Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Thomas F Bergstraesser

Henricus Johannes Maria Meijer

Alexander G Gounares

Lili Cheng

Michael J Connolly

Debi P Mishra

Raymond Edward Ozzie

Christopher Wellington Brumme

Matthew Bret MacLaurin

Daniel S Glasser

Melora Zaner-Godsey

Ira L Snyder, Jr

William Henry Gates, Iii

Gary William Flake

Arnold Neil Blinn

James R Larus

Amit Mital

Chandramohan Amyangot Thekkath

Nishant Dani

Dane Alexander Glasgow

Philip Alan Bernstein

David Robert Shutt

Shankar Pal

David Rogers Treadwell, Iii

Galen Clyde Hunt

William J Bolosky

Kartik Nadipuram Raghavan

Kong-Kat Wong

Robert David Berg

Shailesh Prakash

Mackenzie Steele

Bert Casper

Chong I Ka

Helen Jean Cuncannan

Michael P Gordon

Systems and methods that provide for a virtual reality entertainment system that supplies immersive entertainment and creates a sensation for a user similar to having guests in a remote location to be physically present as virtual guests. Such virtual reality entertainment system can supply a graphic and/or audio; wherein interconnected computers, video and audio processing devices, supply a live interaction between a user and a guest(s). Although guests are only present virtually (e.g., electronically present with other objects/user within the environment) such virtual invitation enables a user and guests to concurrently experience the entertainment together (e.g., a live sporting event, spectator game). In a related aspect, the subject innovation can implement holographic avatars, and a plurality of communication interfaces, to imitate (and/or transform) a relationship between the user and the virtual guests/surrounding environment.

Transformations for virtual guest representation

A system that enables a cloud-based data repository to function as a secure 'drop-box' for data that corresponds to a user is provided. The 'drop box' can be facilitated through the use of cryptographic keying technologies. For instance, data that is &#x2018;dropped&#x2019; by or on behalf of a particular user can be encrypted using a public key that corresponds to a user-specific private key. Thus, although the data resides within the large pool of &#x2018;cloud-based&#x2019; data, it is protected since it can only be decrypted by using the private key, which is kept secret. The innovation can further facilitate user-centric secure storage by partitioning the cloud-based repository into multiple partitions, each of which corresponds to specific indexing criteria.

Data security in an off-premise environment

Off-premise encryption of data storage

A query may be ambiguous when the domain-confidence factors indicate a high likelihood that the search query may belong to two or more domains. A domain is a subject matter category such as shopping, sports, entertainment, music, or politics. A domain-confidence factor indicates the likelihood that a search query is related to a particular domain. Upon determining that a search query is ambiguous, embodiments of the present invention may present an interface that allows the user to place the search query into one or more domains. Updated search results, or other objects, may be returned based on the selection of a domain by the user.

Disambiguating a search query based on a difference between composite domain-confidence factors

A user-centric or identity-centric resource licensing system that manages access to 'cloud-based' resources (e.g., applications and services) is provided. A 'cloud' refers to a collection of resources (e.g., hardware and/or software) provided and maintained by an off-site or off-premise party (e.g., third party), wherein the collection of resources can be accessed by an identified user via a network. In accordance with the user-centric licensing model, the resource license (and subscription) rights can migrate with a user without regard to physical location, device used, or other contextual factors (e.g., activity engaged). Effectively, the rights are mapped (and tracked) as a function of a user identity, which can be a core identity or an identity based upon activity engaged, role, capacity, etc.

Remote management of resource license

Remote provisioning of an IT network and/or associated services is provided. Hardware, software, service and/or expertise can be moved from on-premise to a remote location (e.g., central, distributed . . . ). Accordingly, at least a large degree computation can be moved to the center to exploit economies of scale, among other things. In such an architecture, computational resources (e.g., data storage, computation power, cache . . . ) can be pooled, and entities can subscribe to a particular level of resources related to a private entity IT network.

Remote provisioning of information technology

Virtual entertainment

Personal data mining mechanisms and methods are employed to identify relevant information that otherwise would likely remain undiscovered. Users supply personal data that can be analyzed in conjunction with data associated with a plurality of other users to provide useful information that can improve business operations and/or quality of life. Personal data can be mined alone or in conjunction with third party data to identify correlations amongst the data and associated users. Applications or services can interact with such data and present it to users in a myriad of manners, for instance as notifications of opportunities.

