Abstract: A method and apparatus for capturing and representing 3D wireframe, color and shading of facial expressions are provided, wherein the method includes the following steps: storing a plurality of feature data sequences, each of the feature data sequences corresponding to one of the plurality of facial expressions; and retrieving one of the feature data sequences based on user facial feature data; and mapping the retrieved feature data sequence to an avatar face. The method may advantageously provide improvements in execution speed and communications bandwidth.

Abstract: Apparatuses, methods and storage medium associated with animating and rendering an avatar are disclosed herein. In embodiments, an apparatus may include a facial mesh tracker to receive a plurality of image frames, detect facial action movements of a face and head pose gestures of a head within the plurality of image frames, and output a plurality of facial motion parameters and head pose parameters that depict facial action movements and head pose gestures detected, all in real time, for animation and rendering of an avatar. The facial action movements and head pose gestures may be detected through inter-frame differences for a mouth and an eye, or the head, based on pixel sampling of the image frames. The facial action movements may include opening or closing of a mouth, and blinking of an eye. The head pose gestures may include head rotation such as pitch, yaw, roll, and head movement along horizontal and vertical direction, and the head comes closer or goes farther from the camera.

Abstract: A mechanism is described for facilitating dynamic user-based customization of advertisement content at computing devices according to one embodiment. A method of embodiments, as described herein, includes receiving an advertiser content to be published on an avatar list, where the advertiser content is associated with an advertising entity, and verifying the advertiser content for publication, where verifying further includes assigning a ranking to the advertiser content. The ranking represents a position on the avatar list. The method may further include transmitting a publication notification identifying the ranking assigned to the advertiser content, and facilitating an auction for bidding to allow the advertising entity to obtain a higher ranking for the advertiser content than the assigned ranking, if the assigned ranking is rejected by the advertising entity.

Abstract: A video communication system that replaces actual live images of the participating users with animated avatars. A method may include initiating communication between a first user device and a remote user device; receiving selection of a new avatar to represent a user of the first user device; identifying a new avatar file for the new avatar in an avatar database associated with the first user device; determining that the new avatar file is not present in a remote avatar database associated with the remote user device; and transmitting the new avatar file to the remote avatar database in response to determining that the new avatar file is not present in the remote avatar database.

Abstract: Graphical mapping interface embodiments and method are provided for creating and displaying a schema map, which may be used by a data transformation system to perform a data transformation between at least one source schema and at least one target schema. According to one embodiment, the graphical mapping interface may comprise a source schema region for displaying a graphical representation of at least one source schema, a target schema region for displaying a graphical representation of at least one target schema, and a mapping region for displaying graphical representations of a plurality of links connecting the source nodes displayed in the source schema region to the target nodes displayed in the target schema region. The plurality of links may comprise at least one control link having at least one ECA rule associated therewith and at least one data link having at least one textual-based target field expression associated therewith.

Abstract: A video communication system that replaces actual live images of the participating users with animated avatars. A method may include selecting an avatar, initiating communication, capturing an image, detecting a face in the image, extracting features from the face, converting the facial features to avatar parameters, and transmitting at least one of the avatar selection or avatar parameters. The system is configured to allow a user to select a new avatar during active communication with a remote user.

Abstract: Apparatuses, systems, media and/or methods may involve providing work assistance. One or more user actions may be recognized, which may be observed by an image capture device, wherein the user actions may be directed to a work surface incapable of electronically processing one or more of the user actions. One or more regions of interest may be identified from the work surface and/or content may be extracted from the regions of interest, wherein the regions of interest may be determined based at least on one or more of the user actions. Additionally, one or more support operations associated with the content may be implemented.

Abstract: Animal litter compositions having a non-agglomerated, organic, coated particle are described herein. Methods of manufacturing such litter compositions are also described.

Abstract: Disclosed in some examples are various modifications to the shape regression technique for use in real-time applications, and methods, systems, and machine readable mediums which utilize the resulting facial landmark tracking methods.

Abstract: A method for extracting vanadium from shale, the method including: a) grinding the shale into fine powders, mixing the fine powders with an additive in a mass ratio of 1:0.04-0.12 to yield a mixture, heating the mixture to a temperature of between 850 and 950° C. at a heating rate of 5-9° C./min, and baking the mixture for between 30 and 90 min; b) immersing the product in water and acid respectively to yield a first solution and a second solution, combining the two solutions, and performing ion exchange adsorption on the combined solution using a styrene-divinylbenzene based macroporous anion-exchange resin; and c) performing desorption, purification, and precipitation to yield poly ammonium vanadate, and calcining the poly ammonium vanadate at a temperature of between 450 and 530° C. for between 20 and 50 min to yield V2O5.

