Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Workman Nydegger

Sean Olin Blagsvedt

Peyman Oreizy

Cornelis K Van Dok

Ahsan Syed Kabir

Mark T Schofield

Kevin R Moore

Jonathan David Perlow

Colin Ray Anthony

Joel K Grossman

Vivien Park

Christopher J Araman

Roman L Deeds

Kevin M Otnes

Eric J Horvitz

Carl Myers Kadie

Arvind Kumar

Cornelius K Van Dok

Melissa Wood Dunn

Sterling M Reasor

Angela K Butcher

Donna B Andrews

Marcus S H Harvey

Hilary K Palman

Mark R Ligameri

Kentaro Toyama

Marcin Sawicki

Christopher Hugh Pratley

Richard Malcolm Banks

Tjeerd Hoek

Ethan Joseph Bernstein

Hillel Noah Cooperman

Paul R Erickson

Jordan L K Schwartz

Ilan Berker

Chris M White

Raj B Merchant

Karel Blaha

Debra L Weissman

Mitika Gupta

Michael Anthony Rigler

Todd Blocksom

Gabe Hall

Joseph Benoit, Iii

Peyman Oriezy

Andrew F Boardman

Gilad Israeli

Michelle D McKelvey

Donna Ghosh

Cornelius K Van Dock

Anne Marie Renée Archambault

Methods, systems, and computer program products for tracking real-time communication data within a single contact tracking application for diverse communication providers and applications. A global data store is synchronized with real-time communication data, such as presence, status, unread messages, and unread notifications, from each application/provider. Real-time communication data for contacts dynamically determined to be recent contacts is retrieved from the data store, based on properties such as a most recent communication time, a communication count, and the like. Real-time communication data corresponding to contacts identified as pinned contacts for which display of real-time communication data is preferred, also may be retrieved. A user interface is generated for displaying the one or more recent and/or pinned contacts, which may vary in size based on the number of contacts identified as pinned contacts, from which a contact may be selected for real-time conversation or e-mail.

Contact sidebar tile

A system for optimizing the value of communications between communicating parties is provided. The system includes a communication group manager that facilitates specifying policies, preferences and/or automated analysis of ideal communication channels, routing and/or scheduling in terms of communicating party groups that can be pre-populated clusters of communicating parties, assembled based on relationships (e.g., organizational), and/or assembled based on satisfying inclusion criteria (e.g., age, location, competence, communication history, meeting history). The communication group manager maps communicating parties into predefined and/or dynamically created groups that facilitate specifying and/or automatically computing ideal communication actions like selecting a channel, displaying lists of potential channels sorted by communicating party preferences, and (re)scheduling communications to different channels and/or times. Ideal communication actions can be identified by maximizing a measure of expected communication utility, where groups provide simplifying abstractions to facilitate assessment of outcome utilities. The method can employ representations of preferences of the contactor and contactee that allow for group-specific preference considerations that weight differentially contactor and/or contactee preference considerations in communication action optimization. The system includes a group wise communication coordinator that identifies optimal group communication sets. The method facilitates a recipient communicating with a group member where the communication utility is optimized based on a preference, and a context associated with the group to which the member belongs.

Methods, tools, and interfaces for the dynamic assignment of people to groups to enable enhanced communication and collaboration

A system and method is provided for publication and discovery of the presence of nearby users on a network. When the system is enabled, the presence of the local user is published on the network. Nearby users that also have a similar system enabled can discover the local user's presence on the network. Furthermore, the local user may discovery the presence of the other nearby users that are currently publishing their presence on the network.

System and method for discovering and publishing of presence information on a network

A device for connecting a phone to a television so that content available via the phone can be rendered on the television is provided. The phone-to-television device includes a telephone interface for receiving content from and sending commands to the connected phone and includes a television interface for transmitting the received content for rendering on the connected television. The phone-to-television device includes a converter for converting content received from the phone into a television format and includes a transmission component for transmitting the formatted content for display on the television. As the user interacts with the phone, the user can view on the television the content that is provided by the phone.

Phone-to-monitor connection device

A computing system and a user interface display requested data corresponding with a contact at a display device. The requested data includes contact information, communication histories, and files associated with the contact. The requested data is obtained from one or more contact information directories located locally and/or remotely from the computing system. The user interface also displays contact-centric tasks that may be engaged in between the user and the contact based upon the capabilities of the corresponding computing systems or that can be performed on a contact. Some of the contact information can be edited with an edit mode of the user interface. The contact may be a person, group, organization, or household.

Contact page

A user interface is configured to identify and display each of the one or more service providers servicing the user's computing system. The interface also identifies the presence information that is being supplied to the service providers by the user's computing system for publication. The presence information that is provided to the service providers can include, but is not limited to, the name, alias, location, and network status of the user. A user can make global or discrete customized changes to the presence information that is provided to each of the service providers through the user interface. Modifications made to the presence information can also be made automatically to reflect a new condition or status in the user's presence on a network that is provided by a service provider.

Controlling publication of presence information

A system and method is provided for synchronizing a file system with presence information on a network. Presence information is discovered for nearby users on the network. Data corresponding to the nearby users, such as a display name and sharing address, are stored in the file system. The data is synchronized either in a folder corresponding to nearby users, or is synchronized in a general contacts folder that is enhanced by the presence information. As people move in and out of the network, the entries in the file system are updated.

System and method for synchronizing between a file system and presence of contacts on a network

Methods, systems, and apparatus are provided for viewing and managing collaboration data from within the context of a shared electronic document. A document editing pane is displayed for editing the shared document. In conjunction with the document editing pane, a collaboration pane is displayed for displaying the collaboration data. Through the collaboration pane, collaboration data such as the identities of one or more collaborators, task, documents, links and other information may be displayed. Actions may also be performed with respect to any aspect of the collaboration data through the collaboration pane.

Method and apparatus for viewing and managing collaboration data from within the context of a shared document

Methods and systems provide for aggregating person-centric data from one or more data sources and for providing the aggregated data to a user via a computer-displayed user interface that is keyed on or otherwise associated with an identified name in electronically presented text or data. A name in the text or data of an electronic document is identified and is associated with a unique identification, such as an electronic mail address. The unique identification is used by a persona menu application to obtain person-centric data from a variety of data sources. Example data sources include electronic mail contact files, electronic mail and calendaring system free/busy status files, directories of person-centric data related to persons associated with a distributed computing network, and instant messaging files. A data structure is populated with the returned data. Upon user selection, a user interface containing aggregated data associated with the identified name is displayed to the user to provide the user helpful information and actions associated with the identified name.

Persona menu

A system and method is provided for a user interface directed to publication and discovery of the presence of users on a network. A sidebar tile is provided that peripherally and unobtrusively displays the presence information of nearby users on the network. The sidebar tile is also used to notify a local user that their information is also being published on the network. The sidebar tile provides options for selecting to change, enable, or disable the presence discovery service.

System and method for a user interface directed to discovering and publishing presence information on a network

A messaging system is provided whereby a message indicative of an invitation to collaboratively execute an application can be sent from one of the computing object to an intermediary system whereby the message is multicast to the other ones of the plurality of computing objects. The invitation message can be accepted by the other computing objects to cause the first object to launch the corresponding application. The other computing objects also launch versions of the application and exchange addressing information with the first application so that a multiparty application execution can be established.

Systems and methods for multiparty session invite

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Seattle, WA, United States of America

Sean Olin Blagsvedt