Patents Represented by Attorney Lee and Hayes, PLLC
  • Patent number: 8351589
    Abstract: Spatialized audio is generated for voice data received at a telecommunications device based on spatial audio information received with the voice data and based on a determined virtual position of the source of the voice data for producing spatialized audio signals.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 16, 2009
    Date of Patent: January 8, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Alejandro Acero, Christian Huitema
  • Patent number: 8352241
    Abstract: Emulating legacy hardware using IEEE 754 compliant hardware is disclosed herein. In some aspects, the emulation includes locating an instruction that includes NaN (not a number) as at least one of an operand or a resultant. The emulation adjusts the resultant of the instruction, via additional code, to produce a final resultant of non-compliant (legacy) hardware. Legacy software, which was written in anticipation of processing by legacy hardware, may then be processed using compliant hardware.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 26, 2009
    Date of Patent: January 8, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Jinyu Li, Ke Deng, Chen Li
  • Patent number: 8352321
    Abstract: Computer program products, devices, and methods for generating in-text embedded advertising are described. Embedded advertising is “hidden” or embedded into a message by matching an advertisement to the message and identifying a place in the message to insert the advertisement. For textual messages, statistical analysis of individual sentences is performed to determine where it would be most natural to insert an advertisement. Statistical rules of grammar derived from a language model may be used choose a natural and grammatical place in the sentence for inserting the advertisement. Insertion of the advertisement creates a modified sentence without degrading a meaning of the original sentence, yet also includes the advertisement as a part of a new sentence.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 12, 2008
    Date of Patent: January 8, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Tao Mei, Xian-Sheng Hua, Shipeng Li, Linjun Yang
  • Patent number: 8348450
    Abstract: A dedicated electronic book (“eBook”) reader device and a reading light are described. The reading light may be embedded in a cover for the eBook reader device. The cover may draw power from the eBook reader device and provide that power to the reading light. The reading light may be attached to the cover by a flexible connector that, when withdrawn from the cover, automatically positions the reading light to illuminate an electronic display of the eBook reader device. In one implementation, the flexible connector is made of shape-memory alloy. The reading light may be oriented within the cover such that the reading light extends from a corner of the cover at an approximately 45 degree angle from a spine of the cover.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 7, 2010
    Date of Patent: January 8, 2013
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Joseph J. Hebenstreit, Wilfrido Loor Canizares, Amrinder Pal Singh Siani, Hannah Rebecca Lewbel
  • Patent number: 8352585
    Abstract: This document describes a directed graph model using a peer-to-peer overlay structure and a gossip-based protocol to maintain the distributed membership. A protocol suite for peers to join the live streaming session, form the P2P streaming overlay, and exchange video packets with others has also been presented. The different capabilities of the heterogeneous peers are well depicted using an adaptive out-degree mechanism. The performance of the whole system is maintained by a contribution-aware mechanism, which ensures that the peers with large contribution will get more chance to be served than those with small or no contribution.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 5, 2011
    Date of Patent: January 8, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Yusuo Hu, Jiang Li, Jian-guang Lou, Qingwei Lin, Fan Li
  • Patent number: 8351713
    Abstract: Systems and methods provide drag-and-drop pasting for seamless image composition. In one implementation, a user casually outlines a region of a source image that contains a visual object to be pasted into a target image. An exemplary system automatically calculates a new boundary within this region, such that when pasted at this boundary, visual seams are minimized. The system applies a shortest path calculation to find the optimal pasting boundary. The best path has minimal color variation along its length, thus avoiding structure and visual objects in the target image and providing the best chance for seamlessness. Poisson image editing is applied across this optimized boundary to blend colors. When the visual object being pasted has fine structure at its border that could be truncated by the Poisson editing, the exemplary system integrates the alpha matte of the visual object into the Poisson equations to protect the fine structure.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 20, 2007
    Date of Patent: January 8, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Jian Sun, Jiaya Jia, Heung-Yeung Shum
  • Patent number: 8352797
    Abstract: Software fault isolation methods using byte-granularity memory protection are described. In an embodiment, untrusted drivers or other extensions to a software system are run in a separate domain from the host portion of the software system, but share the same address space as the host portion. Calls between domains are mediated using an interposition library and access control data is maintained for substantially each byte of relevant virtual address space. Instrumentation added to the untrusted extension at compile-time, before load-time, or at runtime and added by the interposition library enforces the isolation between domains, for example by adding access right checks before any writes or indirect calls and by redirecting function calls to call wrappers in the interposition library. The instrumentation also updates the access control data to grant and revoke access rights on a fine granularity according to the semantics of the operation being invoked.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 8, 2009
