Digital Commons Network^™

Contextually Aware Suggestions For Online Information Resources, Shreena Thakore, Matthias Quasthoff, Simon Tokumine, Benedict Davies, Rachel Ilan Simpson

Defensive Publications Series

Novice users often find it challenging to realize the full potential of available information resources. One approach to help such users is to present them with a categorized directory of ranked recommendations for useful information resources, such as apps or websites. However, such a directory may not help discover new resources that can be particularly relevant at specific times based on the user’s current location. This disclosure describes techniques to provide a personalized catalog of suggestions for information resources relevant to a user’s current context, which is obtained with user permission. A personalized catalog of contextual suggestions can help novices …

Contextual Enabling Or Disabling Of Computing-Device Applications And Sensors, Victor Carbune, Alexandru Damian

Defensive Publications Series

Smart devices continue to proliferate and can provide end users with access to a variety of applications that perform a nearly limitless set of functions to assist end users. Each application may access, and leverage, data obtained from a number of sensors incorporated into or accessible to the smart device. Although some applications operate in isolation from one another and are programed to access only certain specified sensors, the experience of an end user could be improved by a machine-learning model that assists separate applications and separate sensors in performing functions together more harmoniously. When an end user initiates a …

Fuzz Testing Of Smartphones And Iot Devices, Keun Soo Yim, Ji Won Shin

Defensive Publications Series

Fuzz testing is an effective technique for finding software vulnerabilities. Fuzzing works by feeding quasi-random, auto-generated input sequences to a target program and searching for failures. When used to test physical devices, fuzzing is found to occasionally brick the devices, leading to significant testing expenses. Also, while existing kernel fuzzing is effective in finding kernel-interface vulnerabilities, it is not as efficient in finding deeply-hidden vulnerabilities.

This disclosure presents an architecture for continuously running fuzz tests at scale on physical devices, including on kernel and hardware abstraction layer (HAL) modules. Multiple fuzzers run parallel tests and collaborate in a decentralized manner. …

Change Detection For Higher Scale Rediscovery And Bignode Handling, Adhikari Samarjit, K Nagarajan, Shanmugasundaram Senthilnathan, Paranji Srirama Vinodkumar, Suriyanarayanan Muthukumar

Defensive Publications Series

Discovery is a process of collecting the configuration data from the network elements in any protocol like SNMP, REST, NetConf, SOAP, SSH etc. and processing the data to compute the logical network topology. And the topology is stored in the database in a normalized fashion. The discovery and topology computation is typically a multi-step process where the data collected from one step could decide what need to be collected. Once discovery of one node is completed the logical topology is persisted. As network continuously evolve or change due to changes to the nodes' configuration, automatic re-discovery and recomputation of the …

Transliteration Of Contact Names And/Or Other Data Using An Automated Assistant, Diego Accame, Abraham Lee, Feng Ji, Ka Hei Cheung

Defensive Publications Series

Techniques are disclosed herein for transliterating contact names and/or other data from a source language to one or more target languages. The contact names and/or other data are received from a client device (e.g., a feature phone) having an automated assistant. The data in the target language(s) can then be utilized in determining that further input, received from the client device in one of the target language(s), corresponds to certain data in the source language. In one aspect, a method includes receiving, over a network and at one or more remote servers, contact names that are in a …

User Interface For Configuring Multiple Devices, Steffen Meschkat, Shai Barack

Defensive Publications Series

A user interface (UI) to configure device settings for multiple user devices associated with a common user identity is described. The UI enables a user to configure device settings for devices currently associated with the user as well as for future devices. Elements in the UI can be repeated, e.g., in a tabular or matrix arrangement, for each user device associated with a user identity, as well as for devices that become associated with the user identity in the future. The UI enables the user to specify settings for different user devices. The UI enables the specification of settings that …

Fpi Slave/12c Master Bus Muxing, Hp Inc

Defensive Publications Series

Disclosed is a multiplexing scheme that allows the FPI (Front Panel Interface) protocol and the I2C (Inter‐

Integrated Circuit) protocol to exist on the same bus, without contention between the FPI Master, the

FPI Slave/I2C Master, and the I2C Slave. It includes both the necessary hardware and the communication

scheme itself to be implemented in firmware.

