Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Jong S Huang

Ian Marriott

Dennis George Cronin

Curtis N Von Veh

Michael G Dryfoos

Mark T Quenneville

A system and method for facilitating high-density interactive voting (such as during a live event) using a computer network and tabulating and providing voting results in real-time. In general, the high-density interactive voting system of the present invention includes five major components that reside on the voting network: (1) a Live Event Wizard; (2) a Live Event Staging Component; (3) a Live Event Database; (4) a Live Event Object (LEO); and (5) a Live Event Display Engine. The Live Event Wizard is enables a user to quickly and easily create polling questions for distribution and presentation to a voter. The Live Event Staging Component ensures the validity of the polling questions and sends a copy of a live event definition and the polling questions to the Live Event Database. The Live Event Database tabulates current voting results at specified (or pre-determined) time intervals and performs statistical calculations of voting results. The present invention also includes a Live Event Object (LEO) that resides and remains in memory (such as random access memory (RAM)). The LEO establishes and maintains persistent connections with the Live Event Database such that these connections do not have to be continually opened and closed, thus greatly reducing the burden on the server and increasing system performance. The Live Event Display Engine receives the live event definition from the LEO and renders the definition and results on a display device for voters to view.

System and method for high-density interactive voting using a computer network

Systems and methods for classifying documents into categories based on text associated with the documents are disclosed. Embodiments of the present invention further provide methods for establishing a database of hierarchical classes and a system for classifying text-related content into the hierarchical classes. Text relating to documents is parsed into features with at least one feature having a plurality of terms. Vocabulary is determined from the features based on feature frequency and for each class into which a document is classified, the vocabulary that occurs in the text associated with the document is stored.

Facilitating document classification using branch associations

A method and system are provided for providing a physical object for a web site in response to a user request. The system includes a staging server having a logical content store for storing logical content and a staging server context manager including a rendering component for rendering a physical object from the logical content. The system additionally includes a web server for seeking the requested physical object, the web server includes a web server context manager for seeking the requested physical object from the staging server and for returning the requested physical object to the requester.

System and method for maintaining and publishing web site content

A description file that includes multiple statements written in a customizable, tag-based interpreted language for processing data contained in the messages is disclosed. A data shaper translates and then executes each statement in the description file. The customizable, tag-based interpreted language, defines the operational behavior of the data shaper. The operational behavior shapes data contained in the messages to produce publishable matter suitable for online presentation.

Process description language

A method and apparatus for republishing content to multiple target server computers such that the content is automatically customized for each target site. Users on client computers can then view the customized content by connecting to the target sites through the Internet or another network. In one aspect, a source site receives content from one or more journalist client computers and automatically republishes the content to multiple target sites. The source site includes a database engine having procedures stored thereon that contain the custom section hierarchy of the target sites. The custom section hierarchy is used to map a story on the source site to any predetermined section on the target site. In another aspect, a difference engine determines stories that need to be republished by comparing a list of potential stories to be republished to a list of stories already published on a target site. This comparison includes analyzing time stamps and a browse order of the stories in both lists and only republishing stories that have changed. In another aspect, a binder is used to further customize the stories for each target site. The binder applies style sheets containing customization information to the stories. The style sheets change the look and feel of the story to customize the story for the target site. For example, the style sheets can be used to customize the location of a picture, add a header, add a deck, customize the font, etc. In yet another aspect, a status table is used to track each republication job as content is customized for each target site. The status table allows multiple jobs to be republished simultaneously either through parallel processing or multithreading.

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Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Jong S Huang