Digital Commons Network^™

Using Word Boundaries For Automatic Reflowing Of Text Within An Image, Jacob Davies

Defensive Publications Series

When using a mobile device in portrait mode to view an image of wider text content, the text within the image is sometimes too small to be readable without zooming. To view such text, users need to engage in zooming and horizontal scrolling, or changing device orientation to landscape mode which increases the amount of vertical scrolling required to read the content. This disclosure describes techniques to automatically reflow text content within an image such that wide passages of text within the image are displayed in an easily readable form that fits narrower screens of mobile devices used in portrait …

Automatically Providing Tactile Alert Based On Environmental Audio, Ramprasad Sedouram

Defensive Publications Series

Users with hearing impairments and those listening to audio content at high volume via headphones are unable to hear information delivered via the auditory channel. This disclosure describes techniques, implemented with user permission, to detect and analyze environmental sounds depending on the user context. If the sounds are determined to include information of relevance to the user, the user is alerted via tactile feedback delivered by an appropriate user device such as a smartwatch. The alert is connected to a notification on the device that includes the relevant auditory information converted to a suitable form, such as text, visuals, etc.

Techniques To Optimize Software-Defined Access Layer 2 Broadcast, Unknown-Unicast And Multicast (Bum) Use-Cases With Bit Index Explicit Replication (Bier), Denis Neogi

Defensive Publications Series

Current implementations involving Broadcast, Unknown-Unicast & Multicast (BUM) traffic in a Software-Defined Access (SDA) fabric typically rely on a traditional multicast model in which each Fabric-Edge device joins a shared Internet Protocol (IP) multicast-group having a pre-defined Multicast Rendezvous Point (RP) node or nodes— effectively establishing one large broadcast domain for all Layer 2 (L2) instances in the fabric. Techniques presented herein provide for the ability to establish a model for assigning shared groups of Virtual Extensible Local Area Network (VxLAN) Virtual Network Instances (VNIs) logically and programmatically on a Fabric-Edge device to a dedicated Bit Index Explicit Replication (BIER) …

Co-Packaged Optics Maximum Rate Allocation Algorithm, Marco Mazzini, Alberto Cervasio

Defensive Publications Series

With the introduction of co-packaged optics (CPO)-based hosts, systems can be designed in a manner that is more flexible than conventional systems. It is possible to view the CPO as an electro-optical matrix rather than a battery of pluggable modules as with conventional hosts. Such an approach provides the opportunity to design CPO-based switches for flexibility, protection, and resilience up to 102.4 Terabits or beyond. Pluggable solutions, in addition to being more expensive, may not have such capabilities. Leveraging such opportunities, this proposal provides new techniques for defining the connectivity between CPO hosts in a manner that allows for maximum …

Link Monitoring Of Service Access Port Over Spb, Sudhindra Charya, Abhishek Sinha

Defensive Publications Series

SPB (shortest path bridging) as an overlay network technology that enables extension of the customer L2 networks over a provider/aggregation layer L2 network. Through SPB overlay, the network is able to provide an E-LAN and E-Line service support for the customer traffic by encapsulating the customer traffic into different services (ISID) and then transporting the traffic over an overlay network (B-VLANs). One challenge that is inherent in this solution, is that all the adjacencies between the end customer switches (BEBs) are virtual. Any technical glitch on local edge switch (BEB) such as link failures on one of the customer SAPs …

Artificial Intelligence Based Creative Companion For Content Creation, Anonymous

Defensive Publications Series

A creative companion utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) based mechanisms to generate and optimize customized outreach plans is described herein. The creative companion receives an original content item from a client and generates a new content item based on the original content item. The new content item may be based on a template and may be associated with automatically generated descriptive language. Further, a persona associated with the new content item may be generated to provide information relating to the new content item and associate the client with a third party to enable a modification to the new content item.

Data Pipelines As A Web Service, Jan-Simon Pendry

Defensive Publications Series

This disclosure describes techniques that leverage the mechanism of pipeline-designer tools to create web services. Whereas web services are typically written as software code in conventional programming languages, the described techniques deploy dataflow design tooling and workflows to provide web services, in the form of a REST API or as a RPC endpoint, without requiring the user to write code. The techniques herein described are referred to as pipeline-as-a-service.

