Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Steve Seixeiro

Jerry K Koh

Anshul Rawat

Lindsey R Noll

Daniel Oliver

Michael D McCormack

Michael G Sheldon

Ramkumar Ramasubramanian

Giles Edward Van Der Bogert

Sunil P Gottumukkala

Andrew V Davidson

Brian L McNeil

Jeffrey J Johnson

Gurpreet Virdi

Levi Siebens

Sean Gilmour

Zachary Pace

Ralf Groene

Anthony Reed

Panos Costa Panay

Sharon Drasnin

Relja Ivanovic

Martyn S Lovell

Jeff Johnson

Kenneth Martin Tubbs

Tracy Dianne Schultz

Lijuan Qin

Robert Michael Howard

Michael Burt Goulding

Robert John Anderson

Derek Edward Hoiem

Lyon Wong

J Adrian Lannin

John E Inman

Richa Prasad

Ram Ramasubramanian

Shawn E Maloney

Reza Ferrydiansyah

Frank Olivier

Lucas Scotta

David Jeremy Guy Wood

Ken Tubbs

Gurjot S Brar

Brian Mcneil

A digital assistant supported on a local device and/or a remote digital assistant service is disclosed herein. The device may interact with a user and perform various functions or tasks based on the user's input (e.g., web search, set calendar appointments, capture images or video). The digital assistant may identify and store artifacts associated with each action or function. Artifacts may include, for example, people in an image, search results from a web search, participants in a meeting, etc. Subsequently, the user may query the digital assistant for information about one of the artifacts, such as who the participants were in a meeting conducted the prior Thursday. The digital assistant can sift through the various artifacts and provide the user with the relevant information. Additionally, the digital assistant can suggest actions for the user based on the retrieved artifacts, such as to message one of the identified participants.

Task creation and completion with bi-directional user interactions

A digital assistant supported on computing devices such as smartphones, tablet computers, personal computers (PCs), wearable devices, game consoles, smart home devices and the like is configured with a notification system that interfaces with applications and/or other systems and resources so that the digital assistant may collect notifications across a range of a user's devices. The digital assistant may utilize a natural language interface (which may cooperate with touch and gesture interfaces) and applies awareness of context and user's behaviors to intelligently present the collected notifications on a single device for the user as a native digital assistant user experience. The digital assistant can sort notifications, group notifications together, and interact with the user to answer questions, provide information and status, and enable the user to action on a notification from the collection.

Interaction with notifications across devices with a digital assistant

A method, system, and medium are provided for sharing items residing on a computing device. Items selected for sharing can be made simultaneously available to users on a local network and to users outside of the local network. A remote sharing service allows access to copies of items based on user identifiers associated. Local attributes associated with items are modified such that the user identifiers are associated with the items for providing access via a local network.

Extending sharing options of local computing resources

User experience adaptation techniques are described. In one or more implementations, an apparatus includes a connection portion configured to be removably physically and communicatively with a computing device, a housing physically connected to the connection portion and providing an outer surface having one or more characteristics that are viewable by a user, and memory disposed within the housing and configured to communicate data to the computing device via the connection portion, the data usable by the computing device to dynamically adapt a user interface displayable by a display device of the computing device to mimic the one or more physical characteristics of the housing.

User experience adaptation

Method and computer storage media for sharing resources between a plurality of computing devices associated with a common non-enterprise network. A common set of credentials is stored on at least two or more of a plurality of computing devices that reside behind a routing device and are associated through a common non-enterprise network. Upon storing the common set of credentials, each of the two or more of a plurality of computing devices create a local account that contains, at least, the common set of credentials. The common set of credentials allow for the sharing, among the two or more of the plurality of computing devices, of resource that reside on or are associated with the computing devices.

Associating computing devices with common credentials

In one embodiment, a picture signature password system may use a picture signature password to determine access to a computing device or service. A display screenmay display a personalized digital image. A user input devicemay receive a user drawing set executed by a user over the personalized digital image. A processormay authenticate access to the user session if the user drawing set matches a library drawing set associated with the user.

Picture gesture authentication

In accordance with the automatic peripheral device sharing, a peripheral device that has been newly installed on a device is detected and is shared with one or more additional devices coupled to the device. A notification of the peripheral device is automatically published to the one or more additional devices. This notification includes an indication of how the one or more additional devices can access the peripheral device. Each of the one or more additional devices can receive this notification and determine whether the peripheral device can be automatically installed on that device without user input. For each of the one or more additional devices, the peripheral device is installed on that device only if the peripheral device can be automatically installed on that device without user input.

Automatic peripheral device sharing

Computer-readable media, computerized methods, and computer systems for acting on properties of multiple resources, which span disparate locations within a network, upon detecting an intuitive user-initiated operation are provided. Initially, a library is provided that includes a framework for contemporaneously accessing a collection of items within a scope thereof. Upon launching the library, representations of the scoped items are surfaced at a UI display. When the user-initiated operation is applied at one of the surfaced representations, properties of each of the scoped items are automatically manipulated. A library-configuration state, which reflects how the items are affected upon manipulating the properties thereof, may be updated upon implementing the manipulation. Accordingly, if the scope of the library is subsequently extended to encompass another item outside the original collection of items, the properties of this new item are automatically manipulated to align with the library-configuration state.

Contemporaneously sharing resources targeted by a library

Embodiments of the present invention relate to systems and methods for configuring computing devices to join a peer group. A peer group may be created on a subnetwork by a computing device. When a new computing device enters the subnetwork, it may join the peer group and be given access to the shared resources on the peer group and associated computing devices, using a communications layer and an authorization layer. Allowing a new computing device to join a peer group includes inviting the new device to join and then challenging the device for a passkey of the peer group. After joining the peer group, the computing device will be able to access and share resources with the peer group and other computing devices associated with the peer group.

Configuration of a peer group

A unified user interface includes one or more component tables and a master table. The one or more component tables include resource information for the user interface with respect to a particular component. The master table includes resource information for the application and is merged from the one or more component tables. The component tables may be added or subtracted at any time and the master table is recreated by again merging the remaining or now existing component tables. The master table is used by a host application to build the user interface for a suite application. Components are only loaded and corresponding user interfaces built when appropriate commands are accessed. Thus, applications may be developed and components can be added or modified at a later time without rewriting the shell application or re-releasing a product.

Method and apparatus for a unified user interface

Growing community of inventors

Snohomish, WA, United States of America

Steve Seixeiro