Abstract: A DRM scheme that may be optionally invoked by the owner. With the DRM protection turned on, the media is encrypted before it is distributed in a P2P network, and is decrypted prior to its use (play back). The peers may still efficiently distribute and serve without authorization from the owner. Nevertheless, when the media is used (played back), the client node must seek proper authorization from the owner. The invention further provides a hierarchical DRM scheme wherein each packet of the media is associated with a different protection level. In the hierarchical DRM scheme of the invention there is usually an order of the protection level. As a result, in one embodiment of the invention, the decryption key of a lower protection layer is the hash of the decryption key at the higher protection level. That way, a user granted access to the high protection layer may simply hold a single license of that layer, and obtain decryption keys of that layer and below.

Abstract: The HIP creation technique described herein pertains to a technique for creating a human interactive proof (HIP) by applying tearing and/or a conformal transformation to a string of characters while maintaining readability of text. In one embodiment, the technique tears a character string into two or more pieces and applies conformal transformation to warp the pieces in order to create a HIP. The transformation changes the shape and orientation of the characters but preserves angles of the characters which makes it easy for humans to recognize the characters after the transformation. Other embodiments of the technique create HIPs by applying tearing only to a string of characters, or by applying conformal transformation only to the character string.

Abstract: The stereo movie editing technique described herein combines knowledge of both multi-view stereo algorithms and human depth perception. The technique creates a digital editor, specifically for stereographic cinema. The technique employs an interface that allows intuitive manipulation of the different parameters in a stereo movie setup, such as camera locations and screen position. Using the technique it is possible to reduce or enhance well-known stereo movie effects such as cardboarding and miniaturization. The technique also provides new editing techniques such as directing the user's attention and easier transitions between scenes.

Abstract: The present virtual video muting technique seamlessly inserts a virtual video into a live video when the user does not want to reveal his/her actual activity. The virtual video is generated based on real video frames captured earlier, and thus makes the virtual video appear to be real.

Abstract: This cryptographic curve generation technique provides a faster way of constructing a genus 2 curve. The technique provides a procedure to compute isogenies between genus 2 curves over finite fields. Instead of looping over possible roots, as is typically done when solving Igusa class polynomials, the technique only finds one root and then applies the isogenies to find the others. The technique computes a set of polynomials that define all isogenies. To do this, for a given root of an Igusa class polynomial over a finite field, the technique computes a value of a small modular function ƒ. To the value of this function ƒ, the technique applies an isogeny to find an isogenous ƒ-value. The technique then transforms the ƒ-value back into an Igusa value. Once the Igusa class polynomials are solved they can be used to generate a genus 2 curve which can be used in cryptographic applications.

Abstract: The write optimizer described in this disclosure optimizes write traffic to a disk. The write optimization technique writes small data sets to be written to a disk drive to a log file in write optimized order and rewrites the small data sets to disk drive in read optimized order when the disk drive is idle. The write optimizer reserves a portion of a disk to be used for write performance improvement, and then takes all small writes to the disk and writes them to the reserved area rather than to their intended destination. When the disk becomes idle (or the reserved area full), the write optimizer takes the data that has been written to the reserved area and that has not been subsequently overwritten and copies it to its final location.

Abstract: An acoustic echo cancellation technique. The present adaptive acoustic echo cancellation technique employs a plurality of acoustic echo cancellation filters which use different adaptation techniques which may employ different parameters such as step size, to improve both the adaptation algorithm convergence time and misadjustment over previously known acoustic echo cancellation techniques.

Abstract: The educational adaptive provider architecture described herein provides a way for an educational services framework to be built on varying underlying existing technologies without any changes in the object model and services. The provider framework supports the ability to have multiple types of providers for various services, such as, for example, for authorization, authentication, communication, grouping, scoring, social-networking, storage and user functions. The educational adaptive provider architecture provides easy integration of existing institutional and educational service deployments.

Abstract: The symbolic differentiation technique described herein uses operator overloading and two simple recursive procedures, both the forward and reverse forms of differentiation, to create purely symbolic derivatives. The symbolic derivative expressions can be translated into a program in an arbitrary source language, such as C# or C++, and this program can then be compiled to generate an efficient executable which eliminates much of the interpretive overhead normally encountered in automatic differentiation.

