Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Benefitfocus.com, Inc.

Theodore C Tanner, Jr

Steven E Swenson

Martin G Puryear

Thomas A Abrams

Glenn Frederick Evans

Jason Michael Anderson

Joseph Cox Ballantyne

Jeffrey S Hoekman

Amit Jain

Matthew Aldridge

Gregory Jorstad

Described herein is a technology facilitating circumvention of dynamic and robust detection of one or more embedded-signals (e.g., watermark, copyright notice, encoded data, etc.) in one or more input carrier signals (e.g., multimedia stream, video stream, audio stream, data, radio, etc.).

Circumvention of dynamic, robust, embedded-signal detection

Semantic information may be secured by an agent using one or more semantic security labels (e.g., security predicates). The agent may be configured to allow other agents to access the semantic information according to a set of semantically expressed policies, strategies, and/or rules. A request to receive information may be mapped to a negotiation policy of the agent. The agent may evaluate the request against a semantic information sharing policy. If the information is accessible under the information sharing policy, the information may be provided. If not, the agent may negotiate information sharing terms using the negotiation ontology, strategy, and rules. Similarly, the agent may request information from other entities. Terms of the information requests may be negotiated using the negotiation ontology, strategy, and rules.

Systems and methods for secure agent information

Described herein is a technology facilitating circumvention of dynamic and robust detection of one or more embedded-signals (e.g., watermark, copyright notice, encoded data, etc.) in one or more input carrier signals (e.g., multimedia stream, video stream, audio stream, data, radio, etc.). This abstract itself is not intended to limit the scope of this patent. The scope of the present invention is pointed out in the appending claims.

An agent-based system may be automatically generated from a specification provided by a user or third-party process. An agent generator may map the specification to a canonical model identifying one or more tasks to be performed by the agent-based system as ontological concepts. The agent generator may generate one or more candidate agents using the canonical model. The candidate agents may comprise one or more interconnected data transforms, which may comprise data access transforms, preprocessing transforms, machine learning transforms, and/or structural transforms. The agent generator iteratively modifies the agent-based system until a termination criteria is satisfied. The termination criteria may provide a selection mechanism whereby a performance of the plurality of candidate agents may be evaluated. An optimal agent may be selected using, inter alia, the performance of the agent-based system.

Systems and methods for automatic creation of agent-based systems

The present disclosure relates to parsing encrypted content and sending the encrypted content to appropriate stacks of components. Encrypted video content is sent to a video stack and encrypted audio content is sent to an audio stack. Components in either stack may or may not be able to decrypt the encrypted content. A common interface is provided to the components to pass encrypted content and encryption content with one another. Components not able to perform decryption pass on the encrypted content to succeeding components in the stack until a component capable of decrypting the encrypted content receives the encrypted content. Control from a hardware lawyer in a stack may be sent back through the stack using a secure link established by the common interfaces used by the components.

Modular architecture to unify the playback of DVD technologies

Systems and methods for improving the signal to noise ratio for audio input in a computing system are provided. Signal to noise ratio improvements are enabled for an input audio signal by incorporating a plurality of microphones into the PC environment, for example, to improve the processing of voice or speech input or other audio capture applications. In various embodiments, a plurality of microphones are spaced apart, e.g., attached to or within a PC housing, in such a way that noise from PC components can be 'subtracted' or reduced from an input audio signal, which increases the signal to noise ratio and improves audio processing accuracy. The 'subtraction' or reduction techniques applied by the present invention are unique to the PC environment wherein different noises having particular characteristics can be identified, including, but not limited to, rattle of device components, fan noise and disk noise.

Systems and methods for improving the signal to noise ratio for audio input in a computing system

Methods, microphones, and systems are provided for processing sound waves. The sound waves are detected with a portable device (such as a microphone) and an audio signal representing the sound waves is generated. A security layer is applied to the audio signal within the portable device (e.g., by encrypting the audio signal), so that only authorized entities may access the audio signal. The audio signal is then outputted from the portable device to an external computer, which can remove the security layer to access the audio content within the audio signal.

Microphone with ultrasound/audible mixing chamber to secure audio path

Methods, microphones, and processors are provided for processing ambient sound waves. Ultrasound waves are combined with the sound waves to create heterodyned sound waves. The heterodyned sound waves are detected and, in response, a sound detection signal containing information relating to the heterodyned sound waves is generated. A heterodyned audio signal representing the heterodyned sound waves is generated at least partially based on the sound detection signal, and then an ambient sound signal representing the ambient sounds is derived from the heterodyned audio signal.

Described herein is a technology for dynamic and robust detection of one or more embedded-signals (e.g., watermark, copyright notice, encoded data, etc.) in an input signal (e.g., multimedia stream, video stream, audio stream, data, radio, etc.) within a multi-signal environment. This abstract itself is not intended to limit the scope of this patent. The scope of the present invention is pointed out in the appending claims.

Centralized detector of dynamic, robust, embedded-signals

A sample rate converter (SRC) is used to slave hardware devices to a master hardware device. A clock manager registers the time at each clock of each device, communicates with memory that stores the clock times, and reports correlations between each clock time and the time at a reference clock. The processing of a data stream can be slaved to one or more hardware devices. The processing of a wake up period can be slaved to the clock of the master hardware device by adjusting the wakeup period. Slaving of hardware devices to the master hardware device can also be accomplished by finding a correlation between the clock times in memory and the reference clock. Each correlation can be input into an SRC corresponding to each slave hardware device. Each SRC can then generate or consume a data stream at the actual rate of the corresponding slave hardware device.

Synchronization with hardware utilizing software clock slaving via a clock

A system and methods for automated DSP processing of media entities to create a persistent data store having DSP processed media entities is provided. In connection with a system that convergently merges perceptual and digital signal processing analysis of media entities for purposes of classifying the media entities, various means are provided to automatically DSP process media entities data for storage in persistent data store. Techniques for incorporating DSP processed media entity data into a music matching and analysis system are also included. In an illustrative implementation, the DSP processed media entity data may be generated and stored for leveraging to participating users.

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Hollywood, SC, United States of America

Theodore C Tanner, Jr