Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Amazon Technologies, Inc.

Other

Michael I Hyman

Frank G Sanborn

Jeffrey P Bezos

Paul C David

Richard Scott Brinkerhoff

Phani Vaddadi

Clyde D McQueen

Erin Harding Kraemer

Ronald J Schoenbaum

Ramin L Halviatti

Pavlo O Grinchenko

Ahmed M Azmy Hassan

Marion Michael Byrd

Brian David Marsh

Evan Gomer Kichline

Computer-automated processes are disclosed for establishing verified communications channels with authors and other creators of works via communications with a trusted verifier entity. The verified communications channels may be used for various purposes, such as to seek authorization to make a book or other printed publication searchable on a public network.

Automated processes for seeking authorization to make printed publications searchable on a network

An electronic catalog system provides an interface for users to author and post content for viewing by other users. Users who are verified as creators of works represented in the electronic catalog (e.g., authors of books) are additionally given the option to post content that is displayed on the catalog pages of such works with attribution to the works' creators. In one embodiment, the system is capable of verifying a user's claim to be a creator of a particular work through automated communications with a third party verifier designated by the user. The third party verifier may, for example, be a publisher (in the case of books), a recording company (in the case of musical works), or a motion picture studio (in the case of movies).

Processes for verifying creators of works represented in an electronic catalog

An electronic catalog system provides an interface for users to author and post content for viewing by others. Users who are verified as creators of works represented in the electronic catalog (e.g., authors of books) are additionally granted the capability to post content that is displayed on the catalog pages of such works with attribution to the works' creators. In one embodiment, the system is capable of verifying a user's claim to be a creator of a particular work through automated communications with a third party verifier designated by the user. The third party verifier may, for example, be a publisher (in the case of books), a recording company (in the case of musical works), or a motion picture studio (in the case movies).

Processes for verifying, and accepting content postings from, creators of works represented in an electronic catalog

Various computer-implemented methods are disclosed for selecting items, including but not limited to user-submitted blurbs, to present to users. One such method comprises using a plurality of personalized selection algorithms to select items to nominate for presentation to a target user. Each personalized selection algorithm outputs one or more item nominations for the target user together with an associated relevance score for each nominated item. The method further comprises receiving the item nominations and associated relevance scores from the personalized selection algorithms, normalizing the relevance scores, and using at least the normalized relevance scores to select particular items to present to the target user.

Personalization using multiple personalized selection algorithms

A web site or other interactive service maintains user activity data reflective of the activities of its users. A failure analysis component analyzes the user activity data to automatically detect likely failure events. A failure event filtering component intelligently selects failure events for which to request feedback from the user, preferably taking into consideration information about the failure event itself and information about the particular user. Requests for user feedback, and operator responses to the user feedback messages, are preferably presented on a personal log page that also displays other types of personalized information.

Web site system with automated processes for detecting failure events and for selecting failure events for which to request user feedback

Various computer-implemented methods are disclosed for selecting content items, including but not limited to user-submitted blurbs, to present to users. One such method comprises storing user-specific item selection history data identifying particular items, such as catalog items, selected by particular users, and recording responses of a plurality of the users to a content item. The method further comprises determining whether the content item should be presented to a target user based, at least in part, on a degree to which the item selection history of the target user is similar to item selection histories of users who responded favorably to the content item.

Method, system, and computer readable medium for the selection of content items for presentation to users

A method of generating an image or a video stream is disclosed, in which a composition space within a standard display tool is utilized. In an embodiment, a video editor is configured to control a timer and a frame grabber of the standard display tool, which is configured to receive a document encoded in a standard display language. The video editor controls the timing according to quality requirements, the standard display tool composes an image from the document in the composition space, the frame grabber transmits the image to a destination, such as a video compressor, which may collect a series of images as frames and generate a video stream from the images.

System and method for using a standard composition environment as the composition space for video image editing

An electronic catalog system provides an interface for users to author and post pieces of content, referred to as 'blurbs,' for viewing by other users. The blurbs submitted by a particular author are made available for viewing in an author-specific blog (web log) format. Blurbs may also be obtained from external sources, such as from blogs hosted by various web sites. A personalized blurb selection component selects blurbs to present to users based on histories of catalog items selected by such users, and/or based on various other criteria. The blurbs selected for a particular user are presented within a personal log or 'plog,' which may be updated daily and will typically contain entries from many different authors. User feedback provided on specific blurbs is taken into consideration by the personalized blurb selection algorithms.

