Abstract: Light-emitting devices including solid-state light-emitting devices, light-emitting diode (LED) devices, and LED packages with support elements for improved near-field and far-field emissions are disclosed. LED chips may be mounted to support elements in a manner that directs light through the support elements in desired emission directions. Support elements include optical structures that spread and mix light laterally within the support element. Optical structures include interior mixing chambers bounded by light-altering layers, such as light-diffusing layers or light-reflective layers, that effectively increase internal reflections within the mixing chambers for lateral spreading of light. Support elements as described may be well suited for low profile LED devices where device heights are less than or equal to device widths.

Abstract: Systems and methods for detecting whether or not two devices are proximate to one another in order to provide a shared computing experience are provided. The method includes broadcasting audio from a first computing device; receiving the broadcast audio at a second computing device; and processing the received audio to identify a unique audio signature within the broadcasted/received audio. The unique audio signature uniquely identifying the first computing device. The method may further include determining that the first computing device and the second computing device are proximate to one another based on the broadcast audio; and providing a shared computing experience at one or both of the first computing device and the second computing device, where the shared computing experience is not provided in the event that it is determined that the first and second computing devices are non-proximate to one another.

Abstract: The determination of similarities between users in an online entertainment environment is disclosed. For example, one disclosed embodiment comprises a method of operating an entertainment server, wherein the method includes receiving user information that comprises user demographic information and user media selection information from each user of a plurality of users. For a current user, a plurality of similarity values are determined that each quantifies a similarity of the current user to another user based upon similarities between the user information of the current user and the user information of the other user. Then, the method comprises determining a list of other users to present to the current user based upon the similarity values determined, and sending the list of other users to the current user.

Abstract: Systems and methods for detecting whether or not two devices are proximate to one another in order to provide a shared computing experience are provided. The method includes broadcasting audio from a first computing device; receiving the broadcast audio at a second computing device; and processing the received audio to identify a unique audio signature within the broadcasted/received audio. The unique audio signature uniquely identifying the first computing device. The method may further include determining that the first computing device and the second computing device are proximate to one another based on the broadcast audio; and providing a shared computing experience at one or both of the first computing device and the second computing device, where the shared computing experience is not provided in the event that it is determined that the first and second computing devices are non-proximate to one another.

Abstract: The determination of similarities between users in an online entertainment environment is disclosed. For example, one disclosed embodiment comprises a method of operating an entertainment server, wherein the method includes receiving user information that comprises user demographic information and user media selection information from each user of a plurality of users. For a current user, a plurality of similarity values are determined that each quantifies a similarity of the current user to another user based upon similarities between the user information of the current user and the user information of the other user. Then, the method comprises determining a list of other users to present to the current user based upon the similarity values determined, and sending the list of other users to the current user.

Abstract: Methods and systems are provided herein for a user to edit audio or video content to further obtain a desired edited content and immediately preview an edited content. In accordance with a method of the present invention, audio or video content is received and displayed as a signal waveform. The method further includes user inputs to edit the content wherein the user inputs determine the regions of one or more cropped regions and one or more active regions and previews the active regions of the active region. Additionally, the method provides an immediate preview of the edited audio or video content.

Abstract: A method and a system for dynamically updating information including captive data for publication. ‘Captive data’ is defined as data accompanied by or associated with an identifying tag such as a caption. The captive data may include image, audio or visual data, among other types of data. Documents and other information having common characterizing features are grouped together. Captive data accompanied by identifying tags having characterizing features in common with a grouping of documents or other information are assigned to the grouping. The information obtained in the grouping step is used to determine how to publish the information contained in a cluster based on a customer request for information.

Abstract: A/V content creation, editing and publishing is disclosed. Speech recognition can be performed on the A/V content to identify words therein and form a transcript of the words. The transcript can be aligned with the associated A/V content and displayed to allow selective editing of the transcript and associated A/V content. Keywords and a summary for the transcript can also be identified for use in publishing the A/V content.

Abstract: A method and a system for dynamically updating information for publication on the Internet. Meaningful content is extracted from information received from multiple sources such as news sources. The information can contain text, sound, images and video. A set of characterizing features for the received information is determined. Information having common characterizing features is grouped together into a number of clusters. The information obtained in the grouping step is used to determine how to publish the information contained in a cluster based on a customer request for information. This customer request can be based on a query or a customer profile assigned to the customer.

Abstract: A method includes determining a facet from a web page to be indexed for searching, indexing the web page with the facet in a search index, augmenting a user's web search query with the facet, searching the search index for the facet-augmented query, and presenting to the user, as a search result, the web page based on a correlation of the query and the facet. Another method includes receiving a user's web search query, augmenting the query with a facet, and transmitting the augmented query to a search engine. A further method includes agreeing with an advertiser to associate a web page with a facet, and indexing the web page with the facet in a search index.

