Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Praful Chavda

James Charles Finger, Ii

Jeffrey Alan Davis

Andrew Douglas Reddish

Sridhar Chandrashekar

Dale Rogerson

Wenlong Dong

Brian Douglas King

Alexandre Vicktorovich Grigorovitch

Peter J Torr

John Yovin

Lan Ye

Richard F Doherty

Justin McRoberts

J Shane McRoberts

Jay Finger

Techniques are disclosed herein for changing a user's avatar attributes based on information that is pertinent to the user and that comes from a variety of sources. The user's electronic device may contain a multitude of information about the user, their lifestyle, their current mood, etc. Embodiments provide an application programming interface (API) that allows various applications on the user's electronic device, or elsewhere, to communicate with an avatar platform such that avatar attributes may be changed based on information from a wide variety of applications.

Modifying avatar attributes

A computing device has two or more software stacks, each stack simultaneously running a different operating system. Only one enabled operating system at a time has control of hardware resources of the computing device. Each disabled operating system has its device drivers disabled. The drivers may be disabled by stopping device driver messages to devices at a firmware layer unassociated with any operating system. The drivers may be disabled by having their associated operating system dynamically unload them when the operating system is disabled. In some instances, the drivers may be modified to include a 'stop' control that tells the driver to stop communicating with its associated device, and a 'resume' control that tells the driver to resume communication. When an operating system is disabled, the operating system may send a &#x201c;stop&#x201d; message to its device drivers. Drivers associated with messages passed between operating systems may remain enabled.

Controlling hardware across two or more simultaneously running operating systems

Techniques and tools for supporting multiple operating systems in consumer electronic devices. For example, techniques and tools are described that allow quickly switching between operating systems in video disc players that support different media types while reducing wait time and mitigating possible negative impacts to user experience.

Supporting multiple operating systems in media devices

Arrangements and methods are provided that allow integration of connected online services within a high-definition interactive framework, and in particular within an advanced content interactivity layer. In this way, the online services may enjoy enhanced features on an advanced content media device. For example, content running on an advanced content media device may be configured to detect an online service's feature and may thus present the user with additional features that interact with the online service. An advanced content media device may detect another user's advanced content media device through a network, and in particular a media service on the network, allowing chat and synchronized playback of content. Advanced content media devices may vary, but may include, e.g., a multimedia player, a media center, a game console, a personal computer, and so on.

Arrangement for connectivity within an advanced multimedia content framework

Content including links to behaviors (code which can be executed and return supplemental content for insertion, or can modify existing content) is stored, and at run-time, the links to behaviors are followed and the supplemental content or the modifications to existing comment are used to create a final version of content which will be presented to the user. Security enhancements including a security check ensure that only behaviors which are secure will be run. Default content may be provided, which may be inserted if the security check is not passed, or if the content returned from the behavior is unusable for some reason.

In-place content substitution via code-invoking link

An active content trust model provides security in a help system. The security is provided in response to a call from a calling application to access active content. When the call is received, a determination is made, based on predetermined criteria, which execution mode to use to access the active content. The active content is then accessed in the determined execution mode, thus providing the security.

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Praful Chavda