Abstract: Application gadget techniques are described. In an implementation, a remote control device includes a display device and one or more modules. The one or more modules are configured to initiate one or more control functions related to control of a display of content by a client. The one or more modules also provide an environment to execute one or more application gadgets such that an output of the one or more application gadgets is displayable on the display device.

Abstract: A client process may identify a local DNS server and may change a DHCP-supplied DNS setting to the local DNS server when the local DNS server is present. The client process may periodically monitor the local DNS server and, if the local DNS server is not present, the client process may revert the DNS setting to the originally supplied DHCP DNS setting. The client process may actively monitor the local DNS server by initiating communication with the local DNS server, or may passively monitor by listening for activity by the local DNS server.

Abstract: Texts may be classified by mapping the texts to concept space, and by dividing the concept space based on substantive classes. A concept space containing a diverse set of concepts is defined. One example of a concept space is the set of on-line encyclopedia articles, each of which is an example of a concept. A text is scored for relevance against each concept, and a vector is created containing each of the scores. The vector represents the text's position in concept space. For any given substantive class of texts, the concept space may be divided into regions containing texts that are members/non-members of the class. The dividing boundary may be determined by training a classifier on a set of labeled examples of texts that fall inside and outside the class.

Abstract: Embodiments are directed to providing a generic software function for a plurality of data types in a distributed environment and to implementing type checking at compile time and at runtime. In one scenario, a computer system receives a portion of software code for a distributed software application, where the software code is written as a generic function in a computer programming language that supports reflection. The computer system presents a function signature at runtime to a just-in-time (JIT) compiler. The function signature describes which of multiple different input and output data types the generic function is configured to work with. The computer system also implements reflection at runtime to resolve each generic function to a function pointer after compilation by the JIT.

Abstract: A VCI (visual context indicator) color is assigned deterministically and proactively at runtime to user data contexts, and is not stored in the database, spreadsheet, or other context. VCI colors can be high contrast friendly colors. The same color is assigned to a given context each time the application runs unless the context's identifying property has changed. Color assignments are not made by users or by the application's designer, but are done instead by hashing from a context's identifying property into a VCI color palette containing, e.g., eight to sixteen colors. Unlike text-selection coloring, VCI coloring is based on the user data context's identifying property. The color assignment visually indicates context by displaying the context's name in the VCI color, or by displaying a graphical element in the VCI color near the context name. VCI color assignment also shows the occurrence and result of changes in user data context.

Abstract: In one embodiment, the tools and techniques can include intercepting with an intermediary module in a running non-virtual process a request from the running non-virtual process to create a requested non-virtual process. In response to the request being intercepted, an appropriate virtual process corresponding to the requested non-virtual process can be identified. In addition, a virtual environment that is configured to host the virtual process can be prepared and the virtual process can be added to the virtual environment. Finally, the request can be fulfilled with the virtual process.

Abstract: A computing system translates a world space position of a hand of a human target to a screen space position of a user interface and locks the hand to a handle of the user interface if world space parameters of the hand overcome a grab threshold of the handle. When the hand is locked to the handle, the computing system translates a world space position of the hand to a screen space handle position that is constrained along one or more interface guides. The hand is unlocked from the handle at a release position of the handle if world space parameters of the hand overcome a release threshold of the handle. The handle is retained at the release position after the hand is unlocked from the handle.

Abstract: A light gathering process may reduce the computational resources and storage required to render a scene with a participating homogeneous media. According to some implementations, Efficiency may be obtained by evaluating the final radiance along a viewing ray directly from the lighting rays passing near to it, and by rapidly identifying such lighting rays in the scene. To facilitate a search for nearby lighting rays, the lighting rays and viewing rays may be represented as a 6D point and a plane according to the corresponding Plucker coordinates and coefficients, respectively.

Abstract: A method of executing an algorithm in a parallel manner using a plurality of concurrent threads includes generating a lock-free barrier that includes a variable that stores both a total participants count and a current participants count. The total participants count indicates a total number of threads in the plurality of concurrent threads that are participating in a current phase of the algorithm, and the current participants count indicates a total number of threads in the plurality of concurrent threads that have completed the current phase. The barrier blocks the threads that have completed the current phase. The total participants count is dynamically updated during execution of the current phase of the algorithm. The generating, blocking, and dynamically updating are performed by at least one processor.

Abstract: High availability architecture that employs a mid-tier proxy server to route client communications to active data store instances in response to failover and switchover. The proxy server includes an active manager client that interfaces to an active manager in each of the backend servers. State information and configuration information are maintained separately and according to semantics consistent with needs of corresponding data, the configuration information changing less frequently and more available, the state information changing more frequently and less available. The active manager indicates to the proxy server which of the data storage instances is the currently the active instance. In the event that the currently active instance is inactive, the proxy server selects a different backend server that currently hosts the active data store instance. Client communications are then routed to the different backend server with minimal or no interruption to the client.

