Abstract: The described techniques relate to leveraging social capital associated with a user's profile on a website. In some implementations, a framework can be provided that includes a protected space associated with the user's profile on a social networking website. The protected space can be configured to allow verified indicia of the social capital to be posted thereon.

Abstract: Consumer stores typically sell products at a retail profit, which covers the cost of pre-sale, consumer-influencing services regarding the products (e.g., discussions with sales associates, product demonstrations, and consumer inspections of the products.) However, consumers may utilize these services but may purchase selected products from other retailers that do not provide pre-sale services, and that may accordingly offer lower prices. This tactic may cause lost sales for consumer stores, and eventually store failures. Instead, the consumer store may charge the supplier an influence fee for consumer-influencing services based on a per-service price established between the supplier and the consumer store and consumer influence metrics tracked by a computer.

Abstract: A set top box that is placed in communication with a television is described herein and includes a receiver component that receives viewer-generated data from a portable electronic device, wherein the viewer-generated data is provided by a viewer responsive to display of interactive television content viewed by the viewer on the television. The set top box also includes a transmission component that transmits the viewer-generated data to a data repository managed by a third party service provider and a display component that causes interactive data pertaining to the viewer-generated data to be overlaid on the television content viewed by the viewer on the television.

Abstract: A system that selects items from a plurality of items is described herein. The system includes a receiver component that receives a plurality items for an activity in a sequence having an order. A selection component sequentially evaluates each of the items in the sequence in the order received by the receiver component and for each item being evaluated determines that an evaluated item is to be uniquely selected out of the plurality of items immediately upon evaluation thereof. The selection component selects the item such that when the value of the item is higher than the values of all previous items in the sequence, any position in the sequence has a substantially similar probability as any other position to have the item selected.

Abstract: An archive of items, which are computing data accessed by a user, is created at a semantic object level. The object archiving may group seemingly disparate items as a composite object, which may then be stored to enable retrieval by the user at a later point in time. The composite object may include metadata from the various items to enable identifying the composite object, providing retrieval capabilities (e.g., search, etc.), and so forth. In some aspects, an archiving process may extract item data from an item that is accessed by a computing device. Next, the item may be selected by a schema for inclusion in a composite object when the item data meets criteria specified in the schema. The composite object(s) may then be stored in an object store as an archive (backup).

Abstract: Techniques and systems are disclosed where a user utility for Internet-based advertising can be measured for a combination of a search-based website (SBS) and one or more content-based web-sites (CBSs). Determining user utility for web-based economics can comprise determining a user benefit metric for a combination of a SBS and one or more CBSs, where the user benefit metric may be a combination of a SBS user experience metric and a CBS user experience metric. A user cost metric can be determined by combining a SBS cost metric with a CBS cost metric. The user benefit metric can be combined with the user cost metric to determine the user utility for a combination of SBS and one or more CBSs.

Abstract: To use market clearing methods to determine market equilibrium, a market clearing situation is established by determining a number of items to be sold at the market price and allotting a number of pseudo items assignable to bids below the market price. Once bids are received for the items, using the number of pseudo items and the actual items as the supply side, and the total funds bid as the demand side, a market clearing price is determinable using a market clearing equilibrium model. Funds assigned to pseudo items are returned or not charged. Further, by selling items only to bids exceeding the market clearing price, such as by setting the market price incrementally above the market clearing price, bidders are encouraged to submit bid prices bid reflecting what the items are worth to them instead of attempting to bid strategically to guess or set the market price.

Abstract: An off-line economy for digital media. In one implementation, exemplary media devices of buyer and seller participate in the off-line economy by performing secure off-line transfers of digital media content between themselves. The media devices store proof of the off-line sales transactions, so that a percentage of the sale price can be applied to a copyright owner and a percentage of the sale price can be applied to the seller as an incentive. Even resale of pirated media content benefits the copyright holder. The off-line economy opens an effective and inexpensive distribution channel for copyright holders and allows buyers to obtain media content anywhere, at any time, from any participant in the off-line economy without connecting to the Internet. The off-line economy allows copyright holders and media sellers to optimize pricing by market probing.

Abstract: In auctioning items, pseudo bids are determined based on the bid price and auction budget submitted by a bidder. The bid associated with the highest pseudo bid is identified as the winning bid. A consistent pseudo bid function is applied to determine the pseudo bids for each of the bids, or a variable pseudo bid function is selectively applied to some bids. The pseudo bid increases with increased bid prices and/or increased auction budgets. When a winning bid is identified, the winner's auction budget is debited the price of the item won, and the pseudo bid is recalculated using the remaining auction budget. Bidders submitting higher auction budgets are rewarded by being able to win more items because their auction budgets increase their pseudo bids. Recalculating pseudo bids based on remaining auction budgets allows different bidders to alternately win successive rounds as previous winners'auction budgets are reduced.

Abstract: Described herein is a system that facilitates provision of personalized investing advice to a user. The system includes a subscriber component that receives a selection of multiple financial models from the user, wherein the user may desire to receive financial data from the multiple financial models in real-time. Further, the system can include an adviser component that can receive and process financial data output by the multiple financial models and can determine customized investing advice for the user based at least in part upon the financial data output by the multiple financial models and personal investing preferences of the user.