    Date of Patent: January 8, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Richard John Black, Paul Barham, Manuel Costa, Marcus Peinado, Jean-Philippe Martin, Periklis Akritidis, Austin Donnelly, Miguel Castro
  • Patent number: 8352495
    Abstract: The present disclosure describes an apparatus and methods for performing data analysis, in particular network analysis. Specifically it provides a framework and user interface whereby raw data may be imported into a data model with entities, attributes, and relationships between the entities and multiple data analysis algorithms may be pipelined into a larger data analysis model and applied to the data model. Offline and online data visualization and data exploration techniques, may be applied to the results of the data analysis enabling real-time and near real-time interactive online analysis. Extensibility models and market transaction models are also provided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 15, 2009
    Date of Patent: January 8, 2013
    Assignee: ChalkLabs, LLC
    Inventors: Gavin H. LaRowe, Bruce W. Herr, II
  • Patent number: 8352449
    Abstract: A reader device and method for operating a reader device include content indexing features designed to make the use of a reader device more satisfying. A plurality of indexes is stored on a reader device. One of the indexes stored in the reader device is also stored at a remote site. Several indexes stored at the remote site may be substantially similar to one or more of the indexes stored on a reader device. The indexes stored at the remote site may be used to update one or more indexes stored on a reader device. In one implementation, the reader device is an electronic book (“eBook”) reader device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 29, 2006
    Date of Patent: January 8, 2013
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Jateen P. Parekh, Gregg E. Zehr, Subram Narasimhan
  • Patent number: 8352524
    Abstract: The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or a method that facilitates organizing and presenting data within a database. A data store can store a portion of data accessible to a user. A real time monitor component can dynamically track an amount of access for the portion of data within the data store. A display engine can render a multi-scaled view of the portion of data, wherein the multi-scaled view is based on the amount of access in which a size representation of the data is correlated with the amount of access.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 2008
    Date of Patent: January 8, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Gary W. Flake, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, Brett D. Brewer, Anthony T. Chor, Steven Drucker, Karim Farouki, Stephen L. Lawler, Ariel J. Lazier, Donald James Lindsay
  • Patent number: 8344233
    Abstract: An exemplary method includes providing a music collection of a particular scale, determining a distance parameter for locality sensitive hashing based at least in part on the scale of the music collection and constructing an index for the music collection. Another exemplary method includes providing a song, extracting snippets from the song, analyzing time-varying timbre characteristics of the snippets and constructing one or more queries based on the analyzing. Such exemplary methods may be implemented by a portable device configured to maintain an index, to perform searches based on selected songs or portions of songs and to generate playlists from search results. Other exemplary methods, devices, systems, etc., are also disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 7, 2008
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Rui Cai, Lei Zhang, Wei-Ying Ma
  • Patent number: 8346002
    Abstract: An apparatus and method provide for providing an output image from an input image. The input image may contain at least one portion that does not display certain desired information of the image, such as texture information. The desired information may be obtained from a second portion of the input image and applied to the at least one portion that does not contain the texture information or contains a diminished amount of the texture information. Also, at least one characteristic of the second portion of the input image may not be applied to the at least one portion such as illumination information. In another example, the input image may be decomposed into multiple parts such as a high frequency and a low frequency component. Each component may be hallucinated individually or independently and combined to form the output image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 20, 2007
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Li-Yi Wei, Kun Zhou, Baining Guo, Heung-Yeung Shum, Lvdi Wang
  • Patent number: 8346976
    Abstract: A home router configured to receive a network registration request from a device that is locally connected to the home router and to provide the request to a service provider network through a network tunnel is disclosed herein. A device configured to provide a network registration request for the device to the service provider network is also disclosed herein. The device sends the request directly to the service provider network via a network tunnel if the device is not connected to the home router or sends the request to the home router for subsequent transmission if the device is connected to the home router.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 22, 2010
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2013
    Assignee: T-Mobile USA, Inc.
