Patents Assigned to Microsoft Corp.
  • Patent number: 8890890
    Abstract: The pluggable web-based visualization technique described herein pertains to a method for providing pluggable web-based visualizations for applications. The method selects visualizations from the web to be embedded into a host application on a desktop computing device. The visualizations can be plugged in to a variety of host applications. This empowers end-users, application designers, and visualization designers by allowing greater reuse of existing code. Additionally, end-users do not have to wait for new revisions of existing applications to use the latest techniques. Designers of domain specific visualizations can work on just the visualization and have them incorporated into a variety of different host applications. Users can perform local processing and visualizations on their own machine, yet obtain new visualizations from the web where they can be updated more frequently and where special purpose visualizations are available.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 26, 2010
    Date of Patent: November 18, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventors: Danyel Fisher, Roland Fernandez, Steven Mark Drucker
  • Patent number: 8839236
    Abstract: A virtual machine monitor provides a trusted operating environment for a software usage metering application when a qualified virtual machine monitor is loaded as part of trusted boot and when all other programs and operating systems run in containers managed by the virtual machine monitor. The virtual machine monitor may also host a locking application for limiting the functionality of the computer if contractual terms of use are not met. Both the metering and locking applications run at a higher privilege level than ring 0, at the same level as the virtual machine monitor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 4, 2007
    Date of Patent: September 16, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventors: Todd L. Carpenter, William J. Westerinen, Thomas G. Phillips, Curt Andrew Steeb, Zhangwei Xu, Alexander Frank
  • Patent number: 8818002
    Abstract: A novel adaptive beamforming technique with enhanced noise suppression capability. The technique incorporates the sound-source presence probability into an adaptive blocking matrix. In one embodiment the sound-source presence probability is estimated based on the instantaneous direction of arrival of the input signals and voice activity detection. The technique guarantees robustness to steering vector errors without imposing ad hoc constraints on the adaptive filter coefficients. It can provide good suppression performance for both directional interference signals as well as isotropic ambient noise.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 21, 2011
    Date of Patent: August 26, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventors: Ivan Tashev, Alejandro Acero, Byung-Jun Yoon
  • Patent number: 8805450
    Abstract: An intelligent contact management technique that automatically manages contacts on a communication device such as a mobile phone is described. The intelligent management technique can automatically determine and display a user's favorite contacts on a display of a mobile device. The technique can also intelligently group contacts based on their contact frequency. It can provide a contact-oriented event notification that notifies a user when a contact event has occurred. The contact-oriented event notification can be associated with a visual representation of an associated contact.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 5, 2008
    Date of Patent: August 12, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventors: Yandong Wen, Liang Chen, David Vronay, Rebecca Sundling
  • Patent number: 8805833
    Abstract: The personal data search technique uses data input by users for a given user's personal data on a social networking site to enrich the given user's personal data. The technique annotates personal data stored on a personal computing device or in a computing cloud with data obtained from social networking sites (for example, tags, comments, likes/dislikes and so forth) provided by friends/other users in the given user's social network or networks. Such annotations can later are used by search engine to enhance the search functionality and/or to improve the ranking of search results. Since the data is entered by actual human users it is very accurate and since the data is already readily available on social networks the cost to obtain it is very inexpensive.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 24, 2010
    Date of Patent: August 12, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventors: Suman Kumar Nath, Douglas Christopher Burger
  • Patent number: 8806495
    Abstract: Described is a technology by which alternative use for transactional memory is provided, namely implementing atomic work items that are run asynchronously from their creation in a thread. Described are mechanisms by which threads control the work items that they have created. Atomic work items are scheduled on worker threads managed by the language's runtime system. Atomic work items can use retry to express condition synchronization, providing a general mechanism for controlling when and in what order they are executed. Work items may be grouped, with coordination managed among the grouped work items. Also described by way of example is a highly-parallel implementation of a Chaff satisfiability solver, comprising an example of an important group of applications, including theorem provers and constraint optimization systems.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2007
    Date of Patent: August 12, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventors: James R. Larus, Timothy Lawrence Harris, Virendra Jayant Marathe
  • Patent number: 8788529
    Abstract: A content-based image retrieval technique for sharing image information between images. In the present image information sharing technique digital photographs containing relevant comments and links to web pages are supplied by a set of authors. A user of the image information sharing technique takes a digital picture of something that interests them, such as, for example, a poster, a product, a painting, and uploads it to an image information sharing server. The image information sharing technique then matches the photo to an image in an image information sharing database. The comments and web links associated with the matched photo are subsequently sent to the user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 26, 2007
