A messaging response system is disclosed wherein a service providing system provides services to users via messaging communications. In accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, multiple respondents servicing users through messaging communications may appear to simultaneously use a common “screen name” identifier.

A speech recognition method including the steps of receiving a speech input from a known speaker of a sequence of observations and determining the likelihood of a sequence of words arising from the sequence of observations using an acoustic model. The acoustic model has a plurality of model parameters describing probability distributions which relate a word or part thereof to an observation and has been trained using first training data and adapted using second training data to said speaker. The speech recognition method also determines the likelihood of a sequence of observations occurring in a given language using a language model and combines the likelihoods determined by the acoustic model and the language model and outputs a sequence of words identified from said speech input signal. The acoustic model is context based for the speaker, the context based information being contained in the model using a plurality of decision trees and the structure of the decision trees is based on second training data.

A method of signal processing according to one embodiment includes calculating an envelope of a first signal that is based on a low-frequency portion of a speech signal, calculating an envelope of a second signal that is based on a high-frequency portion of the speech signal, and calculating a plurality of gain factor values according to a time-varying relation between the envelopes of the first and second signal. The method includes attenuating, based on a variation over time of a relation between the envelopes of the first and second signals, at least one of the plurality of gain factor values. In one example, the variation over time of a relation between the envelopes is indicated by at least one distance among the plurality of gain factor values.

An audio encoder for encoding an audio signal has a first coding branch, the first coding branch comprising a first converter for converting a signal from a time domain into a frequency domain. Furthermore, the audio encoder has a second coding branch comprising a second time/frequency converter. Additionally, a signal analyzer for analyzing the audio signal is provided. The signal analyzer, on the hand, determines whether an audio portion is effective in the encoder output signal as a first encoded signal from the first encoding branch or as a second encoded signal from a second encoding branch. On the other hand, the signal analyzer determines a time/frequency resolution to be applied by the converters when generating the encoded signals. An output interface includes, in addition to the first encoded signal and the second encoded signal, a resolution information identifying the resolution used by the first time/frequency converter and used by the second time/frequency converter.

An audio signal decoder has a time warp contour calculator, a time warp contour data rescaler and a warp decoder. The time warp contour calculator is configured to generate time warp contour data repeatedly restarting from a predetermined time warp contour start value, based on time warp contour evolution information describing a temporal evolution of the time warp contour. The time warp contour data rescaler is configured to rescale at least a portion of the time warp contour data such that a discontinuity at a restart is avoided, reduced or eliminated in a rescaled version of the time warp contour. The warp decoder is configured to provide the decoded audio signal representation, based on an encoded audio signal representation and using the rescaled version of the time warp contour.

Various embodiments enable a device to perform tasks such as processing an image to recognize and locate text in the image, and providing the recognized text an application executing on the device for performing a function (e.g., calling a number, opening an internet browser, etc.) associated with the recognized text. In at least one embodiment, processing the image includes substantially simultaneously or concurrently processing the image with at least two recognition engines, such as at least two optical character recognition (OCR) engines, running in a multithreaded mode. In at least one embodiment, the recognition engines can be tuned so that their respective processing speeds are roughly the same. Utilizing multiple recognition engines enables processing latency to be close to that of using only one recognition engine.

A multilingual electronic transfer dictionary provides for automatic topic disambiguation by including one or more topic codes in definitions contained the dictionary. Automatic topic disambiguation is accomplished by determining the frequencies of topic codes within a block of text. Dictionary entries having more frequently occurring topic codes are preferentially selected over those having less frequently occurring topic codes. When the topic codes are members of a hierarchical topical coding system, such as the International Patent Classification system, an iterative method can be used with starts with a coarser level of the coding system and is repeated at finer levels until an ambiguity is resolved. The dictionary is advantageously used for machine translation, e.g. between Japanese and English.

