Patents Assigned to Microsoft Corporation
  • Patent number: 8713207
    Abstract: Described are systems and methods for instrumenting configuration and system settings based on targeting configuration settings at dynamically populated groups, groups with varied membership, and objects defined in a class. The systems and methods provide for attributing a configuration setting or policy to one or more objects and then targeting the object at one or more scopes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 25, 2013
    Date of Patent: April 29, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Travis Wright, Abbot Moffat, Hakan Berk, Ferit Findik, Anand Lakshminarayanan, Shawn Bice, Vitaly Voloshin, Marisol Ontaneda
  • Patent number: 8712598
    Abstract: A method for cooling an electronic device having first and second flow paths for transmitting a coolant. The method includes assessing a merit of impelling the coolant along the first flow path relative to impelling the coolant along the second flow path. When the relative merit is above a threshold, coolant is impelled along the first flow path. When the relative merit is below the threshold, coolant is impelled along the second flow path.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 14, 2011
    Date of Patent: April 29, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Rajesh Manohar Dighde, Bernie Schultz, David Abzarian
  • Patent number: 8712991
    Abstract: Some implementations include techniques and arrangements to provide document-related representative information with search results. For example, a representative query and/or representative results may be provided for one or more individual documents identified in a set of search results to supplement the search results returned in response to a received search query. The representative queries may be determined by correlating a plurality of previously submitted queries in search log data with a plurality of documents returned in response to the queries. In some implementations, click-through frequency for a particular document with respect to the plurality of queries may be taken into consideration when determining the representative queries for the particular document.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 7, 2011
    Date of Patent: April 29, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Jingdong Wang, Shipeng Li
  • Patent number: 8713015
    Abstract: Standard group operators afford expressive grouping across collections of various types for employment by a number of programming languages. The operators can leverage positional information to facilitate grouping of sequential/ordered input data. Groups can also include more than one input element. Additionally or alternatively, the operators can enable multi-level grouping such as nested or hierarchical grouping. In accordance with one aspect, the group operators can be employed in conjunction with language-integrated queries.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 23, 2008
    Date of Patent: April 29, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Paul A. Vick, Henricus Johannes Maria Meijer
  • Patent number: 8711206
    Abstract: Mobile camera localization using depth maps is described for robotics, immersive gaming, augmented reality and other applications. In an embodiment a mobile depth camera is tracked in an environment at the same time as a 3D model of the environment is formed using the sensed depth data. In an embodiment, when camera tracking fails, this is detected and the camera is relocalized either by using previously gathered keyframes or in other ways. In an embodiment, loop closures are detected in which the mobile camera revisits a location, by comparing features of a current depth map with the 3D model in real time. In embodiments the detected loop closures are used to improve the consistency and accuracy of the 3D model of the environment.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 31, 2011
    Date of Patent: April 29, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Richard Newcombe, Shahram Izadi, David Molyneaux, Otmar Hilliges, David Kim, Jamie Daniel Joseph Shotton, Pushmeet Kohli, Andrew Fitzgibbon, Stephen Edward Hodges, David Alexander Butler
  • Patent number: 8710953
    Abstract: A network- and/or client-side device configuration system facilitates automatic configuration of portable electronic devices. Predetermined configuration parameters for a particular portable electronic device are generated and stored. A computer-readable visual symbol such as an optical graphic code (for example, a tag, barcode, or matrix code) is generated by a network-side service and transmitted to an authorized user of the particular portable electronic device. The portable electronic device reproduces the visual symbol and transmits a message (which may or may not include the reproduced visual symbol) to the (same or different) network-side service. The network-side service authenticates the portable electronic device, and authorizes the portable electronic device to access and use the predetermined configuration parameters to automatically configure itself.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 12, 2009
    Date of Patent: April 29, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventor: Padmanand Warrier
  • Patent number: 8713154
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and computer-readable media for monitoring information passed from instances of role(s) of a service application installed on a distributed computing platform and for indexing and analyzing the information within a data store are provided. Monitoring involves a monitoring agent that is integrated within an operating system of computing devices that make up the distributed computing platform. In operation, the monitoring agent retrieves information from the role instances and converts the information into parameters that are assembled to documents. Generally, the parameters are assembled to a uniform-structured format in accordance with a schema imposed by the distributed computing platform. Accordingly, each of the documents across the platform have a common format that promotes processing and analysis without a need for reconfiguration.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 25, 2012