    Date of Patent: July 22, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventors: Charles Lawrence Zitnick, III, Richard Lloyd Hughes
  • Patent number: 8782527
    Abstract: A collaborative phone-based file exchange technique that wirelessly synchronizes a user's work context with his or her mobile phone and makes this context readily available and sharable in collaborative situations. When the user is away from their desk, collaboration with others is possible by sharing/downloading between the mobile phone and a paired PC, which may be a colleague's computer or a meeting room workstation/computer. When the user returns to their office, any recently downloaded files are automatically synchronized back to their office PC.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 27, 2007
    Date of Patent: July 15, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventors: Amy Karlson, George Robertson, Brian Meyers, Gregory Smith, Mary Czerwinski
  • Patent number: 8738356
    Abstract: The universal text input technique described herein addresses the difficulties of typing text in various languages and scripts, and offers a unified solution, which combines character conversion, next word prediction, spelling correction and automatic script switching to make it extremely simple to type any language from any device. The technique provides a rich and seamless input experience in any language through a universal IME (input method editor). It allows a user to type in any script for any language using a regular qwerty keyboard via phonetic input and at the same time allows for auto-completion and spelling correction of words and phrases while typing. The technique also provides a modeless input that automatically turns on and off an input mode that changes between different types of script.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 18, 2011
    Date of Patent: May 27, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventors: Hisami Suzuki, Vikram Dendi, Christopher Brian Quirk, Pallavi Choudhury, Jianfeng Gao, Achraf Chalabi
  • Patent number: 8719847
    Abstract: A home device management technique is described that allows a user to manage a network of distributed home devices. Special application modules, driver modules, and service exchange ports are employed. Each application modules implements some functionality in the home, preferably using one or more devices in the home distributed system. Each driver module provides the logic for operating one or multiple distributed home devices and is capable of receiving commands from application modules and sending them to devices, detecting events for an associated type of home device, translating the detected event into a format usable by the application modules and notifying the application modules of the events. Events are communicated between the application modules and the driver modules by using one or more service exchange ports. Access control policies are employed to control access to the home devices.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 27, 2010
    Date of Patent: May 6, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventors: Sharad Agarwal, Paramvir Bahl, Alice Jane Bernheim Brush, Colin Kimm Dixon, Bongshin Lee, Ratul Mahajan, Stefan Saroiu
  • Patent number: 8706740
    Abstract: The concept-structured image search technique described herein pertains to a technique for enabling a user to indicate their semantic intention and then retrieve and rank images from a database or other image set according to this intention. The concept-structured image search technique described herein includes a new interface for image search. With this interface, a user can freely type several key textual words in arbitrary positions on a blank image, and also describe a region for each keyword that indicates its influence scope, which is called concept structure herein. The concept-structured image search technique will return and rank images that are in accordance with the concept structure indicated by the user. One embodiment of the technique can be used to create a synthesized image without actually using the synthesized image to perform a search of an image set.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 6, 2013
    Date of Patent: April 22, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventors: Xian-Sheng Hua, Jingdong Wang, Hao Xu
  • Patent number: 8676774
    Abstract: The min-repro finding technique described herein is designed to ease and speed-up the task of finding a min-repro, a minimum configuration that reproduces a problem in database-related products. Specifically, in one embodiment, the technique simplifies transformations in order to find one or more min-repros. One embodiment provides a high-level script language to automate some sub-tasks and to guide the search for a simpler the configuration that reproduces the problem. Yet another embodiment provides record-and-replay functionality, and provides an intuitive representation of results and the search space. These tools can save hours of time for both customers and testers to isolate the problem and can result in faster fixes and large cost savings to organizations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 20, 2009
    Date of Patent: March 18, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventors: Nicolas Bruno, Rimma V. Nehme
  • Patent number: 8618405
    Abstract: The free-space gesture MIDI controller technique described herein marries the technologies embodied in a free-space gesture controller with MIDI controller technology, allowing a user to control an infinite variety of electronic musical instruments through body gesture and pose. One embodiment of the free-space gesture MIDI controller technique described herein uses a human body gesture recognition capability of a free-space gesture control system and translates human gestures into musical actions. Rather than directly connecting a specific musical instrument to the free-space gesture controller, the technique generalizes its capability and instead outputs standard MIDI signals, thereby allowing the free-space gesture control system to control any MIDI-capable instrument.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 9, 2010
