Patent application number | Description | Published |
20080301236 | CONTEXTUAL SOCIAL LANGUAGE - Systems and methods that enrich interaction of users in a written communication environment by providing a contextual language component that points to a designated data source (e.g., an object) and pulls data from such designated source, to perform predetermined function(s) thereupon. Users who communicate in the written environment can type an intuitive or customized operator, to engage in a predetermined functionality (e.g., playing a video). Accordingly, the operator can readily be interpreted by applications associated with the written communication environment. | 12-04-2008 |
20090006285 | CONTENT-BASED TAGGING OF RSS FEEDS AND E-MAIL - Providing for automated generation of tags (e.g., metadata descriptors) for items of e-mail or syndication formatted communication is described herein. By way of example, a system can include a filtering component that can generate one or more tags based on information relevant to content of the communication, a sender, or recipient, or combinations thereof. In addition, such tags can be automatically attached to a received item, or a presentation component can furnish the tags to a recipient (e.g., by way of a communication device user interface) for selection, whereby selected tags are associated with the item of communication. Accordingly, the subject innovation provides for improved classification and description of items of communication by automatic generation of descriptive and/or representative tags associated therewith. | 01-01-2009 |
20090006290 | TRAINING RANDOM WALKS OVER ABSORBING GRAPHS - A random walk is performed over a graph, such as an augmented bipartite graph, relating to ownership data with respect to a plurality of users and items owned; the graph can provide social links between the users as well. Items can be recommended to users who do not own the items by randomly walking the graph starting at the user node to which the recommendation will be given. The random walk can step from user to user or from user to item; when an item is reached, the node can be absorbing such that the random walk terminates. The arrived item is recommended to the user. Parameters can also be provided to affect decisions made during the walk about which users to walk to and/or whether to walk to a user or an item. | 01-01-2009 |
20090054123 | INFORMATION COLLECTION DURING GAME PLAY - Systems and methods allow an on-line game to extract information relevant to a specific need of a game platform or service platform. The specific need relates to management and use of digital content, and is addressed by designing and playing an on-line collaborative game. The rules of the game intend to solve a specific task dictated by the specific need. Players' responses to the game generate a wealth of information related to a specific task objective, such as ranking, sorting, and evaluating a set of digital content items. To compel participation in a game, players can be rewarded with monetary value rewards. As a game illustration, an image selection game (ISG) that exploits human contextual inference is described in detail. The information extracted from ISG is a list of key-image associations, relevant for the task of image sorting and ranking. | 02-26-2009 |
20090055377 | Collaborative Media Recommendation and Sharing Technique - A media recommendation and sharing technique that employs agents on media players/devices to expand the scope of media sharing scenarios. The technique assists a user in discovering media items, such as, for example, music, recordings, play lists, pictures, video games, on nearby media players or devices (devices which are capable of receiving, storing and playing media) which are interesting to the user. The collaborative media recommendation and sharing technique contemporaneously determines a user's media preferences based on media stored on a pair of media devices and recommends media for potential sharing based on these determined user preferences. | 02-26-2009 |
20090144238 | HIDE AND SEEK GAME TO ELICIT HUMAN INPUT - A hide and seek style game is utilized to elicit human input for use in improving search. Content (e.g., text, image, audio, video . . . ) is uniquely identified and revealed to users. Queries are then specified by users in an attempt to locate the content. In addition to utilizing these queries to return results for the game, the queries, and/or query-derived information, can also be employed to improve search engine retrieval and relevancy, among other things. | 06-04-2009 |
20090150341 | GENERATION OF ALTERNATIVE PHRASINGS FOR SHORT DESCRIPTIONS - The claimed subject matter provides systems and/or methods that effectuate generation of alternative expressions or phrasings for short descriptions, proper nouns or places. The system can include devices that select and associate an item with a prompt, displays the selected item and then obscures the item with the prompt associated with the item, elicits a response from users to the prompt based on a motivational statement constructed to solicit an appropriate response from the user. The response elicited from the user and the item selected associated with one another and then persisted to storage media. | 06-11-2009 |
