Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Randall J Macbeth

Brett David Brewer

Eric Benjamin Watson

Nicholas A Whyte

Marcelo Aizenstein Furman Calbucci

An image query system, and associated method and computer program product are disclosed that enhance and accelerate image-based querying. To this end, the present invention presents a digital image query with implict and explicit associated metadata and retrieval of visually similar images or other pertinent information from a large collection of images stored on local, networked, or web-linked repositories.

Query-by-image search and retrieval system

A system and related techniques monitor the operation of networked computer services, such as Internet-based search or other services which may link to a set of server resources, supporting databases and other components. In current technology if a large-scale or other search service encounters a problem in one supporting platform, the overall response may be interrupted or hang. In embodiments for example a search engine which attempts to access a travel, shopping, news or other database or service in response to a user search request may suspend the delivery of the search results, or blank the page with a 404 or other error message, due to the. unavailability of one or two databases or other components. The service support platform of the invention on the other hand may monitor the computer services network and detect the occurrence of a failure or performance lag, and temporarily detach the faulted server or other resource from the larger network service. In embodiments a user's Web page may be adapted to omit a panel of information related to that suspended service or component, so that for example an icon for a travel map or hotel reservation tool may be grayed out or removed while still presenting the remainder of the services or options. Users may therefore still access the majority of the Web service they are attempting to use, without interruption or noticeable lag.

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Edmonds, WA, United States of America

Randall J Macbeth