Abstract: User interface web services are provided. In one embodiment, a user interface web service includes a control structure, a communications interface, and a processor. The control structure is utilized to facilitate generation of a device dependent user interface. The communication interface receives an indication of an interaction with the device dependent user interface, and the processor generates a delta in response to the interaction. The control structure may be organized hierarchically, and the delta may identify a change to the control structure, metadata, state, or other data associated with the device dependent user interface. Additionally, the delta may include information about the flow of a UI such as, but not limited to, which page, dialogs, etc. are shown to the user.

Abstract: Implementations for identifying duplicate images in an image space are described. An image space is partitioned into a plurality of coarse clusters based on signatures of the images within the image space. The signatures are determined from compact descriptors of the images. Refined clusters that include one or more images of an individual coarse cluster are created based on pair-wise comparisons of the compact descriptors of images in the coarse cluster, and the refined clusters are identified as sets of duplicate images. The refined clusters are grown by searching in similar coarse clusters for images to add to the refined clusters.

Abstract: In embodiments of dynamic replication of networked files, a process that utilizes file system objects is executed on a computing device. A file system request that is initiated by the process for a requested file system object can be intercepted, and a determination is made as to whether the requested file system object exists based on file system metadata. The file system request from the process is returned if the requested file system object is stored on the computing device. Alternatively, replication of the requested file system object is initiated from a networked peer device that has the requested file system object to replicate the file system object to the computing device. Alternatively, an indication that the requested file system object does not exist can be returned to the process.

Abstract: Systems and techniques of the management of the allocation of a plurality of memory elements stored within a plurality of lockless list structures are presented. These lockless list structures (such as Slists) may be made accessible within an operating system environment of a multicore processor—and may be partitioned within the system. Memory elements may also be partitioned among these lockless list structures. When a core processor (or other processing element) makes a request for allocating a memory element to itself, the system and/or method may search among the lockless list structures for an available memory element. When a suitable and/or available memory element is found, the system may allocate the available memory element to requesting core processor. Dynamically balancing of memory elements may occur according to a suitable balancing metric, such as maintain substantial numerical equality of memory elements or avoid over-allocation of resources.

Abstract: Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media are provided for selecting and serving user-customized search engine homepage experiences. Upon receiving a request for presentation of a search engine homepage from a user, data points about the user are accessed to determine the type of homepage experience the requesting user desires to receive. The type of homepage experience the user desires to receive may include a user-tailored image to be presented as the background of the search engine homepage. Upon determining the type of experience the user desires, a search engine homepage experience is selected for the user. In this way, the user is provided with a search engine homepage experience that is tailored to his or her interests and behavior, thus increasing user satisfaction and engagement with the search engine homepage.

Abstract: Reconfigurable multi-band antenna techniques are described. In one or more implementations, an apparatus includes an antenna that can operate at multiple frequency bands that include first and second frequency bands, respectively. The antenna includes a first radiator structure configured to tune to the first frequency band and comprising a first radiator element. In addition, the antenna includes a second radiator structure configured to tune to the second frequency band and comprising the first radiator element and a second radiator element. The antenna also includes a tunable circuit configured to couple the first radiator element to the second radiator element. Additionally, the apparatus includes a communication module configured to use the tunable circuit to adjust one of said first and second frequency bands independently from, and without causing a change in, the other of said first and second frequency bands.

Abstract: Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to auditing operations. In aspects, operations may be audited synchronously and/or asynchronously to one or more audit targets. When auditing synchronously, audit records may be written synchronously to an audit target. When auditing asynchronously, a buffer may be used to store audit records until the audit records are flushed to an audit target. If an error occurs in auditing, a policy may be evaluated to determine how to respond. One exemplary response includes failing an operation that triggered a subsequent audit record. Furthermore, if a buffer was unable to be copied to an audit target, the contents of the buffer may be preserved and one or more retries may be attempted to copy the buffer to the audit target.

Abstract: A method includes detecting user interaction with a first control of a user interface, identifying a property of the first control, and storing data representing the property of the first control in a memory. The method further includes dynamically generating an event for the first control by use of the property of the first control upon detecting user interaction with a second control and upon detecting an absence of an event corresponding to the first control being generated with respect to a user interface test program. An action responsive to the dynamically generated event is stored in an event log.

Abstract: Reconfigurable multi-band filter techniques are described. In one or more implementations a device includes a radiating structure and a filter connected to the radiating structure configured to filter wireless signals received by the radiating structure. The filter includes switchable resonators configured to tune to different frequency bands and tunable capacitors configured to tune to different frequencies within the different frequency bands.

Abstract: An application provides client and service compatibility through a cloud-hosted adapter. The adapter manages communications between clients and services. The adapter translates a client request to a service communication through a service interface and a service reply to a client communication through a client interface. The adapter updates service interfaces to accommodate changes at the services while maintaining the client interface to isolate the client from the updates. The adapter also provides a service updateable user interface for the client.