20090186694 | VIRTUAL WORLD PLATFORM GAMES CONSTRUCTED FROM DIGITAL IMAGERY - An interactive game within a virtual world platform is provided wherein a sender can hide an object within a mapping application. An intended recipient of the object can be notified that the object is available and a clue can be provided. The clue can direct the recipient in searching for where the object is hidden. The objects can be intended for a single recipient, multiple recipients, or open to everyone on a first-come-first-served basis. The objects can be stolen by others and/or the objects can be re-gifted after being found. After being found, the virtual object can be automatically or manually converted into a non-virtual object. | 07-23-2009 |
20090210287 | ADVERTISEMENT SPACE ALLOCATION - A user utility function is implemented in allocating advertisement space to one or more potential advertisers. The user utility function allows advertisement space to be allocated based upon, among other things, the expected utility or usefulness that a proposed advertisement will have to a user. The user utility function, for example, compares proposed advertisements to historical user actions to generate respective user utility values for advertisements (e.g., based upon user responses to advertisements for particular types of product, responses to advertisements from particular types of sellers, etc.). The user utility values can then be applied to bids submitted by advertisers for advertisement space for particular advertisements to obtain modified bids. The modified bids thus reflect, among other things, the expected utility of an advertisement to a user, and thus allow an advertisement host to allocate advertisement space accordingly. | 08-20-2009 |
20090240498 | SIMILIARITY MEASURES FOR SHORT SEGMENTS OF TEXT - Systems and methods to perform short text segment similarity measures. Illustratively, a short text segment similarity environment comprises a short text engine operative to process data representative of short segments of text and an instruction set comprising at least one instruction to instruct the short text engine to process data representative of short text segment inputs according to a selected short text similarity identification paradigm. Illustratively, two or more short text segments can be received as input by the short text engine and a request to identify similarities among the two or more short text segments. Responsive to the request and data input, the short text engine executes a selected similarity identification technique in accordance with the sort text similarity identification paradigm to process the received data and to identify similarities between the short text segment inputs. | 09-24-2009 |
20090265022 | PLAYBACK OF MULTIMEDIA DURING MULTI-WAY COMMUNICATIONS - Multimedia playback technique embodiments are presented which facilitate the playback of an arbitrary media recording during a multi-party communication over a real-time multi-way communication system via a user's communication device. The recorded media can be interjected into a multi-party communication on a real time basis. This is generally accomplished by the media recording being inserted into a media stream being processed by the user's communication device as part of the multi-party communication. This can be done by either replacing a portion of the media stream with the media recording or mixing the media recording with a portion of the media stream. Once inserted, the media recording is transmitted as part of the media stream to a least one other party to the communication. | 10-22-2009 |
20090287626 | MULTI-MODAL QUERY GENERATION - A multi-modal search system (and corresponding methodology) is provided. The system employs text, speech, touch and gesture input to establish a search query. Additionally, a subset of the modalities can be used to obtain search results based upon exact or approximate matches to a search result. For example, wildcards, which can either be triggered by the user or inferred by the system, can be employed in the search. | 11-19-2009 |
20090287680 | MULTI-MODAL QUERY REFINEMENT - A multi-modal search query refinement system (and corresponding methodology) is provided. In accordance with the innovation, query suggestion results represent a word palette which can be used to select strings for inclusion or exclusion from a refined set of results. The system employs text, speech, touch and gesture input to refine a set of search query results. Wildcards can be employed in the search either prompted by the user or inferred by the system. Additionally, partial knowledge supplemented by speech can be employed to refine search results. | 11-19-2009 |
20090287681 | MULTI-MODAL SEARCH WILDCARDS - A multi-modal search system (and corresponding methodology) that employs wildcards is provided. Wildcards can be employed in the search query either initiated by the user or inferred by the system. These wildcards can represent uncertainty conveyed by a user in a multi-modal search query input. In examples, the words “something” or “whatchamacallit” can be used to convey uncertainty and partial knowledge about portions of the query and to dynamically trigger wildcard generation. | 11-19-2009 |
