Abstract: This application relates to apparatus and methods for booting servers, such as cloud datacenter compute servers. The servers may execute one or more hypervisors, such as stateless hypervisors, with each hypervisor supporting one or more virtual machines. In some examples, each of a plurality of servers are configured to boot from a network. The compute servers may obtain an IP address identifying a location of hypervisor bootable images. Upon a reboot, the servers may request and obtain a hypervisor bootable image from the IP address. The servers may execute the hypervisor bootable image to run a hypervisor. In some examples, the servers also obtain virtual machine images from the network. One or more hypervisors executing on each server may obtain, and execute, one or more of the virtual machine images to run one or more virtual machines.

Abstract: The disclosed subject matter relates to a system and method for providing an automated assistant that retrieves information from a knowledge base in response to a user's natural language communications. A refinement signal based on a subsequent user communication relevant to a previous search, establishes the type of search to be performed by the automated assistant in generating a response to the user communications. A reply communication to the user includes the selected results from search type selected. The types of searches are SPECIFIC, RELATIVE and NEGATION searches.

Abstract: This application relates to apparatus and methods for determining delivery prices for, and the assigning of, order deliveries. In some examples, a computing device may obtain order data identifying an order for delivery. The computing device may transmit a request to deliver the order for a first price to a first driver. The computing device may determine that a response to the request has not been received, and obtain risk values corresponding to identified delivery request acceptance risk factors. The risk factors may include location based risk factors, delivery time risk factors, driver supply risk factors, and time deadline risk factors. The computing device may determine a second price based on the first price and the risk values by executing one or more algorithms. The computing device may then transmit another request to deliver the order for the second price to a second driver.

Abstract: A system can include one or more processors and one or more non-transitory storage media storing computing instructions that, when executed on the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations including: receiving an incoming message stream from one or more carriers; parsing respective content within each incoming message; retrieving a respective code identifying whether a respective delivery exception occurred; translating the respective code to determine whether to take respective corrective measures for the one or more carriers when respective delivery exceptions occur; determining one or more automated corrective measures that are available prior to soliciting feedback from a user; soliciting the feedback from the user to select at least one of the one or more automated corrective measures; and executing the at least one of the one or more automated corrective measures, as selected by the user. Other embodiments are disclosed herein.

Abstract: Systems and methods including one or more processors and one or more non-transitory storage devices storing computing instructions configured to run on the one or more processors and perform: receiving images at an electronic platform; generating, using a fingerprinting network associated with a neural network architecture, feature embeddings corresponding to the images; generating, using the fingerprinting network, codes based on the feature embeddings; storing the codes in one or more databases; receiving, using a search component associated with the electronic platform, a non-compliant image comprising non-compliant content; and searching the codes in the one or more databases to identify one or more of the images that include non-compliant content similar to, or the same as, the non-compliant content included in the non-compliant image. Other embodiments are disclosed herein.

Abstract: Described in detail herein are object storage and retrieval systems and methods. A storage receptacle can be configured to receive an input from an electronic device including a decoded identifier from a unique optical machine-readable element associated with one or more physical objects, via an input device, and cause the one or more physical objects to be available via at least one opening of the storage receptacle.

Abstract: This application relates to apparatus and methods for automatically determining and providing digital recommendations including sponsored items at optimized positions. In some examples, a computing device receives a recommendation request. In response, the computing device obtains a plurality of items based on the user data. The plurality of items includes a plurality of relevant items and a plurality of sponsored items. The computing device then determines a total profit for a combination of the plurality of items by injecting the plurality of promotional items at different position amongst the plurality of relevant items. The plurality of items are presented to the user based at least in part on the total profit and the corresponding combination.

Abstract: In some embodiments, methods and systems are provided that provide for facilitating delivery, via autonomous ground vehicles, of products ordered by customers of a retailer to customer-specified restricted areas accessible by an entryway openable via an access code.

Abstract: This application relates to apparatus and methods for automatically detecting attacks to advertisement systems. In some examples, a computing device trains a machine learning process based on a training dataset. The training dataset may be an identified portion of a website session dataset that includes a lower percentage of malicious data caused by attacks than other portions, or may include no malicious data. Once trained, the computing device generates features from a website session dataset for a customer, and applies the trained machine learning process to the generated features to detect malicious data within the website session dataset for the customer. Further, the computing device may filter the website session data to remove the detected malicious data, and may store the filtered website session data within a data repository. The computing device may provide the filtered website session data to a recommendation system to generate item recommendations for the customer.

Abstract: In some examples, a system may be configured to obtain a set of features of a set of users including one or more features of transaction of the set of users and one or more features of engagement data of the set of users. Additionally, the system may be configured to implement a first set of operations that generate output data including a plurality of churn scores, based on the set of features. In some examples, each churn score of the plurality of churn scores being associated with a particular user of the set of users and characterize a likelihood of a churn event of the corresponding user.

