Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Steven William Macbeth

Desney S Tan

George G Robertson

Oscar E Murillo

Brian R Meyers

Roland Lucas Fernandez

Nuria M Oliver

Zhaowei Charlie Jiang

Mary P Czerwinski

Richard Junqiang Qian

Jacob Andrew Sabulsky

Syed Muhammad Mujahid Hasan

Elin R Pedersen

Gur Kimchi

Marc Eliot Davis

Lili Cheng

Matthew Graham Dyor

Li Jiang

Amit Kumar

Brian W MacDonald

Daniel Marantz

Shajib Sadhukha

Rodney Coleman Edwards

Michael William O'Connor

Michael Van Snellenberg

Steven Tullis

Sanaz Ahari

Christina Marie Koehn

Danny B Lange

Paul Ronald Ray

Mira Lane

Cynthia Dahl Wessling

Jeanine E Spence

Keith Alan Regier

Darwin Kengo Yamamoto

Zhaowei (Charlie) Jiang

Alec John Berntson

Laura Kern

Steve Ballon

A bidirectional mapping is established between network content and application programs, based on declarations at both the network content and at the application. Additionally, bidirectional mapping can provide for deep links, which can associate specific network content with a specific presentation of data in an application program. The identification format for such deep links can conform to a predetermined standard or it can be custom implemented according to a format declared either as part of the network content or the application program. The bidirectional mapping is then utilized by a lookup service to provide functionality to a third-party entity. The lookup service can identify, to the entity, application programs associated with network content specified by that entity and network content associated with application programs specified by that entity.

Bidirectional mapping between applications and network content

Techniques for content customization with security for client preferences are described herein. The techniques describe the customization of content provided by websites according to preferences, such as the interests, 'likes' and demographic and/or geographic information of users. Additional techniques describe aspects of keeping the users' preferences secure from the website, so that the users' privacy and anonymity are protected. In one implementation, a 'trusted entity' is trusted by users to obtain and store the preferences. Content may be obtained by the trusted entity from a content provider, such as a website. The content may be changed according to the preferences. The content is then provided to the users. In view of the changes made by the trusted entity, the user enjoys a customized version of the content. Additional techniques describe limits to customization, based on permissible customizations and frameworks generated by the content providers.

Content customization with security for client preferences

Among other things, one or more techniques and/or systems are provided for facilitating the completion of a user task. That is, user intent (e.g., intentions of a user to perform a user task) may be identified. The user intent may comprise an entity (e.g., a movie entity) and/or an action (e.g., an order movie tickets action) that the user wants to perform on the entity. A provider list may be created based upon one or more providers capable of performing the action on the entity (e.g., a movie application may be capable of performing the order movie tickets action on the movie entity). Providers may be dynamically selected for inclusion within the provider list at run-time. For example, an open market of providers may be maintained (e.g., providers may be added, removed, and/or updated over time), such that providers may be selected from the open market to complete user tasks.

User task completion via open market of actions and/or providers

An application feature store may be integrated with an application. The feature store may be accessed by a user through a feature storefront hosted within the application. The user may search the feature store for additional desired features available for the augmentation of the productivity application.

Integrated application feature store

Systems, methods, and computer media for enhancing search results, as well as user interfaces for performing search queries and navigating search results, are provided. A search query is received from a user. A plurality of web pages relevant to the search query are identified. At least one of the relevant web pages is identified as popular. A search result page is generated including a search result listing and a search result page header. The search result page header includes a link to the popular web page to provide the user with a quick and easy way to select a popular web page relevant to the user's search query.

Navigation to popular search results

Computer-storage media, methods, and systems for formatting and surfacing a badge are provided. The badge represents a graphical region presented in visual association with a search result on a web-results page. The format of the badge is initially dictated by a template that is automatically generated. Upon collecting performance information, a website owner is granted permission to alter the template and appearance of the badge, via a publisher portal. During interaction with the publisher portal, the website owner is prompted to provide feedback in order to manage parameters of the badge, such as uploading a visual representation of a logo, trademark, or other branded element, or specifying a type of metadata to be imported to the graphical region. Accordingly, the badge operates to improve a users' ability to distinguish between search results on the web-results page and assists users in confidently deciding upon and selecting a relevant search result.

Aiding search-result selection using visually branded elements

One or more computing devices may be configured to determine an association between at least a first user and a second user based at least on search behavior of the first user and/or the second user. Responsive to the determining, the one or more computing devices may enable a communication forum between the first user and the second user.

Search behavior based communication forums

A system that can enable the atomization of application functionality in connection with an activity-centric system is provided. The system can be utilized as a programmatic tool that decomposes an application's constituent functionality into atoms thereafter monitoring and aggregating atoms with respect to a particular activity. In doing so, the functionality of the system can be scaled based upon complexity and needs of the activity. Additionally, the system can be employed to monetize the atoms or activity capabilities based upon respective use.

Activity-centric granular application functionality

A unique monitoring system and method is provided that involves monitoring user activity in order to facilitate managing and optimizing the utilization of various system resources. In particular, the system can monitor user activity, detect when users need assistance with their specific activities, and identify at least one other user that can assist them. Assistance can be in the form of answering questions, providing guidance to the user as the user completes the activity, or completing the activity such as in the case of taking on an assigned activity. In addition, the system can aggregate activity data across users and/or devices. As a result, problems with activity templates or activities themselves can be more readily identified, user performance can be readily compared, and users can communicate and exchange information regarding similar activity experiences. Furthermore, synchronicity and time-sensitive scheduling of activities between users can be facilitated and improved overall.

Monitoring group activities

A system that can automatically narrow the search space or recognition scope within an activity-centric environment based upon a current activity or set of activities is provided. In addition, the activity and context data can also be used to rank the results of the recognition or search activity. In accordance with the domain scoping, natural language processing (NLP) as well as other types of conversion and recognition systems can dynamically adjust to the scope of the activity or group of activities thereby increasing the recognition systems accuracy and usefulness. In operation, a user context, activity context, environment context and/or device profile can be employed to effectuate the scoping. As well, the system can combine context with extrinsic data, including but not limited to, calendar, profile, historical activity data, etc. in order to define the parameters for an appropriate scoping.

Activity-centric domain scoping

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Steven William Macbeth