Abstract: The claimed subject matter relates to an architecture that can facilitate promotion of an online service. The architecture can provide for a games platform that can host a variety of games. The hosted games can be designed such that a user's experiences can be enhanced by game cards that can be discovered and retrieved while using the online service being promoted. Accordingly, the user's experiences can be enhanced as a function of the usage of the online service being promoted.

Abstract: To use market clearing methods to determine market equilibrium, a market clearing situation is established by determining a number of items to be sold at the market price and allotting a number of pseudo items assignable to bids below the market price. Once bids are received for the items, using the number of pseudo items and the actual items as the supply side, and the total funds bid as the demand side, a market clearing price is determinable using a market clearing equilibrium model. Funds assigned to pseudo items are returned or not charged. Further, by selling items only to bids exceeding the market clearing price, such as by setting the market price incrementally above the market clearing price, bidders are encouraged to submit bid prices bid reflecting what the items are worth to them instead of attempting to bid strategically to guess or set the market price.

Abstract: The claimed subject matter provides systems and/or methods that facilitate providing a generalized web service. An interface component can obtain data from a client component. Additionally, a general web service component can store the data with user selected access permissions and enable retrieving and modifying the data from any location. The general web service component can employ a centralized infrastructure, a peer-to-peer infrastructure built upon any number of client components, or a combination thereof.

Abstract: The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or a method that facilitates employing an online auction in which a coupon is fairly administered. An online auction environment that can employ an auction to identify a fair market value of at least one of a good or a portion of a service, wherein the auction can receive at least one bid from a bidder with a coupon and a bidder without a coupon. A randomizer component that can select one of a collection of bidders having coupons or a collection of bidders not having coupons based on a randomizing technique, wherein the online auction environment can identify an auction winner as a highest bidder within the selected collection, the highest bidder provides a highest bid from both the collection of bidders having coupons and the collection of bidders not having coupons.

Abstract: A system and method that can receive, buffer, and asynchronously combine data from various incoming data packets is disclosed. The system and method can do so by, first, receiving incoming packets of one or multiple generations that have incoming data and incoming metadata, with the incoming data of each of the incoming packets that are of a first generation being a combination of a first, original set of data vectors, and the incoming metadata of each of the first generation of incoming packets including an indicator for the first generation. Second, once these incoming packets are received, the system and method can buffer them based on the indicator and, asynchronously from the receiving and buffering, combine the incoming data in the buffered, first generation incoming packets into outgoing data in an outgoing packet.

Abstract: Digital signatures for network coding are described. In one aspect, digital signatures for network coding are described. In one aspect, segmented blocks of content for distribution are digitally signed using homomorphic digital signatures generated from an elliptic curve. A linear combination of packets comprising the digitally signed content is distributed to a destination device according to an implemented distribution scheme. The linear combination of packets includes public information when digitally signing the segmented blocks. The homomorphic digital signatures and the public information allow a device receiving one or more packets of the linear combination of packets to verify and authenticate content associated with the one of our packets independent of secure transmission of secret keys and hash digests used to digitally sign the one or more packets.

Abstract: Described herein is a system that includes a receiver component that receives personal preferences of a user regarding wealth management. The receiver component can further receive first wealth management advice from a first financial expert that has been selected by the user. Additionally, the system may include a customization component that automatically modifies the first wealth management advice from the first financial expert based at least in part upon the received personal preferences of the user to generate first personalized wealth management advice. The system may additionally include an output component that outputs the personalized wealth management advice to the user.

Abstract: Utilization of wireless access points (APs) is optimized by dynamically managing transmitted AP power levels of beacon packets to control wireless AP coverage. This permits traffic congestion at one wireless AP to be reduced and shifted to other wireless APs. AP coverage management is provided by a centralized mechanism that employs various interpretations and/or measurements of client received power to handle dynamic changes in client workloads. The control does not require protocol changes to clients that utilize a wireless AP and can also incorporate hand-off costs and/or manufacturer specified power level constraints. Thus, these techniques can be employed in existing wireless LANs without impacting clients. Various instances are employable with continuous power and/or discrete power based wireless APs, providing a non-client impacted means to increase throughput and/or load balance.

Abstract: A concept for providing a process and apparatus for allocating a gamut of assets/resources across a spectrum of consumers is described. The concept includes an apparatus for allocating resources across a spectrum of users. The apparatus includes one or more processors and a memory coupled to the one or more processors. The memory is configured to store data representative of characteristics and capabilities of the resources and describing needs of the spectrum. The memory further includes computer-readable code configured to cause the one or more processors to perform acts of: estimating current requests from the spectrum for the resources; comparing the current requests to the capabilities and characteristics; and allocating the resources with respect to the requests in conformance with a convex program implementation of Arrow-Debreu theory.

Abstract: Systems and/or methods are presented that facilitate determining the contextual influence of a user in referrals of products or services, and determining an amount of compensation for successful referrals based on the contextual influence of the user. A central service component can track activity and receive data associated with referrals, including data related to the number and type of referrals, and the number of successful referrals. An evaluation component can analyze referral data associated with the user and can determine a conversion ratio as the number of successful referrals compared to the total number of referrals. The evaluation component can utilize the conversion ratio to facilitate determining an amount of compensation that can be awarded and distributed to the user based on the influence of the user within the context of the product or service referred by the user.