International Business Machines Corporation

John S Murdock, Jr

Sastry Duri

Jonathan Paul Munson

Alan George Cole

Maharaj Mukherjee

Jonathan Lenchner

Paul Andrew Moskowitz

Shang Qing Guo

James Edward Christensen

Donald W McCauley

Clifford O Hayden

Susan B Stillman

Robert J Hurban

A query including a question from a user is received by a device. It is determined that the question and an associated answer is not found in a local cache of the device. At least one category for the question is determined. At least one cloud service for answering the question is determined. The at least one cloud service is in communication with the device via a network. A request including the question is sent to the at least one cloud service. Selecting a behavior is selected based upon the at least one category. The behavior includes a feedback to the user to reduce a perceived waiting time by the user. The behavior is executed.

Reducing negative effects of service waiting time in humanmachine interaction to improve the user experience

It is determined whether a location of a mobile device is within a coverage region of a first information service. Communications for the first information service are redirected to a second information service when the location of the mobile device is not within a coverage region of the first information service. The second information service generally has a coverage region encompassing the location of the mobile device. Communications between the mobile device and the first information service are redirected to a new information service when properties of the new information service are determined to meet predetermined criteria set by a user of the mobile device, by an application, or both. In yet another aspect of the invention, replacement of information services can be 'aggressive' or 'non-aggressive.' Communications between the mobile device and an original information service are redirected to another information service when the original information service fails.

Dynamic service binding providing transparent switching of information services having defined coverage regions

It is determined whether a location of a mobile device is within a coverage region of a first information service. Communications for the first information service are redirected to a second information service when the location of the mobile device is not within a coverage region of the first information service. The second information service generally has a coverage region encompassing the location of the mobile device. Communications between a mobile device and a first information service are redirected to another information service when properties of the new information service are determined to meet predetermined criteria set by a user of the mobile device, by an application, or both. In yet another aspect of the invention, Replacement of information services can be 'aggressive' or 'non-aggressive.' Communications between a mobile device and an original information service are redirected to another information service when the original information service fails.

A system and method for handling the return of items supplied by a store. The method entails building a list of items to be returned on a local computing device. The list is sent to a remote server that handles returns for the store. The remote server returns a confirmation of the items that are returnable and/or of items that are not returnable. As the list is built, each item is compared to a return policy of the store and added to the list only if the item qualifies as returnable. The method also allows for requesting the store to honor the return of items that do not qualify for return. Provision is also made for scheduling pickup of items to be returned.

Method and system for order returns

An improved error recovery system in which all operations which the Central Processor performs are categorized into one of a plurality of recovery types. The determination of category is made based on which architected and machine dependent facilities they manipulate and the manner in which the facilities are manipulated. This classification of instructions into types allows for the amount of checkpoint data to be minimized while allowing recovery to be generalized into broad algorithms instead of handling each operation independently. Furthermore, by applying this classification technique to various phases of execution (recovery windows) of instructions which modify system facilities before they complete, these instructions can also be retried with a minimum of hardware and algorithms.

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New Fairfield, CT, United States of America

John S Murdock, Jr