Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Other

Gina Danielle Venolia

John C Tang

Anoop Gupta

Jonathan Jay Cadiz

Gavin Jancke

Kori Inkpen Quinn

Kori M Inkpen

Meredith June Morris

Andrew Begel

George G Robertson

Mary P Czerwinski

Bongshin Lee

Aaron C Hoff

William A Hamilton

David M Sirkin

Kenneth Paul Hinckley

Steven Mark Drucker

Hrvoje Benko

John Carlton Platt

Joshua T Goodman

Michel Pahud

Andreas Georg Nowatzyk

Brian R Meyers

Danyel Aharon Fisher

Asta Jane Roseway

Daniel Morris

Sasa Junuzovic

David Yuheng Zhao

William A S Buxton

Robert Anthony DeLine

Henrik Valdemar Turbell

Matthew Jason Pope

Reid T Holmes

Yit Phang Khoo

Paul Johns

Lilian De Greef

Patricia Ryan

Glen H Anderson

Bob Vogt

Thomas Zimmermann

George R Robertson

Jeremy Barksdale

Gavin Jackie

Andrew Sutherland

Matthew Knudsen Miller

Gerard Wilkinson

William AS Buxton

Various systems and methods for streaming an impromptu community are described herein. In one example, a system for streaming impromptu communities includes a data storage device, a community analyzer, and a publisher. In an example, the data storage device can store a number of incoming data sets, wherein each data set identifies a time and location for the origin of the data, a media instance, and an identification of an origin device or origin user. In an example, the community analyzer can operate from the data storage device to use a processor in order to calculate an IC boundary and generate an impromptu community (IC) indicator based on the proximity and temporality of the number of incoming data sets. In an example, the processor can modify the number of data sets to include the IC indicator.

Impromptu community streamer

According to a disclosed example, a first video stream is captured via a first camera associated with a first communication device engaged in a multi-party video conference. The first video stream includes a plurality of two-dimensional image frames. A subset of pixels corresponding to a first human subject is identified within each image frame of the first video stream. A second video stream is captured via a second camera associated with a second communication device engaged in the multi-party video conference. A composite video stream formed by at least a portion of the second video stream and the subset of pixels of the first video stream is rendered, and the composite video stream is output for display at one or more of the first and/or second communication devices. The composite video stream may provide the appearance of remotely located participants being physically present within the same visual scene.

Video conferencing supporting a composite video stream

A communication augmentation agent (CAA) is described herein which presents a shared user experience to at least a first user and a second user. In one manner of operation, the CAA operates by intelligently determining. (1) when to offer a shared user experience to the users; (b) the particular form of the shared user experience; and (c) the manner of delivering the shared user experience to the users. In determining the form of the shared experience, the CAA can optionally customize the shared resource so that it includes common-interest information and, with respect to each user, user-specific information. The CAA also includes a mechanism by which a registered user may invite a non-registered user to take part in the shared user experience.

Providing a shared user experience of facilitate communication

Participants of a group of participants in a chat may be associated with neighborhoods. A neighborhood associated with a participant includes a subset of the participants and represents the participants whose messages the associated participant can see in the chat. When a participant generates a message, the message is presented to an audience that includes each participant with the participant that generated the message in their associated neighborhood. As the message receives indications of approval (e.g., 'likes'), the size of the audience is increased to include additional participants. Once the message receives a threshold number of indications of approval, the message may be displayed to all of the participants in the chat. The size of the neighborhoods may be dynamically adjusted based on the number of messages that are generated in each neighborhood to keep the number of messages that are presented within a predetermined range.

Presenting messages to participants based on neighborhoods

Various methods and systems for obtaining remote shopping advice are described herein. In one example, a method includes taking two or more media representations of items to be discussed. A parameter is selected within a social shopping app for obtaining feedback on the items to be discussed. The two or more media representations are assembled into a query within the social shopping app based, at least in part, on the parameter. The query is sent to a reviewer from within the social shopping app. Feedback on the items to be discussed is received from the reviewer within the social shopping app.

