Abstract: A system includes an inventory pier, a mobile drive unit, and a management module. The inventory pier includes a defined area arranged to station an inventory holder. The inventory holder stores an inventory item. The mobile drive unit is operable to transport an order holder. The management module is operable to calculate a metric associated with demand for the inventory item. Based at least in part upon the metric, the management module is operable to select, from a plurality of inventory holders, the inventory holder storing the inventory item to be stationed at the defined area of the inventory pier. The management module is further operable to receive an order for the inventory item and instruct the mobile drive unit to transport the order holder to the inventory pier. The order holder is operable to receive the inventory item from the inventory holder proximate to the defined area.

Abstract: Techniques for scheduling deals based on predicted user locations are described herein. In particular implementations, a service provider may aggregate location information for multiple users. In one example, the location information comprises check-in information shared by a user through a location-based service. The service provider may utilize the aggregated location information to predict future user traffic for a geographical region associated with a deal or a merchant of the deal. In some instance, the deal comprises an offer of an item for acquisition at a discounted value for a period of time, such as a period of hours, days, or weeks. The predicted user traffic may be used by the service provider, merchant, or others to identify the time period and discounted value at which to offer the deal for acquisition.

Abstract: A device is described for establishing communication between a first device and a second device. In one implementation, a first internal interface of the first device couples to a first external interface of the second device while a second internal interface of the first device couples to a second external interface of the second device. A first unidirectional data channel may be opened for incoming data using the first internal interface. A second unidirectional data channel may be opened for outgoing data using the second internal interface. The pair of unidirectional data channels is established, allowing data transfer between the devices. These channels allow for asynchronous-like transmission of data, in that transmission and corresponding receipt of data may take place at irregular intervals.

Abstract: Techniques are described for assessing information supplied by users in various ways, such as to assess the reliability and/or other attributes of the user-supplied information. In at least some situations, the user-supplied information includes votes or other evaluations supplied by users related to items available from an online merchant, such as ratings of usefulness or other attributes of item reviews for the items or of other types of content pieces that are provided by other users. If user-supplied information is assessed as being sufficiently reliable and/or to have other desired attributes of interest, such as based on an automated analysis of the information, the user-supplied information may be used in various ways in various embodiments, such as to rate the quality or other attributes of the evaluated content pieces, and/or to rate quality or other attributes of the content-providing users who provide the content pieces.

Abstract: A system and methods for monitoring and determining agent and network health, having a network monitoring and failure detection system that collects data reports and accumulates a set of data defined in terms of a time window. The network monitoring and failure detection system makes a determination of the agent health during the time window. The network monitoring and failure detection system then processes the collected data based on the determined health. The processing of the collected data can include disregarding the data, weighing the data, filtering the data, using the data in a feedback loop, or processing the data using another method or algorithm.

Abstract: A distributed, web-services based storage system. A system may include a web services interface configured to receive, according to a web services protocol, a given client request for access to a given data object, the request including a key value corresponding to the object. The system may also include storage nodes configured to store replicas of the objects, where each replica is accessible via a respective unique locator value, and a keymap instance configured to store a respective keymap entry for each object. For the given object, the respective keymap entry includes the key value and each locator value corresponding to replicas of the object. A coordinator may receive the given client request from the web services interface, responsively access the keymap instance to identify locator values corresponding to the key value and, for a particular locator value, retrieve a corresponding replica from a corresponding storage node.

Abstract: A single origin policy of a web browser includes an exception for images, such as markup language image files. Data may be encoded using the height and width dimensions, pixel colors or transparencies, or other parameters defining one or more images. Such images may be sent to device and accepted by the web browser, and decoded to construct the underlying data. A single origin policy may be circumvented during authenticated access sessions so that information from various sources may be received by a requesting device.

Abstract: Described herein are systems and methods of reducing memory consumption in a device. The device may be resource constrained such as having limited memory, processor, power, or other resources for execution of applications. An application may be transitioned to a background state and at least a portion of the data associated with that application may be compressed, freeing up memory. While in the background state, notifications from other applications may be processed by a notification module on behalf of the application in the background state.

Abstract: A system includes a station and a management module. The station includes a queue having a first row and a second row. The management module is operable to instruct a first mobile drive unit to move a first group of connected item holders from the second row to the first row, instruct the first mobile drive unit to move the first group of connected item holders along the station such that one or more items stored by the first group of connected item holders are processed at the station, and after the one or more items from the first group of items are processed, instruct a second mobile drive unit to move a second group of connected item holders from the second row to the first row.

Abstract: Users intending to launch instances or otherwise access virtual resources in a multi-tenant environment can specify a launch configuration. For each type of instance or each type of user, at least one launch configuration is created that includes parameters and values to be used in instantiating an instance of that type, the values being optimized for the current environment and type of instance. Launch configurations can be optimized for different types of users, such as to account for security credentials and access levels. Such an approach enables users to launch instances by contacting the resource provider directly without need for a proxy, which can function as a choke point under heavy load. The use of an appropriate launch configuration can be enforced for any type of user at any level, such as at the sub-net level, by modifying a request that does not specify an appropriate launch configuration.