Generating And Providing Geo-Bounded Spaces For A Virtual Community, Anonymous

Defensive Publications Series

This disclosure relates to generating and providing geo-bounded spaces for a virtual community of users. The disclosure describes techniques to generate a geo-bounded space; analyze user information to associate a user with the geo-bounded space; enable the user to receive and publish a content item; and implement a security feature for communications associated with a geo-bounded space and/or its associated users. The techniques can determine a personal characteristic of the user; identify a user representative for the geo-bounded space; and provide a centralized content location associated with the geo-bounded space.

Machine Detectable Object Camouflage, Taliver Heath, Dustin Reishus, Eddie Pettis

Defensive Publications Series

Outdoor equipment (e.g., cellular telephony towers) is often camouflaged to hide it from human view which can make it difficult for field technicians to locate such equipment. This disclosure describes techniques that make such camouflaged objects easily detectable by machines equipped with appropriate sensors while remaining hidden from the human view. For example, a cellular telephony tower can be painted with material that includes a laser scintillation material. Such material can be easily detected by a LIDAR scan. Other techniques can include: use of two shades of paint that are clearly distinguishable by machine photoreceptors but appear as the same …

Dynamically Adjusting Notification Alerts Based On Device Position And User Activity, Joseph Turner, Stephen Norum

Defensive Publications Series

Applications and services on mobile devices often generate notifications. Alerts are likely to be more effective if delivered at times when the user is in contact with the phone when stationary or while moving at a slow pace. This disclosure describes techniques that dynamically adjust the manner and/or time of notification alerts based on the current position of the device relative to the user and/or user activity, determined based on user-permitted data such as device sensor readings. The data is provided as input to a suitably trained machine learning model. The model indicates the likely position of the device in …

Automatic Contextual Adjustments For Interpretation Of Spoken Queries, Agoston Weisz, Alessandro Agostini

Defensive Publications Series

Automatic speech recognition techniques implemented in a virtual assistant or other application can sometimes fail to correctly transcribe a user query, even while utilizing user-permitted contextual information. Query recognition failures lead to misunderstanding of user intent. While increasing the strength of contextual biasing of speech recognition can fix the problem of misrecognition, too strong a bias can hurt queries that don’t benefit from such adjustments. This disclosure describes techniques that, upon failure to find suitable transcription, intent, or response, increase contextual bias provided to the ASR and re-run speech recognition to obtain a better transcription of user speech and determination …

Multilayer Restoration Over A Converged Ip And Optical Network, Randy Zhang, Gabriele Maria Galimberti, Errol Roberts

Defensive Publications Series

In a converged Internet Protocol (IP) plus optical multilayer network that provides an optical restoration capability, techniques are presented herein that enable differentiated forwarding for different classes of traffic (such as, for example, high-priority traffic, low-priority traffic, and best-effort traffic) through restoration awareness at Layer 3 (L3). Aspects of the presented techniques work without the need for any inter-layer protocols, such as the Generalized Multiprotocol Label Switching (GMPLS) User Network Interface (UNI) (GMPLS-UNI). This is important because a converged network, such as a routed optical networking (RON) environment, does not dictate protocols. Aspects of the presented techniques encompass restoration-enabled differentiated …

Scan Reduction, Momo Shen, Qin Zhang

Defensive Publications Series

A computing device (e.g., a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a laptop computer, a wearable device, etc.) may execute a scan reduction algorithm by skipping frequencies refarmed to radio access technology (RAT) that the computing device cannot camp on (hereinafter referred to as an “unsuitable RAT”) during frequency band scan. Per the scan reduction algorithm, the computing device may check (e.g., when performing an initial cell selection procedure) whether a candidate frequency range from a candidate band set is occupied by an unsuitable RAT by querying an occupied frequency repository. If the query results indicate that the candidate frequency range …

Audio Routing Between Multiple Devices Based On Prioritized Activities, Angela Pau-Whe Hsiao, Wolloh Chou, Justin Lee, Lai-Chun Lo, Yuchen Chang, Jichao Li, Ronald Ho

Defensive Publications Series

A system including two or more computing devices (e.g., a smartphone, a laptop computer, a tablet computer, a portable gaming device, etc.) and an audio output device (e.g., speakers, headphones, earphones, earbuds, etc.) may implement an audio switching module enabling the audio output device to intelligently switch audio routing based on prioritized activities. For instance, the audio output device may initially reproduce a soundfield based on an audio signal output during a first activity occurring at a first computing device (e.g., video playback via execution of a video playback application). A second activity may concurrently occur at a second computing …

Selective Delivery Of Smart Device Audio Alerts To Reduce Interruptions, Anonymous

