Digital Commons Network^™

Low-Latency Rendering, Thomas Buckley, Hannia Zia, Dennis Kempin, David Reveman

Defensive Publications Series

An Application Programming Interface (API) on a pen enabled device provides applications with a low latency rendering path for quickly updating a display in response to pen input, for example from a capacitive or resistive digitizer. The API allows applications to define a hardware overlay that bypasses standard rendering pipeline steps such as graphics processing unit (GPU) rendering, multi-buffering, and operating system compositing. Combined with input prediction, the API enables applications to provide low or near zero latency for pen input. Accordingly, pen enabled applications can provide a higher quality user experience that more closely matches traditional pen and paper. …

Hashing Technique To Optimally Balance Load Within Switching Networks, Junlan Zhou, Zhengrong Ji

Defensive Publications Series

Network protocols use multiple paths to route packets between network nodes, such that network capacity is optimally utilized in a scalable manner. Equal cost multipath (ECMP) and weighted cost multipath (WCMP) are routing techniques to balance load across multiple paths between traffic source and destination. Load balancing is typically achieved using a hash function to select the next hop for flows of balanced size. Hash functions are provided by switch hardware, and there is often only a limited number of uncorrelated hash functions. Reuse of correlated hash functions can lead to imbalanced traffic distribution within the network. The present disclosure …

Prioritizing Order Fulfillment To Optimize Delivery Costs, Jeffrey Cuartero

Defensive Publications Series

Online customer orders are typically fulfilled in the sequence received, e.g., in a first-in, first-out manner. However, such a fulfillment process may not optimize transportation and delivery costs. Techniques disclosed herein optimize fulfillment of online customer orders based on identified criteria and process these orders in a sequence determined by such criteria. For example, orders for same-day delivery are processed in sequence while next-day orders are fulfilled based on the rate structure of a carrier. This reduces the costs associated with next-day orders that are leftover due to inadequate fulfillment capacity and processed on the following day as more expensive …

Hands-Free User Customizable Chat Settings, Benjamin Azose

Defensive Publications Series

ABSTRACT

A system and method are disclosed that provide customizable hands-free notifications or messages, especially when the recipient is not looking at his mobile phone device (phone). The recipient’s phone may be configured to vibrate based on customized or situation-specific content. The vibration setting for the messages maybe a global setting, a content-specific global setting, a personalized setting, a temporary setting or a metadata based setting. The sender sends a message to a recipient in the format that is understood by the system. The system parses the received message, extracts the required content based on the customized setting and issues …

Assistant Word Choice Training, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

A virtual, intelligent, or computational assistant (e.g., also referred to simply as an “assistant”) is described that is configured to adapt to a user’s word choices when providing output to the user. For a variety of reasons (e.g., regional differences, time progression, cultural differences, etc.) users may select different words and phrases for similar meanings. For instance, some users may say water fountain while other users may say bubbler. While users may understand that multiple terms refer to the same object (e.g., have the same or similar meaning), the use of a different term may feel unnatural and awkward to …

Assistant Tapering Language Patterns, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

A virtual, intelligent, or computational assistant (e.g., also referred to simply as an “assistant”) is described that is configured to become more concise (e.g., reduce, slim down, taper, etc.) when interacting with a user over time. Depending on the extent of the user’s background knowledge, saying too much may be just as bad as saying too little. In fact, speakers whose language is perceived as either too elaborate (information in excess) or too abbreviated (insufficient info) may be perceived to be uncooperative. To avoid such negative perceptions, the assistant may provide users with more elaborate, more detailed, more precise content …

Assistant Text Normalization, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

A virtual, intelligent, or computational assistant (e.g., also referred to simply as an “assistant”) is described that is configured to perform text normalization when converting text to speech (e.g., when synthesizing audio data for output to a user). The assistant may perform text normalization by determining how pronounce a particular set of characters (e.g., word, homonyms, number, date, acronym, abbreviation, etc.) based on the context in-which the particular set of characters is used. For instance, when performing text to speech on the text “1233 St. Andrew St.” (e.g., when reading an address aloud), the assistant may determine that the first …