An apparatus for encoding an audio signal having a stream of audio samples has: a windower for applying a prediction coding analysis window to the stream of audio samples to obtain windowed data for a prediction analysis and for applying a transform coding analysis window to the stream of audio samples to obtain windowed data for a transform analysis, wherein the transform coding analysis window is associated with audio samples within a current frame of audio samples and with audio samples of a predefined portion of a future frame of audio samples being a transform-coding look-ahead portion, wherein the prediction coding analysis window is associated with at least the portion of the audio samples of the current frame and with audio samples of a predefined portion of the future frame being a prediction coding look-ahead portion, wherein the transform coding look-ahead portion and the prediction coding look-ahead portion are identically to each other or are different from each other by less than 20%; and an encoding processor for generating prediction coded data or for generating transform coded data.

Disclosed herein are systems and methods for navigating electronic texts. According to an aspect, a method may include determining text subgroups within an electronic text. The method may also include selecting a text seed within one of the text subgroups. Further, the method may include determining a similarity relationship between the text seed and one or more adjacent text subgroups that do not include the selected text seed. The method may also include associating the text seed with the one or more adjacent text subgroups based on the similarity relationship to create a text cluster.

A time warp contour calculator for use in an audio signal decoder receives an encoded warp ratio information, derives a sequence of warp ratio values from the encoded warp ratio information, and obtains warp contour node values starting from a time warp contour start value. Ratios between the time warp contour node values and the time warp contour starting value are determined by the warp ratio values. The time warp contour calculator computes a time warp contour node value of a given time warp contour node, on the basis of a product-formation having a ratio between the time warp contour node values of the intermediate time warp contour node and the time warp contour starting value and a ratio between the time warp contour node values of the given time warp contour node and of the intermediate time warp contour node as factors.

An error concealment method and apparatus for an audio signal and a decoding method and apparatus for an audio signal using the error concealment method and apparatus. The error concealment method includes selecting one of an error concealment in a frequency domain and an error concealment in a time domain as an error concealment scheme for a current frame based on a predetermined criteria when an error occurs in the current frame, selecting one of a repetition scheme and an interpolation scheme in the frequency domain as the error concealment scheme for the current frame based on a predetermined criteria when the error concealment in the frequency domain is selected, and concealing the error of the current frame using the selected scheme.

Methods and systems are described for generating media playlists, or selecting a media asset, according to a “shape” selected by a user. Specifically, a user may “shape” the playlist by designating specific sub-categories of media assets that should be presented at selected times in the playlist. The media application then interpolates the sub-categories for a media asset between the selected times such that adjacent media assets have smooth categorical transitions (e.g., feature incremental changes in the range of sub-categories).

In one embodiment, a method includes accessing a social graph that includes a plurality of nodes and edges, receiving from a first user a voice message comprising one or more commands, receiving location information associated with the first user, identifying edges and nodes in the social graph based on the location information, where each of the identified edges and nodes corresponds to at least one of the commands of the voice message, and generating new nodes or edges in the social graph based on the identified nodes or identified edges.

A method for configuring an interactive platform for monitoring the performance and the quality of a computer network, the monitoring data being suitable to be displayed on a dynamic page of type webpage in a form of graphic components called “displets”; including providing, on the interactive platform a configuration interface in which are defined, for at least one given user, filtering criteria for displaying displets, the criteria being defined in the form of parameters for configuring the rights of the at least one user.

A service distribution device is provided that, when acquiring services to be used in an information terminal mounted in a vehicle or used in its passenger compartment, recognizes service availability beforehand, thereby improving usability of the services. A service distribution device includes an information correlation unit for correlating information that denotes service utilization conditions in relation to travel condition of the vehicle with the services. The service distribution device distributes to an information terminal the information that denotes the service utilization conditions correlated by the information correlation unit along with contents of the relevant service so that the information and the contents can be visibly displayed on a display unit in the information terminal.

