Groupon, Inc.

Intel Corporation

Realnetworks Gmbh

Gregory Joseph Conklin

Shafiq Shariff

Jeffrey Alan Holden

Jeffrey M Ayars

Nathaniel Blake Scholl

John C Kim

David Crawford

Vinayak Hegde

Anthony Joseph

Alison Allgor

David Fite

Naresh Dhiman

Bradley D Hefta-Gaub

Alan Francis Lippman

Dale R Stammen

Gary S Greenbaum

Ben Aaron Rotholtz

Ji Shen

An apparatus, computer program product, and method are disclosed for generating immediate gratification promotions. An example apparatus includes communications circuitry configured to receive contextual data regarding a set of consumer devices, wherein the contextual data identifies locations of each consumer device of the set of consumer devices, receive resource management data regarding a set of merchant locations, transmit, to a consumer device of the set of consumer devices, a message indicating terms of an immediate gratification promotion redeemable at a merchant location of the set of merchant locations, wherein the immediate gratification promotion comprises a promotion for which purchase automatically initiates redemption, and receive, from the consumer device, a message requesting purchase of the immediate gratification promotion. The example apparatus further includes design circuitry configured to generate the terms of the immediate gratification promotion based on the received contextual data and the received resource management data.

Apparatus and method for utilizing immediate gratification promotions

Techniques are described for providing location-based information and functionality to people and computing devices in various ways. In at least some situations, the techniques include enabling multiple people in a common geographic area to interact in various ways, such as via devices capable of communications (e.g., cellular telephones, computing devices with wired and/or wireless communications capabilities, etc.), while in other situations at least some users who are remote from a particular geographic area may be allowed to intercommunicate with one or more other users or other entities in or related to that geographic area. In addition, the techniques include enabling the creation and maintenance of location-based virtual groups of users (also referred to as 'clouds'), such as for users of mobile and/or fixed-location devices. Such clouds may enable various types of interactions between group members, and may be temporary and/or mobile.

Method and system for enabling the creation and maintenance of proximity-related user groups

Techniques are described for facilitating the awarding of prizes in chance-based contests in various ways, such as chance-based contests which are part of promotional advertising, etc. In at least some embodiments, the techniques include facilitating the awarding of prizes at the time a contestant enter or plays the contests, while awarding a selected number of prizes, which may be determined before the contest starts. In at least some embodiments, the techniques include employing an award counter to control awarding of prizes in a chance-based contest. For example, an award counter may be incremented at random or pseudo-random times. In at least some embodiments, the contest is associated with a location-based virtual group of users that has one or more associated geographical areas.

Dynamic awarding of prizes in chance-based contests

An apparatus, computer program product, and method are disclosed for generating immediate gratification promotions. An example apparatus includes context collection circuitry configured to collect contextual data regarding a consumer device, and communications circuitry configured to transmit the collected contextual data regarding the consumer device to a promotion and marketing service. In response to transmitting the collected contextual data regarding the consumer device to the promotion and marketing service, the communications circuitry is configured to receive a message indicating terms of an immediate gratification promotion offered by a merchant, and in response to receiving a request to purchase the immediate gratification promotion, transmit a message to the promotion and marketing service to purchase the immediate gratification promotion. The example apparatus further includes input/output circuitry configured to output a message identifying the terms of the immediate gratification promotion.

A video system for coding a stream of video data that includes a stream of video frames divides each video frame into a matrix of a plurality of subblocks, wherein each subblock includes a plurality of pixels. The video system operates in accordance with nine prediction modes. Each prediction mode determines a prediction mode according to which a present subblock is to be coded. One of the nine prediction modes is selected to encode the present subblock, wherein the selected prediction mode provides for a minimum error value in the present subblock.

System and method for intracoding video data

Provided herein are systems, methods and computer readable media for creating and managing temporary virtual groups. An example apparatus may be configured enable an administrative entity to establish a temporary virtual group, enable the administrative entity to define configuration information for the temporary virtual group, the enabling of the administrative entity to define the configuration information comprising establishing membership criteria for admittance of one or more members to the temporary virtual group, establishing rules of interaction among the one or more members of that the temporary virtual group, establishing termination criteria, the termination criteria configured to determine when the temporary virtual group will terminate, and facilitate transmission of the message from the first member to a second member, and terminate the temporary virtual group upon determination that the termination criteria is met.

Method and system for enabling the creation and maintenance of temporary user groups

Growing community of inventors

Seattle, WA, United States of America

Gregory Joseph Conklin