Assistant Vocalized Output Of Word Combinations, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

A virtual, intelligent, or computational assistant (e.g., also referred to simply as an “assistant”) is described that is configured to properly pronounce word junctures when converting text to speech (e.g., when synthesizing audio data for output to a user). Some example word junctures that the assistant may properly pronounce include, but are not limited to, false geminates, affricates, and other such letter/word combinations. For instance, when performing text to speech on the text “black cat”, the assistant may determine that the consecutive combination of the words “black” and “cat” is a false geminate because the last consonant phoneme in “black” …

Sender Voice Modeling For Audible Playback, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

A virtual, intelligent, or computational assistant (e.g., also referred to simply as an “assistant”) is described that is configured to use a voice modeled on a sender of text (e.g., text message, email, instant message, webpage, etc.) when synthesizing audio data to “read” the text aloud (e.g., narrate, generate text-to-speech (TTS), etc.). For instance, when a first user receives a text message from a second user, a computing device of the first user may perform TTS to read the received text message aloud using a voice that is modeled to sound like the second user. The assistant may model the …

Custom Assistant Personas, Google. Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

A virtual, intelligent, or computational assistant (e.g., also referred to simply as an “assistant”) is described that is configured to have a customizable persona (e.g., attitude, voice, dialect, syntax, etc.). Assistants can have different personas when interacting with different users. For instance, an assistant may instantiate (e.g., use) one persona when interacting with a first user and another persona when interacting with a second user.

Observation-Based Form Assistant, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

A virtual, intelligent, or computational assistant (e.g., also referred to simply as an “assistant”) is described that is configured to selectively aid users when completing forms (e.g., documents, surveys, orders, fields, questionnaires, set of questions, etc.) or other online activities for which aid can be offered. When a user is filling out a form, the assistant may monitor the user’s rate of progress (e.g., filling out) of the form. If the rate decreases, the assistant may offer aid in completing the form. If the user accepts the aid, the assistant may fill in some or all of the form.

Timing-Based Assistant Controls, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

A virtual, intelligent, or computational assistant (e.g., also referred to simply as an “assistant”) is described that is configured to provide time-based controls of automation devices (e.g., lights, speakers, ovens, thermostats, sprinklers, heaters, etc.). Assistants may cause automation devices to perform actions (e.g., adjusting a climate control setting, opening a garage door, unlocking an entry door, turning on one or more lights, playing music, adjusting temperature, brewing coffee, preheating an oven, disabling an alarm, etc.) in response to requests that include timing parameters. Timing parameters can be in the form of a delay (e.g., turn off the lights in 5 …

Pre-Arrival Destination Preparation

Defensive Publications Series

A virtual, intelligent, or computational assistant (e.g., also referred to simply as an “assistant”) is described that is configured to perform one or more actions to prepare a destination for a user’s arrival at the destination. The assistant may use a wide variety of data sources to predict that the user is on their way to a particular destination (e.g., home, work, a vehicle, etc.). The data sources may include location information, date and time information, user calendars, user history and/or habit data, etc. Based on the prediction, the assistant may cause one or more devices at the particular destination …

Participant-Aware Task Requests

Defensive Publications Series

A virtual, intelligent, or computational assistant (e.g., also referred to simply as an “assistant”) is described that is configured to perform participant-aware task requests. For instance, when performance of a task is requested via a voice command (e.g., a spoken command, a verbal command, an utterance, etc.), the assistant may identify which people are present. The assistant may then perform the task involving the identified people (e.g., if the requested task is to “schedule a meeting for us,” the assistant may identify that person A and person B are present and create a meeting event for person A and person …

Assistant-To-Assistant Calendaring

Defensive Publications Series

A virtual, intelligent, or computational assistant (e.g., also referred to simply as an “assistant”) is described that is configured to work with other users’ assistants to schedule events (e.g., appointments, bookings, etc.) on behalf of a current user and the other user(s). For instance, user A may request that their assistant schedule an event with user B (e.g., user A may say “find and book a data that user B can join me for dinner”). User A’s assistant identifies the user referenced by the request (i.e., user B), communicates with user B’s assistant to negotiate a date/time for the event …

Attribute-Based And Vertical-Based Real-Time Bidding, Justin Lewis, Scott Tadashi Davies

Defensive Publications Series

This document describes real-time bidding protocol where cookies or IDs are not provided by an advertising system manager to the advertisers. Rather, the advertising system manager provides demographic information and vertical information directly to the advertising systems. The advertising systems can then use this data to place bids in the real-time bidding auction.

