Abstract: Systems and approaches are provided to allow for collaborative image capturing. Multiple user devices subscribed to the collaborative image capturing system can be synchronized to perform certain image capturing related tasks, including coordinated image capture. When the user devices are widely dispersed, the image data can be aggregated to generate composited image data, such as panoramas, 3-D transformations, or stereoscopic image data. Multiple user devices can also be coordinated to simultaneously flash or activate other light emitting components that may improve lighting condition than would otherwise be capable of a single computing device.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus for datacenter power management optimization are disclosed. Metrics, including workload data, thermal measurements and the like are collected from numerous endpoints within a datacenter. System profiles of a plurality of servers, and application workload profiles for various workloads, are stored. Based on analysis of collected metrics, power optimization operations comprising either workload scheduling operations, power configuration change operations, or both, are initiated.

Abstract: Methods and systems for implementing test coverage measurement are disclosed. A first set of interactions among a set of production services are determined. The first set of interactions comprises a plurality of service requests between individual ones of the set of production services. A second set of interactions among a set of test services are determined. The second set of interactions comprises a plurality of service requests between individual ones of the set of test services. A test coverage metric is generated. The test coverage metric indicates an amount of the first set of interactions that are covered by the second set of interactions.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus for dedicated endpoint instances for network-accessible services are disclosed. The number of dedicated endpoint instances to be established to direct work requests of a given client to back-end nodes of a service may be determined. Configuration policies for the instances, including one or more policies related to caching, authentication, redundancy, durability, availability, and/or load balancing, may also be determined. Configuration of the instances may be initiated, and an indication that the endpoint or endpoints have been configured may be provided to the client.

Abstract: Techniques are described for facilitating sharing and reuse of executable software images between multiple execution environments. In at least some situations, the executable software images are virtual machine images (e.g., images that are bootable or otherwise loadable by a virtual machine in a particular virtualization environment, and that each include operating system software and/or software for one or more application programs, optionally along with one or more hard disks or other representations of stored data). The described techniques may include use of an image conversion tool that is configured to support interactions with multiple distinct types of source execution environments to extract executable software images from those environments, and to modify extracted software images for execution in one or more distinct types of destination execution environments, optionally as directed by one or more users via a GUI provided by the image conversion tool.

Abstract: This application describes fabric storage totes, as well as techniques for use of fabric totes in an infrastructure that uses mechanical systems to transport the fabric totes and/or access inventory items in the fabric totes. The fabric totes may include a fabric base and side walls, with a hardened material support structure. Additionally, the fabric totes may include two handles made of a substantially hard material. The fabric totes may be accessed and transported, manually and/or mechanically, via interaction with the handles.

Abstract: In some implementations, a computing device includes an identifier that is embedded into a firmware of the computing device. The identifier uniquely identifies the computing device from other computing devices. The computing device may send a request to a server to provide credentials to enable the computing device to access a secured resource, such as secured data or a secured system. The computing device may provide the server with the identifier to enable the server to determine whether the computing device is authorized to access the secured resource. If the server determines that the computing device is authorized, the server may provide the credentials to the computing device. If the server determines that the computing device is unauthorized, the server may cause the computing device to perform one or more actions to render the computing device inoperable and/or render the resource inaccessible.

Abstract: Features are disclosed for automatically identifying a speaker. Artifacts of automatic speech recognition (“ASR”) and/or other automatically determined information may be processed against individual user profiles or models. Scores may be determined reflecting the likelihood that individual users made an utterance. The scores can be based on, e.g., individual components of Gaussian mixture models (“GMMs”) that score best for frames of audio data of an utterance. A user associated with the highest likelihood score for a particular utterance can be identified as the speaker of the utterance. Information regarding the identified user can be provided to components of a spoken language processing system, separate applications, etc.

Abstract: An electrowetting element comprising a first support plate, a second support plate and a first and second fluid located between the first support plate and the second support plate, the second fluid immiscible with the first fluid. The first support plate comprises a wall extending along at least part of a perimeter of the electrowetting element and an electrode comprising a first electrode portion having a first electrode portion area and a second electrode portion having a second electrode portion area larger than the first electrode portion area. The first electrode portion is closer to the second support plate than the second electrode portion. The first electrode comprises a first edge portion and a second edge portion positioned further from an inner surface of a wall in a direction substantially perpendicular to the inner surface of the wall than the first edge portion.

Abstract: Disclosed are various embodiments for a streaming media application. Media blocks of a media stream may be buffered at a quality level determined by an amount of available bandwidth. When excess bandwidth is made available, a higher quality replacement for a buffered media block may be obtained concurrent to streaming the media blocks. The replacement media block then replaces the lower quality media block in the buffer such that the higher quality replacement media block is rendered.

Abstract: A technology is described for determining a placement of a computing instance within a virtualized computing service. An example method may include receiving a computing group state for a server that provides a virtualized computing service. The server may include a computing slot which may be used to execute a computing instance. Weighting values for placement factors may be identified for the computing group state. A placement score may be calculated for the computing slot based at least in part on the weighting value for the placement factor.

