Abstract: The present invention provides a comprehensive method to design an automatic media audience measurement system that can estimate the site-wide audience of a media of interest (e.g., the site-wide viewership of a target display) based on the measurements of a subset of the actual audience sampled from a limited space in the site. This invention enables (1) the placement of sensors in optimal positions for the viewership data measurement and (2) the estimation of the site-wide viewership of the target display by performing the viewership extrapolation based on the sampled viewership data. The viewership extrapolation problem is formulated in a way that the time-varying crowd dynamics around the target display is an important decisive factor as well as the sampled viewership data at a given time in yielding the estimated site-wide viewership.

Abstract: A computer implemented method and apparatus for providing interoperability between flat and interactive digital forms using machine-readable codes including accessing an interactive form document, extracting page dimensions for at least one page of the interactive form document, extracting a plurality of form field properties for at least one form field of the interactive form document, and generating a machine-readable code, wherein the machine-readable code comprises the extracted page dimensions and the plurality of form field properties. The method then embeds the machine-readable code into the interactive form document.

Abstract: A computer implemented method and apparatus for displaying IPM messages based on an individual's past message interaction. The method comprises displaying an in-product message of a first plurality of in-product messages associated with a first product feature of a plurality of available product features; receiving an input with the displayed in-product message; based on the received input, determining that a threshold is not met; and displaying an in-product message of a second plurality of in-product messages associated with a second product feature of the plurality of available product features when the threshold is not met.

Abstract: A computer implemented method and apparatus for providing interoperability between flat and interactive digital forms using machine-readable codes including accessing an interactive form document, extracting page dimensions for at least one page of the interactive form document, extracting a plurality of form field properties for at least one form field of the interactive form document, and generating a machine-readable code, wherein the machine-readable code comprises the extracted page dimensions and the plurality of form field properties. The method then embeds the machine-readable code into the interactive form document.

Abstract: A computer implemented method and apparatus for automatically aggregating metadata and e-mail attachments from various e-mail providers in a cloud repository. The method comprises accessing account information for one or more related e-mail accounts; accessing one or more e-mails from the one or more e-mail accounts using the received account information, wherein the one or more e-mails comprise one or more documents as one or more attachments; extracting metadata from each e-mail in the one or more e-mails that comprises at least one attachment, wherein the metadata comprises information that identifies the attachment and an associated e-mail; and storing the metadata in a cloud repository.

Abstract: A computer implemented method and apparatus for testing in-product marketing content. The method comprise defining a plurality of populations for a user base of a software application using a plurality of population identifiers, wherein a population identifier of the plurality of population identifiers is generated by the software application and identifies a population of the plurality of populations; associating at least one in-product message with each defined population in the plurality of populations; and supplying the in-product messages to the software application having a population identifier within a range of population identifiers that define the population.

Abstract: A connecting block includes a first member having a flow header extending from a sealing surface, a planar end face oppositely directed with respect to the sealing surface, and a perimeter wall angularly oriented with respect to the sealing surface. A second member is slidably received within the perimeter wall of the first member and has a flow member receiving bore axially aligned with the flow header. A bonding zone is created by heating both the first and second members until the planar end face and the planar interior face join together to create a physical connection between the first and second members. A material of the second member is corrosively sacrificial with respect to a material of the first member.

Abstract: An article of manufacture comprises a printed document associated with a source entity. The printed document is readable by a software application of an electronic device. The printed document includes a plain text content portion and a two-dimensional code (2-D code) that includes data encoded therein which is readable by the software application of the electronic device. The encoded data includes a resource locator to an intent. The resource locator to an intent includes a protocol identifier designating a secure 2-D code which is detectable by the software application of the electronic device for electronic replacement by the software application with a protocol identifier used to access a secure server of the source entity located at a host portion of the resource locator. The protocol identifier is a protocol identifier associated with URL specifications.

Abstract: The present invention is a system, method, and apparatus for determining the impact of crowding on retail performance based on a measurement for behavior patterns of people in a store area. The present invention captures a plurality of input images of the people by at least a means for capturing images, such as cameras, in the store area. In the captured plurality of input images, each person's shopping path is detected by a video analytics-based tracking algorithm. A subset of the people is identified as a crowd in the store area. In relation to the crowd, the behavior patterns of the target person are measured. After aggregating the measurements for the behavior patterns over a predefined window of time, the present invention can calculate a crowd index and a crowd impact index for the store area based on the measurements. A crowd index shows the level of crowd density in the store area caused by a crowd, including traffic count of the crowd in the store area.

Abstract: An article of manufacture comprises a printed document associated with a source entity. The printed document is readable by a software application of an electronic device. The printed document includes a plain text content portion and a two-dimensional code (2-D code) that includes data encoded therein which is readable by the software application of the electronic device. The encoded data includes a resource locator to an intent. The resource locator to an intent includes a protocol identifier designating a secure 2-D code which is detectable by the software application of the electronic device for electronic replacement by the software application with a protocol identifier used to access a secure server of the source entity located at a host portion of the resource locator. The protocol identifier is a protocol identifier associated with URL specifications.