Abstract: A system includes a computing device configured to receive order data indicating an order placed by a customer on an e-commerce platform and route the order into a test group or a control group when the order data indicates that the order will be filled by a store participating in the comparison test. The computing device is further configured to apply test features to the order if the order was routed into the test group and apply control features to the order if the order was routed into the control group and determine recommended substitute items based on the test features or the control features. The recommended substitute items are intended to replace items ordered by the customer that are unavailable. The computing device is also configured to determine one or more performance metrics of the test group and the control group.

Abstract: Systems and methods including one or more processors and one or more non-transitory storage devices storing computing instructions configured to run on the one or more processors and execute functions comprising: storing historical session data pertaining to user sessions and archived search queries submitted by users to a search engine; analyzing the historical session data to identify ambiguous queries, including semantically ambiguous queries and multi-language queries; monitoring search queries submitted to the search engine to detect the ambiguous queries; and in response to detecting an ambiguous query, generating a query resolution interface that displays categorical groupings, each of which corresponds to a possible intention of the ambiguous query. Other embodiments are disclosed herein.

Abstract: Systems and methods including one or more processors and one or more non-transitory storage devices storing computing instructions configured to run on the one or more processors and execute functions comprising: receiving, at a search engine, a search query comprising tokens; determining, using a weight determination model, token weights for the tokens included in the search query; comparing the token weights associated with the tokens to a probability threshold; identifying the tokens that satisfy the probability threshold; and utilizing the tokens that satisfy the probability threshold to identify the search results. Other embodiments are disclosed herein.

Abstract: Systems and methods including one or more processors and one or more non-transitory storage devices storing computing instructions configured to run on the one or more processors and cause the one or more processors to perform (1) receiving one or more first delivery routes comprising one or more delivery stops in a sequence; (2) shuffling the one or more delivery stops among the one or more first delivery routes to create one or more second delivery routes different than the one or more first delivery routes; (3) determining whether the one or more second delivery routes are on a list of banned delivery routes; (4) when (a) the one or more second delivery routes are not on the list of banned delivery routes and (b) a second cost of the one or more second delivery routes is lower than a first cost of the one or more first delivery routes, persisting the one or more second delivery routes in the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage devices; and (5) repeating (2) through (4) until the second cos

Abstract: A method including obtaining historical revenue per click (RPC) data. The method also can include generating hourly RPC prediction data for a predetermined time period based on the historical RPC data. The method additionally can include determining (i) time intervals from within the predetermined time period and (ii) a respective modifier for each of the time intervals, based on the hourly RPC prediction data. The acts method can include uploading the time intervals and the respective modifiers for the time intervals to a dayparting system of a search engine. Other embodiments are described.

Abstract: In some embodiments, apparatuses and methods are provided herein useful for reusable containers and item delivery using reusable containers. In several embodiments, the reusable containers described herein include removable divider walls that can be used to selectively divide an interior of the container into multiple smaller portions. By a further approach, the container and divider walls can have cooperating components to mount the divider wall to the container. In some embodiments, the reusable containers described herein can also include bag handle holding features so that bags placed therein are prevented from spilling contents during transport.

Abstract: In some embodiments, apparatuses and methods are provided herein useful to searching retail products for purchase and locations of physical retail stores. In some embodiments, there is provided a system for searching both retail products for purchase and locations of physical retail stores including a user interface; a universal search bar cooperatively operating with the user interface to provide a single search tool for a customer to search one or more databases storing at least retail product inventories and a plurality of retail locations; and a control circuit configured to: receive a communication signal to initiate operation of the user interface.

Abstract: A heel insert is provided for an article of footwear that includes an upper defining a foot-receiving cavity having an ankle opening. The heel insert includes a base. The heel insert includes a spine extending outward from the base to a tip of the spine such that the spine extends upward along a posterior wall of a heel region of the upper toward the ankle opening when the base is operatively connected to the heel region. The tip of the spine is moveable relative to the base between a first position and a second position along a longitudinal axis of the article of footwear. The heel insert includes a spring operatively connected to the spine such that the spring biases the tip of the spine toward the first position of the tip. The tip of the spine is resiliently deflectable toward the second position against the bias of the spring.

Abstract: In some embodiments, apparatuses and methods are provided herein useful to processing product returns. In some embodiments, a system for processing returns comprises a POS terminal located in a retail facility and configured to receive an order identifier associated with an online order that includes a product purchased from a third-party seller via the retailer's website, wherein the retail facility is a brick-and-mortar facility associated with the retailer, and wherein the third-party seller is not the retailer, and transmit, to a control circuit, the order identifier, a database configured to store order information, and the control circuit configured to receive the order identifier, determine the product, determine a refund amount for the product, determine a location to which the product should be returned, generate a return label, create a return transaction for the product, and transmit the return label, wherein the POS terminal is configured to print the return label.