Abstract: An oxygen-fuel burner for a glass-melting furnace generally includes a first (or inner) conduit for fuel, a second (or middle) conduit for waste glass cullet, and a third (or outer) conduit for combustion oxygen. The first, second, and third conduits are nested and define respective paths for fuel, cullet, and oxygen flows. A cullet supply funnel is coupled to the second conduit such that cullet can be introduced into the second conduit through the funnel. Organic contaminants in the waste glass cullet are incinerated in an almost pure oxygen environment proximate where cullet particles exit from the burner and prior to reaching the glass surface below.

Abstract: The present describes systems and methods to support financial management by determining the impact of a proposed purchase on a financial situation. For example, a device is configured to determine the impact of a proposed purchase on a user's financial situation based on a purchase amount associated with the proposed purchase.

Abstract: An oxygen-fuel burner for a glass-melting furnace generally includes a first (or inner) conduit for fuel, a second (or middle) conduit for waste glass cullet, and a third (or outer) conduit for combustion oxygen. The first, second, and third conduits are nested and define respective paths for fuel, cullet, and oxygen flows. A cullet supply funnel is coupled to the second conduit such that cullet can be introduced into the second conduit through the funnel. Organic contaminants in the waste glass cullet are incinerated in an almost pure oxygen environment proximate where cullet particles exit from the burner and prior to reaching the glass surface below.

Abstract: Systems, methods and software are disclosed for capturing and/or importing and processing media items such as digital images or video (202) associated with a sporting event such as a marathon or bicycle race (FIG. 3). The media items are processed, including bib number or facial recognition if necessary (204, 206, 504), to associate them with an individual participant. Other input sources may include spectator uploads (506), external web sites and media sharing (508) or soda! networking (510) services. The system (500) aggregates, organizes and generates content, and distributes it (580) via various output channels, which may include event web sites (256), personal feeds (250), and other output channels (260, 254, 252, FIG. 4). Preferably, selected content is associated with at least one individual participant in the event, and that content is automatically distributed to channels that are associated with that individual participant.

Abstract: Disclosed are embodiments of systems and methods for prioritizing mobile media player files by providing for the automated addition and/or deletion of media items for a mobile media player. In some embodiments, a statistical method may be provided for inferring which media items on a mobile media player should be deleted based on, for example, user taste data. In some embodiments, new media items may be loaded onto a user's mobile media player by creating one or more playlists from a playlist builder. The playlist(s) may be created by using user taste data. Rankings may also be created to determine an order for deletion of the media items currently on a mobile media player and/or for addition of new media items to the device.

Abstract: Disclosed are embodiments of systems and methods for recommending relevant users to other users in a user community. In one implementation of such a method, two different sets of data are considered: a) music (or other items) that users have been listening to (or otherwise engaging), and b) music (or other items) recommendations that users have been given. In some embodiments, pre-computation methods allow the system to efficiently compare item sets and recommended item sets among the users in the community. Such comparisons may also comprise metrics that the system can use to figure out which users should be recommended for a given target user.

Abstract: The invention relates to a system and method for acquiring and aggregating information relating to the reproduction of multimedia files or elements in a database, said data including information relating to the number of multimedia file or element reproductions. The inventive system comprises a plurality of digital devices which can access and reproduce multimedia files and an acquisition and storage device which communicates with each of the digital devices in order to receive data from each of the identification/characterization programs, such that said identification/characterization program can count the reproductions at least in a direct and/or weighted manner.

Abstract: A system and method to navigate through a media item catalog and generate recommendations using behavioral metrics such as correlation metrics (FIGS. 1,2) from a knowledge base (400) of mediasets (FIG. 4, 1-7). One implementation uses a knowledge base comprising a collection of mediasets. Various metrics (Metric 1-Metric m) among media items (m1 . . . ) are considered by analyzing how the media items are grouped to form the sets in the knowledge base (400). Such metrics preferably are stored in a matrix (100) that allows the system to dynamically build appropriate navigation lists (FIG. 3) from media items that a user selects (FIG. 5).

Abstract: Systems, methods and software are disclosed for capturing and/or importing and processing media items such as digital images or video (202) associated with a sporting event such as a marathon or bicycle race (FIG. 3). The media items are processed, including bib number or facial recognition if necessary (204, 206, 504), to associate them with an individual participant. Other input sources may include spectator uploads (506), external web sites and media sharing (508) or social networking (510) services. The system (500) aggregates, organizes and generates content, and distributes it (580) via various output channels, which may include event web sites (256), personal feeds (250), and other output channels (260, 254, 252, FIG. 4). Preferably, selected content is associated with at least one individual participant in the event, and that content is automatically distributed to channels that are associated with that individual participant.

Abstract: Disclosed are embodiments of systems and methods for selection of promotional media items and/or generation of promotional or advertising units. In one embodiment, a set of promotional media items may be dynamically identified responsive to an input set of media items. In another embodiment, a promotional program unit is generated in response to receipt of user taste data for a user or group of users. The promotional program unit is an integral unit made up of one or more media items and one or more promotional media items.