An information processing apparatus according to this invention, being capable of communicating with a Web server via a network, receives from the Web server a response to a processing request issued to a Web application of the Web server. The information processing apparatus changes, when screen control information described in a header of the response contains information which designates priority of a screen display by a Web browser of the information processing apparatus, priority of the screen display by the Web browser to the designated priority. When an event to display a screen other than a screen by the Web browser occurs while the Web browser presents a screen display corresponding to the response, the information processing apparatus inhibits an interrupt display by the event in order for the designated priority.

An electronic device and a method for providing a menu are disclosed. The electronic device displays a plurality of words on the screen, detects a first action specifying selection of at least one of the displayed words, searches an option item related to the word selected by the first action, generates at least one menu item based on the selected word and the searched option item, and displays the generated menu item in a first area of the screen.

In one embodiment, a view in a graphical user interface includes a selection area that includes identifiers associated with a plurality of attributes, each of the attributes having a plurality of possible values. The area further includes one or more graphical tools to define filter criteria based at least in part on selected ones of the plurality of possible values of one or more of the attributes. The area further includes one or more switch controls each being associated with a respective one of the one or more of the attributes and indicating presentation criteria including: whether selected ones of the possible values of the respective attribute are to be shown in a report, and a dimension of the report in which to space the selected ones of the possible values from one another if the selected ones of the possible values are to be shown in the report.

A computerized method of presenting information from a variety of sources on a display device. Specifically the present invention describes a graphical user interface for organizing the simultaneous display of information from a multitude of information sources. In particular, the present invention comprises a graphical user interface which organizes content from a variety of information sources into a grid of tiles, each of which can refresh its content independently of the others. The grid functionality manages the refresh rates of the multiple information sources. The present invention is intended to operate in a platform independent manner.

An information processing apparatus configured to display a user interface on a display unit according to screen information acquired from an outside device changes the screen information according to a display attribute set by a user, and if setting of a display attribute of an object included in the screen information is unchangeable, color conversion processing of a specified object included in the screen information is performed and the screen information obtained by executing conversion processing according to the display attribute set by the user with respect to the screen information including the object which has undergone the color conversion processing is displayed.

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for adapting user interfaces for devices that include widescreen displays. In one aspect, a method includes determining a size characteristic of a display of a mobile device, determining a size characteristic of content that is to be displayed on the display, and comparing the size characteristic of the content to the size characteristic of the display. The method also includes selecting one or more controls to display in a portion of the display that is not to be used to display the content based on comparing the size characteristic of the content to the size characteristic of the display, displaying the content, and displaying the selected controls in a portion of the display that is not used to display the content.

Methods and apparatus to automatically link process control graphics to process control algorithm information are described. An example method involves displaying a first process control image including process control algorithm information and displaying adjacent to the first process control image a second process control image to include process control graphics. The method automatically links at least some of the process control algorithm information to a graphic in the second process control image in response to user inputs associated with the first and second process control images.

A visualization can include a set of swim lanes, each swim lane representing information about an event type. An event type can be specified, e.g., as those events having certain keywords and/or having specified value(s) for specified field(s). The swim lane can plot when (within a time range) events of the associated event type occurred. Specifically, each such event can be assigned to a bucket having a bucket time matching the event time. A swim lane can extend along a timeline axis in the visualization, and the buckets can be positioned at a point along the axis that represents the bucket time. Thus, the visualization may indicate whether events were clustered at a point in time. Because the visualization can include a plurality of swim lanes, the visualization can further indicate how timing of events of a first type compare to timing of events of a second type.

An electronic device for text prediction in a virtual keyboard. The device includes a memory including an input determination module for execution by the microprocessor, the input determination module being configured to: receive signals representing input at the virtual keyboard, the virtual keyboard being divided into a plurality of subregions, the plurality of subregions including at least one subregion being associated with two or more characters and/or symbols of the virtual keyboard; identify a subregion on the virtual keyboard corresponding to the input; determine any character or symbol associated with the identified subregion; and if there is at least one determined character or symbol, provide the at least one determined character or symbol to a text prediction algorithm.