    Date of Patent: December 31, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventor: Dennis Stewart Tansley
  • Patent number: 8588551
    Abstract: The multi-image sharpening and denoising technique described herein creates a clean (low-noise, high contrast), detailed image of a scene from a temporal series of images of the scene. The technique employs a process of image alignment to remove global and local camera motion plus a novel weighted image averaging procedure that avoids sacrificing sharpness to create a resultant high-detail, low-noise image from the temporal series. In addition, the multi-image sharpening and denoising technique can employ a dehazing procedure that uses a spatially varying airlight model to dehaze an input image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 1, 2010
    Date of Patent: November 19, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventors: Neel Joshi, Michael Cohen
  • Patent number: 8577187
    Abstract: A system, a method and computer-readable media for processing raw image data with a graphics processing unit (GPU). Raw image data generated by an imaging sensor is received. A set of instructions for demosaicing the raw image data is communicated to the GPU. The GPU is enabled to demosaic the raw image data by executing the set of instructions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 6, 2011
    Date of Patent: November 5, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventors: Tomasz S. M. Kasperkiewicz, Richard S. Turner, Steven J. White
  • Patent number: 8572183
    Abstract: The present panoramic video technique embodied in the unified client provides panoramic video and other data from various sources for live web-based conferencing applications. In one embodiment, the panoramic video is provided by a panoramic collaboration and communication device, termed a RoundTable Device (RTD). The RTD is a collaboration tool with a 360-degree camera and a microphone or microphone array that, together with the unified client, delivers an immersive conferencing experience that extends the meeting room across multiple locations. This enables live network meeting scenarios that were not possible before.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 19, 2006
    Date of Patent: October 29, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventors: Kapil Sharma, Avronil Bhattacharjee, Sumeet Bawa, Imad Yanni, Quinn Hawkins, Alan Bridgewater, Stella Chan, Lei Tan
  • Patent number: 8498476
    Abstract: A method for compressing a high dynamic range (HDR) texture. A first block of texels of the HDR texture in a red-green-blue (RGB) space may be transformed to a second block of texels in a luminance-chrominance space. The first block may have red values, green values and blue values. The second block may have luminance values and chrominance values. The chrominance values may be based on a sum of the red values, a sum of the green values and a sum of the blue values. The luminance values and the chrominance values may be converted to an 8-bit integer format. The luminance values may be modified to restore a local linearity property to the second block. The second block may be compressed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 23, 2012
    Date of Patent: July 30, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventors: Yan Lu, Wen Sun, Feng Wu, Shipeng Li
  • Patent number: 8407236
    Abstract: Described is a technology in which new words (including a phrase or set of Chinese characters) are mined from a query log. The new words may be added to (or otherwise supplement) an IME dictionary. A set of candidate queries may be selected from the log based upon market (e.g., the Chinese market) and/or by language. From this set, various filtering steps are performed to locate only new words that are frequently in used. For example, only frequent queries are kept for further processing, which may include filtering out queries based on length (e.g., less than two or greater than eight Chinese characters), and/or filtering out queries based on too many stop-words in the query. Processing may also include filtering out a query that is a substring of a larger query, or vice-versa. Also described is Pinyin-based clustering and filtering, and filtering out queries already handled in the dictionary.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 3, 2008
    Date of Patent: March 26, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventors: Weizhu Chen, Qian Xun Li, Li Ju, Zheng Chen, Dong Li, Zhikai Fan
  • Patent number: 8407214
    Abstract: To construct a classifier, a data structure correlating queries to items identified by the queries is received, where the data structure contains initial labeled queries that have been labeled with respect to predetermined classes, and unlabeled queries that have not been labeled with respect to the predetermined classes. The data structure is used to label at least some of the unlabeled queries with respect to the predetermined classes. Queries in the data structure that have been labeled with respect to the predetermined classes are used as training data to train the classifier.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 25, 2008
    Date of Patent: March 26, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventors: Xiao Li, Ye-Yi Wang
  • Patent number: 8392430
    Abstract: The concept-structured image search technique described herein pertains to a technique for enabling a user to indicate their semantic intention and then retrieve and rank images from a database or other image set according to this intention. The concept-structured image search technique described herein includes a new interface for image search. With this interface, a user can freely type several key textual words in arbitrary positions on a blank image, and also describe a region for each keyword that indicates its influence scope, which is called concept structure herein. The concept-structured image search technique will return and rank images that are in accordance with the concept structure indicated by the user. One embodiment of the technique can be used to create a synthesized image without actually using the synthesized image to perform a search of an image set.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 23, 2009
    Date of Patent: March 5, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventors: Xian-Sheng Hua, Jingdong Wang, Hao Xu