20090319508 | CONSISTENT PHRASE RELEVANCE MEASURES - Two methods for measuring keyword-document relevance are described. The methods receive a keyword and a document as input and output a probability value for the keyword. The first method is a similarity-based approach which uses techniques for measuring similarity between two short-text segments to measure relevance between the keyword and the document. The second method is a regression-based approach based on an assumption that if an out-of-document phrase (the keyword) is semantically similar to an in-document phrase, then relevance scores of the in and out-of document phrases should be close to each other. | 12-24-2009 |
20090327032 | QUALITY BASED PRICING AND RANKING FOR ONLINE ADS - A “Quality-Based Ad Pricer” prices ads as a function of how users respond to a particular page and/or domain to which they are sent by an online advertisement. User experience is improved by ensuring that advertisements that are more relevant to a user are priced less than an ads which are less relevant to the user. In particular, a quality factor for each ad is determined as a property of the advertiser's site based on measured user behaviors with respect to that site. This quality factor is then used in ranking, selecting, and pricing ads in an automated online auction. Further, while ad aggregators are not excluded from the ad market by the pricing rules of the Quality-Based Ad Pricer, these rules ensure that there is a “level playing field” such that ads of merchants are not excluded by the ads of ad aggregators. | 12-31-2009 |
20090327148 | MECHANISMS AND ARCHITECTURE FOR MOBILE OPPORTUNISTIC COMMERCE - The claimed matter provides systems and/or methods that enable sellers and buyers to take mutual advantage of the relationship of the location of seller outlets to routes that mobile buyers take to other destinations. The system can include devices that identify sellers capable of fulfilling a buyer's product or service requirements, generate value functions for the seller based on bidding functions acquired from the seller and related to the product or service requirements of the buyer, compare the value functions associated with multiple sellers to identify a successful seller, and notify the buyer of the location of the successful seller by modifying a route to a pre-established destination to include directions to the successful seller. | 12-31-2009 |
20100005291 | APPLICATION REPUTATION SERVICE - The claimed subject matter is directed to the use of an application reputation service to assist users with minimizing their computerized machines' exposure to and infection from malware. Specifically, the claimed subject matter provides a method and system of an application reputation service that contains the reputations for elements that are known to be non-malicious as well as those known to be malicious. | 01-07-2010 |
20100058064 | LOGIN AUTHENTICATION USING A TRUSTED DEVICE - A user working on a client computer is allowed to remotely login to a server over a computer network. A first secure connection is established between the client and the server. Communications with a trusted device which is in the user's control is established via a communication channel between the trusted device and the client, where this channel is not part of the network. A second secure connection is established between the trusted device and the server through the client, where this second secure connection is tunneled within the first secure connection. The user remotely logs into the server over the second secure connection using the trusted device. | 03-04-2010 |
20100315266 | PREDICTIVE INTERFACES WITH USABILITY CONSTRAINTS - A “Constrained Predictive Interface” uses predictive constraints to improve accuracy in user interfaces such as soft keyboards, pen interfaces, multi-touch interfaces, 3D gesture interfaces, EMG based interfaces, etc. In various embodiments, the Constrained Predictive Interface allows users to take any desired action at any time by taking into account a likelihood of possible user actions in different contexts to determine intended user actions. For example, to enable a virtual keyboard interface, various embodiments of the Constrained Predictive Interface provide key “sweet spots” as predictive constraints that allow the user to select particular keys regardless of any probability associated with the selected or neighboring keys. In further embodiments, the Constrained Predictive Interface provides hit target resizing via various piecewise constant touch models in combination with various predictive constraints. In general, hit target resizing provides dynamic real-time virtual resizing of one or more particular keys based on various probabilistic criteria. | 12-16-2010 |
20100332315 | GENERATION OF IMPRESSION PLANS FOR PRESENTING AND SEQUENCING ADVERTISEMENT AND SALES OPPORTUNITIES ALONG POTENTIAL ROUTES - A mobile device may present advertisements to users. However, advertisements may be ineffective or dangerous if presented when the attention of the user is unavailable (e.g., while operating a vehicle at a busy intersection.) It may also be desirable to select a sequence of advertisements that interrelate, or that relate the route of the user to an advertised product or service. Therefore, potential routes may be identified (e.g., based on user history or nearby locations of interest), and for potential routes, advertisement opportunities may be identified where the user may have an at least partial attention availability (e.g., traffic signals and fuel stops.) Advertisements may be selected for presentation at the advertisement opportunities of respective potential routes. Additionally, advertisement opportunities may be offered to advertisers in an auction model, and advertisers may specify conditions of advertisements (e.g., competitive placement exclusive of competitors' advertisements, or combinatorial placement of several advertisements.) | 12-30-2010 |
