Abstract: A device set may interoperate to perform an action, such as providing a message to a user or storing photos taken by a user. Performing the action on all available devices may cause redundancy (e.g., presenting the same message to the user on each device), and depending on user selection (e.g., the user requesting to play music and specifically designating a device) may become onerous. A centralized, server-driven selection of the device to perform the action may be problematic if the server is inaccessible and/or inaccurate if not currently informed of the current state of each device. In accordance with the techniques presented herein, a requesting device broadcasts an action invitation to the device set. Each device provides a suitability report indicating its suitability to perform the action. The requesting device identifies one or more suitable devices, and sends an action request to identified devices to perform the action.

Abstract: A computer system automatically generates service documentation based on usage of a web service. The computer system captures network traffic including actual requests to a service endpoint of the web service and actual responses from the service endpoint of the web service. The captured network traffic can be analyzed using machine learning to determine one or more operations that are available at the service endpoint, input arguments that are accepted by the service endpoint, and output arguments that are provided by the service endpoint. The computer system can automatically generate service documentation for the web service based on metadata that identifies the operations, the input arguments, and the output arguments.

Abstract: A computer system may communicate metadata that identifies a current speaker. The computer system may receive audio data that represents speech of the current speaker, generate an audio fingerprint of the current speaker based on the audio data, and perform automated speaker recognition by comparing the audio fingerprint of the current speaker against stored audio fingerprints contained in a speaker fingerprint repository. The computer system may communicate data indicating that the current speaker is unrecognized to a client device of an observer and receive tagging information that identifies the current speaker from the client device of the observer. The computer system may store the audio fingerprint of the current speaker and metadata that identifies the current speaker in the speaker fingerprint repository and communicate the metadata that identifies the current speaker to at least one of the client device of the observer or a client device of a different observer.

Abstract: Many devices are configured to present alerts notifying a user of device events, but the user may not notice the alert due to a noisy environment. A user may mitigate missed alerts by increasing the alert volume or choosing a vibration mode, but such techniques depend upon the knowledge, attention, and memory of the user to adjust the device before the alert. Instead, a device may compare the noise level of the environment with a noise level threshold. If the noise level is below the threshold, the device presents the alert; but if the noise level is above the threshold, the device defers the presentation of the alert until the noise level diminishes below the threshold, and then presents the alert. The device may also send an automated response to the message, notifying a sender that the user may return the message upon leaving the noisy environment.

Abstract: A computerized method includes identifying a first routine of a first user and determining an alteration for the first routine. The alteration can be determined based at least in part on a second routine, where the second routine corresponds to a second user. In addition, or instead, the determining may be based at least in part on generating and selecting one or more alterations and/or selecting one or more enumerated alterations for the first routine. The first routine can be simulated with the alteration to predict a first performance score with respect to multiple future iterations of at least the altered first routine. The alteration may be selected for the first routine based on the prediction of the first performance score and a second performance score with respect to at least the unaltered first routine. The selected alteration for the first routine may be presented to the first user.

Abstract: User-specific data for use with a software service may be stored in an encrypted form, where the encryption and/or decryption keys used are associated with a user's biometric data (that the user voluntarily provides after appropriate disclosure, to protect the user's interest in privacy). When the user uses the software service on a device, the device may receive the user-specific data in an encrypted form, and then may use the biometric data to retrieve or generate the cryptographic key that is used to decrypt the user-specific data. The user-specific data is then decrypted and used on the device with the software service.

Abstract: In many scenarios, a device may detect one or more audio conversations, and may be capable of evaluating such audio conversations, e.g., in order to present a text transcript to a user. However, the user's attention to such audio conversations may waver, and the user may miss the audio conversation and/or an opportunity to participate in the audio conversation. Presented herein are techniques for enabling devices to assist users in such scenarios by monitoring audio conversations to detect conversation cues that pertain to the user (e.g., the user's name, names of the user's friends, and/or topics of interest to the user). Upon detecting a conversation cue within an audio conversation that pertains to the user, the device notifies the user (e.g., alerting the user that the audio conversation may be of interest, and/or presenting a text transcript of the portion of the audio conversation containing the conversation cue).

Abstract: In the field of computing, many scenarios involve the execution of an application within a virtual environment (e.g., web applications executing within a web browser). In order to perform background processing, such applications may invoke worker processes within the virtual environment; however, this configuration couples the life cycle of worker processes to the life cycle of the application and/or virtual environment. Presented herein are techniques for executing worker processes outside of the virtual environment and independently of the life cycle of the application, such that background computation may persist after the application and/or virtual environment are terminated and even after a computing environment restart, and for notifying the application upon the worker process achieving an execution event (e.g., detecting device events even while the application is not executing).

Abstract: Many devices are configured to present alerts notifying a user of device events, but the user may not notice the alert due to a noisy environment. A user may mitigate missed alerts by increasing the alert volume or choosing a vibration mode, but such techniques depend upon the knowledge, attention, and memory of the user to adjust the device before the alert. Instead, a device may compare the noise level of the environment with a noise level threshold. If the noise level is below the threshold, the device presents the alert; but if the noise level is above the threshold, the device defers the presentation of the alert until the noise level diminishes below the threshold, and then presents the alert. The device may also send an automated response to the message, notifying a sender that the user may return the message upon leaving the noisy environment.

Abstract: A device set may interoperate to perform an action, such as providing a message to a user or storing photos taken by a user. Performing the action on all available devices may cause redundancy (e.g., presenting the same message to the user on each device), and depending on user selection (e.g., the user requesting to play music and specifically designating a device) may become onerous. A centralized, server-driven selection of the device to perform the action may be problematic if the server is inaccessible and/or inaccurate if not currently informed of the current state of each device. In accordance with the techniques presented herein, a requesting device broadcasts an action invitation to the device set. Each device provides a suitability report indicating its suitability to perform the action. The requesting device identifies one or more suitable devices, and sends an action request to identified devices to perform the action.

