Abstract: Technologies for creating and viewing virtual graffiti using federated devices. The technologies allow users to associate virtual graffiti with geographic locations and restrict access to the graffiti to particular users, groups, federations, or the like. Users with appropriate access rights may be able to discover and view graffiti associated with a particular geographic location via a federated device when they are present at the location. Users may also access such graffiti from lists via federated devices.

Abstract: Described is a technology by which a user interface page outputs security status information obtained from network-wide and/or network client security components. This allows for simultaneous evaluation of the state of various network-wide and client security components, such as antimalware state, anti-spam state, firewall state, client program update state, and state data from a remote security service. Network security page logic couples to network-wide security components and client security components to obtain security state data for each. A user interface associated with the network security page logic lists the security components and the current security status for each, such as via an icon that changes its appearance to reflect the current state.

Abstract: Technologies for recommending relevant tags for the tagging of media based on one or more initial tags provided for the media and based on a large quantity of other tagged media. Sample media as candidates for recommendation are provided by a set of weak rankers based on corresponding relevance measures in semantic and visual domains. The various samples provided by the weak rankers are then ranked based on relative order to provide a list of recommended tags for the media. The weak rankers provide sample tags based on relevance measures including tag co-occurrence, tag content correlation, and image-conditioned tag correlation.

Abstract: A method and system for managing applications in a managed execution environment is disclosed. Prior to performing a garbage collection the magnitude of the garbage collection or the allocated memory is compared to a threshold value. If the threshold value is exceeded at least a portion of an application currently executing in the environment is redistributed prior to the garbage collection occurring.

Abstract: Technologies for comparing observed intensities using a probabilistic similarity measure. In the probabilistic similarity measure example, there is no attempt to estimate a true intensity. Rather, the similarity of two observed intensities is defined as the likelihood that they each resulted from the same but unknown true identity while taking into account the noise characteristics of the camera observing the intensities. Since the true intensity is unknown, all possible true intensities are taken into account, rather than using a specific true intensity estimate. The probabilistic similarity measure indicates the degree to which two intensities correspond to the same intensity without estimating a true scene intensity value.

Abstract: The presently described subject matter allows the user to interactively browse a collection of electronic files, such as a digital photo collection, remotely using a mobile telephone. Files from the collection of electronic files can be directed from the mobile telephone to be sent to a remote display device, where the file can be displayed. Also, a user can record voice and text annotations from the mobile phone to preserve with an electronic file, and which is transported along with the file when it is displayed on a remote display device.

Abstract: Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to checkpoints for a file system. In aspects, updates to the file system are organized into checkpoint buckets. When a checkpoint is desired, subsequent updates are directed to another checkpoint bucket. After global tables have been updated for updates in the current checkpoint bucket, a logical copy of the global tables is created. This logical copy is stored as part of the checkpoint data. To assist in recovery, a checkpoint manager may wait until all updates of the current checkpoint bucket have been written to storage before writing final checkpoint data to storage. This final checkpoint data may refer to the logical copy of the global tables and include a validation code to verify that the checkpoint data is correct.

Abstract: A system grants “provisional privileges” to a user request for the purpose of provisionally performing a requested transaction. If the provisionally-performed transaction does not put the system in a degraded state, the transaction is authorized despite the user request having inadequate privileges originally.

Abstract: A data synchronization task is received at a console, wherein the data synchronization task is associated with information technology management. A configuration document is configured using the data synchronization task, wherein the configuration document defines data synchronization through declarations. A linking framework is configured based on the configuration document. Data is synchronized from a first and second source to a target as defined by the configuration document.

Abstract: Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to predicting and using search engine switching behavior. In aspects, switching components receive a representation of user interactions with at least one browser. The switching components derive information from the representation that is useful in predicting whether a user will switch search engines. The derived information and information about a user's current interaction with a browser is then used by a switch predictor to predict whether the user will switch search engines. This prediction may be used in a variety of ways examples of which are given herein.

Abstract: Technologies for generating a boosted tag ranking for a media instance, the boosted tag ranking based on probabilistic relevance estimation computed by a probabilistic relevance estimator and tag correlation refining performed by a tag correlation refiner. Such boosted tag rankings may be used for search result ranking, tag recommendation, and group recommendation.

