Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention provides a computing device that delivers personally-defined context-based content to a user. This computing device receives a set of contextual information with respect to the user, and processes the contextual information to determine a context which is associated with an activity being performed by the user. The computing device then determines whether either or both the context and a current activity of the user satisfy a trigger condition which has been previously defined by the user. If so, the computing device selects content from a content database, based on the context, to present to the user, and presents the selected content.

Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates location-aware, mixed-reality gaming platform. During operation, the system determines a layout of a user's surrounding. The system further detects the user's location and/or nearby objects. Next, the system associates virtual content to the determined layout and associates a set of game rules with the virtual content. Subsequently, the system produces a visual and/or audio representation of a game based on the game rules and virtual content to the user, thereby allowing the user to play a game that corresponds to his surrounding and location.

Abstract: A system facilitates traversing digital records with dimensional attributes. The system stores a number of digital records. The system further associates a respective digital record with a number of attributes, wherein a respective attribute can be specified in a number of levels of abstraction. The system allows a user to control a presentation of the stored digital records based on their attributes. The user can set one or more criteria for the attributes of the digital records to be presented by: specifying the value of at least one fixed attribute of the digital records to be presented, changing at least one non-fixed attribute of the digital records to be presented, and/or specifying a level of abstraction for the fixed and/or non-fixed attribute of the digital records to be presented. The system then presents a set of digital records to the user based on the attribute criteria set by the user.

Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that recommends activities. During operation, the system receives a piece of content obtained from text or converted to text from speech. The system then analyzes the received content to identify any activity type, indication of willingness to participate in any type of activities, and at least one piece of temporal information, which can be implicitly and/or explicitly stated in the content, and/or one piece of location information associated with the activity type. The system further recommends one or more activities, venues, and/or services that afford or support activities for a user based on the information extracted from the content.

Abstract: A method, system and article of manufacture for organizing and grouping objects is provided. By assigning property names and values to a plurality of related objects, they may be organized into a group and one object of the group may be displayed as the representative. Grouping objects and displaying a representative provides a single way to keep objects organized, keep “reminders” of things to do or future events, all accessible through a central interface, and reduces the amount of display and storage space required to view and store all the objects. Additionally, the group of objects may be treated as a single document and the representative returned as a result of a search where one of the objects meets the search parameters.

Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention provides a method for recommending activities to a user. During operation, the system determines an activity-type distribution based on the user's personal profile and/or population prior information, thereby facilitating prediction of future activities for the user. The system further searches for and receives one or more activities based on the activity-type distribution. The system then scores each received activity and recommends a number of activities to be performed by the user in the future and a number of corresponding venues, based on the activity-type distribution and the weight distribution.

Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that provides a user interface for a context-aware recommendation system which can be operated with one hand. The user interface includes a touch-screen display and a list of recommendations presented on the touch-screen display. The user interface further includes a plurality of graphic elements presented on the touch-screen display which allow a user to configure preferences associated with the activities. A layout of the leisure activities and the graphic elements allows the user to hold the touch-screen display and perform operations on the leisure activities and/or the graphic elements with one hand.

Abstract: A method, system, and article of manufacture for performing computation on an electronic message without the involvement of a user is provided. By including a command instruction in an electronic message which identifies an application provider for performing the computation and includes parameters and values to indicate what information is to be provided to the application provider, the message can be sent by a user and computation can be performed without the involvement of the user. The method, system, and article of manufacture is designed to intercept the message, control the computation, modify the message, and deliver it to the intended recipients.

Abstract: A feedback mechanism usable with graphical user interface systems that do not have a cursor improves the usefulness of such graphical user interfaces. Locating, identifying and/or selecting hyperlink targets or active areas within a displayed image map or within a Web page is facilitated by providing distinctions to the hyperlink targets or active areas or by providing other locational indicators for a designated time period in response to a single user gesture. The distinctions or locational indicators may be provided in combination with other distinctions or locational indicators to further aid the hyperlink target or active area location, identification and/or selection process. After a designated time period expires, the distinctions, locational indicators, or their combination, are removed from the display without any additional user gesture. This increases the efficiency and convenience of locating, identifying and/or selecting hyperlink targets or active areas in a graphical user interface system.

Abstract: Electronic messages with system-generated network addresses are transmitted to recipients to enable access to specific locations in the workflow system. The network addresses may be used only once, are generated using secure identifications and/or can be generated randomly. These secure identifications can be created by encoding a large number into the network address. The recipient of this network address may be required to himself to the workflow system, for example, as a means for minimizing security risks to the workflow system. The network addresses generated to specific locations within a workflow system are intended for specific recipients but may be shared by the recipients as circumstances require. Electronic mail can be transmitted with specific electronic mail addresses encoded in the electronic mail message. The specific email address can be encoded into a “Reply-to” function. Alternatively, specific email addresses can be embedded into the message portion of the email message.

Abstract: A feedback mechanism usable with graphical user interface systems that do not have a cursor improves the usefulness of such graphical user interfaces. Locating, identifying and/or selecting hyperlink targets or active areas within a displayed image map or within a Web page is facilitated by providing distinctions to the hyperlink targets or active areas or by providing other locational indicators for a designated time period in response to a single user gesture. The distinctions or locational indicators may be provided in combination with other distinctions or locational indicators to further aid the hyperlink target or active area location, identification and/or selection process. After a designated time period expires, the distinctions, locational indicators, or their combination, are removed from the display without any additional user gesture. This increases the efficiency and convenience of locating, identifying and/or selecting hyperlink targets or active areas in a graphical user interface system.

Abstract: A method, system, and article of manufacture for performing computation on an electronic message without the involvement of a user is provided. By including a command instruction in an electronic message which identifies an application provider for performing the computation and includes parameters and values to indicate what information is to be provided to the application provider, the message can be sent by a user and computation can be performed without the involvement of the user. The method, system, and article of manufacture is designed to intercept the message, control the computation, modify the message, and deliver it to the intended recipients.