| Facebook, Inc. Patent applications |
| Patent application number | Title | Published |
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| 20160142553 | TECHNIQUES TO TRANSFORM NETWORK RESOURCE REQUESTS TO ZERO RATED NETWORK REQUESTS - Techniques to transform network resource requests to zero rated network requests are described. Some embodiments are particularly directed to techniques transform network resource requests on a cellular network to zero rating by replacing the destination of the request with a zero-rated source for the network resource. In one embodiment, for example, an apparatus may comprise a data store and a network access component. The data store may be operative to store a plurality of zero-rating rewrite rules. The network access component may be operative to receive a network request from an application component on the mobile device, the network request for access to a network resource; compare the network resource to the plurality of zero-rating rewrite rules to identify a zero-rating rewrite rule matching the network resource; transform the network request to a zero-rated network request for the network resource using the identified zero-rating rewrite rule; and perform the zero-rated network request. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 05-19-2016 |
| 20160127370 | TECHNIQUES FOR CALL-BASED USER VERIFICATION - Techniques for call-based user verification are described. In one embodiment, for example, an apparatus may comprise a processor circuit and a storage component. The apparatus may further comprise a session component, an identification (ID) component, a mapping component, and a verification component. The session component may be operative on the processor circuit and configured to receive session data from a client device and store the session data in the storage component. The ID component may be operative on the processor circuit and configured to request ID data from a server, receive ID data from the server, and send the ID data to the client device. The mapping component may be operative on the processor circuit and configured to map the session data with the ID data. The verification component may be operative on the processor circuit and configured to receive a confirmation from the client device, request verification from the server, and upon receiving verification from the server, verify the client device. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 05-05-2016 |
| 20160110344 | Single identity customized user dictionary - In one embodiment, constructing a set of customized dictionaries for a particular user, each of the customized dictionaries in the set comprising a different blending of one or more frequently used words collected from texts submitted by one or more users; and sending a copy of the set of customized dictionaries to each of a plurality of electronic devices associated with the particular user to be stored on the electronic device and to aid the particular user in inputting text to the electronic device. | 04-21-2016 |
| 20160098616 | TECHNIQUES FOR MANAGING DISCUSSION SHARING ON A MOBILE PLATFORM - Techniques for managing discussion sharing on a mobile platform, comprising a mobile discussions application. The mobile discussions application may include, among other components, a discussions imaging component for recognizing a ticket associated with a resource in a social networking system and a discussions management component for enabling a user having an associated user profile information to access the resource based at least partially on the ticket associated with the resource. | 04-07-2016 |
| 20160065851 | TECHNIQUES TO SELECTIVELY CAPTURE VISUAL MEDIA USING A SINGLE INTERFACE ELEMENT - Techniques to selectively capture media using a single user interface element are described. In one embodiment, an apparatus may comprise a touch controller, a visual media capture component, and a storage component. The touch controller may be operative to receive a haptic engagement signal. The visual media capture component may be operative to be configured in a capture mode based on whether a haptic disengagement signal is received by the touch controller before expiration of a first timer, the capture mode one of a photo capture mode or video capture mode, the first timer started in response to receiving the haptic engagement signal, the first timer configured to expire after a first preset duration. The storage component may be operative to store visual media captured by the visual media capture component in the configured capture mode. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 03-03-2016 |
| 20160057154 | TECHNIQUES FOR MANAGING GROUPS ON A MOBILE PLATFORM - Techniques for managing groups on a mobile platform, comprising a mobile groups application. The mobile groups application including a groups management component to manage at least one group for a corresponding social networking application of a social networking system; and a groups rendering component to render a groups user interface (UI) view comprising at least one selectable group user interface element representative of the at least one group, the at least one selectable group UI element comprising a first selectable group UI element, wherein the first selectable group UI element is representative of a first group of the at least one group and the first group comprises at least one group member. | 02-25-2016 |
| 20160043983 | TECHNIQUES FOR INTELLIGENT MESSAGING FOR MESSAGE SYNCING - Techniques for intelligent messaging for message syncing are described. An apparatus may comprise a recipient inbound messaging component, a recipient queue management component, a recipient update customization component, and a recipient outbound messaging component. The recipient inbound messaging component may be operative to receive an incoming update at a recipient update queue, the recipient update queue associated with a recipient of the incoming update. The recipient queue management component may be operative to add the incoming update to the recipient update queue and determine a recipient messaging endpoint to receive the incoming update. The recipient update customization component may be operative to retrieve one or more recipient messaging endpoint parameters associated with the recipient messaging endpoint and generate a customized incoming update from the incoming update according to the one or more recipient messaging endpoint parameters. The recipient outbound messaging component may be operative to transmit the customized incoming update to the recipient messaging endpoint. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 02-11-2016 |
