Abstract: A system that incorporates the subject disclosure may perform operations, for example, including determining a first correlation value between a behavior of a first audience member and a subject matter being presented at a display processor, wherein the subject matter being presented at the display is observable by the first audience member. A second correlation value is determined between the behavior of the first audience member and a characteristic of an environment in a vicinity of the display and the first audience member. Responsive to the second correlation value exceeding the first correlation value, a determination is made as to whether a present channel selection resulting from user input initiated by the first audience member is responsive to the characteristic of the environment influencing the audience member more than the subject matter being presented at the display. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Abstract: Apparatuses, systems, methods, and media for filtering a data stream are provided. The data stream is partitioned into a plurality of data stream segments. An acoustic parameter is measured in each of the data stream segments. It is determined whether the acoustic parameter satisfies a first predetermined condition. The first predetermined condition includes a number of variances, in which the acoustic parameter exceeds a predetermined variance threshold, exceeding a predetermined number threshold. An extraneous portion of the data stream is identified in which the first predetermined condition is satisfied. It is determined whether the extraneous portion satisfies a second predetermined condition in the data stream. The extraneous portion is deleted from the data stream to produce a filtered data stream in response to the second predetermined condition being satisfied.

Abstract: Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, analyzing content flow data in a communication network to obtain flow statistics; the statistics are aggregated to construct a model of the content flow based on the aggregated flow statistics. Operations of network nodes are predicted based on the model; a content delivery path in the communication network is identified. A quality of service is detected for network nodes on the content delivery path. The detected quality of service is compared with a predicted quality of service based on the model; a network anomaly is detected based on the comparing. The content flow on the content delivery path is adjusted responsive to detection of the network anomaly. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for providing an opportunistic crowd based service platform is disclosed. A mobile sensor device is identified based on a current location and/or other qualities, such as intrinsic properties, previous sensor data, or demographic data of an associated user of the mobile sensor device. Data is collected from the mobile sensor device. The data collected from the mobile sensor device is aggregated with data collected from other sensor devices, and content generated based on the aggregated data is delivered to a user device.

Abstract: Methods and systems for information querying are described. At least one recent image of a video signal may be accessed. Recent text associated with the at least one recent image may be accessed. A presentation image may be provided from the at least one recent image for presentation on a display. An original portion of the recent text may be identified within the presentation image. A selection of a user portion of the recent text may be received. An information source may be queried with the selection of the user portion of the recent text. The information source may be capable of using the selection to provide a result.

Abstract: A method includes accessing information identifying user devices, and accessing media consumption data indicating content requests corresponding to the user devices. The method also includes determining expected locations of the user devices based on the information, and determining forecasted content requests based on the media consumption data. The method further includes generating a pre-caching schedule based on the forecasted content requests and the expected locations, and determining that the pre-caching schedule indicates that particular media data is to be provided via a multicast transmission to a first user device and to a second user device. The method also includes sending an instruction to the first user device directing the first user device to store the particular media data. The method includes sending, responsive to a request from the second user device, the particular media data via the multicast transmission to the first user device and to the second user device.

Abstract: A method includes receiving, at a computing device, first image data of a viewer of an output of user equipment. The method includes selecting, at the computing device based on a first item identified in the first image data, a background component to be included in multimedia content. The method also includes providing, from the computing device, the multimedia content to the user equipment for presentation to the viewer. The multimedia content includes the background component and a first foreground component, where the first foreground component has a first characteristic.

Abstract: Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, facilitating access to a synopsis of a missed portion of a media program, identifying subject matter in a segment of content in the media program that has not been presented, determining a particular time for presenting the summary according to the subject matter in the segment of content, and initiating a presentation of the summary at the particular time. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Abstract: A method includes receiving, by a device, a first image of a scene and a second image of at least a portion of the scene. The method includes identifying a first plurality of features from the first image and comparing the first plurality of features to a second plurality of features from the second image to identify a common feature. The method includes determining a particular subset of pixels that corresponds to the common feature, the particular subset of pixels corresponding to a first subset of pixels of the first image and a second subset of pixels of the second image. The method also includes generating a first image quality estimate of the first image based on a comparison of a first degree of variation within the first subset of pixels and a second degree of variation within the second subset of pixels.