Defensive Publications Series

Multiple interlinked smart devices belonging to a user can each play an audio alert for the same notification, which is a disturbance for the user. This disclosure describes techniques to arbitrate among multiple devices owned by a user when providing audio alerts. The number of audio alerts played per notification is optimized to reduce interruptions to the user while still keeping the user well informed of notifications and emergencies. Per the techniques, the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) of the BLE (or other wireless personal area network) signal is used to infer the distance between the devices. Distance data is …

Conversational Document Processing, Rui Costa, Anthony Okwechime

Defensive Publications Series

Filing documentation typically requires a user to laboriously fill in a form with fields for data that are sourced from and/or proved by other documents. This disclosure describes techniques that leverage conversational artificial AI to guide users through the process of identifying and submitting digital copies of documents for an application. A conversational interface as described herein enables organizations to use a single framework to address complex document processing use cases. The techniques can substantially simplify and expedite paperwork processes.

Intelligent Distributed Caching In Iot Environment To Avoid Data Loss, Mariusz Kaźmierski, Sanika Joshi, Bansari Trivedi, Paridhi Srivastava, Keerthyraja Rajaganapathi

Defensive Publications Series

We are witnessing a fourth industrial revolution and the Internet of Things (IoT) is a key part of that revolution. In an IoT world, the availability of data drastically changes the way in which information is interpreted. A loss of data from critical IoT devices can have a catastrophic impact. Accordingly, an intelligent distributed caching capability in an IoT infrastructure is imperative for successful IoT business deployments. To address such a need, techniques are presented herein that support an intelligent distributed caching mechanism. Aspects of the presented techniques provide for efficiently calculating the caching capability of connected devices to dynamically …

Improved Dictation Using Virtual Assistant, Eric Stavarache, Henry Dlhopolsky

Defensive Publications Series

Writing on small form factor devices such as smartphones is inefficient due to the small dimensions of such devices. This disclosure describes techniques that support natural-language, context-aware voice commands that refer to individual words, sentences, paragraphs, sections, chapters, etc. of text content. Various features are supported, such as: automatically splitting text into paragraphs; creating lists; using different fonts for subheadings, chapter titles, etc.; inserting footnotes; adding citations and references; etc. To assist the user in navigating the document, the transcribed text is displayed overlaid with annotations that indicate available commands; numbered textual components; etc. Machine learning and natural language processing …

Enhanced Telepresence Via Sensory Augmentation, Wim Deweerd

Defensive Publications Series

Telepresence interactions can appear unnatural and alienating, thus making them feel superficial, hampering the development of meaningful human connection between participants. Current mechanisms to augment telepresence are inadequate for overcoming these sensory deficiencies since these typically augment only a single sense and sometimes result in attenuating essential sensory experience and/or exaggerating the sensory impact. This disclosure describes augmentation techniques to create a more natural sense of presence during video conferencing by adding various layers of natural background visuals and/or sounds, with specific user permission. An indication that a particular participant’s appearance has been augmented is provided to all participants in …

Low Latency Video Conferencing By Inpainting User Image Onto A Background, D Shin

Defensive Publications Series

Users sometimes opt out of artificial (custom) backgrounds or blur effects in video conferencing (VC) because they want to maintain the naturalness of a real background. However, if the wireless connection is poor, video conferencing quality can suffer if sufficient bandwidth to communicate the full video is not available. This disclosure describes techniques to reduce the bandwidth required for transmission of video with real backgrounds by taking one-time sequential snapshots of a video conference participant’s background and with user permission, storing the snapshot to make it available to other participants in the video conference. During the video conference, image regions …

Spatial Routing Of Computer Sounds Based On Window Location, Elliott Danner Friedman

Defensive Publications Series

In certain contexts, e.g., a multi-monitor setup or a large external monitor connected to a laptop, it can be difficult for users to locate an application window that generated a notification sound. If the user has many windows of the application open, the user needs to review multiple windows to identify the source of the sound. This disclosure describes techniques that make it quicker and easier for users to locate the window of the application that generated a notification sound. With user permission, the screen coordinates of each window of an application on the screen are determined. When a particular …

Providing Real Time Feedback To A Presenter Delivering An Online Presentation, Edward Gogel

Defensive Publications Series

During such presentations, a presenter does not have the same kind of visibility of audience members and their physical reactions as during an in-person presentation. Audience reactions are useful feedback to the presenter regarding the quality of the presentation and help the presenter adjust their delivery to keep the audience engaged.