Abstract: Various embodiments provide techniques for graph clustering. In one or more embodiments, a participation graph is obtained that represents relationships between entities. An auxiliary graph is constructed based on the participation graph. The auxiliary graph may be constructed such that the auxiliary graph is less dense than the participation graph and is therefore computationally less complex to analyze. Clusters in the auxiliary graph are determined by solving an objective function defined for the auxiliary graph. Clusters determined for the auxiliary graph may then be utilized to ascertain clusters in the participation graph that solve a related objective function defined for the participation graph.

Abstract: Described herein are techniques for automatically batching GUI-based (Graphical User Interface) tasks. The described techniques include automatically determining whether a user is performing batchable tasks in a GUI-based environment. Once detected, the described techniques include predicting the next tasks of a batch based upon those detected batchable tasks. With the described techniques, the user may be asked to verify and/or correct the predicted next tasks. Furthermore, the described techniques may include performing a batch and doing so without user interaction.

Abstract: A wireless communication system that concurrently communicates information in multiple regulatory domains to facilitate audio/video media streaming and other high bandwidth operations. One domain may be licensed and the other may be unlicensed. Transmission in the licensed domain may occur in white space in the domain, and the amount of information transmitted in that domain may be limited by regulations. The amount of information conveyed in the licensed domain may also depend on channel conditions in either or both of the domains. As a result, the relative amount of information transmitted in each domain may vary dynamically. The system includes a transmitter that dynamically determines weighting coefficients applied to each of a plurality of channels to set power levels in both domains to achieve a desired metric for the overall communication. A corresponding receiver assembles the substreams into a stream that can then be displayed or otherwise processed.

Abstract: Techniques and systems for authentication with an untrusted root between a client and a server are disclosed. In some aspects, a client may connect to a server. The server and client may initiate a secure connection by exchanging certificates. The server may accept a client certificate having an untrusted root that does not chain up to a root certificate verifiable to the server certificate authority. In further aspects, the server may enable the client to associate an untrusted certificate with an existing account associated with the server. The client certificate may be hardware based or generated in software, and may be issued to the client independent of interactions with the server.

Abstract: A user input panel dynamically expands to accommodate user input, such as handwritten or keyboard input. Expansion may occur in one or two out of four possible directions, depending upon the language to be written or typed. For example, when writing English words, the input panel may expand to the right as the user writes and then downward when the input panel has fully expanded rightward.

Abstract: Apparatus and methods are disclosed for wireless communications using a hearing aid, or other suitable receiver. According to one embodiment, a mobile phone device comprises an LCD display having a substantially planar top viewing surface, a transmitter for outputting an electromagnetic signal to an inductively-coupled hearing aid telecoil receiver, and a layer of austenitic stainless steel forming a support frame for the LCD display. A portion of the transmitter and the layer of austenitic stainless steel are positioned underneath the LCD display, thus providing a compact mobile phone design with negligible impact, or even improvement, of the output electromagnetic signal.

Abstract: A data center may use generators for backup power, where the backup generators are able to serve less than the maximal power load of the data center. The use of generators that can serve less than the maximal power load may be recognized by, and addressed by, the power policy for the data center. When utility power is lost, the power policy manager may detect that the data center is switching to generator power, and may have knowledge of the capacity of those generators. If the capacity is less than the maximal power load of the data center, the power policy manager may shed load by throttling equipment in the data center to lower power levels. The policy may specify which pieces of equipment are to be throttled. When utility power is restored, the throttling of the equipment may be removed by the power policy manager.

Abstract: In order to allow a single user registered on a single local host or other machine to access multiple shared resources on a remote host, an aliasing mechanism is employed so that multiple concurrent connections can be established by the user to a single remote host, with each connection using a different identity. Each connection can therefore be used to access a different shared resource on the remote host. In some illustrative examples, a user's identifier such as his or her machine log-in identification may be associated with two or more resource sharing aliases. As a result, two or more resource sharing sessions can be established by the user with a single remote host, with each of the sessions using a different one of the aliases. The resource sharing sessions are usually established in accordance with a resource sharing protocol such as the Server Block Message (SBM) protocol.

Abstract: A hosted pre-compilation system is described herein that provides a way to enable ahead-of-time compilation for managed code running inside a host. The host triggers ahead-of-time compilation at application runtime, after any configuration settings are available. The host can choose which modules to compile, when to compile them, and where to persist the generated images. Upon detecting a module load, the host can trigger pre-compilation, provide the loader an existing pre-compiled image of the module, or do nothing. The runtime/platform validates the integrity of any host-supplied pre-compiled image and provides application programming interfaces (APIs) to inform the host when an image becomes invalid and fails to load. The platform also provides APIs to let the host trigger compilation of binaries at any time relevant to the host, and to generate the images either synchronously or in a background process.

Abstract: A script engine for a dynamic language can collect memory allocation information for dynamic objects created by the scripting engine and for dynamic objects created by the script engine host. A native interface can be exposed to a client comprising a software development tool. The software development tool can be a third-party tool. In response to a query, the script engine can take a snapshot of a garbage collector heap and return an object record for each dynamic object in the heap. The object information can include memory allocation information, object type and other information. Multiple snapshots can be taken and the delta between snapshots can be determined and sent to a requestor.