20110107242 | TASK PREDICTION - This patent application pertains to computing scenarios that allow users to more readily accomplish desired tasks. One implementation includes at least one dictionary of potential auto-suggestions that can be generated in relation to user-input. The implementation also includes a text framework configured to weight at least some of the potential auto-suggestions based upon one or more parameters. This implementation further includes a task engine configured to associate tasks with at least some of the potential auto-suggestions. | 05-05-2011 |
20110167053 | VISUAL AND MULTI-DIMENSIONAL SEARCH - A system that can analyze a multi-dimensional input thereafter establishing a search query based upon extracted features from the input. In a particular example, an image can be used as an input to a search mechanism. Pattern recognition and image analysis can be applied to the image thereafter establishing a search query that corresponds to features extracted from the image input. The system can also facilitate indexing multi-dimensional searchable items thereby making them available to be retrieved as results to a search query. More particularly, the system can employ text analysis, pattern and/or speech recognition mechanisms to extract features from searchable items. These extracted features can be employed to index the searchable items. | 07-07-2011 |
20110202427 | Device-Pairing by Reading an Address Provided in Device-Readable Form - A system is described for allowing a user, operating a trusted device, to remotely log into a server via a potentially untrustworthy client. The system operates by establishing a first secure connection between the client and the server. The system then establishes a second secure connection between the device and the server through the client. The user then remotely logs into the server over the second secure connection using the device. The second secure connection is tunneled within the first secure connection, preventing the untrustworthy client from discovering personal information associated with the user. According to one feature, prior to forming the second secure connection, the user can establish a pairing relationship with the client by reading an address of the client using any kind of reading mechanism. According to another feature, the device can receive marketing information in the course of a transaction. | 08-18-2011 |
20110214006 | AUTOMATED LEARNING OF FAILURE RECOVERY POLICIES - Described is automated learning of failure recovery policies based upon existing information regarding previous policies and actions. A learning mechanism automatically constructs a new policy for controlling a recovery process, based upon collected observable interactions of an existing policy with the process. In one aspect, the learning mechanism builds a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) model, and computes the new policy base upon the learned model. The new policy may perform automatic fault recovery, e.g., on a machine in a datacenter corresponding to the controlled process. | 09-01-2011 |
20110219012 | Learning Element Weighting for Similarity Measures - Described is a technology for measuring the similarity between two objects (e.g., documents), via a framework that learns the term-weighting function from training data, e.g., labeled pairs of objects, to develop a learned model. A learning procedure tunes the model parameters by minimizing a defined loss function of the similarity score. Also described is using the learning procedure and learned model to detect near duplicate documents. | 09-08-2011 |
20110238829 | ANONYMOUS AND SECURE NETWORK-BASED INTERACTION - The subject disclosure pertains to anonymous network interaction. More specifically, mechanisms are provided to ensure anonymity with respect network interaction such that third parties are unable to determine the source and/or intent of communications. Accordingly, entities may anonymize all outgoing and/or incoming data packets so as to mitigate outside entities from learning about information being sought and/or provided. For example, a user or corporation may employ an anonymizer with respect to web searching so that outside entities are not able to determine what information is attempted to be accessed and by whom. | 09-29-2011 |
20110246312 | ADVERTISEMENT INVENTORY MATCHING - Various embodiments provide techniques for advertisement inventory. In at least some embodiments, a scaled number of impressions can be matched to orders that have scaled impression goals. Impressions can be randomly selected from an offline traffic model and allocated to orders according to a matching algorithm until a number of impression defined by a scale factor is reached. This can occur by sampling the traffic model directly using the scale factor and/or by creating a scaled data set to which the matching algorithm can be applied. The matching algorithm can be configured to identify an order that is farthest away from being complete and then match the randomly selected impression to the identified order. If the scaled orders in the data set can be fulfilled using the scaled number of impressions, a conclusion is made that the original set of orders can be fulfilled using the original impressions. | 10-06-2011 |