    Inventors: Jean-Luc Bouthemy, Omar Hassan, Samir M. Hodroj
  • Patent number: 8346782
    Abstract: The present disclosure describes an information matching method and information system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 18, 2010
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2013
    Assignee: Alibaba Group Holding Limited
    Inventors: Xu Zhang, Qing-Yan Liu, Peng-Song Wu, Yi-Huo Ye
  • Patent number: 8346017
    Abstract: The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or a method that facilitates simulating a portion 2-dimensional (2D) data for implementation within a 3-dimensional (3D) virtual environment. A 3D virtual environment can enable a 3D exploration of a 3D image constructed from a collection of two or more 2D images, the 3D image is constructed by combining the two or more 2D images based upon a respective image perspective. An analyzer can evaluate the collection of two or more 2D images to identify a portion of the 3D image that is unrepresented by the combined two or more 2D images. A synthetic view generator can create a simulated synthetic view for the portion of 3D image that is unrepresented, the simulated synthetic view replicates a 2D image with a respective image perspective for the unrepresented portion of 3D image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 2008
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Blaise Aguera y Aguera, Brett D. Brewer, Steven Drucker, Karim Farouki, Gary W. Flake, Tomasz Kasperkiewicz, Stephen L. Lawler, Donald James Lindsay, Adam Sheppard, Richard Stephen Szeliski, Jeffrey Jon Weir
  • Patent number: 8347232
    Abstract: Methods and apparatuses are provided for navigating an electronic document. In one implementation, a method includes executing a command associated with a region selected by a tap gesture. In another implementation, a method includes displaying a slider on a slide bar including an expanded part corresponding to a section of the electronic document. The expanded part is disproportionately larger than other parts of the slide bar corresponding to other sections of the electronic document. Methods and apparatuses are provided for activating an element of an electronic document. In one implementation, a method includes activating the element selected by a touch gesture. Methods and apparatuses are provided for controlling a perceived brightness of an electronic document. In one implementation, a method includes displaying a partially opaque graphical object in front of the electronic document. The perceived brightness of the electronic document being based on an opacity of the graphical object.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 10, 2009
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2013
    Assignee: Lexcycle, Inc
    Inventors: Marc Prud'Hommeaux, Augustus A. White
  • Patent number: 8345073
    Abstract: Layers of a touch sensor array used by electronic devices may be incorporated into other components, such that a touch sensor array is formed upon assembly of the other components. This touch sensor array may then be used as an input device by a user. For example, one layer of a touch sensor array may be integrated into the back of a display component, forming a first integrated package. Similarly, a second layer of the touch sensor array may be integrated into the front of a battery, forming a second integrated package. Upon assembly of the display atop the battery, the touch sensor array is formed. Such integration results in simpler and less expensive assembly, reduces the count of discrete parts during assembly, and minimizes the electronic device's physical profile.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 24, 2010
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2013
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Joseph J. Hebenstreit, David C. Buuck
  • Patent number: 8347046
    Abstract: Data can be retained upon a storage medium that has characteristics suitable for the data. However, as the storage mediums are used, time passes, etc., characteristics of memory can change and therefore data can reside upon an improper medium. Data can be dynamically moved from one storage location to another automatically and intelligently based upon a change in characteristics. In addition, new data can be placed on a storage medium based upon characteristics of the medium in a current state.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 15, 2008
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Ruston Panabaker, James R. Hamilton, William J. Westerinen, Yadhu N. Gopalan, Mark A. Myers
  • Patent number: 8346701
    Abstract: In some implementations, a plurality of first questions and corresponding first answers are identified at a community question-answer (CQA) site as a plurality of first question-answer (q-a) pairs. A query thread comprised of a second question and a plurality of candidate second answers is selected for making a determination of answer quality. A set of the first questions that are similar to the second question are identified from the plurality of first questions. First linking features between the identified set of first questions and their corresponding first answers are used for determining an analogy with second linking features between the second question and candidate answers for ranking the candidate answers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 23, 2009
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Xin-Jing Wang, Lei Zhang, Wei-Ying Ma
  • Patent number: 8345513
    Abstract: Implementations include a capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) having an additional transducing device overlaid in a vertically stacked relationship. In some implementations the additional transducing device is a second CMUT configured to operate at a different frequency from the first CMUT.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 3, 2008
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2013
    Assignee: Kolo Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Yongli Huang