Abstract: A system that provides services to clients may receive and service requests, various ones of which may require different amounts of work. The system may determine whether it is operating in an overloaded or underloaded state based on a current work throughput rate, a target work throughput rate, a maximum request rate, or an actual request rate, and may dynamically adjust the maximum request rate in response. For example, if the maximum request rate is being exceeded, the maximum request rate may be raised or lowered, dependent on the current work throughput rate. If the target or committed work throughput rate is being exceeded, but the maximum request rate is not being exceeded, a lower maximum request rate may be proposed. Adjustments to the maximum request rate may be made using multiple incremental adjustments. Service request tokens may be added to a leaky token bucket at the maximum request rate.

Abstract: The community-based generation of audio narrations for a text-based work leverages collaboration of a community of people to provide human-voiced audio readings. During the community-based generation, a collection of audio recordings for the text-based work may be collected from multiple human readers in a community. An audio recording for each section in the text-based work may be selected from the collection of audio recordings. The selected audio recordings may be then combined to produce an audio reading of at least a portion of the text-based work.

Abstract: Systems and methods are presented for enabling a user to provide rules for the placement of computing resources at a data center for an entity that employs or is associated with the user. The data center can use the placement rules to select a data center computer system to host computing resources for a user. The rules can be used to establish diversity in computing resource placement at the data center thereby reducing the number of users who lose access to computing resources when a specific data center computer suffers a failure. Further, the placement rules can be used to facilitate configuration of the computer resources for the user based, for example, on the user's employment responsibilities.

Abstract: Methods and systems for extending a bandwidth of a multi-mode wideband antenna of a user device are described. A multi-mode wideband antenna includes a single radio frequency (RF) feed coupled to a first element, and a second element coupled to the first element and a ground plane. The first element is to operate as a feeding structure to a parasitic grounding element that is coupled to the ground plane, but is not conductively connected to the RF feed. The multi-mode wideband antenna is configured to provide multiple resonant modes.

Abstract: A physical computer system includes a processor and a memory configured to store instructions executable by the processor to implement a virtualization module, which in turn implements virtual machine(s) that execute an operating system distinct from any underlying operating system executed by the physical computer system. In response to a client request to initially perform a repeatable computation, the virtualization module instructs that the virtual machine(s) archive an original initial state of the repeatable computation, initially perform the repeatable computation, and archive an original terminal state of the repeatable computation.

Abstract: The present invention applies the voltage that is swung to the notch electrode of each pixel of the electrowetting display device to reset the oil layer to not backflow such that an additional element is not disposed in the pixel, thereby increasing the aperture ratio of the pixel. Also, the reset signal generator generating and applying the reset signal is disposed inside the electrowetting display device such that additional wiring may not be disposed in the outer part of the panel.

Abstract: Disclosed are various embodiments that may facilitate items being retrieved from a storage location. A robotic drive unit transports a carrier storage unit to be proximate to a target storage unit that comprises a container in which an item is located. The robotic drive unit aligns a receptacle in the carrier storage unit with the container in the target storage unit. The container is transferred from the target storage unit to the carrier storage unit. The robotic drive unit transports the carrier storage unit with the container to a destination.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for creating personalized programs. In one implementation, a computer-implemented method is provided. According to the method, content is assembled into a personalized program. The method includes maintaining, in a storage device, transaction history information and preference information for a user. The method selects a plurality of content components based on at least one of the transaction history information and the preference information. The method then determines a sequence of the selected content components and assembles the selected content components according to the sequence as the personalized program.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus for conditional deletes of storage objects are disclosed. A storage medium comprises program instructions that when executed, implement a metadata node of a storage service in which a protocol based on sequence numbers is used to resolve update conflicts. The instructions store, as part of a conditional deletion record associated with a key of a particular storage object identified as a deletion candidate, a deletion sequence number derived from a particular modification sequence number of the object. In accordance with the protocol, the instructions determine whether an additional modification sequence number larger than the deletion sequence number has been generated in response to an operation associated with the key. If such an additional sequence number has been generated, the deletion of the storage object is canceled.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus for instance host configuration are disclosed. A system includes a plurality of instance hosts configurable for resource instances of a network-accessible service, and control servers to manage remote configuration of the instance hosts. In response to an instance configuration request from a client, a selected control server transmits, to a selected instance host, a sequence of one or more commands. The selected instance host instantiates a remote command executor. The remote command executor initiates configuration operations corresponding to the command sequence, and terminates. The selected control server provides a response to the instance configuration request, based at least in part on results of the operations initiated by the executor.