Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Richard Junqiang Qian

Steven William Macbeth

Gur Kimchi

Marc Eliot Davis

Feng Wu

Heung-Yeung Shum

Lili Cheng

Matthew Graham Dyor

Yan Lu

Xian-Sheng Hua

Michael J Patten

Hugh Evan Williams

Xiaodong Fan

Srinath Reddy Aaleti

Randolph Bruce Oakley

Kieran Richard McDonald

Andrew Kutruff

Hong-Qiao Li

Xiadong Fan

Christopher Michael Hugill

Techniques for content customization with security for client preferences are described herein. The techniques describe the customization of content provided by websites according to preferences, such as the interests, 'likes' and demographic and/or geographic information of users. Additional techniques describe aspects of keeping the users' preferences secure from the website, so that the users' privacy and anonymity are protected. In one implementation, a 'trusted entity' is trusted by users to obtain and store the preferences. Content may be obtained by the trusted entity from a content provider, such as a website. The content may be changed according to the preferences. The content is then provided to the users. In view of the changes made by the trusted entity, the user enjoys a customized version of the content. Additional techniques describe limits to customization, based on permissible customizations and frameworks generated by the content providers.

Content customization with security for client preferences

One or more computing devices may be configured to determine an association between at least a first user and a second user based at least on search behavior of the first user and/or the second user. Responsive to the determining, the one or more computing devices may enable a communication forum between the first user and the second user.

Search behavior based communication forums

A computer-implemented method, a computer system, and computer media for discovering links in scripts are provided. The computer system includes a crawler, a rules engine, and an index that are utilized to store links generated by scripts located in webpages in the index. The crawler traverses a network to locate webpages having scripts. The rules engine parses the located webpages and extracts the scripts based on rules that are satisfied by segments of the extracted scripts. The rules engine evaluates the segments of the extracted scripts to generate links. After the rules engine validates the links, the rules engine transmits the links to the index for storage.

Link discovery from web scripts

Functionality is described for forming a summary representation of a video item to help a user decide whether to obtain a full version of the video item. The functionality operates by: (a) receiving a video item; (b) dividing the video item into a plurality of segments; (c) extracting at least one key frame from each of the plurality of segments to form a plurality of key frames; and (d) organizing the video segments into one or more groups corresponding to one or more respective scenes based on the plurality of key frames, to thereby form the representation of the video item. The functionality can be used to communicate search results to a user, to provide a sample of the video item in a message, etc.

Forming a representation of a video item and use thereof

Image resizing for web-based searching is described. In one implementation, a system resizes a user-selected thumbnail image into a larger version of the image that emulates the quality of a large, original image, but without downloading the original image. First, the system extracts resizing parameters when each thumbnail image is created. Then, the system creates a codebook of primitive visual elements extracted from a collection of training images. The primitive visual elements in the codebook provide universal visual parts for reconstructing images. The codebook and a resizing plug-in can be sent once to the user over a background channel. When the user selects a thumbnail image for enlargement, the system resizes the thumbnail image via interpolation and then refines the enlarged image with primitive visual elements from the codebook. The refinement creates an enlarged image that emulates the quality of the large, original image, without downloading the original image.

Image resizing for web-based image search

Systems and methods for classifying content as adult content and, if desired, blocking content so classified from presentation to a user are provided. Received content is analyzed using a sequential series of classification techniques, each successive technique being implemented only if the previous technique did not result in classification of the content as adult content. In this way, adult content may be identified across a variety of different media types (e.g., text, images, video, etc.) and yet processing power may be reserved if one or more techniques requiring less power is sufficient to determine that the received content is, in fact, adult content. Content classification may be performed in-band (that is, in substantially real-time such that content may be identified and/or blocked at the time results of a user query are returned) or out-of-band (that is, prospectively as new content is received but not in association with a user query).

Multimodal classification of adult content

A system and method are provided for analyzing media content and generating related metadata as it is provided to a computer. In one embodiment, the system includes an extensible analysis object managing a plurality of plug-ins for analyzing the media content and generating metadata related to the media content.

Analysis of media content via extensible object

A computer memory product having stored thereon a digital media file, the memory product comprising a computer readable memory, and a data file including at least two digital data portions; a header object including a table of contents (TOC) object containing data regarding the data file; and a second data object following the first header object containing data representing digital media wherein the TOC object is disposed between the first header object and the second data object.

Advanced streaming format table of contents object

Automatic detection of one or more segment boundaries in a video. An analysis window identifies a selected series of video frames of the video to analyze for segment boundaries. A property value is determined for each of the video frames in the series of video frames. A maximum difference of the differences of property values between adjacent frames is compared to a threshold median value and a ratio of the maximum difference to a determined mean of the differences of property values between adjacent frames is compared to an adaptive threshold value. A segment boundary is defined as a function of the comparisons.

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Sammamish, WA, United States of America

Richard Junqiang Qian