Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Clearshift Corporation

Stephen Weyl

Jonathan J Hull

Peter E Hart

Geoffrey Nudd

Jamey Graham

Kurt W Piersol

Daniel J Elenbaas

Rajesh Krishnan

Berna Erol

Kevin Ridout

An online work management system provides a marketplace for multiple job owner and workers. The job owners provide a job description that defines task. The job description may be processed to generate task descriptions that may be published for workers' application. The task descriptions specify the qualification or restrictions for workers to have the task assigned. The online work management system also provides various functions supporting coordination and management of task assignment such as determining the trust level of the user's identity, search the tasks or workers, monitoring the progress of job, managing payment to workers, training and testing the workers, evaluating the review by the job owners, and generation of surveys.

Trust level based task assignment in an online work management system

Multilevel assignment of jobs and tasks in online work management system

Online work management system with job division support

A mixed media reality (MMR) system includes an MMR user, a MMR computer, a user printer that produces a printed document, a networked media server, an office portal, a service provider server, an electronic display that is electrically connected to a set-top box, a document scanner, a network, a capture device, a cellular infrastructure, wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) technology, Bluetooth&#xae; technology, infrared (IR) technology, wired technology, and a geo location mechanism. The MMR system provides mechanisms for forming a mixed media document that includes media of at least two types, such as printed paper as a first medium and a digital photograph, digital movie, digital audio file, or web link as a second medium. Furthermore, the MMR system facilitates business methods that take advantage of the combination of a portable electronic device, voice mail or email, and a paper document.

System and methods for use of voice mail and email in a mixed media environment

A Mixed Media Reality (MMR) system and associated techniques are disclosed. The MMR system provides mechanisms for forming a mixed media document that includes media of at least two types (e.g., printed paper as a first medium and digital content and/or web link as a second medium). In one embodiment, an MMR document is retrieved based on recognition of a paper document. Responsive to the comparison of the paper document and the virtual multimedia document, an action is performed. For example, the media of the matching MMR document can be displayed, or an action associated with the matching MMR document can be performed.

Integration and use of mixed media documents

A Mixed Media Reality (MMR) system associated techniques are disclosed. The MMR system provides mechanisms for forming a mixed media document that includes media of at least two types (e.g., printed paper as a first medium and digital content as a second medium. The MMR system of the present invention provides mechanisms for forming a mixed media document that includes media of at least two types, such as printed paper as a first medium and a digital photograph, digital movie, digital audio file, or web link as a second medium. The present invention also includes a number of novel methods including: a method for layout independent MMR recognition, a strip fragment candidate generation process, and a page candidate accumulation process.

Mixed media reality brokerage network with layout-independent recognition

A printing method and apparatus includes fingerprinting a sheet of printable media such as paper to obtain a fingerprint. The fingerprint is encrypted using an encryption key known only to the user wanting to print the document. The encrypted fingerprint is then encoded and transferred to the document as machine readable information.

Techniques for printing with integrated paper sheet identification

A Mixed Media Reality (MMR) system associated techniques are disclosed. In one particular embodiment, the MMR system includes a MMR brokerage network having a customer, an MMR broker, an MMR service bureau and an MMR clearinghouse. The MMR brokerage network allows these entities to interact to provide a unified point of business access for the customer who wants to add MMR functionality to a document. Furthermore, the MMR system of the present invention facilitates business methods that take advantage of the combination of a portable electronic device, such as a cellular camera phone, and a paper document. The present invention also includes a number of novel methods including: a method for operation of a MMR brokerage network, a method for layout independent MMR recognition, a strip fragment candidate generation process, and a page candidate accumulation process.

Mixed media reality brokerage network and methods of use

A Mixed Media Reality (MMR) system and associated techniques are disclosed. The MMR system provides mechanisms for forming a mixed media document that includes media of at least two types (e.g., printed paper as a first medium and digital content and/or web link as a second medium). In one particular embodiment, the mixed media document may also include hotspot images that uniquely identify a user associated with the mixed media document. Such individualized mixed media documents are used to identify users of the mixed media document, when orders for products or services are made using the mixed media documents through the MMR system.

Growing community of inventors

Los Altos Hills, CA, United States of America

Stephen Weyl