Virtual Reality Calendar Tour Guide, Walter Ianneo

Defensive Publications Series

An intelligent personal assistant interacts with a person’s calendar application and a three dimensional geobrowser application to create a guided three-dimensional virtual reality tour of a geographic region for a person. The intelligent personal assistant interacting with the geobrowser application identifies one or more points of interest that share a same geographic region as appointments scheduled in the person’s calendar application and generates a guided three-dimensional virtual reality tour for display by the geobrowser application, using the points of interest as waypoints of the guided three-dimensional virtual reality tour. Such a guided three-dimensional virtual reality tour makes it efficient and …

Determining Optimal Player Position, Distance, And Scale From A Point Of Interest On A Terrain, Adam Glazier, Nadav Ashkenazi, Matthew Seegmiller, Syed Ali, Andre Le

Defensive Publications Series

In a three-dimensional virtual world that is presented as part of a virtual reality environment, a player is teleported from one location displaying a point of interest to a new location displaying a new point of interest. When positioning the player at the location within the three-dimensional virtual world displaying the new point of interest, a virtual reality application determines a player viewing position at the location in order for the player to view the point of interest in a consistent and optimized fashion. The determination made by the virtual reality application, comprehending factors of scale, altitude, and direction, provides …

Distributed Physics Simulation With Stateless Server, Robert Jagnow, Daniel Citron, Chun Yat Franki Li

Defensive Publications Series

Physics-based simulations of objects displayed in a scene are distributed amongst client systems supporting multiple users interacting with the scene. For each client system, ownership of one or more objects displayed in the scene is established. For the objects owned by a client system, and based on interactions within the scene, the client system performs physics-based simulations. Resultant changes in position and kinematics of the owned objects are communicated from the client system to other client systems via a stateless server.

Selecting Options In Lists Presented By Virtual Assistants, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

An interactive assistant, referred to herein as “an interactive assistant,” “a virtual assistant,” or simply an “assistant,” is described that allows a user to interrupt presentation of a list of options and select one of the options without having to wait until the virtual assistant presents all of the options in the list. The user may, in other words, stop enumeration of the options in the list by the virtual assistant and select one of the options from the options presented by the virtual assistant up to the point of being stopped by the user. The user may select the …

Interrupting Virtual Assistants To Initiate New Tasks, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

An interactive assistant, referred to herein as “an interactive assistant,” “a virtual assistant,” a “computational assistant,” or simply an “assistant,” is described that allows a user to interrupt presentation of information concerning a first task and initiate a second task without having to wait until the virtual assistant presents all of the information concerning a first task or otherwise issue a “stop” or other cease command with regard to the first task. The user may, in other words, stop presentation of the information concerning the first task by the virtual assistant and initiate the second task in a manner that …

Processing Multiple Tasks By Virtual Assistants, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

An interactive assistant, referred to herein as “an interactive assistant,” “a virtual assistant,” or simply an “assistant,” is described that processes multiple tasks presented in a single query by a user. The user may, in other words, issue a query requesting that the virtual assistant perform multiple tasks. The virtual assistant may parse and buffer (or, stated differently, cache) each of the tasks of the multiple tasks, and process them appropriately, such as serially or concurrently (which may be referred to as being processed “in parallel”).