| 20160043982 | TECHNIQUES FOR A SEQUENTIAL MESSAGE READER FOR MESSAGE SYNCING - Techniques for a sequential message reader for message syncing are described. An apparatus may comprise a network component and an inbox management component. The network component may be operative to receiving an incoming update at a messaging endpoint from a recipient update queue, the incoming update comprising an incoming recipient sequence number. The inbox management component may be operative to add the incoming update to a message inbox on the messaging endpoint, the incoming update added to the message inbox in an order determined by the incoming recipient sequence number and determine based on the incoming recipient sequence number whether one or more additional updates are missing from the message inbox on the messaging endpoint. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 02-11-2016 |
| 20160043981 | TECHNIQUES FOR A PERSISTENT QUEUE FOR MESSAGE SYNCING - Techniques for a persistent queue for message syncing are described. A recipient inbound messaging component may receive an incoming update at a recipient update queue. A recipient queue management component may determine an incoming recipient sequence number for the recipient update queue. A recipient outbound messaging component may transmit the incoming update to the recipient messaging endpoint. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 02-11-2016 |
| 20160043978 | TECHNIQUES FOR HOT SNAPSHOTS FOR MESSAGE SYNCING - Techniques for hot snapshotting for message syncing are described. An apparatus may comprise a network component and a snapshot component. The network component may be operative to receiving an incoming update. The snapshot component may be operative to retrieve a messaging snapshot for a user associated with the incoming update; identify a messaging thread corresponding to the incoming update; apply the incoming update to the messaging thread; determining that a number of messaging threads stored in the messaging snapshot is greater than a thread storage limit for the messaging snapshot; identify a least-recently-updated messaging thread currently stored in the messaging snapshot; and remove the least-recently updated messaging thread from the messaging snapshot. | 02-11-2016 |
| 20160019263 | SAVED QUERIES IN A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM - A user saves a structured query defining connections between two or more objects maintained by a social networking system. The social networking system finds objects matching the structured query, either by periodically performing searches for new objects or by analyzing objects as they are added or modified. The user creating the saved query can subsequently view the matching objects. | 01-21-2016 |
| 20150356570 | PREDICTING INTERACTIONS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM USERS WITH APPLICATIONS - A social networking system provides instructions to third-party application developers for inclusion in applications. When executed, the instructions communicate information from an application to the social networking system describing user interactions with the application. Based on received information describing a user's interaction with an application, the social networking system determines likelihoods of the user performing various types interactions with applications and classifies the user based on the determined likelihoods. A user's interactions with additional applications similar to an application may be used to determine the likelihoods of the user performing different types of interactions with the application. Classifications associated with users may be used as targeting criteria for advertisements, allowing advertisers to target advertisements to users having a threshold likelihood of performing certain types of interactions with an application. | 12-10-2015 |
| 20150356180 | INFERRING RELATIONSHIP STATUSES OF USERS OF A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM - A social networking system infers a relationship status (e.g., single, married, in a relationship, etc.) of a user of the social networking system based on the user's interactions with additional users of the social networking system and the relationship statuses of the additional users. The social networking system identifies certain types of interactions between the user and additional users as indicators and determines a value for an indicator based on a number of additional users associated with the indicator that identify a relationship status of single and a number of additional users associated with the indicator that identify a relationship status other than single. Based on the values of various indicators, the social networking system determines a score for the user and infers a relationship status for the user based on the score. | 12-10-2015 |
| 20150350351 | Location-Based Ephemerality of Shared Content - In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a request to share with a first user a content item associated with a second user. A content location for the content item may be determined. A geo-fenced area for the content item may be determined, the geo-fenced area including the content location. The content item may be shared with the first user as requested. If the second user moves to a location outside the geo-fenced area, determination is made of whether the sharing of the content item should be terminated. | 12-03-2015 |
| 20150350349 | LOCATION SUGGESTION BASED UPON SOCIAL NETWORKING POST CONTENT - Exemplary methods, apparatuses, and systems receive input associated with a social networking system user account. The input includes content to be published to the social networking system. In response to the received input, one or more location suggestions are identified based upon the content. The one or more identified location suggestions are transmitted to a user device associated with the user account. Selection of a location suggestion is received. The content and selected location is published as a post within the social networking system. | 12-03-2015 |