A message screen display comprises a static non-scrollable display area for display of at least part of a first message, the first message having an associated first message time. The message screen display further comprises a scrollable display area for display of at least part of a second message, the second message having an associated second message time. The message screen display further comprises a feature applied to at least part of the first message that varies based on time as referenced to the associated first message time.

A technique is provided for post selection location of a mouse pointer icon in a display screen of a computing device. A software tool receives input of the post selection location for the mouse pointer icon. The post selection location defines a default location to move the mouse pointer icon in response to a window action taken on a window displayed in the display screen. In response to the window action in which the mouse pointer icon is initially displayed at a selection location corresponding to the window action, the mouse pointer icon is moved to the post selection location such that the mouse pointer icon is displayed at the post selection location in the display screen.

A remote manipulation apparatus includes a main body and a manipulating handle manipulated by a user to move to cover all the orientations from a manipulation basis position defined on a basis of the main body. Movement of the manipulating handle relative to the manipulation basis position corresponds to movement of a pointer image relative to a screen basis position on a screen of a display apparatus. An auxiliary navigational display window includes a specified button image assigned with pointer-pulling information. When the auxiliary navigational display window appears on the screen, the manipulating handle is automatically driven to a position that corresponds to a position of the specified button image on the screen so that the pointer image is moved onto the specified button image that is assigned with the pointer-pulling information.

User interfaces for displaying relationships between cells in a grid. In one example embodiment, a user interface includes a grid including rows and columns and a plurality of cells each having a specific position in the grid. A first one of the cells is related to a second one of the cells. The grid is configured to display, upon selection of the first cell or second cell, a visual representation of the relationship between the first cell and the second cell.

Various embodiments present a combined visual entity that represents overlapping visual entities. The combined visual entity can include a primary visualization that represents one of the overlapping visual entities and annotations that represent others of the overlapping visual entities. For example, a map view can include multiple geographical entities that overlap. A primary visualization can be rendered that represents one of the multiple geographical entities. The primary visualization can be visually annotated (e.g., with symbols, letters, or other visual indicators) to indicate others of the multiple geographical entities. In some embodiments, a zoom operation can cause visual entities to be added and/or removed from the combined visual entity.

A user interface help dialog for a computer system is provided in which the computer system has a plurality of system parameters and the user interface includes a plurality of command options that may be enabled or disabled. A cursor for indicating one of the command options is also provided. To generate the help dialog the identity of a disabled command option to which the cursor indicates is first identified. The status of a subset of the system parameters is then evaluated, the system parameters subset being determined in dependence on the identified command option. A help dialog to be displayed to the user is then generated, the content of which is dependent on the status of the evaluated system parameters.

To improve the consumer experience with portable electronic devices, a user interface combines the use of capacitive sensors with tactile sensors in an input device. When a user places a finger, stylus, or other input instrument near a given key button, a capacitive sensor causes the display to display temporarily an indication of the function of that key in an enlarged format. The user may then press the associated key button to activate the desired function. In one exemplary embodiment, the capacitive sensor fixes the functionality to the function indicated in the display. In this embodiment, a tactile input applied to any key, whether the correct key, multiple keys, or a single incorrect key, results in activating the function indicated in the display as a result of the capacitive input.

In accordance with one or more embodiments of the present disclosure, methods and apparatus are provided for flexible and user-friendly position editing of loaded media in a multi-media presentation. In one embodiment, a method for editing the position of loaded media comprises loading a page of a collage document to a client device, the page having a plurality of layers with each layer being associated with a media object, and creating a list of layers of the loaded page with each layer indexed by at least a position in the collage document. The method further includes selecting a first media object, selecting a position editing tool to group the first media object and at least one other media object adjacent to the first media object; and moving the grouped first media object and the at least one other media object to a different position in the collage document. A client device for position editing loaded media is also disclosed.

When a user enters text into an application, the application can utilize an auto-complete feature to provide the user with estimations as to a complete term a user is attempting to enter into the application. Visualization can be provided along with an estimation to disclose the likelihood the estimation is what the user intends to enter. Furthermore, a rationale can be provided to the user for the reason an estimation was provided to the user.