Abstract: Apparatuses, methods and storage medium associated with processing an image are disclosed herein. In embodiments, a method for processing one or more images may include generating a plurality of pairs of keypoint features for a pair of images. Each pair of keypoint features may include a keypoint feature from each image. Further, for each pair of keypoint features, corresponding adjoin features may be generated. Additionally, for each pair of keypoint features, whether the adjoin features are similar may be determined. Whether the pair of images have at least one similar object may also be determined, based at least in part on a result of the determination of similarity between the corresponding adjoin features. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.

Abstract: The invention provides a composition suitable for use as an animal litter comprising a first component having a density less than that of liquid and a second component having a density of at least 5 lb/ft3 (80 mg/cm3) greater than the first component. The invention is based upon the discovery that adding liquid such as urine to a composition having two components with significant differences in density, one of which is less than the density of the liquid, will result in the component with the lesser density floating to the top of the liquid while the component with the greater density will segregate below the component with the lesser density.

Abstract: Methods, apparatuses, and articles associated with gesture recognition using depth images are disclosed herein. In various embodiments, an apparatus may include a face detection engine configured to determine whether a face is present in one or more gray images of respective image frames generated by a depth camera, and a hand tracking engine configured to track a hand in one or more depth images generated by the depth camera. The apparatus may further include a feature extraction and gesture inference engine configured to extract features based on results of the tracking by the hand tracking engine, and infer a hand gesture based at least in part on the extracted features. Other embodiments may also be disclosed and claimed.

Abstract: According to one embodiment of the invention, a method includes generating a person-name Information Gain (IG)-Tree and a relation IG-Tree from annotated data. The method also includes tagging and partial parsing of an input document. The names of the persons are extracted within the input document using the person-name IG-tree. Additionally, names of organizations are extracted within the input document. The method also includes extracting entity names that are not names of persons and organizations within the input document. Further, the relations between the identified entity names are extracted using the relation-IG-tree.

Abstract: Technologies for generating an avatar with a facial expression corresponding to a facial expression of a user include capturing a reference user image of the user on a computing device when the user is expressing a reference facial expression for registration. The computing device generates reference facial measurement data based on the captured reference user image and compares the reference facial measurement data with facial measurement data of a corresponding reference expression of the avatar to generate facial comparison data. After a user has been registered, the computing device captures a real-time facial expression of the user and generates real-time facial measurement data based on the captured real-time image. The computing device applies the facial comparison data to the real-time facial measurement data to generate modified expression data, which is used to generate an avatar with a facial expression corresponding with the facial expression of the user.

Abstract: Technologies for distributed generation of an avatar with a facial expression corresponding to a facial expression of a user include capturing real-time video of a user of a local computing device. The computing device extracts facial parameters of the user's facial expression using the captured video and transmits the extracted facial parameters to a server. The server generates an avatar video of an avatar having a facial expression corresponding to the user's facial expression as a function of the extracted facial parameters and transmits the avatar video to a remote computing device.

Abstract: A thread scheduler may be used in a chip multiprocessor or symmetric multiprocessor system to schedule threads to processors. The scheduler may determine the bandwidth utilization of the two threads in combination and whether that utilization exceeds the threshold value. If so, the threads may be scheduled on different processor clusters that do not have the same paths between the common memory and the processors. If not, then the threads may be allocated on the same processor cluster that shares cache among processors.

Abstract: Methods, apparatuses, and articles associated with facial tracking and recognition are disclosed. In embodiments, facial images may be detected in video or still images and tracked. After normalization of the facial images, feature data may be extracted from selected regions of the faces to compare to associated feature data in known faces. The selected regions may be determined using a boosting machine learning processes over a set of known images. After extraction, individual two-class comparisons may be performed between corresponding feature data from regions on the tested facial images and from the known facial image. The individual two-class classifications may then be combined to determine a similarity score for the tested face and the known face. If the similarity score exceeds a threshold, an identification of the known face may be output or otherwise used. Additionally, tracking with voting may be performed on faces detected in video.

Abstract: The invention provides a composition suitable for use as an animal litter comprising a first component having a density less than that of liquid and a second component having a density of at least 5 lb/ft3 (80 mg/cm3) greater than the first component. The invention is based upon the discovery that adding liquid such as urine to a composition having two components with significant differences in density, one of which is less than the density of the liquid, will result in the component with the lesser density floating to the top of the liquid while the component with the greater density will segregate below the component with the lesser density.

Abstract: Disclosed are embodiments for an intermediary signal conditioning device with an input adaptable detection mode. In one embodiment, an intermediary signal conditioning device has a control module, an input module, and an output module. The input module and the control module are for receiving an input signal. The control module is configured to interrupt the output module within a duration of time to allow at least a minimum pulse length of the input signal to be output as an output signal from the output module. The intermediary signal conditioning device is configured to condition the input signal for retransmission as the output signal.