Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Paul Valentin Borza

Vaibhav Girish Parikh

Kun Wu

XiaoWei Sheng

Justin Hamilton

Avinash Vemuluru

Bing Lang

Junyan Lin

Troy Ma

Jared Adam Brown

Ovidiu Dan

Kumar Srinivasamurthy

Dan Wu

Brian Thomas Schwartz

Xiao Wang

Jonathan Drew Pio

Jared Brown

Christopher Sedar

Maryam Ummi Yusuf

Embodiments of the disclosure render a context menu upon receiving a context menu indication from a user. The context menu comprises a combination of local context menu items and remote context menu items that are selected based on the context received with the context menu indication. The context menu is created by identifying a set of local and remote context menu item providers and receiving both a rank and HTML based on the received context. The set of local and remote context menu items are ranked according to their respective rank and a number of ranked context menu items are selected. The HTML for the selected context menu items are combined and the combined HTML is rendered to yield the context menu. The context menu is presented to the user.

Combined local and server context menus

A method for operating a universal casting service is described. The method receives a casting request from a first client; initiates a first casting session to a first casting device; establishes a first queue for the first casting device; adds a first media item to the queue from the first client; receives a casting request from a second client; and adds a second media item to the first queue from the second client.

Universal casting service

A persistent viewports architecture that provides a persistent and correctly-positioned viewport to a user when a collaboration document is being updated. The architecture identifies and utilizes a user's element-of-interest in content of the document to determine and recalculate the correct position of the user viewport. The architecture tracks a topmost element of the content (or section of content) from the viewport and employs the topmost element as a reference element. The topmost element can be one or more of a paragraph, a header, string of text, and an image. When the underlying document is to be updated, the viewport performs a lookup of reference element, and after finding the reference element, adjusts the X and Y offsets of the viewport so that the element-of-interest is inside the viewport.

Persistent viewports

Architecture that comprises a mediation component which identifies engaged applications and, gathers and actively monitors information from the engaged applications (e.g., text displayed directly to the user, text embedded in photos, fingerprint of songs, etc.) to infer the working context of a user. The inferred context can then be handed over to one of the applications, such as a browser (in a form which does not cross the privacy barrier) to provide improved ranking for the suggested queries through the preferred search provider. Since the context is inferred into concepts, no PII (personally-identifiable information) is communicated without user consent&#x2014;only very high-level contextual concepts are provided to the search engines.

Query formulation via task continuum

The act of setting up a user's device to participate in a meeting may be performed automatically, using location information and calendar information. With appropriate permission obtained from the user, the user's calendar and the location of the user's device are monitored. When the user's calendar indicates that the user is scheduled to be in a meeting and the user is in or approaching a conference room (or other type of room) associated with that meeting, the user's desktop, application, and meeting documents may be shared. The user's computer may be automatically connected to devices in the meeting room, and any audio/visual settings appropriate for the user's role in the meeting may be configured automatically. Alternatively, if the user is to participate in the meeting online, the online meeting may be joined automatically.

Automatic equipment configuration for meetings

Illicit use of devices, and misappropriation of the data on those devices, may be prevented by detecting patterns of behavior that suggest illicit use, and by taking action when such illicit use is detected. A device may store information that describes suspicious patterns of use, and may also store information that describes normal patterns of use of known legitimate users. If current use of the device matches a suspicious pattern of use, and if the user of the device cannot be confirmed to be a known legitimate user, then action may be taken, such as locking the device's user interface, shutting down the device's communication facilities, issuing a warning message, sending a communication, or any other action.

Detecting and preventing illicit use of device

A representative image system is described herein that provides a representative image for any given search query. Upon receiving a search for a term (or terms), the system accesses an inverted index to identify images associated with that term. The system then receives a ranked list of images. The ranked list includes image identifiers, and once an item in the list is selected the system can use the associated image identifier to retrieve the image from a thumbnail or other server. If an editor has overridden the default image for the present search query, then the system returns the image identifier for the overridden image, which can be used to access the image from the thumbnail or other server. Thus, the representative image system provides a reliable and universal mechanism for retrieving representative images for any given topic dynamically in real time.

Dynamic definitive image service

Systems and methods for identifying a representative image for any given search query are provided. In response to a search for a query term (or terms), the system accesses an inverted index to identify images associated with that term. The system then receives a ranked list of images. The ranked list includes image identifiers, and once an item in the list is selected the system can use the associated image identifier to retrieve the image from a server. If an editor has overridden the default image for the present search query, then the system returns the image identifier for the overridden image, which can be used to access the image from the server. Thus, the representative image system provides a reliable and universal mechanism for retrieving representative images for any given topic dynamically in real time.

Growing community of inventors

Redmond, WA, United States of America

Paul Valentin Borza