| 20150348136 | Calculating Bids for Advertisements Based on Conversion Value - An advertising platform calculates bids for advertisements based on the value of a conversion for the advertisement. The advertising platform identifies an impression opportunity for an advertisement request and computes an expected value of the conversion as well as a likelihood of the conversion. The advertising platform computes a bid amount based on the expected conversion value and the likelihood of the conversion. Bids based on the value of the conversion allow advertisers to optimize for the value of each conversion instead of simply the conversion rate. | 12-03-2015 |
| 20150348135 | BIDDING FOR POSITION OF INSTALLED APPLICATION IN AN INTERFACE OF A MOBILE DEVICE - A client device or an online system determines a position in an interface presented by a client device for presenting content associated with an application installed on the client device based in part on a bid amount associated with the application. Scores are determined for the application and other applications installed on the client device based on an expected amount of user interaction with each application and bid amounts associated with one or more of the applications. Based on a score associated with an application, a position in the interface for presenting content associated with the application is determined. If the determined position satisfies a position specified by the bid amount and content associated with the application is presented in the determined position for at least a threshold amount of time, an online system charges a third party system associated with the application an amount. | 12-03-2015 |
| 20150348134 | Predicting the Performance of an Advertising Campaign - An advertiser specifies an advertising campaign including one or more targeting criteria for presentation to users of an online system, which retrieves information describing previously completed advertisement auctions for presenting advertisement to users of the online system satisfying one or more of the targeting criteria. Based on the retrieved information, the online system associates various bid amounts with the advertising campaign and determines the advertising campaign's estimated performance for various bid amounts. For each bid amount, the online system determines a number of previously completed advertisement auctions that would have selected an advertisement from the advertising campaign, an amount that would have been charged to the advertiser if an advertisement campaign was selected, and a number of distinct users that would have been presented with an advertisement from the advertising campaign. | 12-03-2015 |
| 20150348123 | TRACKING THE INFLUENCE OF GIFT GIVING WITHIN A SOCIAL NETWORK - Exemplary methods, apparatuses, and systems receive a gift giving event characteristic. A first set of one or more gift giving events within a first period of time that meet the received gift giving event characteristic are identified. Each of the gift giving events result in a narrative being published to a social network and are viewable by a group of one or more users of the social network. A second set of one or more gift giving events within a second period of time are identified. The second period of time is subsequent to the first period time. The second set of gift giving events are initiated by the group of one or more users. An amount of influence of a first user that initiated a gift giving event in the first set of gift giving events is determined based upon the second set of gift giving events. | 12-03-2015 |
| 20150348093 | ADVERTISEMENT IMPRESSION INVENTORY MANAGER - A social networking system determines a predicted supply of ad impressions over a future period of time for social networking system users based on past viewing information of advertisements presented to the users during a prior time period. Based on the predicted supply of ad impressions, the social networking system manages advertisement campaigns including ad requests received from advertisers. The social networking system determines whether the predicted supply of ad impressions is sufficient to satisfy criteria associated with an advertising campaign and provides feedback to an advertiser associated with the advertising campaign indicating whether the predicted supply of ad impressions contains sufficient unallocated expected ad impression opportunities to satisfy criteria associated with the advertising campaign. | 12-03-2015 |
| 20150347411 | SELECTING CONTENT AND IDENTIFYING USERS FOR IDENTIFICATION TO ADDITIONAL USERS OF A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM BASED ON USER ATTRIBUTES OR CONTENT ITEM CHARACTERISTICS - A social networking system provides a user with a feed of content items associated with other users connected to the user via the social networking system. Additionally, the social networking system identifies additional content items for presentation to the user and generates an additional feed including the additional content items. The additional content items may be determined by identifying content items having various characteristics and scoring the content items based on the characteristics. Content items having at least a threshold score are identified as additional content items. Examples of characteristics of content items include users providing content items to the social networking system, locations associated with social networking system users, and interaction with content items by social networking system users. In some embodiments, the additional feed modifies presentation of the additional content items based on their associated scores. | 12-03-2015 |
| 20150341232 | Daily Counts and Usage Probabilities For a User of an Online Service - In one embodiment, a method includes, for each of multiple interactions by a user with an online service, collecting: device information describing a device used by the user for the interaction; access information describing how the user accessed the online service for the interaction; and a count value of the interaction. The method further includes determining based on the collected information a historical count value for each of one or more particular combinations of device and access information. | 11-26-2015 |
