Snap Inc.

Snapchat, Inc.

Robert Cornelius Murphy

Evan Spiegel

Nicholas Richard Allen

Andrew James McPhee

Samuel Edward Hare

Donald Giovannini

Chiayi Lin

Ebony James Charlton

Michael John Evans

Eitan Pilipski

Dhritiman Sagar

Peicheng Yu

Chamal Samaranayake

Jokubas Dargis

Chia-Yi Lin

William Brendel

Maria Pavlovskaia

Luis Carlos Dos Santos Marujo

David Ben Ezra

Nick Allen

Andrew James Mcphee

Qi Pan

Ozi Egri

Eyal Zak

A server has a processor and a memory storing a multiple channel message thread module with instructions executed by the processor to identify when participants at client devices are actively viewing a common message thread at the same time to establish a participant viewing state. An alternate channel communication lock prompt is supplied the client devices in response to the participant viewing state. An alternate channel communication is delivered to the client devices in response to activation of the alternate channel communication lock prompt by at least one participant.

Apparatus and method for alternate channel communication initiated through a common message thread

Systems, devices, media and methods are presented for presentation of modified objects within a video stream. The systems and methods select an object of interest depicted within a user interface based on an associated image modifier, determine a modifier context based at least in part on one or more characteristics of the selected object, identify a set of image modifiers based on the modifier context, rank a first portion of the identified set of image modifiers based on a primary ordering characteristic, rank a second portion of the identified set of image modifiers based on a secondary ordering characteristic and cause presentation of the modifier icons for the ranked set of image modifiers.

Selective identification and order of image modifiers

A server has a processor and a memory storing instructions executed by the processor to maintain an ephemeral gallery of ephemeral messages. In response to a view request received from a client device over a distributed computer network, the message collection is supplied to the requesting device by causing automated sequential display on the client device of the ephemeral messages in the collection. The automated sequential display provides display of the messages one after another in chronological sequence such that the oldest message is displayed first.

Automated chronological display of ephemeral message gallery

A server has a processor and a memory storing instructions executed by the processor to maintain an ephemeral gallery of ephemeral messages. An ephemeral message is posted to the ephemeral gallery. The ephemeral message has an associated message duration parameter and a gallery participation parameter. An ephemeral message is removed from the ephemeral gallery in response to the identification of an expired gallery participation parameter.

Ephemeral message collection UI indicia

Automated management of ephemeral message collections

A content suggestion system to generate and cause display of a set of chat suggestions based on messages received at a client device. The content suggestions system is configured to display messages that include message content at a client device, and identify content selected by a user of the client device to be included in a response to the messages received at the client device. The content suggestion system tracks and stores a number of times in which a particular pair of content appear in succession in a chat context, and calculates a ranking of the content among a set of available content. When subsequent messages that include the content of the content pair are displayed at the client device, the content suggestion system retrieves and presents a set of content as suggestions, based on the corresponding ranks.

Content suggestion system

A redundant tracking system comprising multiple redundant tracking sub-systems, enabling seamless transitions between such tracking sub-systems, provides a solution to this problem by merging multiple tracking approaches into a single tracking system. This system is able to combine tracking objects with six degrees of freedom (6 DoF) and 3 DoF through combining and transitioning between multiple tracking systems based on the availability of tracking indicia tracked by the tracking systems. Thus, as the indicia tracked by any one tracking system becomes unavailable, the redundant tracking system seamlessly switches between tracking in 6 DoF and 3 DoF thereby providing the user with an uninterrupted experience.

Redundant tracking system

A method executed by a computer includes receiving an image from a client device. A facial recognition technique is executed against an individual face within the image to obtain a recognized face. Privacy rules are applied to the image, where the privacy rules are associated with privacy settings for a user associated with the recognized face. A privacy protected version of the image is distributed, where the privacy protected version of the image has an altered image feature.

Apparatus and method for automated privacy protection in distributed images

A server includes a processor and a memory storing a multiple channel message thread module with instructions executed by the processor to identify when participants at client devices are viewing a common message thread. An alternate channel communication prompt is supplied to the client devices. An alternate channel communication is delivered to the client devices in response to activation of the alternate channel communication prompt by at least one participant.

A server maintains a gallery of ephemeral messages. Each ephemeral message is posted to the gallery by a user for viewing by recipients via recipient devices. In response to a gallery view request from any of the recipient devices, the ephemeral messages in the gallery are displayed on the requesting device in automated sequence, each message being displayed for a respective display duration before display of the next message in the gallery. Each ephemeral message has an associated message availability parameter. Each ephemeral message is removed from the gallery, thus being unavailable for viewing upon request, at expiry of the corresponding message availability parameter.

Gallery of ephemeral messages

Systems and methods for receiving audio data; identifying one or more graphical interface elements that correspond to the audio data; generating a display of the identified one or more graphical interface elements, wherein a first portion of the one or more graphical interface elements is persistently displayed, and wherein a second portion of the one or more graphical interface elements is temporarily displayed for a predetermined period of time together with the first portion of the one or more graphical interface elements; and at expiry of the predetermined period of time, ceasing display of the second portion while maintaining display of the first portion.

Audio responsive augmented reality

A server maintains a gallery of ephemeral messages respectively comprising visual media content, such as user-provided photographic content or user-provided video content. Each ephemeral message is posted to the gallery by a user for viewing by recipients via recipient devices. In response to a gallery view request from any of the recipient devices, the ephemeral messages in the gallery are displayed on the requesting device in automated sequence, each message being displayed for a respective display duration before display of the next message in the gallery. The gallery has a global gallery availability parameter, and each message has a gallery participation timer. The gallery is made unavailable for viewing upon expiry of the gallery availability parameter or upon expiry of the gallery participation timer of a last posted message in the gallery, whichever occurs first.

Ephemeral gallery elimination based on gallery and message timers

A redundant tracking system comprising multiple redundant tracking sub-systems, enabling seamless transitions between such tracking sub-systems, provides a solution to this problem by merging multiple tracking approaches into a single tracking system. This system is able to combine tracking objects with six degrees of freedom (6DoF) and 3DoF through combining and transitioning between multiple tracking systems based on the availability of tracking indicia tracked by the tracking systems. Thus, as the indicia tracked by any one tracking system becomes unavailable, the redundant tracking system seamlessly switches between tracking in 6DoF and 3DoF thereby providing the user with an uninterrupted experience.

Growing community of inventors

El Cerrito, CA, United States of America

Robert Cornelius Murphy