Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Microsoft Corporation

David Patrick Vronay

Lili Cheng

Ryszard K Kott

Kentaro Toyama

Xiaoou Tang

Shuo Wang

Matthew Bret MacLaurin

Qiong Yang

Padmanabhan Anandan

Sean U Kelly

Leizhong Zhang

Ta Bao

Liang Chen

Martijn Eldert Van Tilburg

Cezary Antoni Marcjan

Alexander Sasha Stojanovic

Andrzej Turski

Rebecca Jo Sundling

Yandong Wen

Ioannis Paniaras

Francisco L Yu, Jr

A rich communication profile system with notifications. The system is a feedback mechanism that utilizes rich content, e.g., multimedia content, as one or more indicators that represent the status of a remote user. The system includes a state component that receives information relating to state of at least one entity. A notifications component dynamically renders at least one personalized graphical indicia representative of the entity's state. The entity can be a person, group of people, component, place, and object.

Rich profile communication with notifications

An intelligent contact management technique that automatically manages contacts on a communication device such as a mobile phone is described. The intelligent management technique can automatically determine and display a user's favorite contacts on a display of a mobile device. The technique can also intelligently group contacts based on their contact frequency. It can provide a contact-oriented event notification that notifies a user when a contact event has occurred. The contact-oriented event notification can be associated with a visual representation of an associated contact.

Intelligent contact management

A database query user interface combines the user convenience of simple text searching with the expressive refinements of powerful query language. The database query user interface includes a query text string input from a user including one or more terms of a chunk expression language format. The database query user interface further includes a syntactical prompt for constructing a multi-element chunk expression language database query that is syntactically correct and complete and includes the text string input from the user. For example, the syntactical prompt is selected from the database based upon a weighted analysis of database information relating to database elements included in the text string input from the user. A database query formed according to the present user interface may then be persisted or stored as a database query object.

Database query user interface to assist in efficient and accurate query construction

Tools and techniques for non-linguistic interaction with computer systems via surface stimulation are provided. These tools may receive indications of stimulation levels calculated for cells defined by a non-linguistic user interface. The cells may be associated with respective physical regions of a hardware substrate. The stimulation levels may be calculated based on non-linguistic actions directed by users to the hardware substrate. Visible characteristics of the non-linguistic user interface may be updated in response to the calculated stimulation levels.

Non-linguistic interaction with computer systems via surface stimulation

A carousel view is described. In an implementation, a method includes determining a number of items that are included in data. A carousel is then generated for output in a user interface. The carousel has a plurality of bins, each of which representing a corresponding one of the items. The carousel has a radius for display of each of the bins based on the determined number of items.

User interface having a carousel view for representing structured data

An audio user interface (UI) for comparing and selecting audio streams is presented. In general, the present invention allows a user to preview and navigate among multiple audio streams (audio sources) using three dimensional (D) positional audio techniques to position the various sources in an audio field programmatically in such a way as to fool the brain into thinking the sound is located at a particular location in the space surrounding the user. When the user selects a preview mode, the various streams are placed in the space in a carousel-like manner. The user can move the sources forward or backward. As this is done, other audio streams can be added and dropped. Selecting a sound source will cause it to fill the audio field and the other sources will then cease to play.

Audio user interface (UI) for previewing and selecting audio streams using 3D positional audio techniques

A search includes comparing a query image provided by a user to a plurality of stored images of faces stored in a stored image database, and determining a similarity of the query image to the plurality of stored images. One or more resultant images of faces, selected from among the stored images, are displayed to the user based on the determined similarity of the stored images to the query image provided by the user. The resultant images are displayed based at least in part on one or more facial features.

Image-based face search

A system and process for navigating unstructured or loosely structured image sets on a display screen is presented. These image sets are navigated by grouping each image thereof into clusters and arranging the clusters in a left-to-right or up-and-down manner. A set number of the clusters are displayed to a viewer. The viewer can then scroll through and select another cluster in the arrangement as desired. Within a cluster, images are arranged in a grid in a sequence order based on a sequence number assigned to each in the clustering procedure. The viewer is also able to zoom into a selected cluster to, in effect, successively form smaller sub-clusters until only a single image is displayed in a cluster under consideration. In addition, the viewer can zoom out again in a similar manner.

Graphical user interface system and process for navigating a set of images

Clusters are described which may be utilized to organize electronically-stored items. A variety of techniques may be employed using the clusters to organize the items. For instance, the clusters may be automatically generated and then modified by a user to classify the items as desired such that a modification made to a single item is propagated to other similar items. Therefore, the single item and the other similar items may be clustered automatically through interaction with the single item.

Cluster organization of electronically-stored items

The system and method of the present invention relates to the determining the specific ordering and execution of events from temporal constraints, filtering functions, and execution heuristics. To facilitate specification of event order objects be can associated with events in an object authoring system which provides for interaction, conditional behavior, and fuzzy relationships by dividing all time into past, present, and future. A user or developer can then perform all their work in the editable area marked 'now.' Items that may have happened prior to the current work show up in the 'past' area and items which might happen in the future show up in the &#x201c;future&#x201d; area. A user can then associate and/or dissociate objects associated with events in the editable area, for instance by simply loosely specifying temporal relationships or constraints amongst objects rather than specifying an exact temporal sequence directly.

System and method for specifying and executing temporal order events

A system and method for providing a peer-to-peer photo-sharing environment. The system includes: manual and automatic photo annotation at the client; periodic client-server synchronization; an index of client photos on a central server or a photo database that is resident on the central server, which is updated by the client-server synchronization function; end-user search functionality to search the centralized index or photo database; and transmission of the relevant photos to the client via an on-line image cache. In one embodiment, one client's new photos are automatically displayed on another client's computer (e.g., via screen saver or another mechanism).

Image exchange with image annotation

A user interface system and method of displaying lists of information using a squeezed/semi-collapsed state of the group that shows, for example, a portion of the group (e.g., only the first few items of the group) is provided. The squeezed/semi-collapsed state takes up less room on the screen than an open state but gives the user more information about the group than the closed state, allowing more groups to be visible simultaneously while still providing detailed information about the contents of the group.

Collapsible container with semi-collapsed view

An ancillary signal indicator notifies the reception of a signal that is associated with a user. The ancillary signal indicator includes an imprint actuator configured to instigate a signal imprint mode. A receiver is configured to receive an imprint signal when in the signal imprint mode and a memory is configured to store an imprint signal. The ancillary signal indicator also includes a signal notifier configured to actuate when a received signal corresponds to the imprint signal.

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Beijing, China

David Patrick Vronay