Techniques for sorting and filtering a list in a space-constrained viewing area are described. A filter widget and a list of items are displayed in a view of an electronic display screen. In response to user input selecting the filter widget, and without changing to a different view, a filter category overlay is displayed in the view to provide various selectable filter categories. In response to selection of a filter category, a visual depiction of the selected filter category is displayed in the view. The list of items is filtered according to the selected filter category and displayed in the view without changing to any other view. Subsequently added visual depictions are linearly stacked in the view. Further, a filter modification overlay, which provides selectable filtering attributes, is displayed upon selection of a visual depiction.

To freely establish a peripheral equipment selection operating environment of excellent operability which can remarkably reduce an operation burden which is applied until construction information of selectable peripheral equipment can be confirmed and can easily confirm the construction information of the selectable peripheral equipment by everyone by a simple operating instruction, a CPU obtains construction information of a printer that is being selected and default setting on the basis of a selection instructing state relative to a selectable printer candidate on a network and allows them to be caption-displayed at a position near the position indicated by a cursor on a printer selection picture plane displayed on a CRT.

Systems and methods of a 3D mobile user interface with configurable workspace management are disclosed. In one aspect, embodiments of the present disclosure include a method, which may be implemented on a system, of a three-dimensional, multi-layer user interface of a mobile device in a mobile network. User environment may include one or more layers or levels of applications, services, or accounts that are all easily accessible to and navigable by the user. For example, an indicator can be used to access a workspace in 3D representing a category or grouping of services or applications for the user. The user can customize or create a unique, non-mutually exclusive grouping, aggregation, or category of applications, services, accounts, or items. The grouping of indicators can be used to swiftly and efficiently navigate to a desired application, service, account or item, in a 3D-enabled user environment.

In accordance with an example embodiment of the present invention, a method for proximity based input is provided, comprising: detecting presence of an object in close proximity to an input surface, detecting a displayed virtual layer currently associated with the object on the basis of distance of the object to the input surface, detecting a hovering input by the object, and causing a display operation to move at least a portion of the associated virtual layer in accordance with the detected hovering input.

A computer-implemented method of detecting automated identities, including. The method includes, using one or more computing devices, providing for display to a user a first representation of a first profile for a first identity and a second representation of a second profile for a second identity, providing for display to the user a choice indication mechanism for indicating a judgment about the first representation of the first profile for the first identity and the second representation of the second profile for the second identity, receiving an indication of the judgment from the user about the first representation of the first profile for the first identity and the second representation of the second profile for the second identity, and determining whether at least one of the first identity, the second identity, or the user is more or less likely to be automated, based at least in part on the received indication.

A method includes displaying a first application view. A first input is detected, and an application view selection mode is entered for selecting one of concurrently open applications for display in a corresponding application view. An initial group of open application icons in a first predefined area and at least a portion of the first application view adjacent to the first predefined area are concurrently displayed. The initial group of open application icons corresponds to at least some of the concurrently open applications. A gesture is detected on a respective open application icon in the first predefined area, and a respective application view for a corresponding application is displayed without concurrently displaying an application view for any other application in the concurrently open applications. The open application icons in the first predefined area cease to be displayed, and the application view selection mode is exited.

A handheld electronic device includes a reduced QWERTY keyboard and is enabled with a disambiguation routine that is operable to disambiguate text input. In addition to identifying and outputting representations of language objects that are stored in the memory and that correspond with a text input, the device is able to perform a spell check routine during input of a text entry and to learn and automatically correct mistakes typically made by the particular user.

The present invention introduces an aliased selection system with audible cues to allow a user of a handheld computer system locate a desired item from a list of item. The aliased selection system allows a user to spell out a desired item by activating an input that specifics a subset that containing a next letter. In one embodiment, two different subsets are used: A to M and N to Z. When the user has entered information on enough letters such that the number of possibilities fits entirely on a display screen then a first audible cue is given. The user may enter additional information on until a single list item is uniquely identified. Once a single item is uniquely identified, the system emits a second audible cue that informs the user that a single item has been specified. The aliased selection system allows a user to select a desired item from a list with a single hand and without looking at the display screen. However, the user may shorten the selection process by looking at the display screen.

