Abstract: A method for smart parking a connected vehicle is disclosed. The method determines a destination of a user's vehicle based on the user's input or historic travel data of the user. The method receives information on available parking spots in a predefined area near the user's destination based on a parking database. The method receives an input to reserve a desired parking spot among the available parking spots. The method initiates an online check-in of the reserved parking spot in the parking database.

Abstract: A method for smart parking a connected vehicle is disclosed. The method determines a destination of a user's vehicle based on the user's input or historic travel data of the user. The method receives information on available parking spots in a predefined area near the user's destination based on a parking database. The method receives an input to reserve a desired parking spot among the available parking spots. The method initiates an online check-in of the reserved parking spot in the parking database.

Abstract: Method, apparatus, system, computer program product and computer readable medium are disclosed for enhancing a user's engagement or experience with a service. The method comprises obtaining the user's current active level with respect to the service with respect to the service; determining a target active level; and sending the user a notification about the service at a time determined based on the user's current active level and the target active level, so that the user is notified of the service without being severely annoyed.

Abstract: A method for determining a travel destination from user generated content is proposed. The method includes determining a text string in the user generated content that indicates a place or an address. Further, the method includes determining a plurality of potential travel destinations based on the text string. The method additionally includes determining similarities between the plurality of potential travel destinations and a plurality of reference positions assigned to the user, and ranking the plurality of potential travel destinations based on the similarities.

Abstract: The disclosure is directed to determining an actual point-of-interest (POI). For example, using at least one computing device, a first set of probable POIs corresponding to a first geographical location and first POI category information may be determined. The at least one computing device may also be used to determine a second set of probable POIs corresponding to a second geographical location and determine second POI category information. By analyzing the first and second POI category information, the actual POI from the first and second set of probable POIs may be determined.

Abstract: The disclosure is directed to improving driving experience by determining and providing a personalized estimated time of arrival (ETA). For example, using at least one computing device, driving data associated with a user may be collected and stored in memory. The at least one computing device may also be used to receive ETA-related data including one or more real time ETA estimations, perform analysis on one or more of the driving data and the ETA-related data so as to determine a set of personalized parameters of a mapping function that correspond to a training set. The at least one computing device may also be used to determine the personalized ETA based at least in part on the determined set of personalized parameters and provided to the user.

Abstract: The disclosure is directed to improving driving experience. For example, using one or more computing devices, a current location of a user may be determined and a place of interest, located at a distance from the current location, may be identified. The one or more computing devices may determine that the place of interest meets one or more requirements, and designate the place of interest as a candidate place of interest. The candidate place of interest may be recommended to the user based on a defined criteria. The one or more computing devices may also determine that the user has arrived at a parking location corresponding to the candidate place of interest, and associate the parking location and the candidate place of interest based on one or more inputs by the user.

Abstract: The disclosure is directed to determining an actual point-of-interest (POI). For example, using at least one computing device, a first set of probable POIs corresponding to a first geographical location and first POI category information may be determined. The at least one computing device may also be used to determine a second set of probable POIs corresponding to a second geographical location and determine second POI category information. By analyzing the first and second POI category information, the actual POI from the first and second set of probable POIs may be determined.

Abstract: The disclosure is directed to improving driving experience by determining and providing a personalized estimated time of arrival (ETA). For example, using at least one computing device, driving data associated with a user may be collected and stored in memory. The at least one computing device may also be used to receive ETA-related data including one or more real time ETA estimations, perform analysis on one or more of the driving data and the ETA-related data so as to determine a set of personalized parameters of a mapping function that correspond to a training set. The at least one computing device may also be used to determine the personalized ETA based at least in part on the determined set of personalized parameters and provided to the user.

Abstract: The disclosure is directed to improving driving experience. For example, using one or more computing devices, a current location of a user may be determined and a place of interest, located at a distance from the current location, may be identified. The one or more computing devices may determine that the place of interest meets one or more requirements, and designate the place of interest as a candidate place of interest. The candidate place of interest may be recommended to the user based on a defined criteria. The one or more computing devices may also determine that the user has arrived at a parking location corresponding to the candidate place of interest, and associate the parking location and the candidate place of interest based on one or more inputs by the user.

