International Business Machines Corporation

Nuance Communications, Inc.

Loulwa F Salem

Christina Karen Lauridsen

Sushma Bharat Patel

Robert Ross Peterson

Timothy R Chavez

Lisa A Seacat

Fang Lu

Janani Janakiraman

Susan Marie Cox

Lisa Seacat DeLuca

Anil Kalavakolanu

Stephen A Schlachter

Thomas A Aaron

Audio content is converted to text using speech recognition software. The text is then associated with a distinct voice or a generic placeholder label if no distinction can be made. From the text and voice information, a word cloud is generated based on key words and key speakers. A visualization of the cloud displays as it is being created. Words grow in size in relation to their dominance. When it is determined that the predominant words or speakers have changed, the word cloud is complete. That word cloud continues to be displayed statically and a new word cloud display begins based upon a new set of predominant words or a new predominant speaker or set of speakers. This process may continue until the meeting is concluded. At the end of the meeting, the completed visualization may be saved to a storage device, sent to selected individuals, removed, or any combination of the preceding.

Real time generation of audio content summaries

In a method for placing a telephone call, a telephone receives a request to call a contact. The telephone retrieves a user preference for obtaining an availability status of the contact. The telephone obtains the availability status of the contact from one of a plurality of sources based at least in part on an order of priority of the sources defined by the user preference. The sources include a social network program. The telephone displays the status of the contact. The telephone prompts for a decision whether to place the call to the contact.

Determining an availability status of a contact being called

A peer-to-peer file sharing client with background file sharing is provided in a segmented peer-to-peer file sharing network. A user may elect to 'tag' a torrent when a new file is submitted to the peer-to-peer system. A user may view the various tags with one or more file fragments that the user is hosting in the background. The user may view the tags for all fragments being shared in the background and search the tags. The peer-to-peer system may store metadata tags for the torrents in a central repository, such as a relational database, or in a distributed hash table.

Mapping file fragments to file information and tagging in a segmented file sharing system

In a method for placing a telephone call, a first telephone receives a request to call a second telephone. The first telephone retrieves a user preference for obtaining location information of the second telephone or of a user of the second telephone. The first telephone obtains the location information from one of a plurality of sources based at least in part on an order of priority of the sources defined by the user preference. The plurality of sources include a social network program. The first telephone determines a local time in a geographical location identified from the location information. The first telephone displays the local time. The first telephone prompts for a decision whether to place the call to the second telephone.

Determining local time in a location of a telephone

The invention described herein detects an external user entering into a virtual world that includes a virtual area. In turn, the invention described herein identifies a plurality of joined users that joined each virtual area and computes a joined user weighting for each of the plurality of joined users. The joined user weightings include friend of a friend level weightings and commonality weightings. Next, the invention described herein computes a virtual area friendliness level for each of the virtual areas by aggregating each of the joined user weightings for each of the virtual areas, and provides the virtual area friendliness levels to the external user in order for the external user to select the appropriate virtual area.

Identifying mutual friends in online environments

A mechanism is provided for distributing file fragments in the background of a segmented peer-to-peer network using list passing between peers. Rather than trading actual content, peers may trade file names or file fragment identifiers. Upon receiving a new file name or identifier, a peer may request that file from the network, either in the background or the foreground. For example, once a client begins background file sharing in a swarm, the client may propagate file information for files it possesses to all or a portion of the peers in a swarm. Those clients then have the file information for a file without the user having to locate and specifically request that file. The file list may piggyback on a file fragment that is transferred as a result of a file sharing request.

List passing in a background file sharing network

A mechanism is provided for file fragment pricing in a segmented file sharing system. The mechanism allows peers to set a price for distributing a file through the file sharing system. A peer then becomes a file distributor on behalf of an original file provider. The original file provider may compensate the file distributor based on a compensation agreement. The peer's client may be configured to download file fragments from file distributors, or the original file provider, based on preferences, such as price, peer rating, upload speed, or similarity. As a result, a peer may download a file for a price that is less than the original price from the original file provider. Thus, the mechanism provides an incentive for peers to participate in file sharing, which results in larger swarms.

File fragment pricing in a segmented file sharing network

A peer-to-peer file sharing client with background file sharing is provided in a segmented peer-to-peer file sharing network. Each file sharing participant may designate an amount of bandwidth and/or storage space for background file sharing. Peer-to-peer file sharing clients then share file data and content in the background automatically. The client may participate in additional swarms, in the background, to generally increase the number of peers in file sharing networks, thus increasing the speed of downloading desired files for other users.

Background file sharing in a segmented peer-to-peer file sharing network

A method, apparatus, and computer usable program product for managing received calls. In response to receiving a first call from a user, the process stores a record of the first call in a table of received calls. Thereafter, in response to receiving a second call from the user within a predefined period of time after the first call was prematurely disconnected, the process identifies a second call as a prematurely terminated call. The process then places the prematurely terminated call in a queue of calls according to a set of configurable criteria and updates the record of the first call with a progress of the prematurely terminated call.

Managing received calls

Peer-to-peer file sharing clients share file fragments in the background based on rarity values. When a first peer offers a fragment to a second peer to be shared in the background, the second peer checks the rarity of the fragment and identifies one or more fragments from its swarm that is approximately as rare as the fragment being offered. The second peer then offers the one or more fragments in exchange for the originally offered fragment. The first peer may then offer the one or more fragments to other peers in its swarm to be shared in the background.

File fragment trading based on rarity values in a segmented file sharing system

In accordance with one illustrative embodiment, when a file is moved from the background to the foreground in a peer-to-peer client, the client makes a local request for file pieces. The client sends a handshake message to itself to check for available pieces. The client then exchanges messages locally the same way it would with external peers. As an alternative approach to local message passing, the client may keep a local record of file fragments in a data structure, such as a markup language document or other data repository. The client may then query the data structure for needed file fragments before submitting a request to the peer-to-peer network. Every time a new file segment is downloaded and validated in the background, or the foreground, the peer-to-peer client may update the data structure. Then, the client may simply query the data structure for the specific segment it wishes to download.

Moving file fragments from background file sharing to foreground file sharing and preventing duplicate downloads

A method for customizing color in an email message based on cultural perspective of each recipient is provided. At least one existing color used in an email message is determined, and a domain name and/or information for each recipient of the email message is analyzed to determine a region corresponding to each recipient. A color mapping database is searched to correlate any existing color in the email to at least one approved color corresponding to each region. The existing color used in the email message is compared with the at least one approved color for each recipient. If the existing color does not match any of the approved colors for each recipient, a sender-selected approved color is determined and the existing color in the email is converted to at least one of the selected approved colors for each recipient of the email message.

Growing community of inventors

Austin, TX, United States of America

Loulwa F Salem