Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Rovi Technologies Corporation

Christopher Bruce Weare

John Carlton Platt

Christopher J Burges

Alice Zheng

Jeffrey S Hoekman

Steven E Swenson

Marc Daskalovic

Chad Gibson

Shawn Michael Murphy

Steven E Swnson

Richard S Szeliski

Steven Mark Drucker

Donald James Lindsay

Christopher A Meek

Gary William Flake

David Maxwell Chickering

Christopher Andrew Evans

Brett David Brewer

Michael J Patten

Stephen L Lawler

Karim Taji Farouki

Ramez Naam

Eric Jonathan Hull

Cory J Cirrincione

Sean E Kollenkark

Julio Estrada

Joseph Lloyd McClanahan

Adam P Sheppard

Jessica Ellen Zahn

Jeffrey T Pearce

Stephen Craig Schertz

Advay V Mengle

Thomas Forsythe

Doug Berrett

Blaise H Aguera

Brady D Forrest

Mike Albee

Joseph L Mcclanahan

Brian J Fox, Jr

Pradeep K Gupta

A media asset recommendation service is described. In embodiments, friends of a user are identified in a social graph that is associated with the user, and interactions with media assets by the friends of the user are compiled. Friend interaction data for each of the media assets can be determined from the media assets, the social graph, and the interactions with the media assets by the friends of the user. When a selection of one of the media assets is received from the user via a user device, the friend interaction data that is associated with the media asset selected by the user is communicated to the user device.

Media asset recommendation service

Systems and methods for detecting whether or not two devices are proximate to one another in order to provide a shared computing experience are provided. The method includes broadcasting audio from a first computing device; receiving the broadcast audio at a second computing device; and processing the received audio to identify a unique audio signature within the broadcasted/received audio. The unique audio signature uniquely identifying the first computing device. The method may further include determining that the first computing device and the second computing device are proximate to one another based on the broadcast audio; and providing a shared computing experience at one or both of the first computing device and the second computing device, where the shared computing experience is not provided in the event that it is determined that the first and second computing devices are non-proximate to one another.

Proximity detection for shared computing experiences

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.

Service directory

The determination of similarities between users in an online entertainment environment is disclosed. For example, one disclosed embodiment comprises a method of operating an entertainment server, wherein the method includes receiving user information that comprises user demographic information and user media selection information from each user of a plurality of users. For a current user, a plurality of similarity values are determined that each quantifies a similarity of the current user to another user based upon similarities between the user information of the current user and the user information of the other user. Then, the method comprises determining a list of other users to present to the current user based upon the similarity values determined, and sending the list of other users to the current user.

Determining user-to-user similarities in an online media environment

Digital content items are shared using content-recommendation messages by recognizing an indication of a digital content item to be recommended and recognizing an indication of an intended recipient of the digital content item. A content-recommendation message for that digital content item is then built. The content-recommendation message includes first instructions for displaying, with a first visual appearance and a first feature set, information relating to the digital content item if the intended recipient belongs to a first class. The content-recommendation message includes second instructions for displaying, with a second visual appearance and a second feature set, information relating to the digital content item if the intended recipient belongs to a second class.

Content-recommendation message

Client playlist generation is described. In embodiments, relationships between media assets are determined to identify similar media assets that can be included in an automatic playlist of the similar media assets. Projection vectors of the asset-to-asset relationships can be generated for each of the media assets, where a projection vector for a media asset identifies the similar media assets. The projection vectors are then communicated to a client device that utilizes the projection vectors to generate the automatic playlist for any one of the media assets that is selected as a starting media asset of the automatic playlist.

Client playlist generation

A system and methods are provided for automatically classifying data according to perceptual properties of the data to form a classification chain that is suited to the searching and sorting of large databases of media entities. During classification, experts assign each media entity in the training data set to one or more classes, with each class corresponding to a given subset of perceptual properties of the data. In conjunction with digital signal processing properties of the data corresponding to the perceptual properties, the classified data is then used to construct an initial classification chain. During operation, when presented with an unclassified entry, the classification chain returns an estimate of the class of the entry, as well as a confidence measure that is proportional to the level of confidence of the class assignment. Over time, as the classification chain evolves, the classification chain becomes more and more effective for quickly characterizing media entities.