Dynamic Selection Of Assistive Features Based On Utility Scores, Victor Cărbune, Sandro Feuz

Defensive Publications Series

Assistive features are generally enabled for all features for which an assistance interface is available or implemented. While the number of assistance-capable features continues to grow, meaningful quantification of their utility to the user is not taken into account when deciding which of the features ought to be prioritized. This disclosure describes techniques to prioritize and select from available assistive features, and enable the selected features for a user in a given context. With permission from the user, a centralized model is provided with the set of available assistance-capable features. The model is applied to prioritize and select the assistive …

Allocating Power To Multiple Devices From Universal Serial Bus (Usb) Type-C Adapter, Chao Fei, Honggang Sheng, Doug Osterhout, George Hwang, Srikanth Lakshmikanthan

Defensive Publications Series

A power adapter with multiple Universal Serial Bus (USB) Type-C ports can intelligently allocate power to multiple computing devices based on the needs of the computing devices. The adapter can allocate power to the computing devices based on respective priorities of the computing devices and/or based on charge levels of batteries in the computing devices.

Distributed Statistical Application Profiler, Benjamin Smith

Defensive Publications Series

A method for profiling an application using partial profile data from multiple instances of the application deployed for various users is presented herein. The method enables reconstruction of a complete and accurate application profile by distributing instrumentation across many instances of an application to sample only parts of an application by each instance. The method allows for highly detailed and accurate profiling of real world use cases for an application without affecting performance of the application because the sampling is distributed across the user base. The method may allow for tuning of the detail of sampling in order to collect …

Proactive Management Of Customer Networks For Stability And Reliability Leveraging Appdy Integration Into Network Service Products, Salvatore Valenza, Anirban Karmakar, Thomas Vegas, Hamsa Sankaran, Renault John Lecoultre

Defensive Publications Series

Techniques are described for leveraging the integration of the AppDynamics (AppDy) Software Development Kit (SDK) with network service products that allows for run-time retrieval of key process data on an AppDy platform. The run-time retrieval of key process data will be managed by a network service provider's customer support teams, which can proactively detect customer network degradations before they have an impact on end user experience.

Transferable Deep Links, Victor Cărbune, Thomas Deselaers

Defensive Publications Series

The disclosure describes techniques to automatically generate shareable deep links from applications and/or web pages. A system level application programming interface (API) provides automatically transferable deep links from application or web pages. Per the techniques, applications or web pages store a given state along with an associated hash. When a link to a shopping cart is shared by a user, the recipient sees the same content as the sender which is enabled by the use of the associated hash. While the applications or web pages control shareable status, the sharable deep link techniques are provided via a browser or operating …

Manageable Electrical Lock For Server Chassis, Yang Sun, Zomin Gan, Bruce Chen, Jayaprakash Balachandran

Defensive Publications Series

Techniques are described herein for a central manageable solution to servers to protect the data and components inside the chassis. The electronic locks or latches may be centrally controlled and monitored by a central software manager. This lock may prevent theft or unintentional access of the internal components to protect the internal data.

Client-Side Masking For Voice Queries, Aleksandar Kracun, Matthew Sharifi

Defensive Publications Series

Many voice-based assistive technologies transmit the voice input received from users to a server for processing. The transmitted audio includes the speaker’s voice which can identify the person. Users of such technologies therefore face a tradeoff between convenient voice interfaces with reduced privacy or less convenient non-voice input with higher privacy. Techniques described herein mask a user’s voice by locally processing the voice input received by a device. The masked voice cannot personally identify the user while still enabling server-side processing that allows recognition of spoken phrases. Application of the proposed techniques provides the user with greater privacy without diminishing …

Model-Based Network Congestion Control, Neal Cardwell, Van Jacobson, Yuchung Cheng, Soheil Hassas Yeganeh, Victor Vasiliev, Ian Swett, Priyaranjan Jha, Yousuk Seung, David Wetherall

Defensive Publications Series

Computer network congestion control algorithms control the sending rate for flows of data from sender network nodes to receiver network nodes. These algorithms attempt to utilize network bandwidth capacity efficiently, while keeping network data loss rates low, and allocating network capacity between different flows sharing the network in an approximately fair manner, or at least avoiding starvation of some flows. In addition, some congestion control algorithms attempt to keep network queues short, to reduce queuing delays and further reduce loss rates.

