Digital Commons Network^™

Provisioning Day-Zero Configurations Through Passive Radio-Frequency Identification, Santosh Patil, Shyam Vaidyanathan, Prashant Kumar, Manoj Gupta

Defensive Publications Series

Embodiments presented herein provide a mechanism for setting the day-zero configuration of a network device without having to power on or unbox the device. Using an embedded passive radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag situated in a device, the device can be programmed at a distance using a mobile device.

Visualization For Identifying Service Responses, Wagesh Kulkarni, Rakesh Sharma, Hitesh Manwar

Defensive Publications Series

A secure web gateway is a type of security solution that prevents unsecured traffic from entering an internal network of an organization. By translating static log data from a secure web gateway into a meaningful and sensible format, an end user may identify issues that may cause delayed responses from services. Incorporating a visualization of a health view of a system into web gateway software may provide clarity to end users. By binding logged data into five-minute intervals for a selected daily or weekly duration and displaying the data on a single screen, an end user may easily view the …

Identifying Ai Participants In Calls And Escalating Ai-Only Calls Into An Optimized Machine Communication Mode, Denis Savostiyanov, Rob Hanton

Defensive Publications Series

The embodiments presented herein enable two human-emulating artificial intelligence (AI) speech agents to identify each other in situations where the two are engaged in a conversation. Once two speech agents recognize each other as artificially intelligent, they may transition to a more efficient method of communication in order to complete tasks more quickly, accurately, and inexpensively.

Machine Learning Framework For Prioritizing Location Measurements Of Multiple Devices, Xu Zhang, Huy Tran, Matt Silverman, Abhishek Mukherji, Vinay Raghuram, Abhishek Bhattacharyya, Santosh Pandey

Defensive Publications Series

Presented herein is a framework for prioritizing location measurements of multiple client devices. In particular, rather than using a round robin scheduling approach, the techniques presented herein utilize a machine learning block (e.g., random forests) to predict a score for each client device, along with a score-based scheduler.

Method Of Passive Participant Tracking In Video Conference, Morgan Fang, Yasi Xi, Zhaocai Wang, Janus Wang

Defensive Publications Series

An innovative technique is proposed to highlight video streams of participants mentioned by the current active speaker in a video conference. By immediately highlighting mentioned participants, valuable visual information can be delivered and perceived by meeting attendees so that meeting productivity is improved.

Device History Recall Optimization With Virtual, Locally-Stored Acquisition Databases Using Previously Encountered Communication Access Points And Services, Jibing Wang, Qin Zhang, Srinivasa Prasad Vangaru

Defensive Publications Series

A mobile communication device of an end user (user equipment or “UE”) can use more than one radio access technology (“RAT”) such as GSM, WCDMA, TDS-CDMA, LTE, and NR. Searching for information needed by the UE to use a specific RAT can consume large amounts of power and time. Locally stored acquisition databases (“PLMN Info DBs”) of previously encountered communication access points and services can speed up searches, but can be limited by the storage capacity of the UE. Also a locally stored PLMN Info DB may be invalided when a UE moves to a location that is distant from …

Crowdsourced Market Research And Survey Completion Using Intelligent Conversational Assistants, Reena Singhal Lee

Defensive Publications Series

Insights into customer behavior are important for making business decisions. Yet current market research methods, e.g., surveys, multiple-choice questionnaires, etc., are long or complex, and have little or no incentive for customer participation. The quality and coverage of data that results from traditional surveys is sometimes found to be insufficient.

This disclosure leverages conversational assistants to conduct market research. At appropriate times, and with user permission, a conversational assistant asks a user questions relating to their everyday purchases, behaviors, or preferences. The questions may be longitudinal, audio-based, location-based, etc. For users that provide permission, user responses can be studied, without …

Lightfield Compression Using Commodity Hardware Video Codecs, Sai Deng, Pavel Krajcevski, Matthew Pharr, Stuart Abercrombie

Defensive Publications Series

A lightfield video is a series of lightfield stills, which include a number of reference views and residual data describing differences between the reference views and various viewpoints. The set of reference views or images, though different enough to provide the required basis for predicting intermediate views in the dataset, are correlated enough to approximate a traditional video stream. Additionally, reference images from a single time point may be compressed as a collage of smaller images that make up a single frame of a traditional video. Temporal correlation between reference images at successive time points is exploited, similar to standard …

