Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Daniel James Chastney

Onur Cinar

Antonio Pedro Pernambuco Rezende

Steve Pearce

Soramist Chintanamanus

Giampiero M Sierra

Ran Mokady

Vijay Chandrasekaran

James E Pycock

Amy Jiyun Kim

Stephanie Mary McNee

Eldar A Markov

Session history horizon control techniques are described in which participants in a communication session are able to selectively control how much history of the communication session is shown to individuals added into the session. A representation of a session record (e.g., a message thread) may be exposed for rendering by communication modules used by participants for the communication session. Responsive to addition of participants, the communication module(s) may be configured to expose a history control element in conjunction with the session record to enable control over portions of the session record exposed to people added into the session. The history control element for a particular participant is configured to visually identify portions within the session record that are accessible to the particular participant. The history control element may also be positioned in different locations in the session record to modify exposure of the messages to the particular participant.

Session history horizon control

Various embodiments enable a video messaging experience which permits the exchange of short video messages in an asynchronous manner. The video messaging experience preserves the video intimacy and experience of synchronous-type video communications, while at the same time provides the convenience of SMS-type message exchange.

Automatic camera selection

Highlighting unread messages

A messaging application receives a sequence of user-consumable messages directed to at least one destination user. The messages are stored in non-volatile storage comprising one or more non-volatile storage devices, and the messages consist of a number of consumed messages having been consumed by the destination user, and a number of unconsumed messages not yet having been consumed by the user. An automatic message manager is configured to implement different respective retention policies for the consumed messages and the unconsumed messages. The retention policy for the consumed messages comprises automatically determining when the number of consumed messages exceeds a threshold for consumed messages, and in response automatically deleting at least one of the consumed messages from the non-volatile storage so as to bring the number of consumed messages back within the threshold for consumed messages.

Message storage

A user terminal associated with a first user, the user terminal comprising a communication client application for managing communications with at least one further user terminal over a first network, the communication client application being configured to: determine with respect to at least one incoming call whether a further user terminal at the call origin point comprises the communication client application; and manage the reception of the call based on the determination of whether the further user terminal at the call origin point comprises the communication client application.

Managing communication events

There is provided a method comprising: receiving at a first device a first video; receiving at the first device an indication that the first video was selected by a user of a second device from a set of pre-recorded videos; and causing the first video to be displayed, via a display, in conjunction with an indication that the first video was selected by the user of the second device from a set of pre-recorded videos.

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Daniel James Chastney