Patents Assigned to Amazon Technologies
  • Method and apparatus for sensing correct item placement for multi-destination picking
    Patent number: 8301294
    Abstract: Method and apparatus for multi-destination pick using motes. In embodiments, each receptacle may be assigned to a destination and may have a sensor that detects when an item is placed in the receptacle to deactivate the indicator and/or to verify that the item was placed in the correct receptacle. The sensor may be coupled via a wired or wireless connection to a mote that may include a communication interface for communicating with a control system and with other motes in an ad-hoc network. In some embodiments, each mote may also include an indicator that may be activated by a control system to indicate to the agent that the receptacle is the destination receptacle for a picked item. The agent may then place the item in the indicated destination receptacle. In one embodiment, the mote on the destination receptacle may be activated when the picked item is scanned by the agent.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 20, 2011
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Jonathan J Shakes, Francois M. Rouaix
  • Facilitating the creation and use of collections on an electronic device
    Patent number: 8301586
    Abstract: A method for facilitating the creation and use of collections on an electronic device may include receiving user input related to the creation of collections of items that are stored on the electronic device. The method may also include creating the collections of items. The method may also include storing the collections of items on the electronic device. The method may also include backing up the collections to a backup server.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 30, 2008
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: John Lattyak, Laurent An Minh Nguyen, John T. Kim, Robert Wai-Chi Chu
  • System, method, and computer readable medium for providing recommendations based on purchase phrases
    Patent number: 8301514
    Abstract: Purchase phrases can be analyzed to infer user interests. A purchase phrase can include one or more user-defined textual words that a user employs to purchase items in an expedited manner. Many users' purchase phrases may include words that reflect the users' interests, such as “golf” or “rose.” Users with similar purchase phrases may therefore be interested in purchasing similar items. A recommendation system can therefore find items purchased with similar phrases to a target user's purchase phrase and then recommend these items to the target user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 14, 2010
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Rajendra K. Vippagunta
  • Dynamic categorizations for electronic advertising
    Patent number: 8301649
    Abstract: An advertiser submitting a sponsored ad to a provider can determine aspects of the ad, such as creative elements and bid price, based on a dynamic categorization of an item and/or landing page associated with the ad. An algorithm can be used that utilizes a browse tree for each item to be displayed to a user following a sponsored link, for example, and attempts to find a node in the browse tree that appears at the lowest level in the tree and with a sufficient appearance frequency. When consensus is reached for a node in the browse tree that meets these criteria, a corresponding categorization is determined, which can be used to determine appropriate aspects to be used for the sponsored ad, at least until enough information is obtained such that aspects can be determined independent of the categorization.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 4, 2008
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Lucas P. Hansen
  • System, method, and computer readable medium for dynamically pricing an item based on service plan selection
    Patent number: 8301513
    Abstract: Disclosed are various embodiments for providing dynamic item pricing to a customer during online shopping and/or purchasing of wireless devices. In a representative embodiment, a dynamic pricing system is executed in a computing device that generates a network page to send to a client device over a network, the network page including a price for a specified wireless device. The dynamic pricing system communicates with the client device over the network to obtain a selected service plan associated with the specified wireless device. The dynamic pricing system determines an updated price for the specified wireless device in response to the selected service plan for access by the customer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 25, 2010
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Shih-Ta Peng, Charles Steven Johnson, Aaron C. Rubenson, Gregor Alan Moulton
  • System and method for preventing large-scale account lockout
    Patent number: 8302187
    Abstract: Various embodiments of a system and method for preventing large-scale account lockout are described. The system and method for preventing large-scale account lockout may include an account access control component configured to prevent fraudulent individuals from locking access to user accounts. The account access control component may lock access to an account after a lockout threshold is tripped. To prevent an account from being locked by fraudulent individuals, the account access control component may utilize a warning threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 27, 2007
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Diwakar Gupta, Philip Yuen, Chih-Jen Huang, Gerald Yuen
  • Managing CDN registration by a storage provider
    Patent number: 8301748
    Abstract: A system, method, and computer readable medium for managing registration, by a network storage provider, of one or more resources with a CDN service provider are provided. A network storage provider storing one or more resources on behalf of a content provider obtains registration information for registering the one or more resources with a CDN service provider. The registration information may include a request to publish one or more resources to a CDN service provider, an identification of the one or more resources, CDN selection criteria provided by the content provider or otherwise selected, and the like. The network storage provider transmits a CDN generation request corresponding to the registration information to the CDN service provider. Then, the network storage provider manages and processes data pursuant to registration of the one or more resources with the CDN service provider.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 14, 2011