Personal data mining

The innovation enables generation of an index of cloud-based resources (e.g., data, services, applications). The index can be used to retrieve a subset of the cloud-based resources by analyzing a user-generated or standing query. 'Identity' and contextual factors can be incorporated to enable rich indexing as well as subsequent retrieval of meaningful resources. The cloud-based resources can be indexed and/or searched in accordance with diverse criteria including, but not limited to, type, size, data created, date modified, author core identity, object size, etc. As well, the innovation can provide for dynamically indexing and/or searching resources in accordance with current contextual factors including, but not limited to, author current acting capacity (e.g., current identity), current engaged activity of a user, location, time, date, etc. All of these criteria can facilitate indexing and categorizing of the resources for later retrieval and rendering via a rich index view.

Location management of off-premise resources

A computing paradigm where information can be aggregated from multiple services/programs within a 'cloud-based' environment is provided. Thus, the system can provide a uniform interface that can combine computational tasks across the multiple services/programs. Thus, the innovation takes advantage of the computing device being a 'thin client' which affords greater user comfort to a user without sacrificing data processing capabilities. Accordingly, the mechanisms are disclosed that standardize and/or normalize data across the resources within the cloud.

Resource standardization in an off-premise environment

Systems and methods that analyze aggregated tagging behavior of users, and evaluate such tagging trends to identify criteria for taxonomy applications. Initially, existence of a possible trend of tagging data based on collective user behavior is determined. Subsequently, tagging trends can be examined to identify that a predetermined convergence criteria has in fact been met, and/or establish such criteria for taxonomy applications. Machine learning systems (implicitly as well as explicitly trained) can be supplied to facilitate determining the trends and the convergence criteria.

Machine learning system for analyzing and establishing tagging trends based on convergence criteria

Maintaining versions and workspaces in an object repository is disclosed. The system provides an efficient way to manage versions of objects by only copying objects when absolutely necessary, i.e. when a property value in a particular object has changed. In addition, the system provides a mechanism to control whether or not relationships are propagated to successor versions of an object. A further aspect of the system is that resolution of objects during a relationship traversal can be customized depending on whether or not an application accessing the objects is version-aware. If the application is not version aware, a means for resolving the relationship to a particular object is provided. A still further aspect of the system is that merge behavior is parameterized. When two versions of an object are merged, flags control how conflicts in property values and relationship contents are managed. Finally, the system provides a workspace that acts as a virtual repository session and provides workspace context and scope to repository objects.

Versions and workspaces in an object repository

A vertical search engine may rank items based on both the quality of data associated with each item and the popularity of each item. The vertical search engine may access data associated with items from a variety of different sources, including feed sources and crawl sources. Data quality inputs are determined for each item based on the quality of the data associated with each respective item. In addition, popularity inputs are determined for each item based on user interest in each respective item. A global rankings score is then calculated for each item based on the data quality inputs and popularity inputs for each respective item. The global ranking score may be used to order search results for search queries in such a way that items from feed data and items from crawl data may be displayed in a unified manner, rather than being segregated by data source.

Consumer-focused results ordering

An intelligent personalized agent monitors, regulates, and advises a user in decision-making processes for efficiency or safety concerns. The agent monitors an environment and present characteristics of a user and analyzes such information in view of stored preferences specific to one of multiple profiles of the user. Based on the analysis, the agent can suggest or automatically implement a solution to a given issue or problem. In addition, the agent can identify another potential issue that requires attention and suggests or implements action accordingly. Furthermore, the agent can communicate with other users or devices by providing and acquiring information to assist in future decisions. All aspects of environment observation, decision assistance, and external communication can be flexibly limited or allowed as desired by the user.

Dynamic environment evaluation and service adjustment based on multiple user profiles including data classification and information sharing with authorized other users

Systems and methods that recognize items based on aggregated tagging behavior of users regarding the items. Individual users can establish relationships among tagged items and the system analyzes aggregate of such established relationships, to recognize the item and/or infer additional information regarding the items (e.g., wisdom of crowd such as metadata annotations, relevance ranking, and the like). Subsequently, search engine crawlers can be supplied with such additional information (e.g., extra metadata for reverse link search tables) to facilitate enterprise management and search.

Machine learning system and method comprising segregator convergence and recognition components to determine the existence of possible tagging data trends and identify that predetermined convergence criteria have been met or establish criteria for taxonomy purpose then recognize items based on an aggregate of user tagging behavior

Growing community of inventors

Kirkland, WA, United States of America

Thomas F Bergstraesser