Abstract: The present invention is directed towards systems and methods for transmitting a DNS beacon for storage. A method according to one embodiment comprises generating one or more data items for logging and transmitting a DNS request to an authoritative DNS server for a logging domain, with the host name of the DNS request comprising the one or more data items for logging. The DNS request, which comprises the data items for logging, is stored on a storage device.

Abstract: A system for geographically contextualizing data items may include an interface, a memory and a processor. The memory may store a database which includes structured data types. The processor may receive, via the interface, a data item. The processor may determine whether the data item is a structured or unstructured data item. The processor may parse the data item into components. The processor may determine a geographic component from the components. The geographic component may be determined using an algorithm if the data item is an unstructured data item. Otherwise the geographic component may be determined by comparing the components to the database which includes the structured data types. The processor may determine a geographic region representative of the determined geographic component. The processor may identify results associated with the geographic region and at least one of the components. The processor may provide the results via the interface.

Abstract: The subject matter disclosed herein relates to a system and/or method offline data generation for online system analysis.

Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention describe systems and methods for using a combined (or All-In-One) Chinese input method to enter Chinese characters in documents and forms on computers or on web sites. The combined Chinese input method includes a number of Chinese input methods that are frequently used by users. Chinese characters that match the strings of symbols typed by users are displayed under each of the Chinese input methods for users to select the correct characters under the desired Chinese input methods. The combined Chinese input method allows users to enter (or input) Chinese characters without specifying the Chinese input methods being used, which reduces the time used in switching input methods. Further, the combined Chinese input method can also be personalized to include Chinese input methods frequently used by or specified by users.

Abstract: A system and method for development of search success metrics. A plurality of search engine result pages are collected and a target page success metric is determined for each page. A plurality of machine learned page success metrics are trained using a first subset of the search engine result pages and each result page's respective target page success metric, wherein each of the machine learned page success metrics is trained to predict the target page success metric for each of the first subset of search engine result pages. A predicted target page success metric is predicted for each of a second subset of the search engine result pages using each of the machine learned page success metrics. The accuracy of each of the machine learned page success metrics in predicting the target page success metric associated with each of the second subset of search engine result pages is then evaluated.

Abstract: Embodiments provide improved search assist functionality. The search assist functionality assists with a search by providing more than simply suggestions for searches as the user is typing, and allows a user more direct and rapid access to the desired information. This is especially useful in mobile computing devices such as handsets. It also allows for greater realization of associated advertising revenue.

Abstract: Potential connections from a first user of a first online service to other users of the online service may be recommended by identifying a second online service from a plurality of online services, wherein the first user is a member of the second online service, identifying a second user of the second online service, wherein a connection exists in the second online service between the first user and the second user, and recommending that a connection be established in the first online service between the first user and the second user. Such recommendations may also be generated by identifying a second user and a third user, where the second user and the third user are members of a second online service, a connection exists in the first online service between the first user and the second user, and a connection exists in the second online service between the second user and the third user, and recommending that a connection be established in the first online service between the first user and the third user.

Abstract: A system is described for serving advertisements targeted to geographic areas over mobile devices. The system may include a processor, a memory and an interface being operatively connected. The memory may store a request associated with a mobile device, and an advertisement. The processor may be operative to communicate with the mobile device. The mobile device may be associated with a mobile carrier. The processor may receive the request associated with the mobile device and may determine a geographic location associated with the request. The processor may identify an advertisement, the advertisement being targeted to the geographic area and the mobile carrier. The processor may provide the identified advertisement to the mobile device.

Abstract: An unsupervised classification approach is improved by imposing some order into the treatment of the records and their attributes, which otherwise would be treated as random variables. A method is provided to identify particular attributes that are most associated with the “good” records within each of the plurality of groups of records within a data set. Based on a supervised scoring method, the records of the data set are processed to indicate their measure of “goodness”. There are various ways by which the records can be processed to indicate a bias during unsupervised clustering processing.

Abstract: A method, apparatus and system for routing changes to information between a plurality of content nodes and a command memory of a content router. Content nodes may be user devices (such as mobile phones) and user accounts (such as email accounts). Content nodes may hold one or more content types such as email, contacts, tasks, events and library items. A command memory centralizes conflict detection, resolution and error handling within a content routing system.

Abstract: Systems and methods for query processing and indexing of documents in connection with a content store in a computing system are provided. In various embodiments, an indexing model is provided that is optimized for fast, efficient and scalable retrieval of documents satisfying a query, including the mixed use of forward and inverted indexing representations, including algorithms for achieving a balance between the two representations. When processing queries, fast and efficient generation of reverse chronologically ordered posting lists is enabled for efficient execution of logical operators on query result sets. A term expand index is also provided wherein the overall terms included in the term expand index are decomposed into a plurality of lexicon files, which are combined when convenient for fast, scalable efficiency when performing queries of the content in the content store.