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: David R. Richardson, Bradley E. Marshall, Swaminathan Sivasubramanian
  • Failover recovery in a distributed data store
    Patent number: 8301600
    Abstract: Disclosed are various embodiments for failover recovery in a distributed data store. A computing device determines whether it is a master data store in a distributed data store. New data item updates are assigned the next transaction identifier in a gapless numbering scheme relative to the most durably persisted entry. New data item updates are also associated with a data store identifier that identifies the new master data store.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 15, 2010
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Michael T. Helmick, Jakub Kulesza
  • Generating item recommendations
    Patent number: 8301484
    Abstract: Disclosed are various embodiments of systems, methods, and programs embodied in computer readable mediums for generating item purchase recommendations. To provide such a recommendation, first data is accessed using a server, the first data comprising an interaction history of an entity with respect to at least one network site. Also, second data is accessed using the server, the second data comprising a record of use of media by the entity on at least one media device remote to the server. An item recommendation is generated in the server for the entity based on the first and second data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 7, 2008
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Bharath Kumar
  • Leveraging physical network interface functionality for packet processing
    Patent number: 8300641
    Abstract: High-speed processing of packets to, and from, a virtualization environment can be provided while utilizing segmentation offload and other such functionality of commodity hardware. Virtualization information can be added to extension portions of protocol headers, for example, such that the payload portion is unchanged and, when physical address information is added to a frame, a frame can be processed using commodity hardware. In some embodiments, the virtualization information can be hashed and added to the payload or stream at, or relative to, various segmentation boundaries, such that the virtualization or additional header information will only be added to a subset of the packets once segmented, thereby reducing the necessary overhead. Further, the hashing of the information can allow for reconstruction of the virtualization information upon desegmentation even in the event of packet loss.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 9, 2009
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Pradeep Vincent, Michael David Marr
  • Service provider registration by a content broker
    Patent number: 8301778
    Abstract: A system, method, and computer readable medium for managing registration, by a content broker, of one or more resources with one or more service providers are provided. A content broker obtains registration information for registering the one or more resources with a service provider. The registration information may include a request to publish one or more resources to a service provider, an identification of the one or more resources, service provider selection criteria provided by the content provider or otherwise selected, and the like. The content broker transmits a service provider generation request corresponding to the registration information to the service provider. Then, the content broker manages and processes data pursuant to registration of the one or more resources with the service provider.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 17, 2011
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: David R. Richardson, Bradley E. Marshall, Swaminathan Sivasubramanian, Tal Saraf
  • Image capture device with booth
    Patent number: 8301022
    Abstract: A system for capturing images of an object includes an image capture booth, one or more lights coupled to the image capture booth, a platter coupled to the image capture booth, and a hanger coupled to the image capture booth. The image capture booth includes panels that enclose a space for imaging objects. The lights illuminate at least a portion of the space. The platter and the hanger each support objects for imaging of the objects in the image capture booth.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 10, 2010
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Jonathan G. McGuire, Jon D. Mittelstaedt
  • Probabilistic recommendation system
    Patent number: 8301623
    Abstract: A recommendations system uses probabilistic methods to select, from a candidate set of items, a set of items to recommend to a target user. The methods can effectively introduce noise into the recommendations process, causing the recommendations presented to the target user to vary in a controlled manner from one visit to the next. The methods may increase the likelihood that at least some of the items recommended over a sequence of visits will be useful to the target user. Some embodiments of the methods are stateless such that the system need not keep track of which items have been recommended to which users.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 22, 2007
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Kushal Chakrabarti, Brent Smith
  • Multimedia enhanced services
    Patent number: 8295863
    Abstract: Techniques for providing information to users implemented through personal mobile devices such as cell phones, PDAs, electronic book readers, and other such devices are described herein. The described techniques and systems allow users to request searches, perform information seeking, purchasing, or other types of transactions with a provider via a mobile or wireless network using the messaging service capabilities of the users' mobile devices. Messages may be compiled in a manner customized to a user request and may be provided without the user authenticating to the provider in some instances.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 7, 2008