Abstract: A method for providing fault-tolerant network communications between a plurality of nodes for an application, including providing a plurality of initial communications pathways over a plurality of networks coupled between the plurality of nodes, receiving a data packet on a sending node from the application, the sending node being one of the plurality of nodes, the data packet being addressed by the application to an address on one of the plurality of nodes, and selecting a first selected pathway for the data packet from among the plurality of initial communications pathways where the first selected pathway is a preferred pathway.

Abstract: A system and method for a media processor separates the functions of topology creation and maintenance from the functions of processing data through a topology. The system includes a control layer including a topology generating element to generate a topology describing a set of input multimedia streams, one or more sources for the input multimedia streams, a sequence of operations to perform on the multimedia data, and a set of output multimedia streams, and a media processor to govern the passing of the multimedia data as described in the topology and govern the performance of the sequence of multimedia operations on the multimedia data to create the set of output multimedia streams. The core layer includes the input media streams, the sources for the input multimedia streams, one or more transforms to operate on the multimedia data, stream sinks, and media sinks to provide the set of output multimedia streams.

Abstract: Technologies for performing positive and negative event-based testing of systems such as software and the like. Such technologies may be applied to any type of system for which activities and state changes and the like can be monitored. Event monitors are typically established to monitor each type of event of interest, including negative events. Such event monitors detect corresponding system activity, state changes, and the like and describe such as events that are placed in an event queue. The present invention provides technologies and methods for comparing these events to expected events, thus enabling positive testing. Such expected events may be expected to occur sequentially (one after another in a specified order) or in parallel (multiple events wherein the order of the events is irrelevant) or any combination of the two. Further, unexpected events are noted as well, thus enabling negative testing.

Abstract: A system for managing a subscription-based computer independent of an operating system of the computer may include a security module that accesses, decrements, and stores subscription data during operation of the subscription-based computer. Additionally, the system may include a network module in communication with the security module and comprising a network stack, a web server, and a user interface in an operating system independent format. A web browser of the computer may request the user interface from the network stack. The interface may be populated with the subscription data, and a network driver may retrieve the populated user interface from the network module. The populated interface may then be sent to the web server to be served back to the requesting web browser.

Abstract: Described is a technology by which online recognition of handwritten input data is combined with offline recognition and processing to obtain a combined recognition result. In general, the combination improves overall recognition accuracy. In one aspect, online and offline recognition is separately performed to obtain online and offline character-level recognition scores for candidates (hypotheses). A statistical analysis-based combination algorithm, an AdaBoost algorithm, and/or a neural network-based combination may determine a combination function to combine the scores to produce a result set of one or more results. Online and offline radical-level recognition may be performed. For example, a HMM recognizer may generate online radical scores used to build a radical graph, which is then rescored using the offline radical recognition scores. Paths in the rescored graph are then searched to provide the combined recognition result, e.g., corresponding to the path with the highest score.

Abstract: Technologies for distributed single sign-on operable to provide user access to a plurality of services via authentication to a single entity. The distributed single sign-on technologies provide a set of authentication servers and methods for privacy protection based on splitting secret keys and user profiles into secure shares and periodically updating shares among the authentication servers without affecting the underlying secrets. The correctness of the received partial token or partial profiles can be verified with non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a system and method for configuring and managing network devices. The arrival (and departure) of devices on a network can be detected by a monitor. Upon detection, network devices can be simply and dynamically configured with little or no end-user intervention, for instance by automatically loading device drivers and allocating resources for the devices. Furthermore, network devices can be associated with other network devices such as a personal computer to facilitate seamless integration of network devices with a computer operating system.

Abstract: Technologies that enable correcting for the non-linear relationship between scene irradiance and digital pixel intensity values of an image of the scene produced by a camera. Imaging noise is used as a signal from which a corrective function is derived. Noise distributions from the image are evaluated to determine the radiometric response function of the camera, from which an inverse response function is computed and used for calibration.

Abstract: Described is a constraint language and related technology by which complex constraints may be used in selecting configurations for use in physical database design tuning. The complex constraint (or constraints) is processed, e.g., in a search framework, to determine and output at least one configuration that meets the constraint, e.g., a best configuration found before a stopping condition is met. The search framework processes a current configuration into candidate configurations, including by searching for candidate configurations from a current configuration based upon a complex constraint, iteratively evaluating a search space until a stopping condition is satisfied, using transformation rules to generate new candidate configurations, and selecting a best candidate configuration. Transformation rules and pruning rules are applied to efficiently perform the search. Constraints may be specified as assertions that need to be satisfied, or as soft assertions that come close to satisfying the constraint.