Personalized selection and display of user-supplied content to enhance browsing of electronic catalogs

A method of supporting all raster-based image manipulations described in vector-based terms. The present invention has the benefits of providing clean transformation that vector-based manipulations yields, and providing a broad selection of all image transformation operations that raster-based manipulations yields. In one aspect of the invention a vector-defined shape is drawn on top of a raster-based image by replacing the contents of the vector image with the bits from the raster image. In another aspect of the present invention, a copy of the portion of the raster image that overlaps with the vector-defined portion is made, the transformation operation is performed on the copy, and then the portion of the raster image is replaced with the transformed copy. In yet another aspect of the present invention, a filter, such as a transformation operation, is attached to a textual vector instruction, the bits defined by the textual vector instruction are replaced with the corresponding bits in a raster image, and the transformation is applied. In still another aspect of the present invention, a browser receives a HTML page, in which the HTML page identifies a custom plug-in extension method to the browser, a background image, a vector shape, and a raster manipulation, the browser communicates the information in the HTML page to the custom plug-in extension component, and the component uses an input buffer, and an output buffer coupled to the browser to perform the raster manipulation on the vector shape and background image.

System and method for providing vector editing of bitmap images

A method of supporting all raster-based image manipulations described in vector-based terms. The present invention has the benefits of providing clean transformation that vector-based manipulations yields, and providing a broad selection of all image transformation operations that raster-based manipulations yield. In one aspect of the invention a vector-defined shape is drawn on top of a raster-based image by replacing the contents of the vector image with the bits from the raster image. In another aspect of the present invention, a copy of the portion of the raster image that overlaps with the vector-defined portion is made, the transformation operation is performed on the copy, and then the portion of the raster image is replaced with the transformed copy. In yet another aspect of the present invention, a filter, such as a transformation operation, is attached to a textual vector instruction, the bits defined by the textual vector instruction are replaced with the corresponding bits in a raster image, and the transformation is applied. In still another aspect of the present invention, a browser receives a HTML page, in which the HTML page identifies a custom plug-in extension method to the browser, a background image, a vector shape, and a raster manipulation, the browser communicates the information in the HTML page to the custom plug-in extension component, and the component uses an input buffer, and an output buffer coupled to the browser to perform the raster manipulation on the vector shape and background image.

An extensible set of information is defined within a Web page, which is retrievable in an ordered manner. Web page variables are defined and populated with commands and data which are executed according to the order defined by the naming convention employed in defining the Web page variable names. Within a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) document, an open-ended series of commands are defined to be read and processed by a control without having to extend HTML or using an alternative language. For instance, a series of vector graphics commands can be defined using PARAM Tag statements and subsequently executed by a Web control in the specified order. Moreover, by defining an graphics object in this manner, a standard ASCII text editor can be used to review and modify the commands, and the graphics can be completely defined within the HTML document which does not require any external reference and thus reduces processing and network overhead.

Extensible ordered information within a markup language document

An invention for specifying and synchronously executing an extensible set of events along a single timeline is disclosed. More specifically, an invention for specifying an extensible set of multimedia events within an HTML document and for synchronously invoking the specified events along a single timeline within a Web environment is disclosed. First, a plurality of multimedia events are specified, with each event having a single or plurality of scheduled time(s) on the timeline for its invocation. After the playing of the timeline is started, events from the extensible set of events are executed at their respective predetermined time(s). Furthermore, an arbitration mechanism is provided for determining the order to execute a plurality of events scheduled to be executed at the same time, and a drop threshold mechanism is provided for not executing an event when its actual execution time has exceeded its scheduled execution time by more than a specified window of execution.

Method and apparatus for controlling the timing of the invocation of events within a computer runtime environment

A self-modifying data flow architecture for computer-readable structures, such as markup language, is modeled as a network of interconnected processing elements, each having a data input and a transformation input. Each processing element generates output by applying the transformation input to the data input. The output of one processing element may be provided as either a data input or a transformation input to another processing element. The resulting architecture provides a network of interconnected processing elements which are modified dynamically depending on the data flowing through the overall process.

Self-modifying data flow execution architecture

A method of generating an image or a video stream in which the composition space in a standard display tool is used as the composition space. One example of a standard display tool is an HTML-compliant browser. In one embodiment, an image or a video editor gains control of the timer and the frame grabber of the standard display tool, a document encoded in a standard display language is received by the standard display tool, the editor controls the timing according to quality requirements, the standard display tool composes an image from the document in the compositor space of the standard display tool, the frame grabber transmits the image to a destination. Where the invention supports video streaming, the destination is a video compressor that collects a series of images as frames, and generates a video stream from the images. In another embodiment, an image or a video editor additionally gains control of the timer of the document and audio and video sources of the document, the editor controls the timing of the standard display tool, the document, the sources and the frame grabber according to the quality requirements.

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Seattle, WA, United States of America

Michael I Hyman