Amazon Technologies, Inc.

Other

Propel Software Corporation

Kenneth Paul Kiraly

Arnaud Marie Froment

Nadim Awad

Levon Dolbakian

Subram Narasimhan

Jonathan White Keljo

Srinivasan Sridharan

Michael David Dumont

Robert Lovejoy Goodwin

John Lattyak

Gregg Elliott Zehr

Thomas A Ryan

Beryl Tomay

Richard Moore

Girish Bansilal Bajaj

Michael V Rykov

James C Slezak

Kevin R Cheung

Aviram Zagorie

Brett Nathan Lynnes

Thomas M J Fruchterman

Gy Stuart Fullmer

Sean Thomas Congden

Sailesh Rachabathuni

David Berbessou

Christopher S A MacGregor

Clifton Liu

Jon Saxton

Subram (Narsi) Narasimhan

Varadarajan Gopalakrishnan

Jateen P Parekh

Jay Praful Desai

Siva Rama Kumar Somayajula

Valient I Gough

Jeffrey P Bezos

Bradley Jeffery Behm

Manish Lachwani

Steven Todd Kirsch

Jonathan Ian McCormack

Wendy Chiu Fai Wong

Brent Eric Wood

Seetha Lakshmi Annamraju

Levon Dolbakain

Juergen Ahaus

Girish Bausilal Bajaj

Girish Bajaj

Tim Tan

Thomas M Fruchterman

Neil C Roseman

Xiaotian Guo

A system and method for identifying a user of a device includes comparing audio received by a device with acoustic fingerprint information to identify a user of the device. Image data, video data and other data may also be used in the identification of the user. Once the user is identified, operation of the device may be customized based on the user. Further, once the user is identified, data can be associated with the user, for example, usage data, location data, gender data, age data, dominant hand data of the user, and other data. This data can then be used to further customize the operation of the device to the specific user.

Systems and methods for identifying users of devices and customizing devices to users

Techniques for determining positions of devices within an environment are described herein. In some instances, an environment, such as a home or office of a user, may include an array of devices, some or all of which may couple to a network or to other devices via short-range wireless connections (e.g., Bluetooth&#xae;, Zigbee&#xae;, etc.). These devices may capture an array of data for providing to a central service, which is configured to analyze the data and, based on this analysis, determine a location of the devices relative to one another. That is, the central service may analyze the data to determine relative distances and orientations between the identified devices within the environment.

Determining relative positions of user devices

Users can switch between applications using contextual interface elements. These elements can include icons for applications determined to likely be accessed by the user for a current context. Information is gathered to determine the current context, then information such as patterns of historical usage are utilized to determine and rank the applications by likelihood of use. Different contexts can include different icons, and a given context can include different icons for different points in time or locations. A user can access a contextual interface element by performing a swipe motion, for example. The user can continue the motion to an area associated with an icon of interest, and perform an action such as a tap or release to cause the associated application to be launched. Such an approach enables a user to quickly and easily launch another application independent of the application currently active on the device.

Contextual launch interfaces

An item-providing system supplies items to a user device for consumption at the user device via communication infrastructure. In one representative implementation, a user device includes a mode switching wireless communication module. The mode switching wireless communication module is adapted to receive a first paging signal via a first communication protocol when in a first mode of operation and adapted to receive a second paging signal via a second communication protocol when in a second mode of operation. The user device also includes a to-do list processing module. In response to receiving one of the first or second paging signal, the to-do list processing module sends a request to a remote network device. The request requests that one or more instructions be sent from the remote network device.

Mode switching user device

A social networking system creates and manages dynamic social circles corresponding to real world social events where multiple people join in an event. The social networking system has stored conditions that, when met, for creating, closing, and deleting a social circle, and also determines which users are part of the social circle and for what time periods. Assets, such as photos, URLs, media selections, etc. that are used by members of the social circle during the event are recorded by the social networking system and access to those assets are selectively provided to members of the social circle. A social circle might be automatically opened when users congregate. A social circle closes when the event is over. Once closed, the assets might not change but continue to be available to members until the social circle is deleted. The social networking system might be a central system or a distributed system.

Dynamic social network allocation and data allocation based on real world social interaction patterns

Described herein are systems, devices and methods for presenting content based on the spatial relationship between a media device and a user of the media device. The media device may present content based on an angle between an eye axis of the user and a device axis of the media device.

Content orientation based on a user orientation

An item-providing system supplies items to a user device for consumption at the user device via communication infrastructure. The device may correspond to a book reader device or other type of device. The item-providing system uses a content delivery module to deliver the items to the user device.

Delivery of items for consumption by a user device

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media are disclosed for receiving sensor data indicative of one or more vibrational and/or environmental characteristics associated with a user device, a user of the user device, and/or an environment that includes the user device; determining a value for a metric representative of the one or more characteristics; determining a value of a gesture detection parameter based at least in part on the value of the metric; receiving input corresponding to a touch event detected at a touch-sensitive display of the device; and analyzing the input based at least in part on the value of the gesture detection parameter to determine whether the touch event corresponds to a particular type of gesture.

Adaptive gesture recognition

An architecture and techniques for outputting requested information from reference works (e.g., dictionaries, thesauruses, almanacs, atlases, encyclopedias, gazetteers) in a context-sensitive manner. For instance, when a user reads an electronic book (eBook) and requests a definition for a word found within the eBook, the techniques may display a definition for the word that has been selected based on the context of the request. In one example, the techniques may display a definition that corresponds to an identified genre of the eBook in which the word appears. In another example, the techniques may display a definition that corresponds to known information about the user, such as a preference of the user or the like.

Context-sensitive reference works

An item-providing system supplies items to a user device for consumption at the user device via communication infrastructure. The device may correspond to a book reader device or other type of device. In one illustrative case, the item-providing system and the user device include functionality for providing upgrade-related items to the user device in a transparent manner. The item-providing system and the user device also include testing functionality.

Administrative tasks in a media consumption system

Growing community of inventors

Menlo Park, CA, United States of America

Kenneth Paul Kiraly