Abstract: A media recommendation and sharing technique that employs agents on media players/devices to expand the scope of media sharing scenarios. The technique assists a user in discovering media items, such as, for example, music, recordings, play lists, pictures, video games, on nearby media players or devices (devices which are capable of receiving, storing and playing media) which are interesting to the user. The collaborative media recommendation and sharing technique contemporaneously determines a user's media preferences based on media stored on a pair of media devices and recommends media for potential sharing based on these determined user preferences.

Abstract: An accelerated screen codec technique is described that provides a general screen compression framework, which, in one embodiment, is Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) friendly. In one embodiment, in order to compress screen data, blocks in a compound screen image containing both images and text are segmented into text blocks and pictorial blocks using a simple gradient-based procedure. The text and pictorial blocks are then compressed respectively via different compression techniques. Additionally, a GPU acceleration architecture of one embodiment of the accelerated screen codec technique provides a screen codec that maximally exploits a GPU's high parallelism and reduces the download bandwidth from GPU to Computer Processing Unit (CPU).

Abstract: An adaptive interpolation technique with artifact reduction is described that technique generates digital images with full-color RGB (red, green, blue) information, from raw pictures (e.g., Bayer-mosaiced single-color images) created by single-CCD digital cameras. The technique employs an improved criterion for choosing the interpolation criterion, which takes into account an output interpolated value. It employs small changes to filter coefficients, for better results and accommodation of “correction attenuation”. In one embodiment, the technique further employs a “correction attenuation” step, which reduces “color sprinkling” artifacts for certain kinds of diagonal edges. The technique makes only a single pass over the image; all colors are interpolated during that pass, vice the multiple passes required by other better performing algorithms (in some cases over ten).

Abstract: An interactive concept learning image search technique that allows end-users to quickly create their own rules for re-ranking images based on the image characteristics of the images. The image characteristics can include visual characteristics as well as semantic features or characteristics, or may include a combination of both. End-users can then rank or re-rank any current or future image search results according to their rule or rules. End-users provide examples of images each rule should match and examples of images the rule should reject. The technique learns the common image characteristics of the examples, and any current or future image search results can then be ranked or re-ranked according to the learned rules.

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.

Abstract: An approach to enrich skeleton-driven animations with physically-based secondary deformation in real time is described. To achieve this goal, the technique described employs a surface-based deformable model that can interactively emulate the dynamics of both low- and high-frequency volumetric effects. Given a surface mesh and a few sample sequences of its physical behavior, a set of motion parameters of the material are learned during an off-line preprocessing step. The deformable model is then applicable to any given skeleton-driven animation of the surface mesh. Additionally, the described dynamic skinning technique can be entirely implemented on GPUs and executed with great efficiency. Thus, with minimal changes to the conventional graphics pipeline, the technique can drastically enhance the visual experience of skeleton-driven animations by adding secondary deformation in real time.

Abstract: A system, a method and computer-readable media for rendering text with a graphics processing unit (GPU). The system, method, and media includes a GPU that may be configured to receive a plurality of compressed glyph bitmap and create a plurality of glyph textures from the bitmap. The GPU may be further configured to pack a plurality of rows of data from a glyph bitmap into a single row of a glyph texture. The GPU may be also be configured to merge the plurality of glyph textures into a merged texture to identify overlapping rows of color. Additionally, the GPU maybe configured to filter the merged texture to create a grayscale texture containing a plurality of merged glyphs and rendering the grayscale texture to display the plurality of merged glyphs.

Abstract: A security-enhanced login technique that provides a convenient and easy-to-use two factor technique to enhance the security of passwords without requiring any changes on the server side of a client-server network. The technique employs a convenient and easy-to-use two-factor technique to generate strong passwords for Web and other applications. In this technique, a convenient or personal device such as a mouse is used as the other factor besides a user password. A secret stored in the mouse or other personal device is hashed together with the password entered by a user and the server ID, to generate a strong, server-specific password which is used to authenticate the user to the server. This password enhancement operation is carried out inside the personal device.

Abstract: A system and method for teleconferencing and recording of meetings. The system uses a variety of capture devices (a novel 360° camera, a whiteboard camera, a presenter view camera, a remote view camera, and a microphone array) to provide a rich experience for people who want to participate in a meeting from a distance. The system is also combined with speaker clustering, spatial indexing, and time compression to provide a rich experience for people who miss a meeting and want to watch it afterward.

Abstract: A novel enhanced beamforming technique that improves beamforming operations by incorporating a model for the directional gains of the sensors, such as microphones, and provides means of estimating these gains. The technique forms estimates of the relative magnitude responses of the sensors (e.g., microphones) based on the data received at the array and includes those in the beamforming computations.

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.