Abstract: An electronic communication system for sending, receiving, storing, organizing, displaying, and sharing electronic messages and content (e.g., text, image, audio, and video) is described. The electronic communication system provides a platform where users can communicate and share information with each other. For example, a user can create a conversation thread and invite other users to join the thread. They can send messages and other content via the thread and protect them by assigning different confidentiality levels and expiration restrictions.

Abstract: A multimedia-based online customer feedback system is described. The system provides the tools for a business to initiate invitations for multimedia-based feedbacks (e.g., video, photo, audio, text) from its existing or prospective customers. The business can also specify rewards for such feedbacks. A targeted customer can create his/her feedback regarding the business in video, photo, audio, and/or text (by using his/her smart phone, for example) and submit his/her feedback to the system. The system then prescreens the feedback to make sure it is relevant to the business and notifies the business of the feedback. If there is a reward specified by the business, the system imposes digital protection on the feedback and removes the protection only after the business has fulfilled the reward.

Abstract: A method for resizing an image is disclosed. In a preferred embodiment, the method projects the image onto a lateral surface of a three-dimensional cylinder to transform the image into a three-dimensional image. Then, the method applies perspective projection (with a chosen viewpoint) to transform the three-dimensional image back to a two-dimensional image, based on which a final resized image is generated. By carefully choosing the diameter of the three-dimensional cylinder and the coordinate of the viewpoint, a rectangular shaped image may be resized into a square-shaped image.