This disclosure describes techniques to provide real time feedback and coaching to presenters delivering online presentations via a video conferencing product. The purpose of the feedback is to help presenters become aware of various aspects of presentation delivery connected to audience engagement, thus enabling them to make appropriate adjustments …

Vision Improvement Via Artificial Reality Systems

Defensive Publications Series

No abstract provided.

Facilitating Discovery Of Virtual Assistant Capabilities Via Augmented Reality, Eric Stavarache, Felix Weissenberger

Defensive Publications Series

Users may not be aware of all possible tasks that a virtual assistant can perform. This disclosure describes techniques for user-permitted use of augmented reality (AR) technology to help users discover contextually relevant tasks that a virtual assistant could perform. With user permission, the relevant tasks are determined by recognizing entities and/or locations within the camera view of the user’s device. Additional data from device sensors and/or other known user information such as devices owned or apps installed can also be utilized with user permission. The contextually relevant tasks are recommended to the user as an augmented message, via audio, …

Automatically Detecting And Assisting A Drowsy Driver, N/A

Defensive Publications Series

This disclosure describes a virtual assistant that provides suitable interventions and/or suggestions to drivers to mitigate risks from drowsy driving. With user permission and express consent, the virtual assistant receives inputs from multiple sensors, devices, and systems that provide driving context information. For example, the virtual assistant can be provided via a wearable device, a mobile device, vehicle infotainment system etc. Inputs are received from various user-permitted sensors on one or more of these devices and are utilized to calculate a drowsiness score for the driver. Based on the drowsiness score, suitable interventions and suggestions are provided via audio, visual, …

Fast Recognition Of Docked Devices Via Impulse Detection And Ultrasonic Handshaking, D Shin

Defensive Publications Series

Docking stations for devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops lack convenient mechanisms to recognize specific devices owned by specific users, thus requiring the use of pairing mechanisms. However, conventional pairing mechanisms require precise device positioning and can have a negative impact on design aesthetics. This disclosure describes techniques for quick and convenient pairing between devices and docking stations in a manner that permits docking stations to recognize specific devices. Detection of an inertial impulse trigger is performed via IMUs on devices and docking stations to determine when a device is docked. The initial trigger is followed by an ultrasonic …

Multilingual Voice Support For Contact Center Agents, Ananth Hegde, Amit Agnihotri, Nivedha Thangaraju

Defensive Publications Series

In a contact center, when a caller elects to speak to an agent the call will be routed (based on the language that the caller chose) to an agent who can speak the language that was selected by the caller. A global company with operations or offices in many different countries faces the challenge of communicating in multiple languages, something that is a key to providing excellent customer service. In particular, it can be challenging for a company to achieve such a capability when they simply cannot hire a customer support agent for every possible language. To address such challenges, …

A System And Method For Providing Digital Trasaction In Offline Mode To Prevent Double Spending Problem, Gokul Anand Manimaran Mr

Defensive Publications Series

Present disclosure provides a system and method for providing a platform to perform digital transaction in offline mode using virtual coins. The system may include network server (107) which is configured to generate virtual coins when the customer (102) requests for generating virtual coins. Each virtual coin includes unique virtual identification number and Universally Unique Identifier (UUID that ensures each coin cannot be spent more than once, preventing double spending problem. Thus, secured cashless transaction is performed in offline mode using the generated virtual coins. Further, network server (107) is configured to process payment transaction claim request received from the …

Methods For Learning A User’S Intent Based On Spatial Gestures, Mingguang Xu, Kai Shi, Ning Zhang

Defensive Publications Series

This publication describes methods for learning a user’s intent, when the user interacts with multiple computing devices, based on detected spatial gestures. The methods may utilize a machine-learned model with a reinforcement-learning framework trained to classify spatial gestures, user state information, and/or device state information detected during a device-to-device interaction, generate predictions relating to the intent of the user, and utilize the predictions to facilitate the device-to-device interaction.

Localized Brightness Adjustment Method, Sianyi Huang

Defensive Publications Series

This publication describes systems and techniques directed at minimizing display panel power consumption by selectively reducing a brightness of on-screen content. In aspects, within a display pipeline, display data ordered in hierarchical layers having objects can be passed to a content detector. The content detector may be configured to calculate a probability that objects within each of the hierarchical layers correspond to a visual element being a particular type of content. Each of the hierarchical layers can then be passed to a layer color converter. Based on the probabilities of each of the hierarchical layers, the layer color converter can …