Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Sam J George

Shiraz M Somji

Koji Kato

Michael R Harsh

Gilles Khouzam

Donald D Karlov

Andrew L Silverman

Wenbo Zhang

Federico Schliemann

Vladimir V Smirnov

Rudolph Balaz

Akhilesh Kaza

Brigette Krantz

Benjamin M Westbrook

Vishal Sood

Alex Mogilevsky

Jack E Freelander

Quan Binh To

Brian Ewanchuk

Mark Douglas Harper

Stefan Wick

Lawrence Wayne Olson

Mike Harsh

Alexander J Kolmykov-Zotov

Michael John Hillberg

Todd A Torset

Gurpratap Virdi

Eldar Azerovich Musayev

Sudheer Sirivara

Shawn A Van Ness

Akshay Johar

John Gossman

Shane C Guillet

Anirban Roy

Steven P Dodge

Ashraf A Michail

Jeffrey Jon Weir

Colin Ray Anthony

Xiao Tu

Manoj Kumar Biswas

Greg D Schechter

Gavin M Gear

Serge Smirnov

Joseph Stork Smith

Mark A Alcazar

Kevin T Gallo

Timothy H Kannapel

Daniel W Crevier

John A Bocharov

Todd M Landstad

Lin Liu

Stephen Alan Fisher

Raymond Cheng

Krishna Prakash Duggaraju

Geqiang (Sam) Zhang

Jesse Bishop

Weibing Zhan

Thomas D Taylor

Joseph P Stegman

Quan Binb To

Jeffrey M Wilcox

Richard L Spencer

Greg D Schechler

Serge Smimov

Wayne Zeng

Kevin Welton

Richmond Lough

Chandramouli Kompella

Hongan Wang

Michael Russell

Vladimir Smimov

A system for video playback switching in response to changing network conditions. The system includes streaming, from a distribution device such as a server, respective index files for a low bit rate version and a high bit rate version of the video file, to remotely executing instantiations of a low bit rate media player and a high bit rate media. Playback of the video file is begun by the high bit rate media player receiving and playing the high bit rate version from the server. Upon an indication of impeded network conditions, a transition point is selected, wherein the transition point indicates where downloading of the high bit rate version stops and where downloading of the low bit rate version begins. The low bit rate media player is then positioned to begin playback at the transition point. The stream of the video file is then switched to the low bit rate player upon encountering the transition point.

System for adaptive video switching for variable network conditions

Described is a technology in which one application running in a browser can host another application (e.g., an advertisement) in an isolated manner that prevents the hosted application from accessing browser data, or data of any other hosted application (including the host). The host and/or hosted application may be a browser plug-in (e.g., Microsoft&#xae; Silverlight&#x2122;) application. The host application privately instantiates a hidden plug-in, with that hidden plug-in's access to browser data disabled, and loads the hosted application in the hidden plug-in. A XAML tag element may be used to identify the hosted application, along with a rendering area for the hosted application. Content from the hosted application is composited with content from the host application when rendering. The host application may provide keywords to the hosted application, such as for selecting relevant advertisements, and/or may allow the hosted application to open a browser window to display associated website content.

Isolating applications hosted by plug-in code

Described is a technology by which code, such as an untrusted web application hosted in a browser, provides content through an interface for playback by an application environment, such as an application environment running in a browser plug-in. Content may be in the form of elementary video, audio and/or script streams. The content is in a container that is unpackaged by the application code, whereby the content may be packaged in any format that the application understands, and/or or come from any source from which the application can download the container. An application environment component such as a platform-level media element receives information from an application that informs the application environment that the application is to provide media stream data for playback. The application environment requests media stream data (e.g., samples) from the application, receives them as processed by the application, and provides the requested media stream data for playback.

Media streams from containers processed by hosted code

A coordinated adaptive streaming system provides a level of intelligence between adaptive streaming heuristics applied to multiple multi-bitrate streams playing on a client computer at the same time. The system receives a media event that includes multiple multi-bitrate streams and plays two or more of the streams. Each stream registers with the coordinated adaptive streaming system so that the system is aware of each of the streams. The system receives a priority indication from each stream that indicates the priority of the stream relative to other streams associated with the media event. The system uses the received priority indications to make adaptive streaming decisions. Thus, the coordinated adaptive streaming system provides playback that more closely aligns with a user's priorities and provides a higher quality experience to a user viewing multiple concurrent media streams.