Abstract: One or more techniques and/or systems are provided for locally filtering content on a device, which preserves privacy of a user (e.g., user specific data is not sent from the device to obtain content tailored to the user). A set of content candidates may be retrieved from a remote source (e.g., a restaurant app may retrieve menu items from a restaurant server). A user personalization profile may be used to locally filter the set of content candidates to generate a filtered set of content. For example, the user personalization profile may indicate that the user maintains a low-carb diet and that the user prefers expensive Asian restaurants (e.g., based upon a low-carb diet document saved on the user's device and/or device locational information indicating the user frequents expensive Asian restaurants). In this way, the restaurant app may display the filtered set of content (e.g., expensive Asian restaurants serving low-carb food).

Abstract: In the field of computing, many scenarios involve the execution of an application within a virtual environment (e.g., web applications executing within a web browser). In order to perform background processing, such applications may invoke worker processes within the virtual environment; however, this configuration couples the life cycle of worker processes to the life cycle of the application and/or virtual environment. Presented herein are techniques for executing worker processes outside of the virtual environment and independently of the life cycle of the application, such that background computation may persist after the application and/or virtual environment are terminated and even after a computing environment restart, and for notifying the application upon the worker process achieving an execution event (e.g., detecting device events even while the application is not executing).

Abstract: One or more techniques and/or systems are provided for cloud service hosting on a client device. For example, a cloud service may comprise data and/or functionality that may be consumed by apps on client devices. The cloud service may be hosted within a cloud computing environment because a client device may not comprise processing resources capable of hosting the entire cloud service. Accordingly, a local service may be deployed on a client device as a local instantiation of the cloud service. For example, the local service may be a local instantiation of at least a portion of the data and/or functionality of the cloud service. In this way, the local service may utilize fewer resources than the cloud service, and may locally process requests from apps on the client device. For example, a map local service may process requests using map data locally cached from a map cloud service.

Abstract: An embodiment of the invention provides a method of determining a location of a mobile target that processes locations for the target provided by a wireless location technology tracker system to determine if the locations are outliers, discards locations that are determined to be outliers, and uses locations determined not to be outliers as locations for the target.

Abstract: An embodiment of the invention provides a method of determining a location of a mobile target that processes locations for the target provided by a wireless location technology tracker system to determine moving averages of velocity of the target, determines if the locations are outliers responsive to the moving averages, discards locations that are determined to be outliers, and uses locations determined not to be outliers as locations for the target.

Abstract: The aggregation of facts from various sources about an individual may produce an individual profile that may inform personalized services. However, a compilation of facts may be supplemented by monitoring activities of the individual and formulating inferences regarding the individual's individual details, and the confidence of such inferences. Accordingly, a device may compare the detected activities with a behavioral rule set indicating correlations between activities and inferred individual details (e.g., frequently spent weekday evenings and morning departures from a residence imply that the residence is the individual's home; frequent bicycling to work, chosen over other available modes of transportation, implies that the individual is a bicycling enthusiast) to add inferred individual details to the individual profile. Continued monitoring may enable updating based on changes to the individual details.

Abstract: Architecture that enables shared social selection by multiple participants of a route (or routes) to a physical destination based at least in part on estimated time-of-arrival (ETA) of the participants to the destination as a group, and joint selection of the destination as a group. The individuals of the group may travel from different locations and along same or different routes to the destination. The architecture assists in planning shared (and/or separate) routes to the destination and estimating the time the group as a whole will be together at the destination. The ETA for the group can be based on the person of the group estimated to arrive at the destination last in time. Interaction capabilities (e.g., texting) are facilitated between group members as part of the navigation system, and dynamic destination decisions can be based on user locations, calculated routes, and/or the type of destination.

Abstract: Architecture that enables the discovery of relevant applications, where the relevance is personalized to the user and user interests. New, relevant, and interesting applications are personalized to the user based on friends and/or people with whom the user shares common interests (e.g., social networks), based on queries for a popular application within a geographical area, and/or collaborative filtering. Moreover, users who employ the disclosed architecture can maintain anonymity to prevent the exposure of personal identifying details. Social-based application discovery, location-based application discovery, anonymous-profile-based application discovery, and collaborative-filtering-based application discovery, are provided. Application installs, uninstalls, and frequency of user interaction are also available, as well as privacy modes for privacy protection.

Abstract: Communication between a user and various services (e.g., websites) often involves creating a user profile comprising contact information (e.g., a personal email address) that the service uses to contact the user. However, managing communication may be burdensome and ineffective; the user's privacy may be diminished; and revocation of previously issued permission may be unachievable. Presented herein are techniques for providing a communication manager that establishes relationships with services on behalf of users, and that issues tokens to the services representing such relationships. In order to communicate with the user, the service presents the token to the communication manager, which conditions the authorization of the communication on verification of the current permission of user in the relationship represented by the token, optionally including the communication channel of the user requested by the service.

Abstract: In the field of computing, many scenarios involve the execution of an application within a virtual environment of a device (e.g., web applications executing within a web browser). Interactions between applications and device components are often enabled through hardware abstractions or component application programming interfaces (API), but such interactions may provide more limited and/or inconsistent access to component capabilities for virtually executing applications than for native applications. Instead, the device may provide hardware interaction as a service to the virtual environment utilizing a callback model, wherein applications within the virtual environment initiate component request specifying a callback, and the device initiates the component requests with the components and invokes associated callbacks upon completion of a component request.