| 20150339721 | DETERMINING FRAUDULENT INDICATIONS OF ADVERTISEMENT INTERACTION BASED ON IDENTITY - An ad publisher provides an online system with user identifying information of users who interacted with an advertisement presented by the ad publisher and indications of interactions with the advertisement. A landing page is associated with the advertisement, and the advertiser provides the online system with user identifiers of users who interacted with the advertisement and requested the landing page. The online system determines whether the ad publisher fraudulently identifies interactions with the advertisement by comparing the user identifying information received from the ad publisher with the user identifiers received from the advertiser. | 11-26-2015 |
| 20150339705 | DETECTING FRAUD IN CONNECTION WITH ADVERSTISEMENTS - Embodiments are disclosed for identifying a suspect application based on multiple operating factors from use of multiple applications. The embodiments can generate a representative distribution of a selected factor based on collected information corresponding to multiple operating factors from use of multiple applications. The embodiments can compare a representative distribution of a target factor with the representative distribution of the selected factor and identify a suspect application when these distributions are different. | 11-26-2015 |
| 20150339405 | Search Client Context on Online Social Networks - In one embodiment, a method includes accessing a social graph comprising nodes and a edges connecting the nodes, receiving from a first user a query inputted at a search client, the search client being associated with context data from a page associated with the search client, such that the context data identifies one or more nodes associated with the page, generating search results corresponding to the query, wherein each of the search results corresponds to a node, and scoring the search results based at least in part on the context data associated with the search client. The context data may identify a social context of the page, which can include tags, comments, likes, commenters, and the like. | 11-26-2015 |
| 20150339033 | Asynchronous Execution of Tasks for a GUI - Particular embodiments provide for asynchronous execution of instructions using a multi-threaded approach to outsource low-level input/output-handling tasks. Particular embodiments may use (1) a main thread to handle execution of instructions to generate a hierarchy of layers representing a GUI, wherein each layer represents a logical grouping of components of the GUI, (2) an input thread to handle asynchronous execution of instructions to process user input based on interactions with the GUI, and (3) a graphics thread to handle asynchronous execution of instructions to generate and/or update display output in relation to one or more layers of the GUI hierarchy. The input thread may send information about received input directly to the graphics thread and the main thread at the same time, thereby enabling the graphics thread to begin refreshing the display output while the main thread performs any necessary processing of the user input. | 11-26-2015 |
| 20150332336 | RUNTIME EXPANSION OF TARGETING CRITERIA BASED ON USER CHARACTERISTICS - A social networking system selects advertisements for a user based on user characteristics of the user in response to a request to present an advertisement to the user. To increase the number of advertisements eligible for presentation to the user, the social networking system associates the user with one or more cluster groups associated with targeting criteria that are not satisfied by the user's characteristics. To determine whether to associate a user with a cluster group, the social networking system determines a cluster score for the cluster group based on the user's characteristics. If the cluster score equals or exceeds a cluster cutoff score for the cluster group, the user is associated with the cluster group. The cluster cutoff score may be determined based on an estimated distribution of users so that a target number or percentage of users have cluster scores less than the cluster cutoff score. | 11-19-2015 |
| 20150332317 | GENERATION OF AN ADVERTISEMENT BID-REACH LANDSCAPE - An advertising system receives from an advertiser at a social networking system an advertisement request, the advertisement request comprising advertisement content and a specification of a target audience for the advertisement content. The advertising system defines a plurality of bid values for the advertisement request. For each of the plurality of bid values, the advertisement system estimates a corresponding value of advertisement reach for the target audience, for example, by estimating a number of users of the target audience for each of whom the given bid value is expected to have resulted in at least one successful impression. The advertiser is provided a visual representation of a bid-reach landscape representing the estimated plurality of advertisement reach values as a function of the plurality of bid values. The advertising system provides, to the advertiser, one or more recommendations for bid values for which corresponding return-on-investment metrics exceed a specified threshold. | 11-19-2015 |
| 20150332314 | SELECTING ORGANIC CONTENT AND ADVERTISEMENTS FOR PRESENTATION TO SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM USERS BASED ON USER ENGAGEMENT - A social networking system dynamically adjusts a number of advertisements presented to a user along with organic content items by modifying a ranking including organic content items and advertisements. Partial engagement scores are generated for organic content items based on an expected amount of user interaction with each organic content item, and scores are generated for advertisements based on expected user interaction and bid amounts associated with each organic content item. An engagement score measuring the user's estimated interaction with a content feed including organic content items without advertisements and an additional engagement score measuring the user's estimated interaction with a content feed including organic content items and advertisements are determined from the partial engagement scores and the scores. A difference between the additional engagement score and the engagement score modifies a conversion factor used to combine expected user interaction and bid amounts to generate advertisement scores. | 11-19-2015 |
