Abstract: A method and system for providing an extensible framework for a POS application is provided. A POS application may be extended using a payment format add-in, a workflow add-in, a financial services provider add-in, or a combination of add-ins. A payment format add-in provides support for a payment format not included in the payment formats built into the POS application. A workflow add-in provides a configurable workflow that can be used to extend a built-in payment format or a payment format add-in. A financial services provider add-in provides support for interacting with a financial services provider for which the POS application does not provide built-in support. Each add-in can implement, for example, logic for processing a payment transaction, a portion of a payment transaction, and configuring steps for processing a payment transaction.

Abstract: Various technologies and techniques are disclosed for fitting and filling pictures in documents. A selection is received from a user to perform a fill or fit to placeholder operation to insert a picture into a placeholder. A visible image area is calculated which determines what portion of the picture will appear in the placeholder. The user is able to slide the picture back and forth within the placeholder until a desired crop is achieved. The picture is cropped so that the placeholder is kept intact and original aspect ratios of the placeholder and picture are both preserved. When a rotation of the placeholder is different than a rotation of the picture being inserted, then an axis-aligned bounding box is calculated for the picture or the placeholder to complete the fit or fill operation.

Abstract: With the addition of directional information and gesture based input in a location based services environment, a variety of service(s) can be provided on top of user identification or interaction with specific object(s) of interest. For instance, when a user gestures at or points at a particular item, or gestures at a particular location or place, this creates an opportunity, e.g., an advertising opportunity, for anyone having an interest in that particular item or place to communicate with the user regarding that item or related items at a point in time when the user's focus is on the particular item. User context for the interaction can also be taken into account to supplement the provision of one or more interactive direction based services.

Abstract: Various technologies and techniques are disclosed for calculating authorship dates for a document. A portion of a document to select to look for possible authorship dates is determined. The possible authorship dates are extracted from the portion of the document. A revised authorship date of the document is generated using a neural network. The revised authorship date is returned to an application or process that requested the date.

Abstract: Techniques to manage a relay server and a network address translator are described. A system may include a relay server having a first private network interface operative to communicate with a private client, a second private network interface operative to communicate with a network address translator, and an enhanced relay manager module operative to receive a message from the private client over the first private network interface or a remote client over the second private network interface and through the network address translator, the enhanced relay manager module further operative to retrieve a public transport address and a mapped port for the network address translator from a mapped address attribute stored by the relay server, and send a response to the message with the public transport address and the mapped port to the private client or the remote client. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Abstract: An extensible mechanism for providing access control for logical objects in a network environment. A security broker is able to dynamically register one or more claims providers, each of which can assert one or more claims about logical objects. The claims providers may be purpose built or may be third party applications which expose data or business rules for use. Claims may be augmented by additional claims providers after the original claim is asserted. The applicability of claims may be scope limited either at the time the claims provider is registered or when the user requests that a security token be issued.

Abstract: An extensible task execution technique includes receiving a stimulus, matching the stimulus to a given workflow instance, determining parameters applicable to the received stimulus and the given workflow instance, and executing one or more tasks on one or more target devices specified by the given workflow instance and the parameters.

Abstract: A system and method of hosting a user interface of a network device are provided. A particular method includes receiving a request at a server to display a user interface of the network device, authenticating an end user device to validate an identity of a user, and communicating display information of the user interface of the network device to the end user device for display. The server hosted user interface permits monitoring and interactions with the network device by a user of the end user device.

Abstract: A touchscreen adapter may fit between a display and a display mount and may resolve the presence and position of a touch to the surface of the display. In some embodiments, the touchscreen adapter may sense using a strain gage sensor mechanism. The touchscreen adapter may have a male mechanical interface to the display and a female mechanical interface to the display mount. In some embodiments, the two mounts may be the same size and format, enabling the touchscreen adapted to be inserted between a display and display mount for a given display. The touchscreen adapter may provide an electronic interface to a computer system to transmit a presence and position of a touch made to the display.

