Abstract: Exemplary embodiments relate to techniques for facilitating a connection between two users in a call by providing an “answering window” when a user calls. When a caller places a call to a callee, the call invitation may remain open for a window of time during which the caller remains available. The callee may opt to answer the call at any time during the window. During the window, the caller may be placed in a lobby and may share audio and/or video. Accepting the call during the answering window may place the callee in the lobby or may directly convert the interaction into an active call. The callee may request that the window can be altered, or may signal their intention to answer the call at a particular time.

Abstract: Exemplary embodiments relate to uses of face detection for modifying the background of a video. By detecting the portion of the video shot that corresponds to a face, it can also determined which portion of the shot do not correspond to the face (e.g., the background of the video). The thus-detected background may be replaced with a movie, event, or other material. Different types of materials may be targeted at different users based on user affinities or preferences. In some embodiments, a user may manually select and apply a background during a video call. When applying a custom background, the system can transmit a control signal and the background. The client recognizes the control signal and, in response, applies the background.

Abstract: Exemplary embodiments relate to techniques for connecting two users when a caller places a call but a callee rejects the call or fails to answer in a predetermined period of time. The calling application may terminate the call attempt and request status updates regarding the called party to determine when the callee is available for a follow-up call. The system may gain insight into when a user is available based on the user's presence in a messaging or social networking app, activity in a third-party application unrelated to the call, or the power status of the user's device. When it is determined that the callee is available, a notification may be sent to the caller informing the caller that it is a good time to call back. The techniques may also be used in reverse, informing the callee of when the caller is available for a return call.

Abstract: Exemplary embodiments relate to techniques for selecting which users should be shown in an interface during a group call, and for presenting the users on (potentially small) displays. According to some embodiments, a most-relevant speaker is selected for display on each call participants' screen. When deciding which user to display in the primary window of a video call, a dominant or relevant user is selected. A dominant user may be selected based on the audio energy represented by the audio packets for the user's device; alternatively dominant user selection may be implemented using artificial intelligence or machine learning, allowing for better differentiation between speaking and noise. On each user's display that does not belong to the relevant user, the current relevant user is shown. On the current relevant user's display, the previous relevant user is shown.

Abstract: Exemplary embodiments relate to the creation of a media effect index for group video conversations. Media effect application (e.g., in the form of graphical overlays, filters, sounds, etc.) may be tracked in a timeline during a chat session. The resulting index may be used to create a highlights reel, which may serve as an index into a live show or may be used to determine the best time to insert materials into a recording of the conversation. The index may be used to automatically detect events in the video feed, to allow viewers to skip ahead to exciting moments (e.g., represented by clusters of applications of particular types of media effects), to determine where each participant spoke in a discussion, or to provide a common “watch together” experience while multiple users watch a common video. An analysis of the index may be used for research or consumer testing.

Abstract: Exemplary embodiments relate to techniques for displaying participants in an interface during a group call, and is particularly well-suited to use with small displays. A full-size call interface may be shrunk down into a chathead that makes good use of limited screen real estate, especially when being used on a mobile device. On the smaller chathead, the dominant user is shown, and a roster of users is shrunk and may exhibit reduced functionality. The chathead may be moved around the screen, and other applications may continue to run in the space not occupied by the chathead.

Abstract: Exemplary embodiments relate to techniques for sharing live video while maintaining an asynchronous copy of the video. According to some embodiments, a user begins to record video and shares the video with selected other users. If one of the other users opts to join the original user, the shared video upgrades to a live video conversation. If no one (or only some participants) joins the original user, the recorded video becomes an asynchronous artifact in the users' messaging history. In some embodiments, the live video may be recorded and shared in response to a first user initiating a video call with at least a second user, but receiving no answer. The first user begins to share a live video (which may become an asynchronous artifact). If the second user joins the call while the video is being recorded, the conversation may upgraded to a video conversation.

Abstract: Online system users interact with one or more third party systems, with the online system maintaining an account for each of its users and each third party system maintaining a third party account for each of its users. The online system compares information in a user's account to accessible information in third party accounts and establishes connections between the user's account and o third party accounts based on the comparisons. A connection between the user's account and a third party account includes a confidence level indicating a likelihood of the third party account being associated with the user of the online system corresponding to the account. A third party system may request information from the online system about a user specifying a threshold confidence level, allowing the online system to return information from third party accounts having connections to the user's account with at least the threshold confidence level.

Abstract: An application distributed amongst plurality of computing devices leverages an application programming interface that conforms to a representational state transfer architecture in order to provide resilient services to clients and adapt to a change in availability of devices. A proxy server routes communications between clients and servers, detects when a server becomes unavailable, and reroutes communications to a replacement server. A registration database on the proxy server records entries for clients, such that communications can be routed to active devices of a user.

Abstract: In one embodiment, a method includes determining an occurrence of a trigger event; sending a notification to the caller-user; receiving a request from the caller-user to initiate the call session; establishing the call session to enable a media stream of the caller-user to be received by the callee-user; and sending the media stream to the callee-user.