| 20150332313 | Objective Prediction of an Ad Creative Based on Feature Scores - An online system or third party system allows advertisers to evaluate and test ad creatives before the ad creatives are presented to users in an ad campaign. Based on a set of test ad creatives for which feature scores and objective scores are determined by content evaluators (e.g., users, content processing algorithms), a model is trained to determine objective scores for an ad creative based on feature scores of the ad creative. The trained model is applied to a target ad creative, which has yet to be or has been presented to users, to determine one or more objective scores for the target ad creative based on feature scores of the target ad creative. Feedback is presented to an advertiser associated with the target ad creative based on the objective scores determined for the target ad creative. | 11-19-2015 |
| 20150332310 | PREDICTION OF ADVERTISEMENT REACH BASED ON ADVERTISER SPECIFIED BID AND/OR BUDGET AMOUNTS - An advertising system predicts advertisement reach for a received advertisement request based on an advertiser-specified bid amount and a specification of a target audience. The system samples the target audience, and for each sampled user of the target audience, accesses a recent impression history to obtain costs or bids associated with recent advertisement impressions. The system compares the advertiser-specified bid amount in the received advertisement request to costs or bid values associated with successful advertisement impressions, for each sampled user, in order to determine whether the received advertisement request would have won a bid auction for each given sampled user to successfully reach each given sampled user. An estimated aggregate reach for the sampled users is computed and extrapolated to the targeted user population to estimate a total reach of the advertisement content for the target audience. | 11-19-2015 |
| 20150331842 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR SELECTING CONTENT ITEMS AND GENERATING MULTIMEDIA CONTENT - Systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable media can detect a trigger event for generating multimedia content. A set of content items associated with a user account can be identified. Information associated with at least one of the set of content items or the user account can be acquired. A subset of content items can be selected out of the set of content items based on the information. In some embodiments, each content item in the subset can satisfy specified selection criteria. The multimedia content can be generated based on the subset of content items. | 11-19-2015 |
| 20150317349 | PROVIDING EVENTUAL CONSISTENCY FOR MULTI-SHARD TRANSACTIONS - A multi-shard database system receives a transaction including multiple actions directed to different shards of the database system. The database system creates a transaction record including a transaction identifier and a transaction status for the transaction in a transaction database. The database system then executes, in parallel, the multiple actions on the different shards by associating with each data item involved in the transaction a data structure that includes the transaction identifier and new data to be applied to the data item. The database system then updates the transaction status in the transaction record for the transaction from pending to completed when each of the multiple actions is successfully executed on the corresponding shard. Consistency is eventually implemented when the data structures associated with the data items involved in the transaction are evaluated. The evaluation of a data structure can be triggered by a read request or other events. | 11-05-2015 |
| 20150309871 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DATA STORAGE REMEDIATION - Systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable media can receive an indication that a drive included in a set of drives has experienced an error. Acquiring first data associated with the drive can be attempted. The drive can be prompted to undergo a power-cycle. Acquiring second data associated with the drive can be attempted. At least one of the first data or the second data can be analyzed to determine that the drive is remediable. At least the drive included in the set of drives can be remediated, such as by being rebuilt or reconfigured. | 10-29-2015 |
| 20150301729 | ASSISTING A USER OF A SOFTWARE APPLICATION - The principles described herein provide methods and systems of providing new user assistance information for performing actions within a user interface as a user navigates the user interface. For example, information may be presented to the user in a way that aids the user in discovering and performing available actions within the user interface without being overly disruptive to the user. | 10-22-2015 |
| 20150296437 | WIRELESS DATA TRANSFER - Techniques for setting up wireless data transfer are described. In one embodiment, for example, an apparatus may be configured to monitor network traffic. A context or origin of the network traffic may be determined. Control options for setting up a wireless data transfer may be determined and presented to a user. Based upon user input, a control option may be selected. Routing network traffic may be performed based upon the selected control option. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 10-15-2015 |
| 20150293566 | HIGH-DENSITY STORAGE SERVER CHASSIS - Technology is provided for a high-density storage server chassis. The storage server chassis comprises a frame and an opposed pair of support ledges disposed in the frame and positioned to support a storage device therebetween. The support ledges are disposed on corresponding partitions mounted in the frame. The support ledges include at least one protrusion positioned to space the storage device away from the support ledge thereby defining an air flow region between the storage device and the support ledge. The storage server chassis further comprises a retainer moveably attached to a corresponding partition and operative to retain a corresponding storage device in the frame, wherein the retainer is movable between an open position and a closed position. | 10-15-2015 |