Abstract: Automatic replay or skip ahead functionality can be configured to intelligently navigate to a portion of a video a user desires to view. The context at which a user selects intelligent navigation can be analyzed to determine where to initiate automatic replay or skip ahead. The context for intelligent navigation can be based on scene or shot segmentation data, closed captioning, aggregate video navigation data from a community of users of shared demographic traits and/or interest, and/or other metadata. In the case of automatic replay, playback of a portion of a video can include enhancements for that portion, such as providing closed captioning, display at a decreased frame rate (“slow motion”), zooming in/out on a portion of the frames of a video segment, among other enhancements.

Abstract: A deploy service is provided to determine a set of software artifacts that needs to be transmitted to a target machine upon receiving an application deployment request from a user of a client device. For instance, the deploy service may compare versions of software artifacts on the target machine with the software artifacts of the application that the user desires to deploy to determine the set of software artifacts that needs to be transmitted. Instead of having to transmit the entire application, some embodiments transmit only a small portion that is reflective of what has been changed between the old version of the application and the new version of the application. This enables the transfer of large files across the Internet to be more efficient.

Abstract: Remote computing resource service providers allow customers to execute one or more applications in a virtual environment on computer systems provided by the computing resource service provider. The virtual machines may be managed by a hypervisor executing on computer systems operated by the service provider. The virtual machines' memory may be protected by a memory obfuscation service and the hypervisor. The memory obfuscation service may enable the virtual machines to maintain at least a portion of sensitive information in an obfuscated format. The virtual machines may request access to the virtual machines' memory, the memory obfuscation service may obtain the requested memory in an obfuscated format and un-obfuscate the memory such that it may be used by the virtual machines.

Abstract: The techniques described herein provide software testing of a candidate software system. In some examples, a testing service compares at least one candidate response to at least a first control response to obtain one or more candidate test differences. The testing service may compare at least a second control response of the plurality of control responses to at least one of the first control response of the plurality of control responses or a third control response of the plurality of control responses to obtain one or more control test differences. The testing service may then analyze the one or more candidate test differences based on the one or more control test differences to generate an evaluation of whether one or more of the candidate test differences are due to differences between the candidate software system and the control software system that generated the first control response.

Abstract: Automatic speech recognition (ASR) processing including a feedback configuration to allow for improved disambiguation between ASR hypotheses. After ASR processing of an incoming utterance where the ASR outputs an N-best list including multiple hypotheses, the multiple hypotheses are passed downstream for further processing. The downstream further processing may include natural language understanding (NLU) or other processing to determine a command result for each hypothesis. The command results are compared to determine if any hypotheses of the N-best list would yield similar command results. If so, the hypothesis(es) with similar results are removed from the N-best list so that only one hypothesis of the similar results remains in the N-best list. The remaining non-similar hypotheses are sent for disambiguation, or, if only one hypothesis remains, it is sent for execution.

Abstract: Systems, devices, and techniques are provided for customization of a layout of keys based at least on position of a finger of an end-user of user equipment. The customization can be implemented dynamically in response to changes in actions associated with interaction between end-users and the user equipment. A customized layout of keys of a keyboard layout associated with the user equipment can be leveraged for implementation of a typing technique.

Abstract: Systems and methods are described for using secondary mappings in an Object Relational Mapping (ORM) system to enable source code changes to be implemented and carried out without requiring updates to the database schema. In order to use secondary mappings, one or more attributes of an object in the ORM system are annotated to indicate that they are secondary mapped attributes. The annotation can indicate to the ORM system that the various operations (e.g. read operations, write operations) referencing attributes of the object may need to be remapped if the column for the attribute being referenced does not actually exist in the database. For example, if no column is directly mapped to the attribute being referenced, the ORM system can remap the operation to point to a secondary data structure (e.g. a map stored in-memory) that will be used to store the value for that attribute.

Abstract: In a system that monitors the positions and movements of objects within an environment, a depth camera may be configured to produce depth images based on configurable measurement parameters such as illumination intensity and sensing duration. A supervisory component may be configured to roughly identify objects within an environment and to specify observation goals with respect to the objects. The measurement parameters of the depth camera may then be configured in accordance with the goals, and subsequent analyses of the environment may be based on depth images obtained using the measurement parameters.

Abstract: Systems, methods, and computer-readable media are disclosed for dynamic character enhancement for rendering digital content. Example methods may include identifying a reading speed indicative of a rate at which a user desires to read, determining a number of words in a portion of content to present to the user, and determining a base time interval for at least one word of the portion of content based at least in part on the reading speed. Methods may include determining an average difficulty value of the portion of content, determining that a first difficulty value of a first word exceeds the average difficulty value, and determining a first time adjustment for the first word based at least in part on the first difficulty value. Methods may include determining a first time interval based at least in part on the base time interval and the first time adjustment.