Abstract: Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and computer-readable media for transmedia video bookmarks, the method comprising receiving a first place marker and a second place marker for a segment of video media, extracting metadata from the video media between the first and second place markers, normalizing the extracted metadata, storing the normalized metadata, first place marker, and second place marker as a video bookmark, and retrieving the media represented by the video bookmark upon request from a user. Systems can aggregate video bookmarks from multiple sources and refine the first place marker and second place marker based on the aggregated video bookmarks. Metadata can be extracted by analyzing text or audio annotations. Metadata can be normalized by generating a video thumbnail representing the video media between the first place marker and the second place marker. Multiple video bookmarks may be searchable by metadata or by the video thumbnail visually.

Abstract: Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, a system and method for selecting media content for a group of persons located at a venue. The system and method identify a plurality of viewers in a vicinity of a venue that has one or more display devices from location data and extracts a content viewing preference of each viewer from their profile data. The process includes aggregating the content viewing preference of each of the plurality of viewers to generate an aggregated content profile. Based on the aggregated content profile, a list of content is generated. Next, a first group of viewers approaching a viewing range of a display device are sensed by imaging data. Any conflicts between content viewing preferences of the first group of viewers are detected and resolved based on weighting the viewing preferences of the group. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Abstract: A brokering device that manages multimedia information includes an interface device having access to a network and a multimedia service provider. The interface device enables selection of multimedia information from the network, and provides the selected multimedia information to a plurality of locations without requiring the user to specify a protocol associated with the multimedia information.

Abstract: A method that incorporates teachings of the subject disclosure may include, for example, determining, by a system comprising a processor, more common features of a plurality of images according to similarity matrices indicating relative similarities between instances of common features occurring within multiple images of the plurality of images, defining, by the system, cluster groups associated with the more common features, where each cluster group comprises cluster images of the plurality of images, and where the more common features are present in each the cluster images, and performing, by the system, quality-based filtering on the cluster images to identify a target cluster image to represent the cluster images for each of the cluster groups. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Abstract: A method includes receiving an image of a user, the image indicating a user response to an advertisement. The advertisement includes a background component and a first foreground component. The method also includes selecting a second foreground component based on the user response. The method further includes generating an updated advertisement by combining the background component and the second foreground component.

Abstract: A content summary is generated by determining a relevance of each of a plurality of scenes, removing at least one of the plurality of scenes based on the determined relevance, and creating a scene summary based on the plurality of scenes. The scene summary is output to a graphical user interface, which may be a three-dimensional interface. The plurality of scenes is automatically detected in a source video and a scene summary is created with user input to modify the scene summary. A synthetic frame representation is formed by determining a sentiment of at least one frame object in a plurality of frame objects and creating a synthetic representation of the at least one frame object based at least in part on the determined sentiment. The relevance of the frame object may be determined and the synthetic representation is then created based on the determined relevance and the determined sentiment.

Abstract: A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may operate, for example, obtaining a number of blogs including an initial set of annotated blogs and unannotated blogs. The initial set of annotated blogs are annotated as being either relevant to a selected media program or not relevant to the selected media program. A set of features is determined associating the selected media program with the unannotated blogs and a trained classifier is generated based on the set of features. The trained classifier is applied to the blogs to identify a subset of blogs relevant to the selected media program. An analysis is performed on the selected blogs to determine a trend related to the selected media program and a graphical user interface is presented that concurrently presents the selected blogs, the trend, and the selected media program. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Abstract: Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, facilitating access to a synopsis of a missed portion of a media program, identifying subject matter in a segment of content in the media program that has not been presented, determining a particular time for presenting the summary according to the subject matter in the segment of content, and initiating a presentation of the summary at the particular time. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Abstract: An interactive conference is supplemented based on terminology content. Terminology content from a plurality of devices connected to the interactive conference is monitored. A set of words from the terminology content is selected. Supplemental media content at an external source is identified based on the selected set of words, and selectively made available to a device connected to the interactive conference.

Abstract: A particular method includes receiving a set of images, where each image of the set of images is related to a common scene. The method also includes determining a first subset of pixels of a first image of the set, where the first subset of pixels corresponds to a second subset of pixels of a second image of the set. The method further includes generating a first image quality estimate of the first image based on a comparison of the first subset of pixels and the second subset of pixels.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a method for a control point of initiating actions on a device in a communication network comprising at least two control points both adapted to control said device. Further, the present invention relates to a method for a device of initiating actions on said device in a communication network comprising at least two control points both adapted to control said device. Further, the present invention relates to a control point of initiating actions on a device in a communication network comprising at least two control point both adapted to control said device. Further, the present invention relates to a device in a communication network comprising at least two control points both adapted to control said device based on action requests received from a control point along with control point identification.