| 20150288742 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR INTERACTIVE MEDIA CONTENT EXCHANGE - Systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable media can cause a first computing system to receive an obscured version of a first media content item from a second computing system. Access to the obscured version of the first media content item can be provided by the first computing system. Access to an unobscured version of the first media content item can be prevented by the first computing system. An unobscured version of a second media content item can be acquired by the first computing system using at least one sensor. The first computing system can transmit to the second computing system at least one of the unobscured version of the second media content item or an obscured version of the second media content item generated based on the unobscured version. Access to the unobscured version of the first media content item can be provided by the first computing system. | 10-08-2015 |
| 20150288718 | POLICY PARTIAL RESULTS - Technology for policies with reduced associated costs is disclosed. A policy may include an ordered rule set. When evaluated, the highest priority rule in the order that does not skip may control the policy outcome. Rules within a policy may have associated costs, such as data fetch and evaluation costs. In some contexts, it may be less important to evaluate every rule than to evaluate the policy quickly. Reduced policies that have one or more rules removed or that skip evaluation of some rules may be created for these contexts. When a rule of a policy is skipped, it may result in a possibility of a false allow or false deny. In some cases, rules may be duplicative. Removal or skipping of duplicative rules does not increase the possibility of a false allow or false deny. By using reduced policies in identified contexts, policy evaluation costs may be reduced. | 10-08-2015 |
| 20150286997 | ROUTING PAYMENTS TO PAYMENT AGGREGATORS - Methods and systems for processing payments using payment aggregators are provided. In particular, one or more embodiments comprise an e-commerce payment facilitator that acts as an intermediary between a commerce application and a plurality of payment aggregators. This allows the e-commerce payment facilitator to provide a user with payment methods supported by the plurality of payment aggregators. Furthermore, one or more embodiments enable the e-commerce payment facilitator to route transactions to payment aggregators based on various factors, such as availability, reliability, and profitability. In addition, one or more embodiments provide e-commerce payment facilitators with greater control over the processing of transactions by allowing for the routing and distribution of transactions across multiple payment aggregators. | 10-08-2015 |
| 20150286662 | SELECTING PREVIOUSLY-PRESENTED CONTENT ITEMS FOR PRESENTATION TO USERS OF A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM - A social networking system selects content items previously presented to a user for presentation to the user along with content items that were not previously presented. The social networking system selects candidate content items as previously-presented content items satisfying one or more criteria. One or more indices each associated with one or more attributes are generated that include candidate content items having attributes associated with an index. Candidate content items in an index are ranked based on a likelihood of the user interacting with the candidate content items in the index, and one or more candidate content items are selected from the index for presentation based on the ranking. The candidate content items selected from the index are presented to the user along with additional content items not previously-presented to the user. | 10-08-2015 |
| 20150286643 | Blending Search Results on Online Social Networks - In one embodiment, a method includes receiving from a first user of an online social network a search query input including one or more n-grams; generating a number of query commands based on the search query input; and searching one or more verticals to identify one or more objects stored by the vertical that match the query commands. Each vertical stores one or more objects associated with the online social network. The method also includes generating a number of search-result modules. Each search-result module corresponds to a query command of the number of query commands. Each search-result module includes references to one or more of the identified objects matching the query command corresponding to the search-result module. The method also includes scoring the search-result modules; and sending each search-result module having a score greater than a threshold score to the first user for display. | 10-08-2015 |
| 20150282389 | SERVER DEVICE COOLING SYSTEM - The principles described herein provide a server device having a cooling system that provides an efficient cooling of server device components. The cooling system can include a radiator block having air passageways that are oriented substantially orthogonal to the initial airflow path direction. In addition, the server device can include one or more baffles that create an airflow path that passes through the radiator block multiple times. Moreover, the server device can include various additional features that provide convenient access to electronic components within the server device without diminishing the effectiveness of the cooling system. | 10-01-2015 |
| 20150281580 | STABILIZATION OF LOW-LIGHT VIDEO - In one embodiment, a method includes receiving information indicative of an amount of light present for capturing an image frame of a video clip, and, based on the amount of light present, determining a candidate exposure time for the image frame. The method also includes determining a maximum exposure time for the image frame. If the candidate exposure time is less than or substantially equal to the maximum exposure time, the method includes capturing the image frame with approximately the candidate exposure time. If the candidate exposure time is greater than the maximum exposure time, the method includes capturing the image frame with approximately the maximum exposure time. | 10-01-2015 |