    Date of Patent: April 29, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Paul Pietrek, Jose Bernabeu-Auban, Christopher Marsh, Vamshidhar Kommineni, Richard E Wilbur
  • Patent number: 8711925
    Abstract: A digital media encoder/decoder uses a flexible quantization technique that provides the ability to vary quantization along various dimensions of the encoded digital media data, including spatial, frequency sub bands and color channels. The codec utilizes a signaling scheme to signal various permutations of flexible quantization combinations efficiently for primary usage scenarios. When a choice of quantizer is available, the codec efficiently encodes the current quantizer by defining a subset of quantizers and indexes the current quantizer from the set.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 5, 2006
    Date of Patent: April 29, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Chengjie Tu, Sridhar Srinivasan
  • Patent number: 8713035
    Abstract: Conceptually related term identification technique embodiments are presented that involve identifying in the results of a search query, terms that are conceptually related to the search query terms. In one general embodiment, this is accomplished by first inputting the terms employed in a search query and the results of the search. Word tokens found in the search query terms are then identified, as are potential phrases that can be made from the identified word tokens. Conceptually related words and phrases are then identified in the search query results. These words and phrases correspond to the previously identified word tokens and potential phrases. The search query results are presented to a user on a display device in such a manner as to visually distinguish the conceptually related words and phrases from other words and phrases in the search query results.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 31, 2012
    Date of Patent: April 29, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Lucretia Vanderwende, Christopher John Brockett
  • Patent number: 8713679
    Abstract: This document describes techniques for detection of code-based malware. According to some embodiments, the techniques utilize a collection of known malicious code and know benign code and determine which features of each type of code can be used to determine whether unclassified code is malicious or benign. The features can then be used to train a classifier (e.g., a Bayesian classifier) to characterize unclassified code as malicious or benign. In at least some embodiments, the techniques can be used as part of and/or in cooperation with a web browser to inspect web content (e.g., a web page) to determine if the content includes code-based malware.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 18, 2011
    Date of Patent: April 29, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Benjamin Goth Zorn, Benjamin Livshits, Charles M. Curtsinger, Christian Seifert
  • Patent number: 8712455
    Abstract: Proximity-based mobile message delivery is described. In an embodiment, a first user stores a message intended for a second user on a first mobile terminal, while the first mobile terminal is located remote from a second mobile terminal of the second user. Subsequent to this, the first mobile terminal detects that it is now in proximity with the second mobile terminal, and this triggers the first mobile terminal to transmit the message to the second mobile terminal. In embodiments, authentication of the second mobile terminal can be performed before transmitting the message. In another embodiment, a mobile terminal comprises a short-range wireless transceiver that can detect that a further mobile terminal is in proximity, and trigger the transmission of a pre-stored message to the further mobile terminal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 2012
    Date of Patent: April 29, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Philip Gosset, Richard Harper
  • Patent number: 8711159
    Abstract: An exemplary method for emulating a graphics processing unit (GPU) includes executing a graphics application on a host computing system to generate commands for a target GPU wherein the host computing system includes host system memory and a different, host GPU; converting the generated commands into intermediate commands; based on one or more generated commands that call for one or more shaders, caching one or more corresponding shaders in a shader cache in the host system memory; based on one or more generated commands that call for one or more resources, caching one or more corresponding resources in a resource cache in the host system memory; based on the intermediate commands, outputting commands for the host GPU; and based on the output commands for the host GPU, rendering graphics using the host GPU where output commands that call for one or more shaders access the one or more corresponding shaders in the shader cache and where output commands that call for one or more resources access the one or more
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 23, 2009
    Date of Patent: April 29, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Jinyu Li, Chen Li, Gang Chen, Xin Tong
  • Patent number: 8713444
    Abstract: The techniques and mechanisms described herein are directed to a method for managing multiple content windows. The content windows may host a web browser, a shell view, a word processing application, and the like. A set of content windows are grouped into a frame in a manner such that a taskbar shows one item for the set of content windows. Each content window is associated with a tab for the frame. A content-specific menu may be associated with each tab. The content-specific menu includes a set of commands based on the heterogeneous content hosted in the content window. The set of commands provide functionality to the heterogeneous content.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 2011
    Date of Patent: April 29, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Aaron J. Sauve, Charles Cummins, Cornelis K. Van Dok, Tony E. Schreiner
  • Publication number: 20140114564
