Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Google Inc.

X Development LLC

John Henry Grossman, Iv

Dustin Lyle Green

James Armand Baldwin

Scott Bartlett

Peter T Barrett

Erturk Kocalar

Michael G Fuller

Majd Bakar

Alok Chandel

Michael J LeBeau

Pierre-Yves Laligand

David L De Heer

Kevin T Carle

Alexander Bessonov

Richard L Guthrie

A method and system are provided that synchronize one or more appliances to one or more users' schedules. Sensor data may be obtained from a sensor. The sensor data may indicate a state of a first appliance. A user location may be determined. A first characteristic of the first appliance may be obtained. Based upon the user location and the sensor data, a schedule indicating when the user will desire a state change of the first appliance may be determined. A feature of the first appliance may be dynamically modified to cause the first appliance to operate according to the schedule. A notice may be sent to the user that contains information about the first appliance.

Synchronization of appliances to a schedule of a user

A shaft may be rotated, where the shaft includes an encoder with a first, second, and third logical track, where the first and second logical tracks include bit patterns that are readable to be 90 degrees out of phase with one another, and where the third logical track includes a sequence of n numbers, each number being represented by m bits, where n is greater than 1. While moving the shaft, a number of the sequence from the third logical track and an extent of bits from the first or second logical track may be read. An orientation of the shaft may then be determined based on the number and the extent of bits. The orientation may be a linear position of a linear encoder or an angular position of a rotary encoder.

Encoder design and use

A computer-implemented method for information sharing between a portable computing device and a television system includes receiving a spoken input from a user of the portable computing device, by the portable computing device, submitting a digital recording of the spoken query from the portable computing device to a remote server system, receiving from the remote server system a textual representation of the spoken query, and automatically transmitting the textual representation from the portable computing device to the television system. The television system is programmed to submit the textual representation as a search query and to present to the user media-related results that are determined to be responsive to the spoken query.

Television remote control data transfer

An implementation is described herein, which facilitates a fast channel change by receiving and decoding a unicast acquisition media stream that corresponds to a soon-to-be-requested target multicast media stream. It does this before requesting the target multicast media stream of the new channel. Once the transmission of the unicast stream is caught up with the multicast stream, this implementation splices from the unicast acquisition stream to the target multicast media stream.

Media stream splicer

Multiple keys are distributed to multiple clients. The keys provide access to media content. A group of clients are identified to receive substituted media content during a predetermined time period. Modified keys are generated that identify the substituted media content and the predetermined time period. The modified keys are distributed to the group of clients. The modified keys cause the group of clients to receive the substituted media content during the predetermined time period.

Program substitution

A rights management system is described in which, subsequent to recording a media resource, client-side equipment receives and stores recording definition information (RDI). The RDI provides information that can be used to recover the keys used to decrypt the media resource. When a client device subsequently wishes to consume the media resource, it can forward the RDI to an operations center. At the operations center, a transcription module validates the client device's rights and converts the RDI into client targeted information (CTI) by recovering the keys used to decrypt the media resource. The client device receives the CTI from the transcription module and uses it to consume the media resource. The CTI has an expiration date, after which it can no longer be used.

Rights management using recording definition information (RDI)

In an implementation of recording resources indicators, recording resources can each be allocated to a different program that is scheduled to be recorded. A program guide application generates a program guide in which programs are associated with a program broadcast schedule that includes a time when each of the programs are scheduled for broadcast. A resource scheduler generates a recording resources indication for display within the program guide to indicate that the recording resources are fully-allocated for a time duration during which one or more of the programs are scheduled to be recorded.

Recording resources indicators

Described herein is a technology facilitating the presentation of digital video streams. An implementation, described herein, reduces the effective start-up delay in the presentation of the first frames of the video content that occurs when a system tunes into a video stream. This abstract itself is not intended to limit the scope of this patent. The scope of the present invention is pointed out in the appending claims.

Fast start-up for digital video streams

Described herein is a technology facilitating the presentation of digital video streams. An implementation, described herein, reduces the effective start-up delay in the presentation of the first frames of the video content that occurs when a system tunes into a video stream by streaming at least an additional stream parallel with the main multicast stream. The alternative parallel stream having offset start points from the main multicast stream to more quickly provide a picture in response to a tuning command. This abstract itself is not intended to limit the scope of this patent. The scope of the present invention is pointed out in the appending claims.

Methods, systems, and computer program products for multiplexing a target communication port to provide an additional independent communication channel sharing at least some portion of hardware associated with the target port. Typically, a device, such as a disk drive, is also connected to the target port. An out-of-band signal indicates when the shared hardware is being used to provide the additional independent communication channel to avoid interfering with the target port device. A communication board with one or more communication ports may be coupled to the additional independent communication channel for communicating data from the target system to other devices or systems, such as a host system, through the communication board. In communicating with the target system, the communication board may emulate a particular interface that is supported by the target port. One type of host system may be a development system for designing, testing and debugging the target system.

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Fremont, CA, United States of America

John Henry Grossman, Iv