Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Jinhua Fei

Prasanna Chromepet Padmanabhan

Zachary William Dixon

Randall Richards Cook

John C Whytock

Parthasarathy Sundararajan

Sandeep Patnaik

Roland Radtke

Alexander Ryan Fromm

Gary Liao

Matthew Shadbolt

Christiaan Brinkhoff

Methods and systems for transferring an application between a server environment and a local device are provided. Some examples include launching the application in the server environment. The application is associated with a URL. Some examples further include determining that the application should be executed on the local device, generating a transfer control option corresponding to switching the application from the server environment to the local device, receiving a selection of the transfer control option, and in response to receiving the selection, transmitting the URL from the server environment to the local device to enable execution of the application on the local device.

Enhanced transferring of an application between a server environment and a local device

A desktop switcher provides equally convenient user interface navigational access to remote virtual desktops as to local virtual desktops for reliable and convenient human-computer interaction. Underlying mechanisms transparently confirm remote computer availability and compatibility, transfer thumbnails between computers, and support remoting sessions. Virtual desktops may share a clipboard, a geographic location setting, and application thumbnails, despite being based on computers that are remote from one another, e.g., when only one of a session's computers resides in a cloud. Virtual desktop context menus may be shown and utilized remotely. A visual separator in the desktop switcher may distinguish local virtual desktops from remote virtual desktops.

Virtual desktop switching and communications

Methods, systems, apparatuses, and computer-readable storage mediums described herein are directed to emulating a semi-transparent effect with respect to a display element rendered via a GUI. The semi-transparent effect may be generated based on a sampling of pixel values of another display element that is non-overlapping with the display element. For instance, pixel values of a portion of the other display element that is adjacent to an edge of the display element may be determined. Using the determined pixel values, a visualization scheme is generated that emulates a visual effect (e.g., a blur effect). The determined visualization scheme is then applied to the display element. This causes the display element to appear semi-transparent such that the colors of the other display element appear to be behind the display element, thereby creating an effect that the display element is overlaid on top of the other display element.

Emulating a transparency effect for a display element

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Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Jinhua Fei