A document authoring program provides different views of a document opened by a user. In the editing view, the user can view the document contents and edit the contents in using a menu bar. In the semantic zoom view, the user is presented with a heading pane and a thumbnail pane and the menu bar is removed. The user can toggle from the editing view to the semantic zoom view by zooming out past a defined threshold using various user interface controls. Once the threshold is exceeded, the semantic view is presented. The editing view is returned to by selecting a heading or a thumbnail page, which respectively returns the user the page incorporating the selected heading or to the page incorporating the selected heading. This page will be displayed in the editing view at the same zoom level prior to toggling to the semantic zoom view.

A system for translating user motion into multiple object responses of an on-screen object based on user interaction of an application executing on a computing device is provided. User motion data is received from a capture device from one or more users. The user motion data corresponds to user interaction with an on-screen object presented in the application. The on-screen object corresponds to an object other than an on-screen representation of a user that is displayed by the computing device. The user motion data is automatically translated into multiple object responses of the on-screen object. The multiple object responses of the on-screen object are simultaneously displayed to the users.

Systems and methods whereby, for example, one or more functional elements can be established and/or employed. Such functional elements might serve a number of purposes. For instance, such functional elements might be employable in interoperating with devices, software, and/or the like, in working with entities, and/or the like. Such functional elements may, for example, be arrangeable in an associative and/or hierarchical manner.

A user interface (UI) is presented in which a UI client engine is associated with an application, and a UI rendering engine is associated with the client engine. The UI rendering engine receives the scene graph and data items associated with elements of the scene graph, and processes a rendering thread to render a UI in accordance with the scene graph and the data items, independently of further input from the client UI engine.

Architectures and techniques are provided to control the rendering of supplemental content associated with electronic books. For example, electronic books may be associated with content that is in addition to the content originally provided to an individual acquiring the electronic book, such as annotations, social networking site information, media outlet information, and the like. Individuals may control the supplemental electronic book content that is rendered via their client devices via actuation of a physical input device or a representation of an input device shown via a touch sensitive display. The amount of supplemental content that is rendered may correspond to information associated with a specified number of categories of supplemental electronic book content based on a supplemental content rendering level. In other implementations, the amount of supplemental electronic book content that is rendered may correspond to an amount of supplemental content to be rendered for each category of supplemental content.

Images are analyzed within a 3D environment that is generated based on spatial relationships of the images and that allows users to experience the images in the 3D environment. Image analysis may include ranking images based on user viewing information, such as the number of users who have viewed an image and how long an image was viewed. Image analysis may further include analyzing the spatial density of images within a 3D environment to determine points of user interest.

Methods and devices for minimizing and maximizing displayed output associated with applications are provided. More particularly, an application presented as two or more pages in a portrait mode can be minimized to present one of the two or more pages following a minimization operation. The page that continues to be displayed can comprise a primary or preferred page, while the page that is dismissed can comprise a secondary or ancillary page. With respect to a maximization operation received with respect to a page of an application results in the display of an additional page associated with that application. Maximization can include controlling the respective screens on which first and second pages of the maximized application are displayed.

A method and apparatus to mark-up an electronic document (i.e., a second electronic document) that is superimposed on a first electronic document keeping the first electronic document unchanged. The second electronic document is optionally viewed concurrently with the first electronic document. The second electronic document is capable of being viewed or modified using different application programs so long as the different application programs process the format used by the second electronic document. The second electronic document is saved as a separate document independent of the first electronic document.

Techniques are disclosed for supplying users in an online environment with a safe and effective chat facility. The chat facility is “safe” in the sense that the ability of users to compose inappropriate messages is greatly restricted, while “effective” in the sense that users are still allowed a broad range of expressivity in composing and exchanging chat messages.