| 20150281577 | TECHNIQUES TO SELECTIVELY CAPTURE VISUAL MEDIA USING A SINGLE INTERFACE ELEMENT - Techniques to selectively capture media using a single user interface element are described. In one embodiment, an apparatus may comprise a touch controller, a visual media capture component, and a storage component. The touch controller may be operative to receive a haptic engagement signal. The visual media capture component may be operative to be configured in a capture mode based on whether a haptic disengagement signal is received by the touch controller before expiration of a first timer, the capture mode one of a photo capture mode or video capture mode, the first timer started in response to receiving the haptic engagement signal, the first timer configured to expire after a first preset duration. The storage component may be operative to store visual media captured by the visual media capture component in the configured capture mode. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 10-01-2015 |
| 20150281563 | TECHNIQUES TO SELECTIVELY CAPTURE VISUAL MEDIA USING A SINGLE INTERFACE ELEMENT - Techniques to selectively capture media using a single user interface element are described. In one embodiment, an apparatus may comprise a touch controller, a visual media capture component, and a storage component. The touch controller may be operative to receive a haptic engagement signal. The visual media capture component may be operative to be configured in a capture mode based on whether a haptic disengagement signal is received by the touch controller before expiration of a first timer, the capture mode one of a photo capture mode or video capture mode, the first timer started in response to receiving the haptic engagement signal, the first timer configured to expire after a first preset duration. The storage component may be operative to store visual media captured by the visual media capture component in the configured capture mode. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 10-01-2015 |
| 20150281562 | TECHNIQUES TO SELECTIVELY CAPTURE VISUAL MEDIA USING A SINGLE INTERFACE ELEMENT - Techniques to selectively capture media using a single user interface element are described. In one embodiment, an apparatus may comprise a touch controller, a visual media capture component, and a storage component. The touch controller may be operative to receive a haptic engagement signal. The visual media capture component may be operative to be configured in a capture mode based on whether a haptic disengagement signal is received by the touch controller before expiration of a first timer, the capture mode one of a photo capture mode or video capture mode, the first timer started in response to receiving the haptic engagement signal, the first timer configured to expire after a first preset duration. The storage component may be operative to store visual media captured by the visual media capture component in the configured capture mode. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 10-01-2015 |
| 20150271120 | PROVIDING MESSAGE STATUS NOTIFICATIONS DURING ELECTRONIC MESSAGING - One or more embodiments described herein include methods and systems of providing message status notifications. The status notifications can comprise one or more of sent, delivered, or accessed/read notifications. In one or more embodiments a status notification is persistently displayed in a thread for each participant in a conversation. Each time the participant accesses a new message, the system can move the status notification adjacent to the new message. | 09-24-2015 |
| 20150269250 | POLYGON-BASED INDEXING OF PLACES - In one embodiment, a method includes receiving an identification of a location. The method further includes accessing an inverted index that comprises a plurality of records, where each record corresponds to a map tile and identifies one or more places corresponding to the map tile. At least one of the places identified in the inverted index is identified in multiple records corresponding to multiple map tiles, where the map tiles collectively define an area that circumscribes the place. The method also includes identifying based on the inverted index one or more places associated with the location. | 09-24-2015 |
| 20150268826 | CONFIGURABLE ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION ELEMENT - One or more embodiments of the disclosure include an electronic communication system that allows a user to select, configure, and send an electronic communication element to another user. For example, an electronic communication element can include a symbol, icon, animation, sound, and/or other elements that can be sent via an electronic communication. In particular, one or more embodiments of the electronic communication system allow a user to configure the electronic communication element to send a customized message to another user with the configured communication element. | 09-24-2015 |
| 20150264063 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR IDENTIFYING ILLEGITIMATE ACTIVITIES BASED ON HISTORICAL DATA - Systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable media can acquire historical data including a plurality of features associated with known legitimate activities and with known illegitimate activities. A machine learning technique can be applied to the historical data to gain information about the plurality of features associated with the known legitimate activities and with the known illegitimate activities. A decision tree can be generated based on at least a portion of the information about the plurality of features. A node in the decision tree that satisfies specified precision criteria can be identified. A rule can be created based on the node. One or more illegitimate activities can be identified based on the rule. | 09-17-2015 |
| 20150264029 | MOBILE-DEVICE USER AUTHENTICATION - In one embodiment, receiving a notice from a first user associated with a first mobile device indicating that the first user wishes to share information of the first user with one or more second users respectively associated with one or more second mobile devices; accessing information known about one or more users and one or more mobile devices respectively associated with the one or more users; identifying at least one candidate for the first user based on the information known about the one or more users and the one or more mobile devices; and confirming one or more of the at least one candidate as the one or more second users. | 09-17-2015 |