This disclosure describes model-based congestion control, a technique that explicitly models the network conditions along the path(s) between senders …

Restaurant Ratings Based On Tipping Patterns, Sanjay D'Abreu Noronha

Defensive Publications Series

The disclosure describes techniques to ascertain the quality of a restaurant based on the tipping behavior of patrons. Electronic payment data for payments made using a user device is obtained with user permission. The data is analyzed to determine user satisfaction by comparison with prior tipping behavior. For example, if the user tipped more than usual, it is determined that customer satisfaction was high for that restaurant. When users permit, data for multiple user payments is aggregated to determine restaurant ratings.

Simplified Voice-Based Interaction By Inferring User Intent, Victor Cărbune, Daniel Keysers, Thomas Deselaers

Defensive Publications Series

Carrying out tasks using voice-based user interfaces often requires navigating through a long list of options unless the user happens to know the precise phrase required to reach the desired option directly. Each option can require an interaction turn until all information required to carry out the task of sending the message is specified. This makes the user experience of carrying out the task via voice UI slow and awkward. Alternatively, the user needs to remember to include all relevant information in the initial command which is a difficult, unintuitive, and awkward user experience. This disclosure describes techniques to reduce …

Selective Lifelogging To Record Missed Events Of Interest, Victor Cărbune, Thomas Deselaers

Defensive Publications Series

A user can sometimes miss content or events of interest due to distraction or inattention. Rewinding and replaying to view the missed content or event may not be possible when the missed situation is live and not pre-recorded. Further, the user may view the content as a real-world experience rather than via a computing device. This disclosure describes techniques that make it possible to replay moments from the immediate past, thus enabling an experience for the real world similar to that of the rewind functionality for recorded content. With the user’s permission, a recording is triggered when it is determined …

Systems And Methods For Social Media Customization, N/A

Defensive Publications Series

The present disclosure describes systems and methods for customizing content uploaded to a web service. According to aspects of the present disclosure, a content manager can generate original content and one or more customizations associated with the original content. According to aspects of the present disclosure, a user can generate user-generated content and upload the user-generated content to a web service via a user computing system. According to aspects of the present disclosure, the a web service can communicate with one or more remote computing systems to obtain one or more customizations associated with original content associated with the user-generated …

Throttling Downlink Throughput To Mitigate Device Temperature Increase, Shivank Nayak, Blake Kragten, Siddharth Ray

Defensive Publications Series

The temperature of a mobile device can increase due to heavy use, e.g., high-speed downloads, large computational load, etc. Sustained periods of high temperature can damage the mobile device. The techniques of this disclosure reduce downlink throughput upon detection of device temperature that exceeds a threshold. Throughput is reduced, e.g., by signaling the thermal state to the network, by reporting lower channel quality indicator (CQI) values to the network, etc. After the temperature drops to a safe level, throughput is brought back up in a phased manner.

Combined Timeline And Event Detection For Internet Of Things (Iot) Data Feeds, Saptarshi Bhattacharya, Shreedhar Madhavapeddi

Defensive Publications Series

Different Internet of Things (IoT) devices capture data relevant to respective functions and transmit such data over the Internet such that it can be stored and accessed by the user. Typically, such data access is limited to the respective single IoT device. Examining data from multiple IoT devices requires the user to check the data feed from each device separately. This disclosure describes techniques to combine data feeds from multiple IoT devices and sensors to generate a single combined data timeline with the user’s permission. The timeline is processed and filtered via smart algorithms to derive and mark events of …

User-Driven Attribution Of Purchases To Advertisements, Arthur Asuncion

Defensive Publications Series

A mechanism is described that enables users to earn rewards based on their purchases linked to advertisements that they viewed. An application is provided that enables users to record and share information regarding ad conversions. A user can establish a rewards account to obtain their viewed ads across various media channels and can provide purchase/transaction information, e.g., via a user device, a payment system, or as images of receipts. The user can also rank previously viewed advertisements across various media channels, e.g., corresponding to their purchases. The ranking provides insight into the efficacy of advertising and provides user-verified attribution data. …