Abstract: In one embodiment, a method includes sending an availability-notification a caller-user in response to an occurrence of a trigger event; establishing a call session to enable a media stream comprising media of the caller-user that is of a first type to be received by a callee-user; sending the media of the first media type to the callee-user; re-establishing the call session to enable a media stream comprising media of the callee-user that is of a second media type to be received by the caller-user; and sending the media of the second media type to the caller-user.

Abstract: In one embodiment, a method includes launching, by a client system of a first user, a video-call session; receiving, by the client system of the first user, a video stream including video captured at a client system of a second user; and displaying the video stream in a small-overlay-window on a display of the client system of the first user, wherein the small-overlay-window is positioned over an active application.

Abstract: Techniques for using user input to tune calls include receiving communication data from a first client device, at a server, directed to a second client device during a call between the first client device and the second client device; forwarding the communication data to the second device; receiving from one of the first client device or the second client device, first user input data; using the first user input data as an input to a call-tuning model; and modifying a call parameter of the call according to output from the call-tuning model in response to the first user input. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Abstract: An online system determines one or more metrics describing consumption of content by various users by identifying users of the online system capable of being identified based on information received from multiple client devices. For example, the online system identifies users associated with user identifiers that are also associated with other types of identifying information (e.g., cookies, device identifiers). From the identified users, the online system generates a set of users based on a distribution of characteristics. The distribution of characteristics may be determined by the online system as characteristics of a group of users or received by the online system from a third party system and describes characteristics of users of the third party system. Based on interactions with content by users in the set, the online system determines one or more metrics describing consumption of content.

Abstract: An online system using attributes of users to select content for presentation to the users predicts one or more attributes of users whose attributes are unavailable to the online system. For a user with one or more attributes unavailable to the online system, the online system applies a model to attributes of additional users to predict one or more attributes of the user. Attributes of the additional user use in the prediction may include demographic information and interactions with content by the additional users. The online system may determine an accuracy of the model by using the model to predict attributes for users whose attributes are known to the online system and comparing the predicted attributes to the known attributes. If the model's accuracy is less than a threshold value, the online system discontinues using the model to predict attributes of users.

Abstract: Different online systems, such as an ad system or a social networking system, maintain different identifiers. An ad system identifies an association between an unsynced cookie maintained by an ad system and a user of the online system. The ad system identifies an overlap IP sequence including multiple occurrences of a user's user id and multiple occurrences of an unsynced cookie id in communications associated with an IP address over a given time period. The ad system determines an overlap score based on the identified overlap IP sequence. The overlap score determines how closely the unsynced cookie is associated with the user of the online system. The ad system determines whether the unsynced cookie id and the user id are associated with one another based on the overlap score. The ad system stores an association between the unsynced cookie and the user of the online system thereby generating a synced cookie.

Abstract: Technologies are generally described for providing an intermediary API for intercepting and processing subscribing requests to a communications server. An intermediary API may intercept a subscribing request from a local or PIC client to receive presence status data from a presentity such as a bot executed on the communications server. The intermediary API may be configured to provide the presence data to a PIC client without consuming the communications server registered subscription limit. The intermediary API may employ a server-supported protocol-specific processing language or module to intercept the subscribing requests, to determine if the request is targeted for one or more bots executed on the communications server, and to determine if the request is for presence data for one or more bots. The intermediary API may determine if the request is non-terminating, and if all criteria are met, may provide presence data to the requesting client.

Abstract: Technologies are generally described for providing an intermediary API for intercepting and processing subscribing requests to a communications server. An intermediary API may intercept a subscribing request from a local or PIC client to receive presence status data from a presentity such as a bot executed on the communications server. The intermediary API may be configured to provide the presence data to a PIC client without consuming the communications server registered subscription limit. The intermediary API may employ a server-supported protocol-specific processing language or module to intercept the subscribing requests, to determine if the request is targeted for one or more bots executed on the communications server, and to determine if the request is for presence data for one or more bots. The intermediary API may determine if the request is non-terminating, and if all criteria are met, may provide presence data to the requesting client.

Abstract: An application distributed amongst plurality of computing devices leverages an application programming interface that conforms to a representational state transfer architecture in order to provide resilient services to clients and adapt to a change in availability of devices. A proxy server routes communications between clients and servers, detects when a server becomes unavailable, and reroutes communications to a replacement server. A registration database on the proxy server records entries for clients, such that communications can be routed to active devices of a user.

Abstract: A computing device executes a client-side instance of an application that supports bi-directional real-time synchronous communication and real-time asynchronous communication with a server computing device by way of an application programming interface (API) that conforms to representative state transfer (RESTlike) design principles. An eventing framework on the server computing device is used to aggregate updates to resources on the server that are requested by the client computing device, and is further used to transmit metadata to the client computing device that indicates which updates are available. Real-time sensitive updates are included in the metadata, and the client computing device can decide when and how to retrieve other available updates. An asynchronous operation is modeled on the server computing device by an operation resource that can modify other resources on the server computing device and cause updates regarding status of the operation to be sent to the client computing device.