Abstract: A blog map for searching and/or navigating the blogosphere is provided. In accordance with one method for generating a blog map, a number of blog posts within the blogosphere are accessed. Each of the blog posts is converted to a feature vector, which represents the position of the blog post in a high-dimensional space. The dimensionality of the feature vectors is reduced from the high-dimensional space to a low-dimensions space, such that each blog post is represented in the low-dimensional space. A map is then generated based on the position of the blog posts in the low-dimensional space.

Abstract: A database collects questions and answers to the questions, each question having a plurality of answers. A question interface provides the questions to the database from various sources. An answer interface provides the answers to the database from various sources. A rating system assigns an accuracy rating to each of the plurality of answers for each question.

Abstract: A system and method for incorporating user preferences into a document search is provided. User events are associated with one or more content tags based on a comparison of the user event with locations in a content space. The user events are tracked to provide a user event history. The user event history is analyzed to select content tags that correspond to user preferences. A search query is modified to include one or more selected content tags. The search query is then matched to documents associated with content tags contained in the search query.

Abstract: A system and method for performing geographic based document searching. A grid of location tiles is constructed corresponding to a desired geographic area. A location tag is assigned to each location tile. Documents are searched to identify a geographic location. The documents are associated with one or more location tags based on the location tiles corresponding to the identified geographic location. The geographic location of a search query is also identified. The search query is modified to include one or more location tags corresponding to the location of the search query. The search query is then matched to documents associated with location tags contained in the search query.

Abstract: A system and method for performing context based document searching is provided. A grid of content tiles is constructed corresponding to a desired concept space. Each content tile is assigned a content tag and is associated with a series of feature values. The feature values are trained to correspond to various regions of the content space. Documents are associated with one or more content tags based on a comparison of document feature values with content tile feature values. A search query is modified to include one or more content tags based on the terms in the search query and/or user preferences. The search query is then matched to documents associated with content tags contained in the search query.

Abstract: A system and related techniques generate alternative search terms derived from a set of search results. A user may input a set of search terms such as keywords or other inputs, and receive a set of search results back, for instance in rank order of estimated relevance to the user's search terms and search intention. In addition to the hyperlink or other results may have associated with them a set of selectable alternative search links, for instance indicating “show me more with titles like this” when for instance a Web page title contains the user's search terms. Other results may present other attributes, depending on the evaluated distinctiveness potential alternative information content of attributes of that Web page or other result, which attributes may further include, for example, the presence of image files, PDF™ files, audio or video files or attachments, Web pages or other hits indicating certain date ranges, or other attributes or characteristics.

Abstract: In connection with a classification system for classifying media entities that merges perceptual classification techniques and digital signal processing classification techniques for improved classification of media entities, a system and methods are provided for automatically classifying and characterizing melodic movement properties of media entities. Such a system and methods may be useful for the indexing of a database or other storage collection of media entities, such as media entities that are audio files, or have portions that are audio files. The methods also help to determine media entities that have similar, or dissimilar as a request may indicate, melodic movement by utilizing classification chain techniques that test distances between media entities in terms of their properties. For example, a neighborhood of songs may be determined within which each song has similar melodic movement properties.

Abstract: In connection with a classification system for classifying media entities that merges perceptual classification techniques and digital signal processing classification techniques for improved classification of media entities, a system and methods are provided for automatically classifying and characterizing melodic movement properties of media entities. Such a system and methods may be useful for the indexing of a database or other storage collection of media entities, such as media entities that are audio files, or have portions that are audio files. The methods also help to determine media entities that have similar, or dissimilar as a request may indicate, melodic movement by utilizing classification chain techniques that test distances between media entities in terms of their properties. For example, a neighborhood of songs may be determined within which each song has similar melodic movement properties.

Abstract: In a hierarchical taxonomy of document, the categories of information may be structured as a binary tree with the nodes of the binary tree containing information relevant to the search. The binary tree may be ‘trained’ or formed by examining a training set of documents and separating those documents into two child nodes. Each of those sets of documents may then be further split into two nodes to create the binary tree data structure. The nodes may be generated to maximize the likelihood that all of the training documents are in either or both of the two child nodes. In one example, each node of the binary tree may be associated with a list of terms and each term in each list of terms is associated with a probability of that term appearing in a document given that node. New documents may be categorized by the nodes of the tree. For example, the new documents may be assigned to a particular node based upon the statistical similarity between that document and the associated node.

Abstract: A system and methods for the creation, management, and distribution of media entity fingerprinting are provided. In connection with a system that convergently merges perceptual and digital signal processing analysis of media entities for purposes of classifying the media entities, various means are provided to a user for automatically processing fingerprints for media entities for distribution to participating users. Techniques for providing efficient calculation and distribution of fingerprints for use in satisfying copyright regulations and in facilitating the association of meta data to media entities are included. In an illustrative implementation, the fingerprints may be generated and stored allowing for persistence of media from experience to experience.