Managed Adaptive Spectrum Sharing For Ble, Brian Cornell

Defensive Publications Series

Many Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) advertising devices operate primarily in a transmit-only mode. Prior to start of transmissions, such devices do not test for the presence of other BLE devices that might currently be occupying the spectrum. To minimize collisions, such BLE transmitters add randomness to transmit timing. This technique fails when too many advertisers are in a confined area, as the chance of collisions goes up with the number of advertisers. This disclosure describes managed adaptive spectrum sharing for BLE (MASS BLE), a technique that uses time division multiple access to enable co-located BLE advertisers to share spectrum with …

Virtual Device For Driver Testing, Rob Springer, Kyle Lucke, Andy Koch, Clinton Smullen

Defensive Publications Series

A device driver is a component of an operating system that enables the OS to recognize a certain device and communicate with it. Testing a device driver normally requires either the physical device or a software-emulated version of the device. Physical and simulated devices are intended to work correctly, e.g., they do not generally behave in an unexpected manner. This means that during testing, it is difficult or impossible to verify if the driver is able to handle unexpected behavior of a device, e.g., device behavior that is not supposed to arise in common usage but nevertheless does.

Per the …

Api For Connecting To Captive Portals, Ezra Gorman, Timothy Hartley, Jonathon Blumenthal

Defensive Publications Series

This disclosure describes an API that enables clients to connect to access-controlled WiFi networks. The WiFi service provider describes requirements to connect to the network via the API. The API enables clients to satisfy the requirements in an automatable fashion and to inspect the status of their connection. The API can be integrated into an app of a WiFi service provider, and provides a robust, standardized WiFi onboarding process and user experience. The API can also be integrated into an app of a cellular service provider for the purposes of offloading to a WiFi network. Alternately the API can function …

Automatic Reply To Incoming Chat Messages Based On Context, Golden Krishna, Morten Just Petersen

Defensive Publications Series

A mobile device user may temporarily be unable to respond to an incoming call or message, e.g., due to the user being in a meeting, or other contexts where the user cannot operate the device. This disclosure describes techniques for a mobile device or virtual assistant to automatically reply to incoming messages or calls based on the user’s context, when the user is an occupied state. The techniques are implemented with specific user permission.

Real-Time Augmented Reality Filters Expressive Of User Sentiment, Brett Goldstein, Erik Carter, Mark L. Chang, Bhavik Singh, Jennifer Daniel, Giles Harrison-Conwill, Joy Barlow, Kunal Punera, Emily Meinhardt, Nate Streu

Defensive Publications Series

Body language and facial expressions are an important component of human communication. Some messaging applications include features to send emoji, animated GIFs, etc. to express emotion. However, such content does not include the user’s image. This disclosure describes techniques that enable users to choose augmented reality effects that are added to a user’s image and that help users express an emotion.

In-Band Remote Failure Detection, Karthik Babu Harichandra Babu, Ananthakrishnan Rajamani, Frank Brockners, Lionel Florit

Defensive Publications Series

Techniques are described herein for an alternate option to enable delivery in the in-band Remote Failure Indication (RFI). This may provide guaranteed delivery in the data packet, and may be complementary to existing Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM) mechanisms.

Fusion Printers, Hp Inc

Defensive Publications Series

Combining Low End Printers and User’s smart phones to provide the functionality of High‐End Printers

This disclosure relates to the field of printing in which the High‐End Functionalities of a high‐end

multifunction device can be achieved by a Low‐End Printer augmenting it with the User’ Smart Phone at

no extra cost.

Rgb Ink Signalling System, Hp Inc

Defensive Publications Series

Analyze the information improvement from Ink Supply System to the user using RGB lights

instead of fixed colors.

Nowadays, in most of the LFP printers, the Ink Supply System has 3 colors signaling to

indicate the user the status of each ink supply. This kind of signaling is simple but it is fixed

in functionality and versatility to each LED color mounted on the PCA. Moreover, the cost of

this system is high because each LED of each ink supply must have a wire and a driver.

It would be desirable to have an indicator which gives a more flexible …