Abstract: Disclosed herein are technologies that allow users to create, issue, accept and participate in gaming challenges. A gaming challenge involves participants playing a gaming application to improve their rank on a leaderboard associated with the application until challenge conditions are met or the challenge expires. Challenges can be time-based, objective-based, a tournament or of other type. A challengor can create a challenge by specifying a gaming application to be played, the leaderboard to be used in the challenge, challenge type, challenge duration, and additional challenge criteria. A gaming service can maintain the leaderboard and pass challenge-related notifications between participants. Participants' computing devices can send notices indicating when a challenge has been met or when a participant's relative ranking has changed.

Abstract: A client system interacts with a sandbox environment to host a web browser control within the sandbox. A webpage URL, a URL to a script file to be injected into the webpage, a name of the script method to be invoked, and the event to look for to trigger the script method sent to the sandbox environment from the client. The sandbox environment downloads the script file from the cloud using the script URL and loads a rendering engine with the specified webpage URL. The specified script file is subsequently injected into the loaded webpage at the sandbox environment. After the specified event is fired, the sandbox environment triggers the specified script method and stores the results within a results array, accessible to the client system.

Abstract: Photos are shared among devices that are in close proximity to one another and for which there is a connection among the devices. The photos can be shared automatically, or alternatively based on various user inputs. Various different controls can also be placed on sharing photos to restrict the other devices with which photos can be shared, the manner in which photos can be shared, and/or how the photos are shared.

Abstract: A pluggable token provider model for message level authentication across multiple web services is provided. Web service and token provider implementations within a client application are separated from an actual component that operates the business logic to formulate and understand a web request. The web service components may request web services to be executed and supply the body for the web service message while a common framework maintains the web services metadata, which includes definitions associated with respective tokens. The framework may further maintain token provider implementations that actually fetch authentication tokens and perform the web requests.

Abstract: A method for offloading remote terminal services processing tasks to a peripheral device that would otherwise be performed in a computer system's processor and memory. In one embodiment, the disclosed method is utilized in a layered network model, wherein computing tasks that are typically performed in network applications are instead offloaded to a peripheral such as a network interface card (NIC).

Abstract: Various embodiments of the present invention transform devices into Web services or special-purpose servers that are capable of communicating with personal computers. Various embodiments of the present invention allow various low-level aspects of device drivers to reside in the devices, eliminating the need for the devices to be compatible with legacy specification. Various embodiments of the present invention allow various devices to be shipped from the factory with low-level software already built in so that users are liberated from having to deal with the experience of installing and upgrading device drivers. In various embodiments of the present invention, each device is preferably a network node identifiable by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI).

Abstract: A textual search index is used to identify data objects that have numerical properties that satisfy search queries. As described herein, a search index contains search index entries, each of which specifies a reference string and a set of data object identifiers. When an original search query is received, the search query is transformed into a transformed search query such that numerical comparison query elements in the original search query are transformed into equivalent textual comparison query elements. The search index is then used to identify ones of the data objects that satisfy the transformed search query. A list of the identified data objects may then be provided in response to the original search query.

Abstract: The present application relates to message account linking that allows users to selectively link message accounts and customize those linked message accounts. In one embodiment, the user selects a number of message accounts for selective linking. A message application updates a message account database to selectively link the message accounts and create a combined message box. When a user selects the combined message box for display, all messages from the selectively linked message accounts are displayed. In one embodiment, a user can create multiple combined message boxes on a single device, and may assign names to each of the combined message boxes. In yet another embodiment, an icon associated with a combined message box is added to the device's home screen.

Abstract: Computer-readable media and computerized methods for automatically organizing search results according to task groups are provided. The methods involve aggregating a gallery of entities (e.g., search queries that share a common categorization) into a query class and assigning a dictionary (e.g., list of terms that are drawn from various sources) to the query class. The task groups are identified from the list of terms within the dictionary. The process of identification includes analyzing patterns of user search behavior to select terms from the list of terms, which reflect popular user search intents, and ranking the selected terms based on predetermined parameters to produce an ordering. Based on the ordering, a set of the selected terms that are highest ranked are declared the task groups. The task groups are employed to arrange the search results on a UI display and to provide a consistent and intuitive format for refining a search.

Abstract: A screen design user interface that may operate in an interactive mode and a design mode. The user interface includes a screen presentation portion for presenting an application screen under design, and a mode control for selecting between the interactive mode and the design mode. When the user interface is in interactive mode, the user interface actually allows interaction with one or more application element of a screen displayed in the screen presentation portion such that interaction with the corresponding application element causes execution of a corresponding function and thus a corresponding change in state of the screen. When the user interface is in design mode, the user interface supports design of the application screen by recognizing design gestures, but disables the application elements.