Abstract: Method and apparatus for providing inventory fulfillment services to customers who have small quantities of heterogeneous items to sell. A self-service registration interface for generating lists of items to sell via the inventory fulfillment service is provided. The inventory fulfillment service may provide pricing suggestions to the customer. The inventory fulfillment service may determine whether a listed item satisfies one or more listing rules. Shipping information for a list of items may be automatically generated and provided to the customer. The customer may ship the items in one shipment to a specified facility. The customer is the seller of record for all items listed. The customer may not be charged for services until an item is sold. A listing period may be specified for which listed items will be carried. If an item does not sell within the period, option(s) for disposal of the item may be provided.

Abstract: A system includes a climate-controlled inventory holder, a mobile drive unit, and a management module. The climate-controlled inventory holder is configured to control a climate of one or more inventory items stored by the inventory holder. The mobile drive unit is operable to transport the climate-controlled inventory holder from a first location to a second location based at least in part upon one or more instructions received from a management module. The management module is operable to receive an order for an inventory item, determine that the inventory holder stores the inventory item, and instruct the mobile drive unit to transport the climate-controlled inventory holder from the first location to the second location.

Abstract: Features are disclosed for managing the use of speech recognition models and data in automated speech recognition systems. Models and data may be retrieved asynchronously and used as they are received or after an utterance is initially processed with more general or different models. Once received, the models and statistics can be cached. Statistics needed to update models and data may also be retrieved asynchronously so that it may be used to update the models and data as it becomes available. The updated models and data may be immediately used to re-process an utterance, or saved for use in processing subsequently received utterances. User interactions with the automated speech recognition system may be tracked in order to predict when a user is likely to utilize the system. Models and data may be pre-cached based on such predictions.

Abstract: A shared “universal” virtual shopping cart (“the cart”) may be provided by a host to enable information sharing between multiple disparate electronic marketplaces provided by various merchants. The host may obtain user information via the cart to improve interactions with a user. The host may recommend an item to the user that is offered at a lower price and related to an item retained in the user's cart. The host may also recommend items based on a user's purchase history, such as complementary items (e.g., up-sell items) and items other users may recommend. In some aspects, the host may compile best selling lists based on data from multiple electronic marketplaces. The host may also perform user specific operations such as indicate an item in a cart is a duplicate of a previous purchase and monitor a price and/or available quantities of an item in the cart.

Abstract: Methods, systems and computer program products are provided. Methods for controlling a multiple participant communication session include identifying a current speaker to other ones of a plurality of participants in the multiple participant communication session. A speaker rating input is received from at least one of the participants that corresponds to the helpfulness of the current speaker. A speaker reputation score is generated responsive to receiving the speaker rating input. A reputation-based speaker hierarchy is generated for the participants using the speaker reputation score. A contribution signal strength corresponding to ones of the participants is regulated to be positively correlated with the reputation-based speaker hierarchy.

Abstract: Techniques are described for retrieving data stored in disparate datastores that support different or heterogeneous storage systems. A report description may be received from a user, the report description including multiple query templates for generating queries to retrieve data from the disparate datastores. The report description may be analyzed to determine input parameters for generating the queries. A user interface may be dynamically generated to solicit input values corresponding to the input parameters. On receiving the input values, the system may generate and execute the queries of the query plan, and combine the results based on result combination information included in the report description.

Abstract: Techniques for utilizing different versions of a same font when rendering subsequent portions of a content item. For instance, envision that a user requests to open an electronic book. In response to this request, a display controller may display the first page of the electronic book using a flashing update and, therefore, may display the text using a regular weight of a particular font. However, when the user subsequently requests to turn to the second page of the electronic book, the display controller (utilizing a non-flashing update) may update the display using a version of the same font having a lesser weight. Given that some level of bleeding with likely occur when using the non-flashing update, the lesser weight coupled with the bleeding may result in text that approximates the weight of the text of the first page of the electronic book.

Abstract: A dedicated electronic book reader device and accompanying accessory are described. When the accessory is used with the electronic book reader device, the accessory unlocks content that would otherwise be unavailable to the device. The accessory may be configured to provide a password that unlocks content stored on the electronic book reader device, stored on the accessory, or stored remotely. In one implementation, the accessory is a cover which also physically protects the electronic book reader.

Abstract: Techniques, including systems and methods, take frequent captures of data sets for the purpose of forensic analysis. The data set captures are taken at the block level in various embodiments. Data set captures are used to instantiate forensic storage volumes that are attached to computing instances. The computing instances can access data in the forensic storage volumes at a state corresponding to a specified capture time. A user can select different capture times to re-instantiate the forensic storage volume to see how the forensic storage volume changed between captures.