Abstract: An approach is provided for determining one or more recommendations based on an incremental update of a recommendation model. An incremental platform causes, at least in part, a categorization of activity information into a plurality of subsets based, at least in part, on one or more user groups, one or more item groups, at least one update time for at least one recommendation model associated with the activity information, or a combination thereof. The incremental platform further processes and/or facilitates a processing of the activity information based, at least in part, on the categorization to determine whether to perform an incremental update of the at least one recommendation model. The incremental platform also determines one or more recommendations based, at least in part, on the at least one recommendation model, the incremental update, or a combination thereof.

Abstract: A method, apparatus and computer-readable storage medium for determining one or more recommendations by applying efficient adaptive matrix factorization are disclosed. The method comprises causing, at least in part, an iterative performing of the following steps: a using of a current data set to optimize parameters used to adapt a current matrix factorization model by the end of the current time period, and a training of a current matrix factorization model and the current data set by the end of the current time period, based on the optimized parameters, to obtain an adapted matrix factorization model for service in a next time period.

Abstract: Method, apparatus, system, computer program product and computer readable medium are disclosed for recommending content to a plurality of users. Each of the users is associated with a user score. The method comprises determining a recommending score for an item of content at least partly based on a user's promotion of the item and the user score of the promoting user; recommending the item according to its recommending score; and adjusting the user score of the promoting user based on other users' feedback with respect to the item promoted by said user.

Abstract: Method, apparatus, system, computer program product and computer readable medium are disclosed for enhancing a user's engagement or experience with a service. The method comprises obtaining the user's current active level with respect to the service with respect to the service; determining a target active level; and sending the user a notification about the service at a time determined based on the user's current active level and the target active level, so that the user is notified of the service without being severely annoyed.

Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention provide a method and apparatus for transmitting information. In one embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a method for transmitting information, comprising: creating an activity in response to having received inputted information from a user U; looking up a first number of users matching the activity in contact information of the user U; adding the first number of users into a candidate list; transmitting a notification of the activity to users in the candidate list; wherein the contact information comprises at least one address book through which the user U communicates with a plurality of other users via at least one communication channel. In other embodiments of the present invention, there is further provided apparatuses for transmitting information.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for enriching social media to improve personalized user experience are provide, the method comprising: receiving highlights and/or annotations in at least one electronic document made by at least one user; extracting keywords from the respective at least one electronic document with the highlights and/or annotations as tags of the respective at least one electronic document; and using the keywords as tags of the respective at least one electronic document to provide personalized contents from the at least one electronic document to a user. Thus, by having high quality/relevant tags from a plurality of users for a given document, we may better profile the document. Similarly, by having high quality and insightful tags that a user has given to a plurality of documents, we may better profile the user's interest and behavior. By having better document and user profiling, we may better recommend the right documents to right users.

Abstract: An approach is provided for a method for intelligent and personalized web information discovery and user interface. A method can comprise building a hierarchical, tree-structured topic model involving data intelligence and human intelligence, that comprises one or more nodes which have respective topics and are configured to map the respective topics to display spaces of a user interface. The method can further comprise collecting web contents matched with the respective topics causing to render information of the collected web contents in the display spaces mapped to the respective topics.

Abstract: An approach is provided for determining one or more recommendations based on an incremental update of a recommendation model. An incremental platform causes, at least in part, a categorization of activity information into a plurality of subsets based, at least in part, on one or more user groups, one or more item groups, at least one update time for at least one recommendation model associated with the activity information, or a combination thereof. The incremental platform further processes and/or facilitates a processing of the activity information based, at least in part, on the categorization to determine whether to perform an incremental update of the at least one recommendation model. The incremental platform also determines one or more recommendations based, at least in part, on the at least one recommendation model, the incremental update, or a combination thereof.

Abstract: An approach is provided for creating a connection between users of a social network. The approach involves determining location information associated with a user and other location information associated with one or more other users. The approach also includes processing the location information and the other location information to cause, at least in part, identification of one or more encounters, one or more encounter patterns, or a combination thereof with respect to the user and the one or more other users. The approach further includes determining to generate at least one recommendation to create at least one social network, at least one social networking relationship, or a combination thereof between the user and at least one of the one or more other users based, at least in part, on the one or more encounters, the one or more encounter patterns, one or more meetings and/or events, or a combination thereof.