Abstract: A multichannel acoustic echo reduction system is described herein. The system includes an acoustic echo canceller (AEC) component having a fixed filter for each respective combination of loudspeaker and microphone signals and having an adaptive filter for each microphone signal. For each microphone signal, the AEC component modifies the microphone signal to reduce contributions from the outputs of the loudspeakers based at least in part on the respective adaptive filter associated with the microphone signal and the set of fixed filters associated with the respective microphone signal.

Abstract: Systems and methods that group atomic scalar values recognized by a database such as columns into sets (e.g., column sets). A grouping component associated with the SQL server creates a logical representation for column groupings, which are accessible by a single I/O and can be co-located (e.g., substantially close or compact) in terms of storage location. Interesting column sets (e.g., non-null) can also be selected for a data representation thereof as a single entity to other applications.

Abstract: Methods are described for utilizing user-submitted data to provide a response to a query request. User-submitted data are received and referenced upon receiving a query request from an unregistered requester, a potential response is automatically identified from the user-submitted data, the potential response is extracted, and presented in response to the query request.

Abstract: Recording of various events in a video format that facilitates viewing and selective editing are provided. The video can be presented in a wiki-format that allows a multitude of subsequent users to add, modify and/or delete content to the original recorded event or a revision of that event. As edits and annotations are applied, either automatically or manually, such edits can be indexed based on criteria such as identification of an annotator, a time stamp associated with the edit, a revision number, or combinations thereof. The edits or annotations can be provided in various formats including video, audio, text, and so forth.

Abstract: The vocal track of any song provided by a user may be isolated and data based on the vocal track, such as pitch, rhythm, and/or duration, may be generated. The data may be used in a game in which the user may sing into a microphone and may try to match their singing as closely as possible to that of the vocal track. Feedback may be provided to the user at as to how the user's singing compares with respect to the vocal track based on the on the pitch, rhythm, and/or duration.

Abstract: Content retrieval techniques are described. In an implementation, a determination is made as to whether a client is permitted to receive content requested by the client. When the client is permitted to receive the content, a communication is formed to be communicated via a wide area network that includes a hash list having a hash of each of a plurality of blocks of the content, each hash being configured to enable the client to locate a corresponding one of the blocks of the content via a local area network.

Abstract: Advertisement signature tracking is described. In embodiment(s), a video feed of television media content can be received for distribution to media devices, and the video feed can include advertisements. An advertisement can be detected in the video feed of the television media content, and a signature of the advertisement can be generated. Occurrences of the advertisement can then be detected and tracked by the signature of the advertisement when the advertisement is subsequently received via the video feed and/or broadcast for viewing.

Abstract: The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or a method that facilitates communicating intent-related data to a user. A display engine can enable exploration of a portion of image data during a browsing session. An intent component can receive a portion of data related to the browsing session, wherein the portion of data is at least one of a collection of browsing history or a portion of data displayed during a browsing session. The intent component can further evaluate the portion of data to ascertain a combined intent of a user. A selective ad component can infer an incompleteness of the combined intent to trigger a pre-qualification for an offer related to at least one of an item or service that fulfills the incompleteness.

Abstract: A system that facilitates executing an auction when an auctioneer is also a bidder is described herein. The system includes a receiver component that receives an indication that an auction is to be executed and an identifier component that determines that the auctioneer is a bidder in the auction. The system also includes an auction component that executes an auction for one or more items based at least in part upon a determination that the auctioneer is a bidder and a rank of the bid of the auctioneer amongst all receive bids.

Abstract: The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or a method that facilitates enhancing interactive surface technologies for data manipulation. A surface detection component can employ a multiple contact surfacing technology to detect a surface input, wherein the detected surface input enables a physical interaction with a portion of displayed data that represents a corporeal object. A physics engine can integrate a portion of Newtonian physics into the interaction with the portion of displayed data in order to model at least one quantity related associated with the corporeal object, the quantity is at least one of a force, a mass, a velocity, or a friction.

Abstract: Various technologies for a layered texture compression architecture. In one implementation, the layered texture compression architecture may include a texture consumption pipeline. The texture compression pipeline may include a processor, memory devices, and textures compressed at varying ratios of compression. The textures within the pipeline may be compressed at ratios in accordance with characteristics of the devices in the pipeline that contains and processes the textures.