International Business Machines Corporation

Ronald Eugene Craig

Gabriel Aaron Cohen

Gerald Laverte Mitchell, Jr

Travis M Grigsby

Michael Negley Abernethy, Jr

Masaaki Takamiya

David Louis Kaminsky

Yongcheng Li

Soumitra Sarkar

Yih-Shin Tan

Steven Dale Ims

James D Creasman

Robert A Gibson

Daniel Earl Poirier

Lori Metivier Ruffing

John A Poetzinger

Haley L Wilson Gray

Maria Rita Villari

A method for providing relationship-centric resources includes establishing a communication session between a first device and a second device, determining, during the communication session between the first and second devices, an intersection of mutual topics of interest between users of the first and second devices by cross-referencing sets of interests for the users, retrieving content based on a determination that the content meets a content descriptor, and simultaneously displaying the retrieved content. The content descriptor describes a nature of the communication session. The retrieving is further based on a determination that the content is related to a mutual topic of interest from the intersection of mutual topics of interest between the users of the first and second devices. The determination of relatedness is based on a cross-reference between the content and the mutual topic of interest. The cross-reference is stored in a lookup table.

Relationship-centric portals for communication sessions

Relationship-centric resources are provided to users during a communication session. After establishing a communication session between a first communication device and a second communication device, content that meets a content descriptor is retrieved. This content descriptor describes a nature of a relationship between users of the first and second communication devices. The retrieved content, which meets the content descriptor, is then simultaneously displaying on both the first communication device and the second communication device.

According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, an approach is provided in which a diagnostic system retrieves encrypted utilization data from an electronic system that were generated from utilization data corresponding to the electronic system's usage. The diagnostic system decrypts the encrypted utilization data and determines whether the decrypted utilization data are valid. When the decrypted utilization data are valid, the diagnostic system displays the decrypted utilization data on a display. In another embodiment, the diagnostic system retrieves cryptographically-protected utilization data from the electronic system and determines the authenticity of the cryptographically-protected utilization data. Once the cryptographically-protected utilization data are authenticated, the diagnostic system displays the corresponding utilization data on a display.

Encrypted warranty verification and diagnostic tool

A technique that reduces the possibility that a message received at a computer terminal during an instant messaging conversation will become accessible to unintended viewers. One embodiment is directed to an arrangement wherein a computer terminal at a first client work station is disposed to receive chat messages from a second client work station during an instant messaging conversation. An apparatus associated with the computer terminal for limiting access to the received chat messages includes a device for attaching a security identifier to each received chat message. A display device at the computer terminal generates a window that selectively provides a specified one of the chat messages in viewable form. A concealment device coupled to the display device is operable to make the specified chat message unviewable on the display device. A component connected to the concealment device activates the concealment device when a prespecified event occurs.

Limiting access to instant messaging content on a display screen

A system, method and computer-readable medium are disclosed for providing improved display of a host terminal application interface. A host application translator reads characters stored in a character buffer of a computer host terminal application that is displayed to a user as a table of horizontal rows and vertical columns of characters. The host application translator receives a preference that determines which vertical columns are to be displayed and a second preference that determines the order in which the vertical columns are to be displayed. The host application translator reconfigures the display of the characters by displaying the vertical columns indicated by the first preference in the order indicated by the second preference and displaying information corresponding to the vertical columns that are not indicated by the first preference, thus providing user-selectable controls to expand or collapse this information.

Expandable area for host table data display in a mobile device

The present invention provides a method, system and computer program product for improved display of host terminal applications on data processing systems having a small display size. In one embodiment, a host application translator reads characters stored in a character buffer and character attributes stored in an attribute buffer of a computer host terminal application that is displayed to a user as lines of characters. The host application translator performs component recognition on the characters and the character attributes to identify essential characters. Essential characters are characters that are required to be displayed to a user for the user to be able to interact with the computer host terminal application. The host application translator generates hypertext markup language code (HTML) for reconfiguring the characters for display on a portable data processing system having a small display size.

Host screen transformation for mobile devices having a reduced display size

An apparatus and method is provided for a configuration of client work stations for instant messaging, wherein a participant intending to send a particular segment of chat content can elect to send the segment in an 'off the record' mode. Content sent in this mode can be viewed but cannot be copied or saved by other instant messaging participants. The apparatus usefully includes a mode select device operable by the participant at a given station to designate each of a succession of chat content segments generated at the given station to be either for unrestricted use, or for off the record use, selectively. The apparatus further includes a component for applying a first use control message to each of the off the records segments sent from the given station to one or more of the other stations. A content control device located at a station receiving the off the record segments is responsive to the applied first use control messages to prevent the receiving station from retaining or otherwise propagating any of the received off the record segments.

Apparatus and method controlling use of individual segments of instant messaging content

The price verification device typically includes a barcode scanner, an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) reader and an optional key pad. To verify a price for an item, a user such as a consumer will scan a barcode printed on a label associated with the item using the barcode scanner, and read the price for the item as printed on the label using the OCR reader. The consumer can then optionally input a quantity for the item using the key pad. Thereafter, the final price for the item will be stored within the device. When the consumer checks-out, he/she can compare the stored price for the item to a register-based price as determined by a (cash) register.

Price verification method, device and program product

A method, system, and computer program product for caching dynamically generated content (including, but not limited to, dynamically generated Web pages), as well as determining when the cached content should be invalidated or purged. Rather than caching the generated datastream (i.e. the end result of the computations used in the dynamic generation process) as in the prior art, the interim results of computations (such as a generated bean instance or object, where the interim results may be stored using properties and methods) are cached according to the present invention. The input properties used to generate the bean or object, along with the input property values, are used to distinguish among cached instances and thereby identify when a cached instance may be used to respond to a subsequent request for the same content. Re-execution of the business logic of the bean or object may then be avoided, using the cached bean's or object's output properties to generate the content response. Application-specific, developer-defined criteria may be used in the cache invalidation determination.

Growing community of inventors

Pittsboro, NC, United States of America

Ronald Eugene Craig