Micro Touchpad For Wearables, Chun Yat Li, Guangzhe Cui, Debanjan Mukherjee

Defensive Publications Series

Users interact with electronic devices via a variety of input devices, such as buttons, touchpads, touchscreens, keyboards, styluses, and mice. Touchpads allow users to provide the electronic devices with a variety of commands and instructions because of their flexibility in receiving many types of input, including touches, swipes, gestures, taps, and holds from one or more fingers or other input devices. Touchpads also allow for robust construction and ergonomic variability in environments in which other input devices may not function as effectively. In particular, a micro touchpad sized for wearable devices, such as watches, activity trackers, or headphones, that retains …

Path Information-Driven Quic Path_Challenge To Optimize Path Selection In 5g Networks, Sebastian Jeuk, Gonzalo Salgueiro, David Hanes

Defensive Publications Series

Proposed herein are techniques that make use of an extended Quick UDP Internet Connection (QUIC) PATH_CHALLENGE frame to perform dynamic path selection operations within a 5G Wi-Fi/cellular network to optimize end-to-end performance. The techniques presented herein expands the capabilities of the current PATH_CHALLENGE function, as defined in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) QUIC drafts. The additional information gathered as part of the PATH_CHALLENGE and the PATH_RESPONSE frame are used to understand path characteristics and dynamically optimize traffic flows accordingly.

Techniques For Checking As-Worn Alignment Of Eyewear With Display Optics Or Progressive Prescription Lenses, Ozan Cakmakci, John Stuart Fitch, Vladimir Krneta, David Hoffman

Defensive Publications Series

Fitting eyewear with display optics to a user’s head can be problematic because lenses of the eyewear are typically not on hand during product development. This can cause problems with alignment of eyeboxes of the lenses when the user wears the eyewear with finished display optics. Generally, the eyebox of a lens or display optic is a volume within the lens such that parameters of image quality criteria is met. For example, if the eyeboxes of the lenses do not align correctly with the user’s eyes, then the eyewear does not fit or align with the user’s head. Incorrect alignment …

Wifi Network Selection Based On Rssi Velocity, Rebecca Silberstein

Defensive Publications Series

A mobile device typically connects to a WiFi network based on received signal strength indicator (RSSI). In some situations, e.g., when passing an access point at a relatively high speed, the RSSI may be high enough to connect, but only for a short period of time.

This disclosure describes techniques to select a WiFi network based on RSSI and the rate of change of RSSI (RSSI velocity). If the RSSI velocity for a WiFi network is beyond a certain threshold, the WiFi connection is determined to be temporary, and the device does not connect to the WiFi network. WiFi connections …

Cognitive Cloud Collaboration, M. David Hanes, Sebastian Jeuk, Gonzalo Salgueiro, Chuck Byers

Defensive Publications Series

Techniques are described for using a cognitive learning instance to learn a user's preferences across a wide range of cloud collaboration services and provide a customized user experience. This customized user experience is then leveraged on the back-end for optimizing cloud resources.

Mechanical Controller For A Smartphone, Gökhan Bakir, Joseph Lange

Defensive Publications Series

This disclosure describes a mechanically operated controller for a mobile device. The controller includes a grid of black and white squares whose pattern can be mechanically changed. Particular patterns are read by a mobile device, e.g., via its camera, and interpreted as different commands. The mechanical controller can be used as an interface between a mechanical device, e.g., a musical instrument, and the mobile device.

Asymmetric Pcie, Nishant Patil

Defensive Publications Series

Many devices such as accelerators, storage appliances, video transcoding accelerators, etc. have asymmetric bandwidth requirements. For example, the ingress bandwidth for a machine learning accelerator can be more than ten times the egress bandwidth. However, this asymmetry in bandwidth is not reflected in the interconnect. For example, PCI-express typically has as many lanes for host-to-device communications as it does for device-to-host communications. This disclosure presents techniques for asymmetric links between host and device. By reflecting the relative magnitudes of to-and-fro traffic more accurately, the asymmetric PCIe link achieves greater efficiency of communication.