Abstract: Methods and systems for uploading, managing and delivering digital content, including streaming media. The system according to one embodiment allows receives digital content from the client, assigns a stream identifier (ID) to the content and stores the content. The client is given a playlist uniform resource locator (URL) for publishing on its web site, the URL including the stream ID. Activation of the URL by an end user causes the stream to be served to the end user, without the client receiving or providing an indication of the specifics of where the content was stored. An embodiment of the present invention provides a system and method that defines one or more remote sites associated with each client.

Abstract: A method and system of providing control by a client of a Web-cast from a telephone, the method comprising: receiving from the client Web-cast configuration data at a web server, updating Web-cast parameters in accordance with the Web-cast configuration data and storing the Web-cast parameters in a database; receiving initiation instructions at the telephony server for the Web-cast from the client via the telephone and initiating the Web-cast in accordance with the Web-cast parameters stored in the database; receiving content data at the telephony server from the telephone, formatting the content data at the telephony server, storing the content data at a file storage server and providing content pull instructions to an encoder server; receiving the content pull instructions at the encoder server, pulling the content from the file storage server based upon the content pull instructions and encoding the content into streaming content at the encoder server; and receiving the streaming content at a media server

Abstract: A geographical location extraction method and tool to infer a likely geographical location from one or more search terms entered as a query by a user on a search engine or the like. The method includes receiving in a computer memory a search term entered by a user and controlling a processor for utilising processes of word analysis, to determine which parts of a search query comprise location names and provide an indicator of the extent to which a given search term or part thereof should be treated as a geographical location, and inferring from the word analysis a likely geographical location. The likely geographical location so inferred may then be stored in computer memory for further processing or display.

Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention provide for methods, systems and computer program products for learning ranking functions to determine the ranking of one or more content items that are responsive to a query. The present invention includes generating one or more training sets comprising one or more content item-query pairs and determining one or more contradicting pairs in a given training sets. An optimization function to minimize the number of contradicting pairs in the training set is formulated, and modified by incorporating a grade difference between one or more content items corresponding to the query in the training set and applied to each query in the training set. A ranking function is determined based on the application of regression trees on the queries of the training set minimized by the optimization function and stored for application to content item-query pairs not contained in the one or more training sets.

Abstract: A system is described for providing location predictive advertising. The system may include a processor, a memory, and an interface. The memory may store an advertisement. The interface may communicate with an electronic device. The processor may determine a first geographic location of an electronic device which is travelling in a direction. The processor may identify a first geographic region which may encompass the first geographic location of the electronic device. The processor may determine a second geographic region which is located in the direction of travel of the electronic device. The processor may determine an advertisement associated with the second geographic region in accordance with the electronic device being located within the first geographic region. The processor may provide the advertisement to the electronic device.

Abstract: A system is described for generating query suggestions by integrating valuable query suggestions with experimental query suggestions using a network of users and advertisers. The system may include a memory, an interface, and a processor. The memory may store a historical dataset, a plurality of query suggestions, a plurality of query suggestion values, a query exploit set, a query explore set, and a data describing a network. The processor may identify the plurality of query suggestions in the historical dataset and generate data describing the network based on the historical dataset. The processor may calculate the query suggestion value for each query suggestion and may rank the query suggestions based on the query suggestion values. The processor may generate an exploit set comprising the top ranked query suggestions and an explore set comprising the remainder. The processor may suggest the query suggestions in the exploit set and the explore set.

Abstract: Detecting and blocking spam messages using statistical analysis on distributions of message sizes for a given IP address. Mail volumes are examined to model a distribution of volumes to cluster IP addresses. The messages sizes may distributed across ranges of message sizes, which is then used to determine an entropy of message sizes for the given IP address. The entropy of the given IP address may be compared to entropies of known good IP addresses, and if a difference between the entropies is statistically significant, then the given IP address may be determined to be an IP spammer. User feedback may also be employed to further characterize an IP address. For example, a number of messages from the IP address may be sent to intended recipients. User feedback may then be monitored to determine whether to the IP address should be reclassified.

Abstract: The present invention is directed to systems, methods and computer-readable media comprising program code for dynamically ranking links to items of audio content returned to a user in response to the execution of a query by a search engine. A method according to one embodiment of the present invention for dynamically ranking links to items of audio content returned to a user in response to the execution of a query by a search engine comprises receiving a query to identify links to one or more items of audio content; parsing the query into one or more logical units; determining an annotation for each of the one or more logical units; selecting a ranking heuristic according to the annotation for each of the one or more logical units and ranking a result set according to the selected ranking heuristic.

Abstract: The systems and methods described create a mathematical representation of each of the media objects for which user ratings are known. The mathematical representations take into account the subjective rating value assigned by a user to the respective media object and the user that assigned the rating value. The media object with the mathematical representation closest to that of the seed media object is then selected as the most similar media object to the seed media object. In an embodiment, the mathematical representation is a vector representation in which each user is a different dimension and each user's rating value is the magnitude of the vector in that dimension. Similarity between two songs is determined by identifying the closest vectors to that of the seed song. Closeness may be determined by subtracting or by calculating the dot product of each of the vectors with that of the seed media object.