Abstract: Disclosed are various embodiments for evaluating application compatibility with computing devices. A set of applications is determined and then filtered to exclude those applications which are incompatible with a particular client. The filtering is performed by determining a capability set for the client and performing an evaluation of a compatibility expression for each application using the capability set to determine whether each application is compatible with the client. The filtered set of applications is returned and may be used in user interfaces associated with an application marketplace system.

Abstract: Various approaches described herein enable various types of users, such as finance managers, vendors, and vendor managers to access up-to-date information in a retail environment that can assist with obtaining and tracking various items to be offered through that environment. A budget planner can analyze information such as historical performance, projection, and vendor data to establish a budget plan for various providers for a particular period. The budget information is fed to an assortment planner, which can use similar and other types of information to allocate that budget across various types and styles of item for each provider. A commitment tracker enables a user to commit to at least some portion of the allocation for various items, and track how well the orders are filled. Information at each level is fed back into the system to be almost instantly available and to adjust allocations for current or future periods.

Abstract: Some implementations include using a trained classifier to identify page-turn events in a video. The video may be divided into multiple segments based on the page-turn events, with each segment of the multiple segments corresponding to a pair of adjacent pages in a book. Exemplar frames that provide non-redundant data compared to other frames may be chosen from each segment. The exemplar frames may be cropped to include content portions of pages. The exemplar frames may be aligned such that a pixel is located in a same position in each frame. Optical character recognition (OCR) may be performed on exemplar frames and the OCR for exemplar frames in each segment may be combined. The exemplar frames in each segment may be combined to create a composite image for each pair of adjacent pages in the book, and OCR may be performed on the composite image.

Abstract: Features are disclosed for generating and using personalized named entity recognition models. A personalized model can be trained for a particular user, and then interpolated with a general model for use in named entity recognition. In some embodiments, a model may be trained for a group of users, where the users share some similarity relevant to language processing. In some embodiments, various base models may be trained so as to provide better accuracy for certain types of language input than a general model. Users may be associated with any number of base models, and the associated based models may then be interpolated for use in named entity recognition on input from the corresponding user.

Abstract: Self-retracting hang tabs for product packages are described. Methods of manufacturing the self-retracting hang tabs are also described. One apparatus includes a frame to house a hang tab, the frame to be at least partially coupled to a surface of a product package, and the hang tab to allow the product package to be hung from a medium when in a deployed position. The apparatus also include a biasing member coupled to the frame and the hang tab, the biasing member to move the hang tab from the deployed position to a retracted position when not under tension. The biasing member is also configured to position the hang tab in a deployed position when the hang tab is under tension.

Abstract: A system, method and computer-readable medium for request routing based on content popularity information are provided. A client computing device transmits a first DNS query to a content delivery network service provider. The content delivery network service provider transmits an alternative resource identifier in response to the client computing device DNS query. The alternative resource identifier is selected as a function of popularity information pertaining to the requested resource. The client computing device then transmits a second DNS query to the content delivery network service provider. The content delivery network service provider can then either resolve the second DNS query with an IP address of a cache component or transmit another alternative resource identifier that will resolve to the content delivery network service provider. The process can repeat until a DNS nameserver resolves a DNS query from the client computing device.

Abstract: A networked computer device can be provisioned by customizing the computer device to contain a specification of a particular provisioning server. For example, a network interface device can be pre-configured and installed in the computer device. The pre-configuration of the network interface device may include embedding a provisioning service identification in the network interface device. The network interface device may be further configured to perform provisioning from a provisioning service indicated by the embedded provisioning service identification. In addition, or alternatively, the network interface device, or the computer within which it is installed, may be configured to authenticate with a provisioning server based on authentication information that has been embedded within firmware of the computer or network interface device.

Abstract: A method of adding a power feed to electrical systems includes coupling a set of input lines to a power source such that the input lines are connected to at least one phase of AC power from the power source, and coupling a set of backfeed lines to an output receptacle in a power distribution unit. The output receptacle may be connected in parallel with at least one other output receptacle that is supplying primary power to systems in the data center. The set of backfeed lines and the set of input lines may be tested to determine a match between a pair of lines in the set of backfeed lines and a pair of lines in the set of input lines. Determining the match may include matching the phase of the pair of backfeed lines with the phase of the pair of input lines.

Abstract: A computer-implemented method for uploading and storing a file. The file is automatically transcoded to the format(s) of registered device(s) associated with an entity. The transcoded files are thus prepared for download and access by the registered devices.

Abstract: A system, methods, and interfaces for managing request routing functionality associated with resource requests for one or more resources associated with a content provider. The request routing functionality can correspond to the processing of domain name service (“DNS”) requests for resources by computing devices and the resolution of the DNS requests by the identification of a network address of a computing device that will provide the requested resources. Unlike traditional CDN service provider implementation, the processing of resource requests by the service provider is separate from the delivery of the content by the content provider (or on behalf of the content provider).