Managing multiple dynamic media streams

A method for video playback switching in response to changing network conditions. The method includes accessing a server to retrieve respective index files for a low bit rate version and a high bit rate version of the video file, and instantiating a low bit rate media player and a high bit rate media. Playback of the video file is begun by the high bit rate media player streaming the high bit rate version from the server. Upon an indication of impeded network conditions, a transition point is selected, wherein the transition point indicates where downloading of the high bit rate version stops and where downloading of the low bit rate version begins. The low bit rate media player is then positioned to begin playback at the transition point. Playback of the video file is then switched to the low bit rate player upon encountering the transition point.

Adaptive video switching for variable network conditions

A media interaction system is described herein that allows hosted applications to consume and/or produce rich media content independent of the format of the media content, while still maintaining the security of the host. The media interaction system accepts raw, uncompressed media data from a hosted application, and allows the hosted application to provide its own codec through a sandboxed API that restricts the actions the codec can perform to a set of trusted actions. Then, the application provides the uncompressed data to the system for playback. Thus, the media interaction system provides rich media content in any format that the application developer supports, and maintains the security of the user's computer system.

Hosted application platform with extensible media format

A multi-touch plug-in system is described herein that exposes multi-touch data for web application developers to consume in a platform independent way. The multi-touch plug-in system receives platform-specific touch data from an operating system or touch hardware, interprets the platform-specific touch data to convert the platform-specific touch data to generic touch data, and provides the generic touch data to a hosted application running within a plug-in sandbox. Often, sandboxed environments only allow identified, trusted plug-ins to execute. By managing multi-touch data within a trusted plug-in, the plug-in can ensure that hosted applications are properly restricted to well-defined behavior, while still allowing rich features such as multi-touch interaction. Thus, the multi-touch plug-in system brings rich multi-touch interaction to a web browsing environment.

Touch input for hosted applications

Extensions or additional software programs that are requested by a computer application running on an application platform are handled in an efficient manner by, among other things, regulating and tracking extensions that are downloaded. This allows the size of the application platform upon which the application is running to remain relatively small so as to mitigate strain on resources when the platform is initially deployed over a network (e.g., the Internet), thus making it easier and more likely for a user to install the application platform (and/or updates thereto). Requested extensions are subsequently added to and/or removed from the (already deployed) application platform based on, among other things, download metrics.

Application loading

A streaming abstraction system is described herein that provides application developers a client software development kit (SDK) on top of which to build smooth streaming solutions. The system reduces development time considerably and abstracts platform specific intricacies and protocol handling on the client. In addition, the streaming abstraction system makes it possible to monetize streaming content with advanced features like advertising and analytics and provides advanced capabilities like multiple camera angles, diagnostics, and error handling. In some embodiments, the streaming abstraction system provides an intermediate layer that operates between an application and an underlying client media platform. The intermediate layer manages smooth streaming protocol handling as well as interactions with the platform-specific runtime.

Smooth streaming client component

In a computing environment, one may wish to have interoperability between trusted and untrusted controls/plug-ins allowing for richer expression of content and control within a platform. This can be accomplished by allowing an untrusted plug-in to communicate with a trusted plug-in, while having the trusted plug-in exercise control over the platform. This allows for the creation of a layered secure approach of communication with a platform, thus allowing for increased application richness in untrusted third party applications.

Untrusted component hosting

Techniques are described for performing automatic generation of one or more tags associated with an image file. One or more ink annotations for a displayed image are received. Handwriting recognition processing of the one or more ink annotations is performed. A string is generated and the string includes one or more recognized words used to form the one or more tags associated with the image file. The handwriting recognition processing and generating the string are performed in response to receiving the ink annotations.

Interactive image tagging

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Duvall, WA, United States of America

Sam J George