20110258045 | INVENTORY MANAGEMENT - Various embodiments provide techniques for inventory management. In one or more embodiments, a probabilistic model is constructed to represent an inventory of ad impressions available from a service provider. The probabilistic model can be based on a traffic model that describes historic interaction of clients with the service provider using various attributes that define the ad impressions. The probabilistic model provides a distribution of the attributes and relates the attributes one to another based on dependencies. When an order from an advertiser for ad impressions is booked by the service provider, the probabilistic model is updated to reflect an expected probabilistic decrease in the inventory of ad impressions. The updated probabilistic model can then be employed to determine whether the inventory of ad impressions is sufficient to book subsequent orders for ad impressions. | 10-20-2011 |
20110302024 | EXTENDED CONVERSION TRACKING FOR OFFLINE COMMERCE - In one embodiment, a physical world tracking mechanism may monitor the efficacy of an advertisement with an offline conversion component. A data storage device | 12-08-2011 |
20110314537 | AUTOMATIC CONSTRUCTION OF HUMAN INTERACTION PROOF ENGINES - Human Interaction Proofs (“HIPs”, sometimes referred to as “captchas”), may be generated automatically. An captcha specification language may be defined, which allows a captcha scheme to be defined in terms of how symbols are to be chosen and drawn, and how those symbols are obscured. The language may provide mechanisms to specify the various ways in which to obscure symbols. New captcha schemes may be generated from existing specifications, by using genetic algorithms that combine features from existing captcha schemes that have been successful. Moreover, the likelihood that a captcha scheme has been broken by attackers may be estimated by collecting data on the time that it takes existing captcha schemes to be broken, and using regression to estimate the time to breakage as a function of either the captcha's features or its measured quality. | 12-22-2011 |
20110320822 | KEYED HUMAN INTERACTIVE PROOF PLAYERS - A human interactive puzzle (HIP) authorization architecture where keyed and animated puzzles are executed by HIP players which are distinct and obfuscated to the point where breaking a single player is a relatively costly operation. A key is created in response to a request for a service, a HIP player is created based on the key, and a small installation executable is created that expands during installation to produce a computationally expensive data structure on the client relative to verification of the solution at the server. Thus, copying of the player or relay of the puzzle to a third system requires more time than allowed to receive the solution at the server. | 12-29-2011 |
20120323537 | DETECTING IMPACT OF EXTRINSIC EVENTS ON A TIME SERIES - In one embodiment, an event impact signature detector may analyze a time series with external events. A data interface | 12-20-2012 |
20120323968 | Learning Discriminative Projections for Text Similarity Measures - A model for mapping the raw text representation of a text object to a vector space is disclosed. A function is defined for computing a similarity score given two output vectors. A loss function is defined for computing an error based on the similarity scores and the labels of pairs of vectors. The parameters of the model are tuned to minimize the loss function. The label of two vectors indicates a degree of similarity of the objects. The label may be a binary number or a real-valued number. The function for computing similarity scores may be a cosine, Jaccard, or differentiable function. The loss function may compare pairs of vectors to their labels. Each element of the output vector is a linear or non-linear function of the terms of an input vector. The text objects may be different types of documents and two different models may be trained concurrently. | 12-20-2012 |
20120330978 | CONSISTENT PHRASE RELEVANCE MEASURES - Two methods for measuring keyword-document relevance are described. The methods receive a keyword and a document as input and output a probability value for the keyword. The first method is a similarity-based approach which uses techniques for measuring similarity between two short-text segments to measure relevance between the keyword and the document. The second method is a regression-based approach based on an assumption that if an out-of-document phrase (the keyword) is semantically similar to an in-document phrase, then relevance scores of the in and out-of document phrases should be close to each other. | 12-27-2012 |
20130006915 | DECISION GRAPH FOR EVENT STREAM DATA - A method of generating a decision graph from event stream data, wherein the event stream data includes a plurality of events, and each event includes an associated time stamp, includes generating decision nodes for the graph, wherein the decision nodes each comprise a question having a temporal element. The method includes generating leaf nodes for the graph, wherein the leaf nodes each comprise a rate parameter, and iteratively splitting and merging nodes in the graph in order to maximize a measure of purity of outcomes in resulting nodes. | 01-03-2013 |