Abstract: The invention relates to a system and method for acquiring and aggregating information relating to the reproduction of multimedia files or elements in a database, said data including information relating to the number of multimedia file or element reproductions. The inventive system comprises a plurality of digital devices which can access and reproduce multimedia files and an acquisition and storage device which communicates with each of the digital devices in order to receive data from each of the identification/characterization programs, such that the identification/characterization program can count the reproductions at least in a direct and/or weighted manner.

Abstract: Systems, methods and software are disclosed for capturing and/or importing and processing media items such as digital images or video (202) associated with a sporting event such as a marathon or bicycle race (FIG. 3). The media items are processed, including bib number or facial recognition if necessary (204, 206, 504), to associate them with an individual participant. Other input sources may include spectator uploads (506), external web sites and media sharing (508) or social networking (510) services. The system (500) aggregates, organizes and generates content, and distributes it (580) via various output channels, which may include event web sites (256), personal feeds (250), and other output channels (260, 254, 252, FIG. 4). Preferably, selected content is associated with at least one individual participant in the event, and that content is automatically distributed to channels that are associated with that individual participant.

Abstract: A system to navigate through a media item catalog using correlation metrics (FIGS. 1,2) from a knowledge base (400) of mediasets (FIG. 4, 1-7). The system uses a knowledge base consisting of a collection of mediasets. Various metrics (Metric 1-Metric m) among media items (m1 . . . ) are considered by analyzing how the media items are grouped to form the sets in the knowledge base (400). Such metrics preferably are stored in a matrix (100) that allows the system to dynamically build appropriate navigation lists (FIG. 3) from media items that a user selects (FIG. 5).

Abstract: Massively scalable, memory and model-based techniques are an important approach for practical large-scale collaborative filtering. We describe a massively scalable, model-based recommender system and method that extends the collaborative filtering techniques by explicitly incorporating these types of user and item knowledge. In addition, we extend the Expectation-Maximization algorithm for learning the conditional probabilities in the model to coherently accommodate time-varying training data.

Abstract: Disclosed are embodiments of systems and methods for prioritizing mobile media player files by providing for the automated addition and/or deletion of media items for a mobile media player. In some embodiments, a statistical method may be provided for inferring which media items on a mobile media player should be deleted based on, for example, user taste data. In some embodiments, new media items may be loaded onto a user's mobile media player by creating one or more playlists from a playlist builder. The playlist(s) may be created by using user taste data. Rankings may also be created to determine an order for deletion of the media items currently on a mobile media player and/or for addition of new media items to the device.

Abstract: Systems and methods are disclosed for identifying a new set of media items in response to an input set (or “query set”) of media items and knowledge base metrics. The system uses a knowledge base consisting of a collection of mediasets. Various metrics among media items are considered by analyzing how the media items are grouped to form the mediasets in the knowledge base. Such association or “similarity” metrics are preferably stored in a matrix form that allows the system to efficiently identify a new set of media items that complements the input set of media items.

Abstract: Visualizing and exploring a music library using metadata, such as genre, sub-genre, artist, and year, is provided. Geometric shapes, such as disks or rectangles, may be divided into sectors representing genre and each sector may be further divided into sub-sectors representing artists associated with each genre. The sector's relative size generally reflects the importance of the corresponding genre within the library. Likewise, the sub-sector's relative size generally reflects the importance of the corresponding artist within the genre which may be determined by the number of media items of the artist. Marks representing each media item may be arranged and displayed within the geometric shape to reflect the mark's corresponding genre, artist, and year. In addition, each mark may reflect an attribute, such as playcount, of the media item and each sector may reflect the mean value of an attribute of all media items within the sector.

Abstract: A computer implemented method for displaying real-time computer mediated user consumption data, comprising: accessing consumption data corresponding to real-time computer mediated user consumption behavior; parsing the consumption data to identify one or more events comprising one or more instances of consumption data and wherein each event is associated with a user; adding the events to an event stack comprising a predetermined stack limit; and storing the consumption data for each event in a data structure configured to correlate related consumption data and provide a temporal context to the stored consumption data wherein addition of graphical symbols to a visualization display is responsive to the arrangement of the consumption data in the data structure.

Abstract: Systems and methods are disclosed for creating a list of media items that are similar to an input mediaset comprising at lease one input media item, optionally together with at least one input parameter that constrains the output in scope or number of items. Media items include music, videos, pictures and other such items that can be associated or grouped together by a human into a list or mediaset. The mediaset is formed by a human applying virtually any objective and/or subjective criteria. Those criteria need not be made explicit; a relation among the selected items is implicit in the list per se. Alternatively, objective criteria such as metadata can be used.

Abstract: Disclosed are methods and systems for automatically displaying media items (130) preselected by a user (110) on a collage display (700) located at a social gathering spot when the user is present. A user of the system sets up a personal online profile (110) through a website (100,200) and the profile identifies a portable device (500) associated with the user. User online profiles (110) are stored in a database (400) on a system web server (300), and may include selected media items (132) selected by the user. At a venue, the user's presence is automatically detected by various electronic means, and a personalized welcome message (702) may be displayed on the collage display screen (700) to notify other patrons of the venue. Users present may comment or vote (182,184) on the media items seen on the collage display, as well as send text messages to the display (164,750).