Directional Audio Technique, Marcel Baker, Alexis Cox, Mathias Paumgarten, Aman Govil

Defensive Publications Series

A directional audio technique is used to manage audio channels of a virtual reality environment. The technique allows a user to hear sounds from features presented in the virtual reality environment in a fashion where sounds are emphasized based on a viewing direction, user navigation, or a virtual position of origin of a feature within the virtual reality environment. When one audio channel associated with a particular viewing direction, user navigation, or virtual position of origin is emphasized, other audio channels are muted, allowing the user to audibly distinguish, for example, different storylines, conversations, or events within the virtual reality …

Three-Dimensional (3d) Audio Laser For Virtual Reality Systems, Xavier Benavides Palos, Adam Glazier

Defensive Publications Series

A three-dimensional (3D) audio laser for VR systems is provided. The 3D audio laser is a system that includes a laser pointer and a dedicated audio location control. The system uses sound to orient a user to a virtual object and to provide an audible description of the virtual object. A location and a name (or other description) of virtual objects in the VR environment are known to the VR system. When the user aims the laser pointer at a particular virtual object and selects the dedicated audio location control, the VR system plays a series of tones with simulated …

Geo-Located Content In Virtual And Augmented Reality, Thomas Anglaret

Defensive Publications Series

A three-dimensional (3D) world representation is used to place virtual objects that represent geolocalized content into a virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) environment. Browsing navigation may then be performed in 3D by touching, pointing, or focusing on the virtual object to reveal its corresponding media content. The media content may be static and/or interactive content based on video, audio, images, and/or texts. Rather than being presented on flat surfaces, the content surrounds the user in a more-immersive mode, and more-natural VR or AR techniques can be used to select, expand, move, and interact with the content.

Machine Learning For Gesture Recognition In A Virtual Environment, Sandro Feuz, Pedro Gonnet Anders

Defensive Publications Series

A machine-learning technique is provided that allows a VR system to automatically learn user gestures based on a ground-truth data set collected from real users. The technique includes two steps. First, ground-truth data is collected by observing multiple users intentionally performing a specified action in a virtual environment. For example, an action to move an object from one place to another is recorded through input from different sensors in the VR system (e.g., position, orientation, controller actuations, or force/acceleration data). Second, machine-learning techniques (e.g., a recurrent neural network, a feedforward neural network, or a Hidden Markov …

Contextually Organizing Notes In An Assistant Environment

Defensive Publications Series

An assistant is described that stores and organizes user created information (e.g., memos, notes, lists, reminders, etc.) such that the assistant can easily retrieve the information during a future interaction between the user and the assistant. The assistant supplements or tags information with contextual data or other descriptors that are relevant to the real-world or virtual situation the user was in, when the information was originally created or last modified by the assistant. This way, the assistant can later retrieve the information if the user makes references to the specific the information or the previous situation that the user was …

Assistant Recommended Purchases Based On Recurring User Behavior, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

A virtual, intelligent, or computational assistant (e.g., also referred to simply as an “assistant”) is described that recommends purchases based on recurring user behavior. The assistant monitors shopping lists of its users to determine which items get added to the shopping lists and under what circumstances. The assistant monitors other user behavior, particularly with regards to purchases made (e.g., when, where, and under what circumstances) and develops rules for predicting what items the users will want to purchase and under what conditions. The assistant outputs recommendations based on the rules for adding predicted items to shopping lists. In some implementations, …

Disambiguating Notes Of Different Users In A Multi-User Assistant Environment, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

A virtual, intelligent, or computational assistant (e.g., also referred to simply as an “assistant”) is described that stores and organizes user created information (e.g., memos, notes, lists, reminders, etc.) on behalf of multiple users of the assistant. The assistant annotates, tags, or otherwise organizes user created information according to which particular user the information was created for. This way, during a future interaction between a particular user and the assistant, the assistant can easily identify and retrieve the information that is associated with that particular user and not some other user of the assistant.

Assistant Autogenerated Planning Lists, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

A virtual, intelligent, or computational assistant (e.g., also referred to simply as an “assistant”) is described that automatically generates grocery lists for preparing one or more meals or other events. The assistant is provided with a meal plan (e.g., a menu of one or more meals or dishes). The assistant parses the meal plan into individual recipes and from the recipes, generates a list of ingredients and respective quantities. The assistant then creates a shopping list from the ingredients list. The items in the shopping list may be grouped by meal or dish, item type, store location, need for refrigeration, …