    Date of Patent: October 23, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Diwakar Gupta, Chih-Jen Huang, Gerald Yuen, Philip Yuen
  • Hinged electronic device having multiple panels
    Patent number: 8295037
    Abstract: An electronic device, such as an electronic book (“eBook”) reader device, is configured with two panels connected via a hinge. A first panel includes components such as a battery, a main logic board, a wireless networking interface, and so forth while a second panel includes a display component such as an electrophoretic display. The panels may be opened for use wherein the display is visible to a user, or closed such that the first panel protects and/or obscures the second panel and the display located therein.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 9, 2010
    Date of Patent: October 23, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: David C. Buuck, Joseph J. Hebenstreit, Kenneth M. Karakotsios
  • Optimizing content management
    Patent number: 8296429
    Abstract: A system and method for monitoring the performance associated with fulfilling resource requests and determining optimizations for improving such performance are provided. A processing device obtains and processes performance metric information associated with processing a request for an original resource and any embedded resource. The processing device uses the processed performance metric information to determine a CDN service provider for alternatively hosting at least a portion of the original resource and/or any embedded resources. In some embodiments, in making such a determination, the processing device assesses performance metric information collected and associated with subsequent resource requests for the original resource and any embedded resources using each of a variety of alternative CDN service providers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 13, 2012
    Date of Patent: October 23, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Mark S. Baumback, David William Bettis, Jonathan A. Jenkins
  • Browser-based retrieval and display of content associated with a link that matches a link signature
    Patent number: 8296392
    Abstract: A page update handler, which may be loaded by a web browser as part of a web page, adds functionality for dynamically updating the web page with content supplied by a content server. The content may be related to a particular item detected on the web page by the page update handler, such as a link that matches a link signature. The content server may operate in a different Internet domain from the server that servers the original web page, and may supply content for display on web pages of many different independent web sites. In one embodiment, an operator of a web site that is separate from the content server can enable the display of content from the content server on the site's web pages by adding an update handler tag to one or more corresponding HTML documents.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 6, 2011
    Date of Patent: October 23, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Nigel Green, Scott A. Mongrain
  • Dynamically modifying a cluster of computing nodes used for distributed execution of a program
    Patent number: 8296419
    Abstract: Techniques are described for managing distributed execution of programs. In some situations, the techniques include dynamically modifying the distributed program execution in various manners, such as based on monitored status information. The dynamic modifying of the distributed program execution may include adding and/or removing computing nodes from a cluster that is executing the program, modifying the amount of computing resources that are available for the distributed program execution, terminating or temporarily suspending execution of the program (e.g., if an insufficient quantity of computing nodes of the cluster are available to perform execution), etc.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 31, 2009
    Date of Patent: October 23, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Richendra Khanna, Peter Sirota, Ian P. Nowland, Richard J. Cole, Jai Vasanth, Andrew J. Hitchcock, Luis Felipe Cabrera
  • Network accessible funds transfer system
    Patent number: 8296231
    Abstract: A network-accessible funds transfer system is disclosed that is capable of controlling a funds transfer transaction in which a funds transfer service collects funds from a payer and transfers collected funds to a payee. In one embodiment, the funds transfer service uses credit card information specified by the payer via the service's user interface to collect funds from the payer (through interactions with a third party fulfillment service), and uses bank account information specified by the payee via the service's user interface to transfer collected funds to a bank account of the payee.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 28, 2009
    Date of Patent: October 23, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Mark J. Britto, Aimee K. Cardwell, FuMing Young, Nicholas K. Peddy, Adrian J. Blakey, Angela C. Lee, Erich L. Ringewald
  • System and method for service availability management
    Patent number: 8296609
    Abstract: A service framework uses importance ranking information in making call decisions and/or wait-time decisions in connection with service requests. Each of the service requests has an importance ranking which reflects the importance of the information provided by the service to a task being performed. The health of a service may be controlled by permitting fewer (or more) service requests to be made to the service when the service is less (or more) healthy. The likelihood of a service request being made to the service may depend on the importance ranking of the service request. When waiting for a response, a determination whether to continue waiting may be made based on the likelihood that the service has failed and based on the importance of the information to the task being performed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 2011
    Date of Patent: October 23, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Paul G. Nordstrom