Abstract: Techniques are presented to display values for a set of icons by controlling their assignment to a set of rows and their placement within these rows. A plurality of icons to be displayed is determined. An abacus attribute taking a finite set of values is associated with the set of icons. Icon groups are formed for each abacus attribute value and optionally ordered based on each of one or more sorting attributes. Inter-group indicators such as display characteristic changes, spacing and the like are determined. The inter-group indicators separate each group of icons within a row. An ordering of the icons is determined based on the abacus attribute value and the one or more optional sorting attribute values. The icons are laid out in the display space ordered by the values of the primary abacus attribute and the secondary optional sorting attributes.

Abstract: When a hardware or software problem reoccurs, a customer is rarely able to remember and repeat the process that was performed by a customer service representative to correct the problem the first time. By capturing desktop events and/or one or more other available data streams during the first customer service engagement, and making a document containing that data available to the customer, the customer can solve a reoccurrence of the problem without having to contact the customer service center. The captured data is integrated into a single multimedia document, which has an indexing capability, highlights critical information, and includes annotations and/or comments. The integrated multimedia document can be distributed to the customer by the customer service representative during an engagement, over a customer accessible network site visited by the customer, or in a CD-ROM provided with the product.

Abstract: When a hardware or software problem reoccurs, a customer is rarely able to remember and repeat the process that was performed by a customer service representative to correct the problem the first time. By capturing desktop events and/or one or more other available data streams during the first customer service engagement, and making a document containing that data available to the customer, the customer can solve a reoccurrence of the problem without having to contact the customer service center. The captured data is integrated into a single multimedia document, which has an indexing capability, highlights critical information, and includes annotations and/or comments. The integrated multimedia document can be distributed to the customer by the customer service representative during an engagement, over a customer accessible network site visited by the customer, or in a CD-ROM provided with the product.

Abstract: A presentation control system and method facilitates the interaction between a user and a presentation device. The user generates tangible sensible identification devices, which are linked to items to be displayed in a presentation. In use, the user places the tangible sensible identification-carrying device, in the sensible area of an identification sensing device. The identification sensing device reads a presentation element identification from the identification-carrying device and determines a presentation element identified by the presentation element identification. The presentation element is then displayed via a presentation display device.

Abstract: A hypermedia authoring system enables an author to generate a document using a goals outline and a presentation outline. The goals outline is generated by instantiating document prototypes. A display of the goals outline permits the author to select a prototype document from a directory of prototype documents and instantiate the selected prototype document that corresponds to a node of the goals outline. The instantiated document prototype is linked to cards in a card database. The presentation outline is displayed as Bento-boxes. Each Bento-box includes spacer objects which are defined spatially and temporally. The spacer objects may be linked to cards. The goals outline is related to the presentation outline based on commonly linked cards. The Bento-boxes may be linked to each other in a stack or hyperlinked to other Bento-boxes v a anchors. A display of all the Bento-boxes of a hypermedia document shows a linkage path established by the hyperlinks between Bento-boxes/Bento-box stacks.

Abstract: A presentation control system and method facilitates the interaction between a user and a presentation device. The user generates tangible sensible identification devices, which are linked to items to be displayed in a presentation. In use, the user places the tangible sensible identification-carrying device, in the sensible area of an identification sensing device. The identification sensing device reads a presentation element identification from the identification-carrying device and determines a presentation element identified by the presentation element identification. The presentation element is then displayed via a presentation display device.

Abstract: An automatic video content parser for parsing video shots such that they are represented in their native media and retrievable based on their visual contents. This system provides methods for temporal segmentation of video sequences into individual camera shots using a novel twin-comparison method. The method is capable of detecting both camera shots implemented by sharp break and gradual transitions implemented by special editing techniques, including dissolve, wipe, fade-in and fade-out; and content-based key frame selection of individual shots by analyzing the temporal variation of video content and selecting a key frame once the difference of content between the current frame and a preceding selected key frame exceeds a set of preselected thresholds.