Obtaining remote shopping advice

In general, the immersive telepresence implementations described herein allow desired telepresence experiences of users or telepresence travel participants to be automatically matched with travel volunteers that can provide these telepresence experiences. The mobile computing devices of the travel volunteers provide audio, video and other data to the travel participant so that the travel participant can experience the sights and sounds of a desired telepresence experience (which can include location and time, as well as a desired activity) without the travel participant physically being present. The immersive telepresence implementations described herein automatically find matches between telepresence experiences on a list (e.g., bucket list) of a travel participant and one or more travel volunteers and provide for various features to provide an immersive and personalized telepresence experience for the travel participant.

Immersive telepresence

A communication system is described herein which provides an indicator that helps hub participants of a meeting (or other environmental setting) determine a direction of attention of a satellite participant (who is not physically present at the meeting). The indicator can be implemented as a mechanical pointer, a solid-state display mechanism, a rotating display mechanism, a display mechanism which presents visual information that reflects directionality, and so on. The communication system can assess the directionality of the satellite participant based on any combination of control inputs from explicit input mechanism(s) and/or implicit input mechanism(s). The communication system can also choose between explicit and/or implicit control of the indicator based on at least one selection criterion.

Functionality for indicating direction of attention

Software development items can be represented in a graph data structure. Relationships between the represented items can be detected and reflected in the graph data structure. Queries can be run against the data structure to determine which software development items are related to each other. Implicit query can be implemented in a software development context. A graph browser can present panes showing related items. In some embodiments, a set of regular expressions can be used to identify paths in a graph. Probability scores for the identified paths can be computed. Path data for the identified paths, including the probability scores, can be stored in a searchable location accessible by one or more applications. A query of the path data can be processed to return query results associated with at least one of the identified paths.

Discovering and exploiting relationships in software repositories

A local user of a local mobile device is allowed to participate in a video conference session with a remote user of a remote mobile device. Live video can be shared between and collaboratively digitally annotated by the local and remote users. An application can also be shared between and collaboratively digitally annotated by the local and remote users. A digital object can also be shared between and collaboratively digitally annotated by the local and remote users.

Mobile video conferencing with digital annotation

The system and method of the present invention provides a user interface for providing peripheral awareness of information to a user. The information to be provided is either determined automatically, or specified by the user. Once the information to be provided is determined or specified, it is automatically tracked or watched via at least one conventional communications interface. Current information is then automatically dynamically provided in an interactive peripheral display which minimizes any potential distraction to the user. Determining or specifying, tracking or watching, and providing the information is accomplished using at least one customizable dynamic encapsulated object, a 'ticket,' that when paired with a 'viewer,' provides peripheral awareness of information to the user. Further, in one embodiment, the tickets are sharable among users, and may be copied, cut, pasted, saved, transmitted, dragged and dropped from web pages, etc., like any other electronic file using conventional techniques.

User interface for a system and process for providing dynamic communication access and information awareness in an interactive peripheral display

Described herein are techniques and systems that allow modification of functionalities based on distances between a shared device (e.g., a shared display, etc.) and an individual device (e.g., a mobile computing device, etc.). The shared device and the individual device may establish a communication to enable exchange of data. In some embodiments, the shared device or the individual device may measure a distance between the shared device and the individual device. Based on the distance, the individual device may operate in a different mode. In some instances, the shared device may then instruct the individual device to modify a functionality corresponding to the mode.

Modifying functionality based on distances between devices

Described are systems and user interfaces for facilitating asynchronous communication with video threads. Implementations may enable members of a team to have threaded view of video messages, from which they can capture video, record their screen, and send, receive, and reply to a video message. The screen recording feature enables team members to share parts of their screen while simultaneously narrating, if desired. Video messages are threaded by topic and each conversation is visually represented.

Asynchronous video threads

This disclosure describes various exemplary application user interfaces, methods, and computer program products for information retrieval or search technology by automatically showing additional relevant search results based on user feedback. The search describes receiving a submitted query from a user, identifying multiple query search results in a relationship to the submitted query, and presenting the multiple query search results in a single structured presentation with a thumbs-up icon, a thumbs-down icon, or an unmarked status to enhance the user experience. Furthermore, the search results illustrate the relationships between each of the multiple query search results and the submitted query in a textual description.

Automatically showing additional relevant search results based on user feedback

Growing community of inventors

Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Gina Danielle Venolia