Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Derek Sunday

Chris Whytock

Doug Kramer

Curt Carpenter

Debora Everett

Christian N Wiswell

Peter Vale

Dane Trevor Storrusten

Sabrina Boler

Dana Lu Silverstein

Nicole Coddington

James Stephens, Ii

Douglas C Kramer

Anne Marie Piper

Edward N Price

The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for delivering content based on physical object characteristics. When a physical object is detected within a specified proximity of a component of a computer system, the computer system submits an accessed object identifier for the physical object to a content portal. The content portal identifies content and corresponding layout information for the computer system by at least determining the commonality between object keywords for the physical object and target keywords for content providers and determining content placement priorities corresponding to content providers. The content portal sends the content and layout information to the computer system. The computer system filters a subset of content from the received and presents the filtered subset of content on a presentation surface in accordance with corresponding layout information.

Delivering content based on physical object characteristics

One or more users may interact simultaneously with different applications on the same device through an input system such as a touch-sensitive display screen. Simultaneous user input may be detected by a multiple input system and subsequently transmitted to an application using a single transmission frame. An application corresponding to the user input is determined based on an input location of the user input and a location and size of a corresponding application. Simultaneous user inputs are rendered simultaneously by each corresponding application. Each application may further include a secondary event processing thread that runs in parallel to traditional operating system event threads. The secondary event processing thread bypasses sequential processing limits of an operating system event thread, providing substantially simultaneous processing of input.

Simultaneous input across multiple applications

A graphical user interface system is described in which users can be located at any angle. Different application interfaces can be generated on the display to appear in different orientations, such that different users sitting at different positions around the periphery of a display surface may each have an interface that is readable and accessible. The location and orientation of a new interface may be specified by user request, or may be automatically determined based on a characteristic of the request, such as the location of a tap or the direction of a swipe gesture. Interfaces may be radial in nature, and may have a central origin on the display, or at corners of the display.

Variable orientation user interface

The use of gestures to organize displayed objects on an interactive display. The gesture is used to move the displayed object to the edge of the interactive display so that the displayed object is only partially displayed after being moved. The size of the displayed object may be reduced and/or the displayed object may be rotated such that an identified portion of the displayed object remains in the display after moving. A gesture may also be used to move multiple displayed objects to the edge of the display.

Gestured movement of object to display edge

The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for location based messaging. A user at one computer system selects at least on other computer system that is to receive an electronic message. The at least one other computer system is selected based on the location of the at least one other computer system, without having to know an electronic identifier of any users at the at least one other computer system. The computer system refers to a mapping that maps computer systems locations to corresponding electronic addresses. Messages can then be sent to the electronic addresses. Accordingly, embodiments of the present invention facilitate at least semi-anonymous electronic communication in a network computing environment and significantly mitigate the perceived need of an immediate response that is often associated with responding to (potentially in person) verbal communication.

Location based messaging

Growing community of inventors

Renton, WA, United States of America

Derek Sunday