20130238378 | MANAGING RESOURCES USING RESOURCE MODIFIERS - Systems, methods, and computer-storage media are provided for employing environment and resource data to facilitate management of shopper traffic and resource allocation. Shopper traffic information is received from environmental sensors located in or nearby a business establishment. Resource information associated with the business establishment is also received. A traffic modifier is determined based on the shopper traffic information and the resource information; the traffic modifier is used to influence the behavior of shoppers with respect to the business establishment. As well, a resource modifier for the business establishment is also determined based on a projected result of dissemination of the traffic modifier. | 09-12-2013 |
20130246637 | Device-Pairing by Reading an Address Provided in Device-Readable Form - A system is described for allowing a user, operating a trusted device, to remotely log into a server via a potentially untrustworthy client. The system operates by establishing a first secure connection between the client and the server. The system then establishes a second secure connection between the device and the server through the client. The user then remotely logs into the server over the second secure connection using the device. The second secure connection is tunneled within the first secure connection, preventing the untrustworthy client from discovering personal information associated with the user. According to one feature, prior to forming the second secure connection, the user can establish a pairing relationship with the client by reading an address of the client using any kind of reading mechanism. According to another feature, the device can receive marketing information in the course of a transaction. | 09-19-2013 |
20130262369 | FORECASTING A FUTURE EVENT IN AN EVENT STREAM - Methods and systems for forecasting a future event in an event stream are provided herein. The event stream includes a number of events, wherein each of the events includes an event label and an associated time stamp. The system includes a processor that is adapted to execute stored instructions and a system memory. The system memory includes code configured to generate one or more decision graphs for predicting events with event labels chosen from a number of event labels based on the events within the event stream, wherein the decision graph includes decision nodes and leaf nodes, and wherein each of the decision nodes includes a question. The system memory also includes code configured to analyze event stream data using the decision graph and forecast a future event in the event stream based on the analysis of the event stream data. | 10-03-2013 |
20140259104 | AUTOMATIC CONSTRUCTION OF HUMAN INTERACTION PROOF ENGINES - Human Interaction Proofs (“HIPs”, sometimes referred to as “captchas”), may be generated automatically. An captcha specification language may be defined, which allows a captcha scheme to be defined in terms of how symbols are to be chosen and drawn, and how those symbols are obscured. The language may provide mechanisms to specify the various ways in which to obscure symbols. New captcha schemes may be generated from existing specifications, by using genetic algorithms that combine features from existing captcha schemes that have been successful. Moreover, the likelihood that a captcha scheme has been broken by attackers may be estimated by collecting data on the time that it takes existing captcha schemes to be broken, and using regression to estimate the time to breakage as a function of either the captcha's features or its measured quality. | 09-11-2014 |
20140298465 | APPLICATION REPUTATION SERVICE - The claimed subject matter is directed to the use of an application reputation service to assist users with minimizing their computerized machines' exposure to and infection from malware. Specifically, the claimed subject matter provides a method and system of an application reputation service that contains the reputations for elements that are known to be non-malicious as well as those known to be malicious. | 10-02-2014 |
20140337096 | PREDICTING BEHAVIOR USING FEATURES DERIVED FROM STATISTICAL INFORMATION - A training system is described herein for generating a prediction model that relies on a feature space with reduced dimensionality. The training system performs this task by producing partitions, each of which corresponds to a subset of aspect values (where each aspect value, in turn, may correspond to one or more attribute values). The training system then produces instances of statistical information associated with the partitions. Each instance of statistical information therefore corresponds to feature information that applies to a plurality of aspect values, rather than a single aspect value. The training system then trains the prediction model based on the feature information. Also described herein is a prediction module that uses the prediction model to make predictions in various online contexts. | 11-13-2014 |