Ergonomic Esd Cart, N/A

Defensive Publications Series

An ergonomic cart is described that provides protection from electrostatic discharge (ESD) events. The cart enables a user to transport relatively heavy equipment and includes mechanisms to easily raise or lower equipment. The cart includes moveable and fixed shelves, columns, and ESD swivel casters. Exposed corners of the shelves of the cart are protected by a rubber bumper. Extension and retraction of the columns and the top shelf is performed by two linear actuators powered by a battery. An integrated sensor is provided that allows for an immediate stop to motion of the columns upon detection of resistance.

Tool For Installing And Removing Dual In-Line Memory Modules, N/A

Defensive Publications Series

Installing or removing dual in-line memory modules (DIMMs) from their sockets is conventionally done with bare or gloved hands. People who do this regularly, e.g., workers at a factory assembly line, maintenance personnel at a data center, etc., can experience cuts or soft tissue compression on their fingers. These occur when a worker presses down repeatedly on a PCB or while they unlatch the DIMM. This disclosure presents a hand tool to safely install or unlatch DIMMs.

Fine-Grained Memory Protection, Jose German Rivera

Defensive Publications Series

Aside from malicious software gaining access and corrupting sections of computer memory, even legitimate software can inadvertently overwrite and damage its own memory content. Memory protection units exist that enable programmers to cordon off sensitive sections of memory. However, there is currently no mechanism to protect sensitive memory from code running in the same address space as that of the memory. Further, software that runs in privileged mode can change protection status of memory regions by modifying registers of the memory protection unit itself.

This disclosure provides a mechanism for protected memory to be accessible by code segments that are …

An Authoring Environment For Adaptively Formatted Text, Lucas Kovar, Shuo Diao

Defensive Publications Series

Online ads and other text content are designed such that the text content completely fits within a defined area. However, the size of the text container may change when viewed under different viewports. For example, a responsive ad is constructed to be displayable in viewports of varying sizes. Text sized for a certain container may no longer properly fit the container as it expands or shrinks. The techniques of this disclosure provide an authoring environment that smartly adjusts text content to maintain fit within the bounds of a container element as the container expands or shrinks, or if the text …

Software Service For Facilitating Unbiased Ratings, Tuna Toksoz, John Dukellis

Defensive Publications Series

Online application stores, e.g., that enable users to download software applications to a user device, include rating systems that allow users to provide ratings and reviews. Some application developers attempt to obtain favorable reviews for their apps by first asking users if they are enjoying the app, and requesting a review only from the users that answer affirmatively to provide a review. As a result, the ratings and reviews for such applications on the store may be skewed.

This disclosure describes a service for obtaining unbiased ratings directly from users. An application store that utilizes the techniques sends a ratings …

Machine Learning To Optimize Controlled Experiments, Neil Hoyne

Defensive Publications Series

Businesses use pre-sales questionnaires to quantify the value of incoming leads. Results from such questionnaires can improve allocations of sales resources and optimize advertising campaigns. A given questionnaire may ask for dozens of pieces of information from a prospective client. However, it is well understood that the questions are not always predictive of the likelihood that a client completes a purchase.

This disclosure provides machine-learning techniques that discover the predictive ability of questions on a questionnaire. The techniques enable a business to select or design questions or experiments that correlate with the closure of a sale. The business benefits by …

Conversion Detection For Improved Online Ad Selection, Stephen Hsu, Eric J. Kolb, Steven T. Dieter

Defensive Publications Series

Online ads sometimes continue unchanged even after the ad had resulted in a conversion, e.g., after a user has purchased the advertised product. Many users find such continued presence of the ad annoying. Also, not refreshing the ad with a different product represents lost revenue for the website publisher and the ad network.

This disclosure describes techniques to detect if the user has purchased a given product by analyzing, with user consent and permission, user data such as emails and other data. Upon detecting conversion, display of ads relating to the product or similar products is discontinued.

Machine-Learned Alt Text For Images And Videos, Sandro Feuz, Mohammadamin Barekatain

Defensive Publications Series

HTML has a provision for adding a textual description, known as alt text, to media elements in a webpage, such as images and videos. This is useful for improving accessibility of web pages, for display environments that do not support a particular media item, for content searching, etc. The alt text is currently added manually, e.g., by the web page developer or publisher. This is a labor intensive activity and does not work for dynamic media. This disclosure utilizes machine learning techniques to automatically add alt text to media content.