    Abstract: A source device can navigate towards a moving destination target device, such as when two mobile phones are moving towards each other. The source device can receive an initial position of the target and a route to the target. As the source device and target device simultaneously move, the route can be updated. For example, if a distance of movement exceeds a threshold (e.g., 1 mile) the route can be updated. In another embodiment, a target device can switch between position tracking devices so as to provide less accurate position information, but save power, or provide high accuracy position information at the cost of higher power consumption. Generally, the switching between position tracking devices and the frequency at which the route to the destination point can be based on the distance apart between the source device and target device.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 19, 2012
    Publication date: April 24, 2014
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: David Michael Callaghan, Sergey Karamov, Sanjib Saha
  • Publication number: 20140111483
    Abstract: One or more techniques and/or systems are provided for monitoring interactions by an input object with an interactive interface projected onto an interface object. That is, an input object (e.g., a finger) and an interface object (e.g., a wall, a hand, a notepad, etc.) may be identified and tracked in real-time using depth data (e.g., depth data extracted from images captured by a depth camera). An interactive interface (e.g., a calculator, an email program, a keyboard, etc.) may be projected onto the interface object, such that the input object may be used to interact with the interactive interface. For example, the input object may be tracked to determine whether the input object is touching or hovering above the interface object and/or a projected portion of the interactive interface. If the input object is in a touch state, then a corresponding event associated with the interactive interface may be invoked.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 31, 2013
    Publication date: April 24, 2014
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Chris Harrison, Hrvoje Benko, Andrew David Wilson
  • Publication number: 20140115444
    Abstract: A content rewriting system is described herein that allows web site administrators to setup rewriting of web responses in an easy and efficient manner. The system provides a configuration schema and an efficient workflow that enables web administrators to easily setup rules to modify HTML or other content without having a high performance penalty or losing flexibility. The content rewriting system applies regular expressions or wildcard patterns to a response to locate and replace the content parts based on the rewriting logic expressed by outbound rewrite rules. The system parses an initial response generated by a web application, applies one or more outbound rules to rewrite the response, and provides the rewritten response to a client that submitted a request for the response.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 16, 2013
    Publication date: April 24, 2014
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Daniel Vasquez Lopez, Ruslan A. Yakushev
  • Publication number: 20140115157
    Abstract: Various embodiments are disclosed that relate to buffering digital content items in different orders for different user experiences. For example, one disclosed embodiment provides, on a computing device, a method for providing a buffering order for a digital content item. The method includes receiving from a remote computing device a request to access a selected digital content item, the selected digital content item comprising a plurality of content portions consumable in a plurality of different orders, the plurality of different orders corresponding to a plurality of user experiences for the selected digital content item, and in response, providing a selected content provision schema selected from a plurality of content provision schemas for the selected digital content item, each content provision schema defining a buffering order of the plurality of content portions of the selected digital content item for a corresponding user experience of the selected digital content item.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 23, 2012
    Publication date: April 24, 2014
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Alexander Burba, Frank R. Morrison, III, Mehmet Akkurt, Brandon Hunt, John Justice
  • Publication number: 20140115588
    Abstract: The present invention is directed to making a guest operating system aware of the topology of the subset of host resources currently assigned to it. At virtual machine boot time a Static Resource Affinity Table (SRAT) will be used by the virtualizer to group guest physical memory and guest virtual processors into virtual nodes. Thereafter, in one embodiment, the host physical memory behind a virtual node can be changed by the virtualizer as necessary, and the virtualizer will provide physical processors appropriate for the virtual processors in that node.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 30, 2013
    Publication date: April 24, 2014
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Eric P. Traut, Rene Antonio Vega
  • Publication number: 20140111485
    Abstract: Various embodiments provide an input test tool that promotes precision testing, flexibility and repeatability over a wide variety of functionality tests that are utilized in both touch and near-touch input scenarios. The input test tool enables a variety of degrees of motion, including both linear and rotational motion, so that a device under test can be tested utilizing a number of different linear and/or rotational input scenarios.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 31, 2012
    Publication date: April 24, 2014
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Steven Andrew Welch, Takahiro Shigemitsu, Timothy Allen Wright, Mark D. Vance, Steven E. Wittenberg
  • Patent number: D703692
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 6, 2012
    Date of Patent: April 29, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventor: Kieran Phelan