Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

International Business Machines Corporation

Princeton University

Other

Tsinghua University

Microsoft Corporation

University of Science and Technology Beijing

Jiang Tao Li

Shipeng Li

Hua Cai

Fan Li

Qingwei Lin

Jian-guang Lou

Keman Yu

Heung-Yeung Shum

Yusuo Hu

Chong Luo

Yi Bin Wang

Qing Feng Zhang

Chao Yu

Zhong Qi Feng

Gang Chen

Jian Tang

Jianguang Lou

Howard A Stone

Haosheng Chen

Tielin He

Yunfeng Lin

Jian Wang

Jizheng Xu

Qiang Fu

Bo Wang

Shan Lu

Yihua Xu

Yingtang Ling

Methods, computer program products, and systems are presented. The methods include, for instance: predictively provisioning, by one or more processor, cloud computing resources of a cloud computing environment for at least one virtual machine; and initializing, by the one or more processor, the at least one virtual machine with the provisioned cloud computing resources of the cloud computing environment. In one embodiment, the predictively provisioning may include: receiving historical utilization information of multiple virtual machines of the cloud computing environment, the multiple virtual machines having similar characteristics to the at least one virtual machine; and determining the cloud computing resources for the at least one virtual machine using the historical utilization information of the multiple virtual machines. In another embodiment, the predictively may include updating a provisioning database with the historical utilization information of the multiple virtual machines of the cloud computing environment.

Predictively provisioning cloud computing resources for virtual machines

Emulsion breaking and phase separation is achieved by droplet adhesion. An emulsion breaking device includes a channel having distinct adjacent zones with distinctly different surface wettability characteristics, namely, solvophilic and solvophobic surfaces. The device is positioned such that the upstream portion of the device is configured to be wetted by the continuous phase of the emulsion, and the downstream portion of the device is configured to be wetted by the dispersed phase of the emulsion. As the emulsion flows from the upstream zone to the downstream zone, the change in surface wettability characteristics promotes adhesion of the dispersed phase as the dispersed phase wets the surface of the downstream portion of the channel, which results in breaking of the emulsion. Subsequent collection of the broken emulsion in a collection vessel results in separation of the disparate phases to facilitate their recapture and recycling.

System and method for emulsion breaking and phase separation by droplet adhesion

In a first exemplary media implementation, one or more processor-accessible media include processor-executable instructions that, when executed, direct a device to perform actions including: comparing an accuracy indicator to at least one threshold, the accuracy indicator corresponding to a reference macroblock selected for a target macroblock; ascertaining a refinement case from multiple refinement cases based on the comparing, each refinement case of the multiple refinement cases defining multiple test points in relation to the reference macroblock; and analyzing the ascertained refinement case with regard to the target macroblock. In a second exemplary media implementation, one or more media include processor-executable instructions that, when executed, direct a device to perform actions including: determining if two chrominance sums have magnitudes that are each less than a first product and four luminance sums have magnitudes that are each less than a second product; and if so, forwarding all zero values for a macroblock.

Low complexity real-time video coding

Data for performing help document animated visualization is obtained by generating operation records from a text-based help document of an application. Each of the operation records may include data for animating an operation action that is performed on a user interface (UI) element of the application. The help document is further enhanced to include controls that load the operation records. The enhanced help documents and the operation records are distributed for use.

Help document animated visualization

Described herein are techniques for automatically batching GUI-based (Graphical User Interface) tasks. The described techniques include automatically determining whether a user is performing batchable tasks in a GUI-based environment. Once detected, the described techniques include predicting the next tasks of a batch based upon those detected batchable tasks. With the described techniques, the user may be asked to verify and/or correct the predicted next tasks. Furthermore, the described techniques may include performing a batch and doing so without user interaction.

Automatic batching of GUI-based tasks

Techniques described herein enable peers to determine each peer's NAT type much more efficiently and quickly than when compared with existing techniques. To do so, a peer simultaneously sends multiple test messages to a server. The peer then waits to either receive a response for each of the multiple test messages or may store an indication that no response has been received after a predetermined timeout period. The peer then analyzes the received responses and/or the stored timeout indications to determine the peer's NAT type or to determine that the peer is operating free from concealment by a NAT/firewall device. By simultaneously sending the multiple test messages, the peer may determine the NAT type within a maximum time defined by the predetermined timeout period or a roundtrip time period that is required for communication between the peer and the server. As such, the tools allow for efficient NAT-type detection.

Network address translators (NAT) type detection techniques

Described herein is technology for, among other things, multiview coding with geometry-based disparity prediction. The geometry-based disparity prediction involves determining corresponding block pairs in a number of reconstructed images for an image being coded. The reconstructed images and the image represent different views of a scene at a point in time. Each corresponding block pair is projected on the image. This enables determination of disparity vector candidates. For each coding block of the image, a predicted disparity vector is determined based on the disparity vector candidates. Then, the predicted disparity vector may be utilized to obtain the bits to be encoded. The geometry-based disparity prediction reduces the number of encoded bits.

Multiview coding with geometry-based disparity prediction

An application-specific power management technique may establish a separate power-down interval for one or more applications based on user interaction with the one or more applications. In some implementations, during use of a particular application, when a management component determines that a period of user inactivity has become greater than or equal to the particular power-down interval established for the particular application, the management component may initiate a power down of one or more components, such as a display.

Application-specific power management

The patent application relates to a pump head assembly. The pump head assembly includes a pump head which at least has a water inlet and a first water outlet between which a pressurizing unit is provided, and the pump head further includes a second water outlet, a throttle orifice is provided between the water inlet and the second water outlet, the throttle orifice is provided with a water outlet end and a water inlet end, the throttle orifice is provide with a liquid suction port, and a one way valve is provided on the liquid suction port. The pump head assembly realizes cleaning liquid suction by self-pressure of tap water, which lowers energy consumption, and effectively and reasonably saves energy sources.

Pump head assembly and pressure washer with such pump head assembly

A streaming media codec may include a collection of media stream processing modules arranged into a processing graph. One or more of the modules may perform a Fourier-related transform, and a significant fraction of media stream processing may occur post-transform. The media stream may be considered as a sequence of processing blocks, and post-transform processing blocks contain transform coefficients. Such transform coefficients are amenable to classification into processing classes. Some processing classes may require significantly less processing effort than others by post-transform processing modules. Such transform coefficient classes may be efficiently specified, for example, with coefficient bounding rectangles, and the specification provided to one or more post-transform streaming media processing modules to enable the modules to allocate their processing resources more effectively. Streaming media processing modules making effective use of the transform coefficient class information, and streaming media codecs that incorporate them, are called transform coefficient bounding (TCB) enhanced.

Streaming media codec with transform coefficient bounding

Growing community of inventors

Beijing, China

Jiang Tao Li