Web Search Of Mathematical Expressions, Victor Cărbune, Thomas Deselaers

Defensive Publications Series

Internet search engines, which make information nearly universally accessible, still perform poorly at handling queries with mathematical content. The reasons for suboptimal handling of mathematical content by search engines include the following: the difficulty of entering mathematical expressions into search engines, the lack of standard encoding for mathematical content, the difficulty of determining if a given page or information source is relevant to a mathematical query, etc.

This disclosure describes techniques that address the aforementioned problems, e.g., by enabling easy entry of mathematical expressions into search engines, by creating a standard representation of mathematical content based on a machine-learning embedding …

Context-Dependent Output Volume For Voice-Controlled Virtual Assistant, Victor Cărbune, Thomas Deselaers

Defensive Publications Series

Voice-controlled virtual assistants typically maintain a standard output volume level. In certain circumstances, this leads to a response from the virtual assistant that is either too loud or too low. For example, if the last-used context of the virtual assistant was a party with high ambient noise, then the virtual assistant continues responding too loudly even after the party has ended and the ambient noise level has dropped.

This disclosure describes techniques to automatically adapt the output volume level of a virtual assistant based on current context, user preferences, user feedback, etc. A machine learning model predicts an optimum volume …

Fast Wifi Scanning, Jiwoong Lee

Defensive Publications Series

In some countries, unlicensed spectrum used by WiFi networks is shared with radar systems. WiFi networks that operate in such bands employ radar detection and avoidance. A WiFi transceiver spends a certain channel sojourn (dwell) time scanning a channel prior to starting communication on it. A full scan takes about seven seconds, a user-perceptible delay.

This disclosure describes techniques to reduce scan time by leveraging radar detection procedures that have already been completed by nearby access points. If a nearby access point has recently transmitted a frame or emits a wide-band transmission, it is an indication that the nearby access …

Task Completion By Seeking Input From Multiple Parties, Matthew Sharifi

Defensive Publications Series

People frequently perform online tasks that require input from others, typically requiring multiple context switches to consult with multiple parties until a consensus is reached. The process can be time consuming, requiring the user to pause until others provide input. A user must also remember to return to the task and complete it after the input sought from others is received. This disclosure describes a technique to obtain input from others regarding an online task. At the point when completing the task requires input from another party, the techniques solicit such input, with user permission. Conversational responses received from other …

Providing Contextual Information For Multi-Party Chats, Sammy El Ghazzal, Sandro Feuz

Defensive Publications Series

It can be difficult for the individual group members of a multi-party chat to determine the relationships that connect the different members. Owing to this unfamiliarity, individuals can feel unsure and hesitant to express themselves freely in the multi-party chat. Such restraint can limit the topics and style of chat messages. On the other hand, a lack of restraint can be deemed as inappropriate or offensive. This disclosure describes mechanisms that provide contextual information about connections among the members of an ad-hoc multi-party chat group. With permission of the group members, the techniques of this disclosure are applied to determine …

Safe Unrouted Addressing In A Cloud Or Datacenter Network, Kyle Mestery, Ian Wells

Defensive Publications Series

Techniques are described for multi-tenant isolation in cloud and datacenter networks using normal Layer 3 (L3) routing rather than overlay networks. Basically, the wider routed network is divided into three components: public and corporate addresses, private addresses, and fully reachable addresses (i.e., addresses that can route to both the public and corporate and the private addresses).

Wireless Mesh Network Fault Diagnosis And Management Based On Binary Tree Based Support Vector Machine, Lele Zhang, Chuanwei Li, Huimin She, Li Zhao

Defensive Publications Series

Techniques are provided herein for using a Support Vector Machine (SVM) method for fault diagnosis and device management by data mining in the cloud. The result could provide valuable references for specialists to analyze and then perform operations to avoid loss. In current Connected Grid Mesh (CG-Mesh) implementations, many status profiles of nodes are collected for further use, but fault diagnosis is not performed. Preventive strategies for users are also provided.