System and methods for providing adaptive media property classification

The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or a method that facilitates identifying relationships between two or more trade cards. A schema component can implement a portion of user-assisted schema to create a trade card that represents a distillation of a document with document-specific data. A relationship component can identify at least one of a hard link or a soft link associated with the trade card in connection with at least one of a network or one or more trade cards, wherein the hard link is a source that derived the trade card and the soft link is directed toward a disparate trade card with a portion of substantially similar document-specific data.

User-created trade cards

In connection with a classification system for classifying media entities that merges perceptual classification techniques and digital signal processing classification techniques for improved classification of media entities, a system and methods are provided for automatically classifying and characterizing musical consonance properties of media entities. Such a system and methods may be useful for the indexing of a database or other storage collection of media entities, such as media entities that are audio files, or have portions that are audio files. The methods also help to determine media entities that have similar consonance by utilizing classification chain techniques that test distances between media entities in terms of their properties. For example, a neighborhood of songs may be determined within which each song has a similar consonance.

System and methods for providing automatic classification of media entities according to consonance properties

A system and method for incorporating user preferences into a document search is provided. User events are associated with one or more content tags based on a comparison of the user event with locations in a content space. The user events are tracked to provide a user event history. The user event history is analyzed to select content tags that correspond to user preferences. A search query is modified to include one or more selected content tags. The search query is then matched to documents associated with content tags contained in the search query.

System and method for personalized search

A blog map for searching and/or navigating the blogosphere is provided. In accordance with one method for generating a blog map, a number of blog posts within the blogosphere are accessed. Each of the blog posts is converted to a feature vector, which represents the position of the blog post in a high-dimensional space. The dimensionality of the feature vectors is reduced from the high-dimensional space to a low-dimensions space, such that each blog post is represented in the low-dimensional space. A map is then generated based on the position of the blog posts in the low-dimensional space.

Blog map for searching and/or navigating the blogosphere

In connection with a classification system for classifying media entities that merges perceptual classification techniques and digital signal processing classification techniques for improved classification of media entities, a system and methods are provided for automatically classifying and characterizing melodic movement properties of media entities. Such a system and methods may be useful for the indexing of a database or other storage collection of media entities, such as media entities that are audio files, or have portions that are audio files. The methods also help to determine media entities that have similar, or dissimilar as a request may indicate, melodic movement by utilizing classification chain techniques that test distances between media entities in terms of their properties. For example, a neighborhood of songs may be determined within which each song has similar melodic movement properties.

System and methods for providing automatic classification of media entities according to melodic movement properties

A system and method for generating a list is provided. The system includes a seed item input subsystem, an item identifying subsystem, a descriptive metadata similarity determining subsystem and a list generating subsystem that builds a list based, at least in part, on similarity processing performed on seed item descriptive metadata and user item descriptive metadata and user selected thresholds applied to such similarity processing. The method includes inexact matching between identifying metadata associated with new user items and identifying metadata stored in a reference metadata database. The method further includes subjecting candidate user items to similarity processing, where the degree to which the candidate user items are similar to the seed item is determined, and placing user items in a list of items based on user selected preferences for (dis)similarity between items in the list and the seed item.

Auto playlist generator

In connection with a classification system for classifying media entities that merges perceptual classification techniques and digital signal processing classification techniques for improved classification of media entities, a system and methods are provided for automatically classifying and characterizing sonic properties of media entities. Such a system and methods may be useful for the indexing of a database or other storage collection of media entities, such as media entities that are audio files, or have portions that are audio files. The methods also help to determine media entities that have similar sonic properties by utilizing classification chain techniques that test distances between media entities in terms of their properties. For example, a neighborhood of songs may be determined within which each song has similar sonic properties.

System and methods for providing automatic classification of media entities according to sonic properties

A system and related techniques generate alternative search terms derived from a set of search results. A user may input a set of search terms such as keywords or other inputs, and receive a set of search results back. In addition, the set of search results may have a set of selectable alternative search links associated thereto. The association of each selectable alternative search link and the set of search results depends on the evaluated distinctiveness of alternative information content of a search result Web page against other search results. In embodiments an attribute or attribute of a result may be assessed for inclusion as an alternative search attributes based on the attribute's deviation from an average of the attributes of the set of search results. A user may select the alternative search suggestion and be presented with an updated set of search results related to the alternative search attributes.

Growing community of inventors

Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Christopher Bruce Weare