Abstract: Identifying missed electronic check-ins and crediting missed check-ins to members of a social network by utilizing transaction data from an intermediate computer other than a computer of the social network. Missed check-ins are identified using transaction data resulting from an activity of the member at a check-in location, e.g., when the member purchased an item from a merchant at a check-in location or made a call from the location. Transaction data is sent from a computer that stores the data to the social network computer that manages check-ins. Transaction location is compared with check-in locations to determine whether the member should receive credit for the missed check-in, which may count towards rewards or benefits of the social network even though the member is not currently at the check-in location since the missed check-in is validated by a trusted source of transaction data.

Abstract: Immersive video, or television, images of a real-world scene are synthesized, including on demand and/or in real time, as are linked to any of a particular perspective on the scene, or an object or event in the scene. Synthesis is in accordance with user-specified parameters of presentation, including presentations that are any of panoramic, magnified, stereoscopic, or possessed of motional parallax. The image synthesis is based on computerized video processing--called "hypermosaicing"--of multiple video perspectives on the scene. In hypermosaicing a knowledge database contains information about the scene; for example scene geometry, shapes and behaviors of objects in the scene, and/or internal and/or external camera calibration models. Multiple video cameras each at a different spatial location produce multiple two-dimensional video images of the scene. A viewer/user specifies viewing criterion (ia) at a viewer interface.

Abstract: Each and any viewer of a video or a television scene is his or her own proactive editor of the scene, having the ability to interactively dictate and select--in advance of the unfolding of the scene and by high-level command--a particular perspective by which the scene will be depicted, as and when the scene unfolds. Video images of the scene are selected, or even synthesized, in response to a viewer-selected (i) spatial perspective on the scene, (ii) static or dynamic object appearing in the scene, or (iii) event depicted in the scene. Multiple video cameras, each at a different spatial location, produce multiple two-dimensional video images of the real-world scene, each at a different spatial perspective. Objects of interest in the scene are identified and classified by computer in these two-dimensional images. The two-dimensional images of the scene, and accompanying information, are then combined in the computer into a three-dimensional video database, or model, of the scene.