Abstract: The present invention is a method and system for forecasting the demographic characterization of customers to help customize programming contents on each means for playing output of each site of a plurality of sites in a media network through automatically measuring, characterizing, and estimating the demographic information of customers that appear in the vicinity of each means for playing output. The analysis of demographic information of customers is performed automatically based on the visual information of the customers, using a plurality of means for capturing images and a plurality of computer vision technologies on the visual information. The measurement of the demographic information is performed in each measured node, where the node is defined as means for playing output. Extrapolation of the measurement characterizes the demographic information per each node of a plurality of nodes in a site of a plurality of sites of a media network.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus authenticate a printed document associated with a source entity. The printed document includes a two-dimensional code (2-D code) that includes data encoded therein. The encoded data includes a resource locator to an intent. An image of the 2-D code is decoded to obtain the resource locator to an intent, and it is detected whether the resource locator to an intent includes a protocol identifier designating a secure 2-D code. If so, the protocol identifier is replaced with a protocol identifier used to access a secure server of the source entity located at a host portion of the resource locator. The secure server is accessed to obtain the intent. A certificate of the secure server is accessed and an electronic device displays an indicator of whether the certificate is valid and also displays the intent. The indicator may be used to decide whether the intent can be trusted.

Abstract: The present invention is a method and system for optimizing the observation and annotation of complex human behavior from video sources by automatically detecting predefined events based on the behavior of people in a first video stream from a first means for capturing images in a physical space, accessing a synchronized second video stream from a second means for capturing images that are positioned to observe the people more closely using the timestamps associated with the detected events from the first video stream, and enabling an annotator to annotate each of the events with more labels using a tool. The present invention captures a plurality of input images of the persons by a plurality of means for capturing images and processes the plurality of input images in order to detect the predefined events based on the behavior in an exemplary embodiment. The processes are based on a novel usage of a plurality of computer vision technologies to analyze the human behavior from the plurality of input images.

Abstract: The present invention is a method and system for producing a set of ratings for out-of-home media based on the measurement of behavior patterns and demographics of the people in a digital media network. The present invention captures a plurality of input images of the people in the vicinity of sampled out-of-home media in a digital media network by a plurality of means for capturing images, and tracks each person. The present invention processes the plurality of input images in order to analyze the behavior and demographics of the people. The present invention aggregates the measurements for the behavior patterns and demographics of the people, analyzes the data, and extracts characteristic information based on the estimated parameters from the aggregated measurements. Finally, the present invention calculates a set of ratings based on the characteristic information.

Abstract: Various embodiments described herein each include one or more of systems, methods, data structures, and software to replicate a document or workflow workspace, including comments and other data added by document or workflow participants. Some embodiments allow participants to create, view, and manipulate public comments and other actions and private comments and other actions addressed specifically to individual participants, but prevent participants from viewing comments addressed only to one or more other participants. In some embodiments, the document may be distributed to participants via whatever means are convenient. The document may contain knowledge of a comment repository holding comments or other workflow data. Some embodiments include downloading comments and other data from a repository, identifying which comments and other data is intended for display to a viewing participant, and displaying the identified comments and other data.

Abstract: Apparatus, systems, and methods may operate to within the context of a shared document review process to receive an updated comment associated with an original comment by a comment series identifier. Further actions may include generating a comment differentiation identifier that serves to differentiate the updated comment from the original comment, and storing at least a portion of the updated comment and the comment differentiation identifier in a collaboration comment repository. Using stored document version history and a timeline, the state of the document at a particular point in time, and a history of the comment series can be rendered as a result. Additional apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed.

Abstract: The present invention is a method and system for measuring a set of shopper behavior metrics that represent the strength of a product category or a group of categories in the performance of a store area. A set of rating parameters are defined in order to provide a unified and standardized rating system. The rating system represents the effectiveness of the product category in a store area. The metrics are defined in a manner that is normalized so that they can be used across different types of product categories. The datasets are measured per category or group of categories over time to identify how the strength has varied over time, and to monitor trends in the category performance. The measured datasets are further analyzed based on various demographic groups and behavior segments. The analysis facilitates a better understanding of the strength of the category for different shopper segments, which in turn can be applied for developing better store area optimization strategies.

Abstract: The present invention is a method and system for selecting and storing videos by applying semantically-meaningful selection criteria to the track sequences of the trips made by people in an area covered by overlapping multiple cameras. The present invention captures video streams of the people in the area by multiple cameras and tracks the people in each of the video streams, producing track sequences in each video stream. The present invention determines a first set of video segments that contains the trip information of the people, and compacts each of the video streams by removing a second set of video segments that do not contain the trip information of the people from each of the video streams. The present invention selects video segments from the first set of video segments based on predefined selection criteria for the statistical behavior analysis.

Abstract: The present invention is a system and method for estimating the age of people based on their facial images. It addresses the difficulty of annotating the age of a person from facial image by utilizing relative age (such as older than, or younger than) and face-based class similarity (gender, ethnicity or appearance-based cluster) of sampled pair-wise facial images. It involves a unique method for the pair-wise face training and a learning machine (or multiple learning machines) which output the relative age along with the face-based class similarity, of the pairwise facial images. At the testing stage, the given input face image is paired with some number of reference images to be fed to the trained machines. The age of the input face is determined by comparing the estimated relative ages of the pairwise facial images to the ages of reference face images.

Abstract: The present invention is a method and system for measuring human emotional response to visual stimulus, based on the person's facial expressions. Given a detected and tracked human face, it is accurately localized so that the facial features are correctly identified and localized. Face and facial features are localized using the geometrically specialized learning machines. Then the emotion-sensitive features, such as the shapes of the facial features or facial wrinkles, are extracted. The facial muscle actions are estimated using a learning machine trained on the emotion-sensitive features. The instantaneous facial muscle actions are projected to a point in affect space, using the relation between the facial muscle actions and the affective state (arousal, valence, and stance). The series of estimated emotional changes renders a trajectory in affect space, which is further analyzed in relation to the temporal changes in visual stimulus, to determine the response.