plug-ins implements the same software interface. However, each of the claim provider plug-ins can provide claims that assert different things. Claims provided by the claim provider plug-ins can be used to control access of users to a resource. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117558 | MOBILE APPLICATION MIGRATION SERVICE - A mobile application migration service is usable to receive recommendations for replacement and/or alternative mobile applications for potential mobile device upgrades. Additionally, the service may be usable to compare legacy mobile applications to potential target mobile applications and simulate operation of selected target applications on a new target device. Further, a service may be usable to provide one-click purchase of one or more target applications, one-click installation of the selected target applications, and/or one-click migration of associated user and/or application data from a legacy device to a new device. Such recommendations, comparisons, simulations, and one-click migrations may be used to facilitate migration from one mobile device to another, even when legacy devices are customized with highly useful and/or often used applications. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117554 | ON-DEMAND LOADING OF TYPES OF SOFTWARE CODE OF A PROGRAM EXECUTING ON A COMPUTING DEVICE - A first computing device receives (over a network) from at least a second computing device a container that includes information relating to types of software code that are potentially invoked by a program executing on the first computing device. A determination is made according to an on-demand basis, during execution of the program, whether a particular type of software code is to be loaded from the at least second computing device to the first computing device. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117551 | OPTIMIZATION OF DECLARATIVE QUERIES - Source code is generated that includes one or more iterator-based expressions such as declarative queries. The source code is translated into an intermediate language that classifies operators making up the iterator-based expressions into classes based on whether the operators are aggregating, element-wise, or sink operators. The intermediate language, including the identified classes, is processed using an automaton to replace the iterator-based expressions with one or more equivalent non-iterator-based expressions. Where an iterator-based expression is nested, the nested expression is processed using an equivalent number of nested automatons. The resulting optimized source code may be compiled and executed using fewer virtual function calls than the equivalent non-optimized source code. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117544 | AMPLIFICATION OF DYNAMIC CHECKS THROUGH CONCURRENCY FUZZING - The subject disclosure relates to effective dynamic monitoring of an application executing in a computing system by increasing concurrency coverage. A set of dynamic checks are linked to an application by mechanisms that enable the dynamic checks to monitor behavior of the application at runtime. As additionally described herein, concurrency fuzzing is applied to the application to randomize thread schedules of the application, thus increasing a number of disparate concurrency scenarios of the application observed by the plurality of dynamic checks. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117531 | Instantiating a Software Development Environment From an Environment Class - A machine-implemented method for instantiating a software development environment includes the steps of defining an environment class whereby software prerequisites are added automatically to the environment; generating at least one physical topology to which the environment class will be deployed; and deploying the environment class to generate an environment instance from said environment class. The environment class includes at least one role selected from a plurality of roles, the role encapsulating deployment information. According to some embodiments, the environment class includes at least two roles and at least one rule defining at least one dependency between a first role and at least one additional role. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117514 | Three-Dimensional User Interaction - Three-dimensional user interaction is described. In one example, a virtual environment having virtual objects and a virtual representation of a user's hand with digits formed from jointed portions is generated, a point on each digit of the user's hand is tracked, and the virtual representation's digits controlled to correspond to those of the user. An algorithm is used to calculate positions for the jointed portions, and the physical forces acting between the virtual representation and objects are simulated. In another example, an interactive computer graphics system comprises a processor that generates the virtual environment, a display device that displays the virtual objects, and a camera that capture images of the user's hand. The processor uses the images to track the user's digits, computes the algorithm, and controls the display device to update the virtual objects on the display device by simulating the physical forces. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117498 | SECONDARY OUTPUT GENERATION FROM A PRESENTATION FRAMEWORK - A secondary output of a user interface created using a presentation framework may be created by making a clone of the user interface, then modifying the cloned user interface by expanding various components. The cloned user interface may also be configured to the output characteristics of the secondary output, which may be a printer or other hardcopy device. The user interface may be created with callbacks or other actions that may be executed when the cloned user interface is configured. The callbacks may cause certain user interface components to be changed on the cloned version of the user interface. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117496 | DECLARATIVE AND MULTI-MODE WIZARD FRAMEWORK - A user interface mechanism may be defined by a story from which a wizard engine may create a user interface. The engine may present the story using various user interface containers that define a layout and general functions of a user interface, along with styles that may define the ‘look and feel’ of the user interface. The story may define an action performed once data are collected from the user. The story may also define data passed to the action, as well as the data collected from a user. The story may further define translation routines or other actions that may be launched in response to receiving user action and used to generate data that may be passed to the action. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117487 | Interaction with Networked Screen Content Via Mobile Phone in Retail Setting - A portable computing device may be configured to allow a user to interact with one or more displays in a retail environment. The portable computing device may establish a communication link with a communication device in the retail environment and the user may be able to use the portable computing device to navigate through retail data and have it displayed on the display device in the retail environment. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117481 | Partial Loading and Editing of Documents from a Server - On a client computer a request is sent to a server computer to open a first portion of a document. The document is stored at the server computer. The first portion of the document is smaller than the entire document. The request includes information used by the server computer to determine a size of the first portion of the document. The first portion of the document is received from the server computer. A second portion of the document is rendered on a display screen on the client computer. The second portion of the document is a subset of the first portion of the document. When the client computer determines that the user has scrolled a third portion of the document and that more of the document is available at the server computer, a second request is sent to the server computer to open an additional portion of the document. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117478 | MANAGING NETWORK USAGE PER APPLICATION VIA POLICIES - Defining and applying policies to manage data traffic including data transmitted and/or received by each of a plurality of applications executing on a computing device. The data traffic is monitored per application and attributes are defined for the monitored data traffic to enable the user to evaluate the data traffic for each application. Usage patterns are determined based on the monitored data traffic and the attributes to create one or more policies. The policies are applied to prevent each application from exceeding a corresponding data usage limit defined by the policies. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117470 | Learning Tool for a Ribbon-Shaped User Interface - A computing device displays a user interface containing a ribbon-shaped user interface. The ribbon-shaped user interface contains multiple tabs. Each of the tabs contains multiple controls. Furthermore, a challenge and a tab visualization control are displayed in the user interface. The challenge instructs a user of the computing device to perform a task using the ribbon-shaped user interface without instructing the user how to perform the task. In response to receiving selection of the tab visualization control, the computing device displays a popup window in the user interface. The popup window initially contains an image of an initial portion of a given tab in the ribbon-shaped user interface. The image of the given tab is scrolled within the popup window such that a target control in the given tab is visible within the popup window. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117457 | VERSION HISTORY INSIDE DOCUMENT - Architecture that provides a technique whereby version information is tracked and presented for a given document, in the document. The version information can be presented or accessed using a dropdown user interface (UI) navigation model which employs animation to assist users in tracking which user is making a change and when the change is made. Moreover, a user can select a specific version item to navigate back to the content associated with changes made, as part of collaboration, for example. The dropdown menu includes elements that comprise user tiles, user name, last saved date, and so on. Additionally, a user can jump between documents within a single UI. In an email embodiment, users communicating via email as part of the collaboration can be presented with a side-by-side view of the messages communicated during the collaboration, and the corresponding change to the document content. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117449 | Creating and Modifying an Image Wiki Page - An ImageWiki architecture is used to generate an image-based web page for an image on the Web. An ImageWiki page may be created automatically or individually, by a user of the Web. Additionally, a user may revise existing ImageWiki pages to update a particular page or correct an incorrect or misleading previous entry. The ImageWiki application indexes images located on the Web. Once the images are indexed, the information related to the images is mined and extracted from various sources of web data. Finally, an ImageWiki page or web page is generated for each image. The resulting ImageWiki page contains the image as well as the aggregated information relating to the image. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117404 | Decentralized Sleep Management - Techniques for employing a decentralized sleep management service are described herein. In some instances, each computing device of a group of computing devices periodically shares information about itself with each other computing device of the group. With this information, each computing device within the group that is awake and capable of managing other devices selects a subset of devices to probe. The devices then probe this subset to determine whether the probed devices are asleep. In response to identifying a sleeping device, the probing device takes over management of the sleeping device. Managing the sleeping device involves informing other devices of the group that the sleeping device is being managed, in addition to monitoring requests for services on the sleeping device. In response to receiving a valid request for a service hosted by the sleeping device, the managing device awakens the sleeping device and ceases managing the now-woken device. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117370 | HARDWARE DIAGNOSTICS AND SOFTWARE RECOVERY ON HEADLESS SERVER APPLIANCES - Described is a headless server appliance configured with a secondary actuation mechanism that when actuated, enters the headless server appliance into a diagnostic mode. For example, the diagnostic mode may correspond to a secondary operating system booted from a BIOS component activated by the secondary actuation mechanism. In the diagnostic mode, primitives may be communicated between a client device coupled (e.g., via a network or USB connection) to the headless server appliance, such as to provide the client device with access to the headless server appliance's hard disk. Other primitives, such as communicated via APIs, may provide the client device with access to the BIOS. The secondary operating system and/or client device may perform diagnostics and recovery operations on the headless server appliance. For example, the client device or similar source may restore or update the primary operating system image to a storage medium of the headless server appliance. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117329 | COMBINATION BASED LRU CACHING - Combination based LRU caching employs a mapping mechanism in an LRU cache separate from a set of LRU caches for storing the values used in the combinations. The mapping mechanism is used to track the valid combinations of the values in the LRU caches storing the values resulting in any given value being stored at most once. Through the addition of a byte pointer significantly more combinations may be tracked in the same amount of cache memory with full LRU semantics on both the values and combinations. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117304 | MANAGING MEMORY WITH LIMITED WRITE CYCLES IN HETEROGENEOUS MEMORY SYSTEMS - A method and a memory manager for managing data storage in a plurality of types of memories. The types of memories may comprise a primary memory, such as DRAM, and a secondary memory, such as a phase change memory (PCM) or Flash memory, which may have a limited lifetime. The memory manager may be part of an operating system and may manage the memories as part of a unified address space. Characteristics of data to be stored in the memories may be used to select between the primary and secondary memories to store the data and move data between the memories. When the data is to be stored in the secondary memory, health information on the secondary memory and characteristics of the data to be stored may be used to select a location within the secondary memory to store the data. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117264 | PREVENTING QUALITY OF SERVICE POLICY ABUSE IN A NETWORK - A system for preventing quality of service policy abuse comprising a media connection and a local area network prioritizing quality of service in which quality of service to a to a video receiver or similar device may be maintained by prioritizing its signal relative to other signals competing for network bandwidth. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117245 | GROUP BASED ALLOCATION OF NETWORK BANDWIDTH - The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for group based allocation of terminal server network bandwidth. Output packets are classified into groups based on classification criteria. Output packets for each group are queue into a corresponding queue. During a queue flush cycle each queue containing data is flushed for an essentially equal amount of time. Flushing each queue essentially equally reduces the negative impact that can otherwise result when a subset of sessions (or even a single session) request(s) a disproportional share of terminal server network bandwidth. Responsiveness can be further increased by distributing the essentially equal amount for each queue across the queue flush cycle. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117231 | MODEL-BASED DATA CENTER MANAGEMENT - Computer-readable media, systems, and methods for model-based data center management. In embodiments, a request to perform a management operation on a device in a data center is received and available paths to the device are determined. The paths are determined based on an artifact storing a topology of the data center. Further, a current favored path that is one of the available paths is determined based on a policy and the device is bound for performance of the management operation using the current favored path. In embodiments, the model-based data center management is configured to provide a generic description of the data center architecture and a generic description for one or more devices in the data center. The generic description provides for dynamic runtime data center configuration. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117214 | SERVICE DIRECTORY - Service endpoints that provide services to client devices send registration data to a service directory service. The registration data includes addresses that client devices can use to access the service endpoints along with descriptive data that describes the services that each endpoint provides, along with other information such as version numbers of applications that are supported by the service endpoints, and whether the service endpoints are running an experiment. Client devices request a manifest from the service directory service. Each request includes client metadata that describes the requesting client device. The service directory service uses the registration data and the client metadata to generate a manifest for the client device that identifies the services that the client may access and an address that the client may use to access each service. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117212 | Insertion Of Management Agents During Machine Deployment - An invention is disclosed for configuring a VM of a deployment to be managed by a management system. In an embodiment, a deployment manager of a deployment instructs a host to create a VM. The VM is created with a base management agent that exposes interfaces to the management system that enable the management system to install management agents on the VM. The deployment manager installs a management agent that corresponds to a management system on the VM, and registers the VM with the management system. The management system may then manage the VM by communicating with the installed management agent on the VM. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117209 | LOCATION CONTROL SERVICE - In embodiments of a location control service, location data that identifies the location of a device is stored in a memory module, such as secured non-volatile memory or a storage module, of the device along with a timestamp that correlates to local time at the location of the device. A determination is then made as to whether the location of the device has changed. Functionality of the device can be disabled, and access to data stored on the device restricted, when determining that a change in location of the device was not authorized. Alternatively, the location data can be updated to identify a new location of the device when determining that a change in location of the device was authorized. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117194 | SERIALIZING DOCUMENT EDITING COMMANDS - A command stream is generated that includes serialized commands for editing a document. The command stream can be applied to a modified document to generate a single document that contains modifications to the document made using both a Web application and a client application. The command stream can also be utilized to recreate the edited state of a document following the disconnection from a Web application for editing the document, to load balance a server computer hosting the Web application even while editing sessions are in progress, to perform an upgrade of a server hosting the Web application while editing sessions are in progress, and for other purposes. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117182 | CONTENT DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM - Systems and methods for delivering digital content are disclosed herein. The system facilitates the transfer of digital content to consumers from one or more sources through recognition of an identifier that is associated with the digital content. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117122 | Optimized KD-Tree for Scalable Search - Techniques for constructing an optimized kd-tree are described. In an implementation, an optimized kd-tree process receives input of a set of data points applicable for large-scale computer vision applications. The process divides the set of the data points into subsets of data points with nodes while generating hyperplanes (e.g., coordinate axes). The process identifies a partition axis for each node based on the coordinate axes combined in a binary way. The optimized kd-tree process creates an optimized kd-tree that organizes the data points based on the identified partition axis. The organization of the data points in the optimized kd-tree provides efficient indexing and searching for a nearest neighbor. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117102 | QUERY SUGGESTIONS USING REPLACEMENT SUBSTITUTIONS AND AN ADVANCED QUERY SYNTAX - Query suggestion and other features are provided that include using an advanced query syntax, but are not so limited. A computer-implemented query service of an embodiment, operates to provide advanced query translations and suggestions based in part on a query rewriting algorithm that uses mappings and an advanced query syntax. A query method of one embodiment operates to provide one or more advanced queries that include one or more replacement queries that contain advanced query syntax. The method of an embodiment can automatically execute a rewritten query and/or present the rewritten query to the user as a query suggestion. Other embodiments are also disclosed. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117089 | BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND REPORT STORYBOARDING - Embodiments are directed to organizing reporting data from various sources such as frames into a storyboard view with additional metadata that is specific to the storyboard and to sharing and/or exporting a storyboard sequence of reporting frames. In an embodiment, a computer system accesses various portions of reporting data. The reporting data includes source data, relevant data states and metadata describing properties of the associated report. The computer system organizes the reporting data into multiple reporting frames according to various organizing criteria. Each reporting frame is incorporated into a storyboard interface. The computer system also displays the storyboard interface which includes each of the reporting frames organized according the organizing criteria. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117080 | INDEXING AND QUERYING HASH SEQUENCE MATRICES - Embodiments are directed to indexing and querying a sequence of hash values in an indexing matrix. A computer system accesses a document to extract a portion of text from the document. The computer system applies a hashing algorithm to the extracted text. The hash values of the extracted text form a representative sequence of hash values. The computer system inserts each hash value of the sequence of hash values into an indexing matrix, which is configured to store multiple different hash value sequences. The computer system also queries the indexing matrix to determine how similar the plurality of hash value sequences are to the selected hash value sequence based on how many hash values of the selected hash value sequence overlap with the hash values of the plurality of stored hash value sequences. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117065 | AUTOMATED PARTITIONING IN PARALLEL DATABASE SYSTEMS - Embodiments are directed to determining optimal partition configurations for distributed database data and to implementing parallel query optimization memo data structure to improve partition configuration cost estimation efficiency. In an embodiment, a computer system accesses a portion of database data and various database queries for a given database. The computer system determines, based on the accessed database data and database queries, a partition configuration search space which includes multiple feasible partition configurations for the database data and a workload of queries expected to be executed on that data. The computer system performs a branch and bound search in the partition configuration search space to determine which data partitioning path has the lowest partitioning cost. The branch and bound search is performed according to branch and bound search policies. The computer system also outputs the partition configuration with the determined lowest partitioning cost. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117061 | DOMAIN EXPERTISE DETERMINATION - A user's domain expertise may be estimated through several factors by monitoring different aspects of a user's interaction with a web browser. Based on the user's domain expertise, search results may be presented to the user that is commensurate with their expertise, resulting in a more efficient and productive on line session. A user's expertise in a knowledge domain may be determined from the user's behavior, including analyzing search queries, monitoring how the user navigates between and through websites, and analyzing the specific cites visited. As a user interacts with a browser, the user's estimated domain expertise may be updated and used to provide appropriate and useful search results. In many embodiments, a user may have different expertise levels for different technical domains. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117059 | Ranking Authors in Social Media Systems - The author ranking technique described herein is a technique to rank authors in social media systems along various dimensions, using a variety of statistical methods for utilizing those dimensions. More particularly, the technique ranks authors in social media systems through a combination of statistical techniques that leverage usage metrics, and social and topical graph characteristics. In various exemplary embodiments, the technique can rank author authority by the following: 1) temporal analysis of link sharing in which authority is computed based on a user's propensity to provide early links to web pages that subsequently become popular; 2) topical authority based on the author's links and content updates in specific topic areas; and 3) popularity and influence based on nodal properties of authors. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117058 | PRESENTING ACTIONS AND PROVIDERS ASSOCIATED WITH ENTITIES - Computer-readable media, computer systems, and computing devices method of facilitating presentation of actions and providers associated with entities. The method includes determining a query intent of a received query. Entity sets having an entity that matches the determined query intent are recognized. Each entity set includes an entity, an action, and a provider. Actions and/or providers associated with the entity that matches the determined query intent are identified. The actions and/or the corresponding providers associated with the entity are provided for integration with a representation of the associated entity on a search results page. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117052 | WEB FORUM CRAWLING USING SKELETAL LINKS - A method and system for identifying informative links of a web site for use in crawling the web site is provided. A forum crawler analyzes sample web pages of a web forum to identify informative links and then crawls the web forum by following links determined to be informative and not following other links. The forum crawler system determines whether links are informative based on whether they are part of the overall structure of the web site or are used to select sequential information that has been split onto multiple web pages. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117051 | MULTI-MODAL APPROACH TO SEARCH QUERY INPUT - Search queries containing multiple modes of query input are used to identify responsive results. The search queries can be composed of combinations of keyword or text input, image input, video input, audio input, or other modes of input. The multiple modes of query input can be present in an initial search request, or an initial request containing a single type of query input can be supplemented with a second type of input. In addition to providing responsive results, in some embodiments additional query refinements or suggestions can be made based on the content of the query or the initially responsive results. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117043 | Measuring Duplication in Search Results - Measuring duplication in search results is described. In one example, duplication between a pair of results provided by an information retrieval system in response to a query is measured. History data for the information retrieval system is accessed and query data retrieved, which describes the number of times that users have previously selected either or both of the pair of results, and a relative presentation sequence of the pair of results when displayed at each selection. From the query data, a fraction of user selections is determined in which a predefined combination of one or both of the pair of results were selected for a predefined presentation sequence. From the fraction, a measure of duplication between the pair of results is found. In further examples, the information retrieval system uses the measure of duplication to determine an overall redundancy value for a result set, and controls the result display accordingly. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117042 | COMBINING SONG AND MUSIC VIDEO PLAYBACK USING PLAYLISTS - A single playlist can be generated that includes both songs and music videos. Additionally, a song on a playlist can be identified and a check made as to whether a music video corresponding to the identified song is available. If a music video corresponding to the identified song is not available, then the identified song is played back. However, if a music video corresponding to the identified song is available, then the music video is played back instead of the identified song. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117025 | Synchronization of Replications for Different Computing Systems - A file system watcher in the presence of different file systems to allow synchronization of replicated files distributed among different file systems without compromising the features of each file system is described. To synchronize the distributed replications, a platform independent synchronization manager creates a file system watcher for each file system associated with a replication of the file. The file system watcher monitors each object for events affecting the object or the object's constituent files, such as creation, deletion, change and rename. Notifications are sent to the synchronization manager, which consolidates the modifications and updates a locally stored replication, if necessary. The synchronization manager then sends a notification of an update to other synchronization managers for replications of the distributed file or folder. Synchronization is complete when the nonconforming synchronization managers acquire a replication of the locally stored replication and update their respective objects. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120117008 | Parallel Processing Of Data Sets - Systems, methods, and devices are described for implementing learning algorithms on data sets. A data set may be partitioned into a plurality of data partitions that may be distributed to two or more processors, such as a graphics processing unit. The data partitions may be processed in parallel by each of the processors to determine local counts associated with the data partitions. The local counts may then be aggregated to form a global count that reflects the local counts for the data set. The partitioning may be performed by a data partition algorithm and the processing and the aggregating may be performed by a parallel collapsed Gibbs sampling (CGS) algorithm and/or a parallel collapsed variational Bayesian (CVB) algorithm. In addition, the CGS and/or the CVB algorithms may be associated with the data partition algorithm and may be parallelized to train a latent Dirichlet allocation model. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120116984 | AUTOMATED EVALUATION OF COMPLIANCE DATA FROM HETEROGENEOUS IT SYSTEMS - Compliance-relevant data from external systems comprising managed entities can be received, stored, processed, transformed and evaluated in an automated fashion. Compliance reporting can be generated dynamically to reflect the most current regulations, guidance and system operating conditions. Compliance data from external systems can be converted into a unified format compatible with a compliance management schema. A series of transformations can be applied to the compliance-relevant data. A compliance threshold can be provided to the compliance management system and compliance scoring can be provided. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120116980 | LONG TERM WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT - A workflow may be moved from one provider to another provider by extracting the metadata from an executing workflow describing the workflow state as part of dehydrating the workflow, and transferring the metadata to a second workflow and rehydrating the workflow at a second provider. An automated workflow manager may determine when to move the workflow and may facilitate moving with or without human intervention. When a workflow is moved from one provider to another, the workflow state may be moved without transferring executable code that executes the workflow. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120116905 | APPLICATION STORE TASTEMAKER RECOMMENDATIONS - An application store tastemaker recommendation service is usable to determine experts within a user's social network(s), receive recommendations from the experts, and filter and/or rank mobile application query results based at least in part on the recommendations. Additionally, the service may be usable to determine experts based on data compiled about previous actions, reviews, comments, etc., of the experts. Further, the service may be usable to provide recommendations to the user to aid in selecting mobile applications for purchase, and may provide an avenue for completing such purchases. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120116888 | Advertising that is Relevant to a Person - A person is viewing a display. By evaluating tracked information about the person, the display and/or the content being viewed, a tracking system determines that an opportunity exists to present an advertisement that is relevant to the person in the context of the person currently viewing the display. The tracking system provides advertiser data for the advertisement and instructions for generating the advertisement to a synthesis system local to the viewer and the viewer's display system, which dynamically synthesizes the advertisement and provides it to the display. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120116875 | PROVIDING ADVERTISEMENTS BASED ON USER GROUPING - Techniques for providing advertisements in association with electronic content are provided. The advertisements may be provided with electronic content that satisfies a content request made by a particular individual. The advertisements provided in association with the electronic content may depend on the results of an auction between advertisers submitting bids to have their respective advertisements provided in association with the electronic content. The bids may be submitted with respect to different value groups. Each value group includes individuals that may provide an estimated amount of value to a respective advertiser as a customer. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120116860 | PAYMENT DETERMINATION IN AUCTIONS - An auction may include a general schema to create incentives for those agents or bidders to bid on items at auction truthfully. The schema may implement any allocation rule, including a monotone allocation rule. The schema may provide for accepting bids from bidders, transforming the bids in a manner appropriate to the item being auctioned, and applying the allocation rule on the transformed bid. The schema may further provide for providing a rebate or payment back to the bidders. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120116835 | HYBRID TASK BOARD AND CRITICAL PATH METHOD BASED PROJECT MANAGEMENT APPLICATION INTERFACE - Seamless interaction between a task board and an underlying Critical Path Method (CPM) based project management application is provided, where users are enabled to move tasks on a task board user interface across columns or summary task (“story”) rows. Upon detecting a move of a task, a task board application (or its parent project management application) updates a project hierarchy of tasks reflecting the new grouping if the move is across rows such that critical path and other computations for the overall project can be updated by the project management application. If the move is across columns indicating a change of task property, relevant properties associated with the task (and/or its parent task(s)) are updated and provided to the project management application for re-computation of appropriate aspects of the project. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120116834 | HYBRID TASK BOARD AND CRITICAL PATH METHOD BASED PROJECT APPLICATION - Tasks can be visualized and tracked through automatic generation of a task board based on data from a project management application and data transferred from a task board to a project management application. Summary tasks, which represent grouping of related tasks in project management, are pivoted such that sub-tasks can be laid out in task board rows or “stories.” Progress status indicators in a task board (or columns) are derived automatically from intrinsic and traditional project management application fields like “percent complete” enabling users to take advantage of traditional project management features such as dependencies, resource leveling, etc., while presenting a simplified and intuitive task board interface to a project manager and/or a project team. | 05-10-2012 |
| 20120116761 | Minimum Converted Trajectory Error (MCTE) Audio-to-Video Engine - Embodiments of an audio-to-video engine are disclosed. In operation, the audio-to-video engine generates facial movement (e.g., a virtual talking head) based on an input speech. The audio-to-video engine receives the input speech and recognizes the input speech as a source feature vector. The audio-to-video engine then determines a Maximum A Posterior (MAP) mixture sequence based on the source feature vector. The MAP mixture sequence may be a function of a refined Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM). The audio-to-video engine may then use the MAP to estimate video feature parameters. The video feature parameters are then interpreted as facial movement. The facial movement may be stored as data to a storage module and/or it may be displayed as video to a display device. | 05-10-2012 |