| 20150256557 | GRANTING PERMISSION TO ACT ON BEHALF OF A USER IN A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM - A social networking system allows entities to delegate actions performed on behalf of the entity to social networking system users by assigning one or more roles to social networking system users. Roles may be assigned based on information associated with the entity by the social networking system. Different roles are associated with sets of permissions specifying actions a user associated with a role is authorized to perform on behalf of the entity via the social networking system. Certain permissions of a role associated with the user may be associated with additional users by the user. A persona including a subset of information associated with a user by the social networking system may be created for a user assigned a role, allowing the user to limit information accessible to additional users connected to the persona. | 09-10-2015 |
| 20150229931 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR ENHANCED VIDEO ENCODING - Systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable media receive a source video having a source file size. A bit rate at which to encode the source video is determined. The source video is encoded at the determined bit rate to produce an encoded video having a file size less than the source file size. A video quality metric for the encoded video is determined. Whether or not the video quality metric for the encoded video is within an allowable deviation from a target quality metric is determined. The source video is encoded at another determined bit rate when the video quality metric for the encoded video is outside the allowable deviation from the target quality metric. Determining the bit rate and encoding the source video at the determined bit rate can repeat iteratively until the video quality metric for the encoded video is within the allowable deviation from the target quality metric. | 08-13-2015 |
| 20150227619 | Query Construction on Online Social Networks - In one embodiment, a method includes accessing a set of nodes of a social graph of an online social network. The social graph includes a number of nodes and a number of edges connecting the nodes. Each of the edges between two of the nodes representing a single degree of separation between them. The nodes include a first node that corresponds to the first user and a number of nodes that each correspond to a concept or a second user associated with the online social network. The method also includes accessing one or more grammar tokens. Each grammar token includes references to zero or more nodes and one or more edges. Each grammar token corresponds to a particular type of completion token. Each grammar token may be based on a natural-language string. The method also includes receiving from the first user a selection of one or more of the grammar tokens and one or more of the completion tokens. | 08-13-2015 |
| 20150222617 | Controlling Access to Ideograms - Particular embodiments of a method comprise providing one or more ideograms (e.g., written characters, symbols or images that represent an idea or thing) for insertion into a message. A request may be received from a user for a restricted one of the ideograms. A determination may be made as to whether the user is authorized to access the restricted ideogram. This determination may be based on whether the user is a member of a group of authorized users, whether an attribute of the user meets a restriction requirement, or whether the request comprises an authorization code or token. If the user is authorized to access the restricted ideogram, then the restricted ideogram may be displayed to the user in association with the message. Otherwise, a restricted-content response may be generated. | 08-06-2015 |
| 20150222586 | Ideograms Based on Sentiment Analysis - Particular embodiments of a method comprise analyzing a message to perform sentiment analysis with respect to at least a portion of the message. One or more sentiments associated with the at least a portion of the message may then be identified. One or more ideograms (e.g., written characters, symbols or images that represent an idea or thing), each corresponding to an identified sentiment, may then be suggested to a user for insertion into a message. Upon receiving a user selection of one or more of the ideograms in relation to some portion of the message, an association may be saved in a user-specific dictionary linking the user-selected one or more of the ideograms with the portion of the message. In particular embodiments, the sentiment analysis may incorporate social-networking information and/or historical ideogram usage information. | 08-06-2015 |
| 20150220976 | Recommending a Budget for an Advertisement Presented on an Online System - An online system provides identifies multiple candidate budgets to an advertiser requesting presentation of advertisements via the online system. The advertiser may select a candidate budget used for presenting advertisements via the online system. A default budget may be identified from the candidate budgets to increase the likelihood of the advertiser selecting the default budget. The candidate budgets and the default budget are determined by the online system to maximize the likelihood that an advertiser elects to present advertisements via the online system or to maximize revenue received the online system for presenting advertisements from the advertiser. Various factors are specific to the advertiser, the object being advertised, and other contextual information may be used to determine the candidate budgets. | 08-06-2015 |
| 20150220774 | Ideograms for Captured Expressions - Particular embodiments of a method comprise analyzing an image to classify an expression displayed on a face shown in a captured image. Image analysis may include detecting the face in the image, generating a characterization of features of the face, and classifying the expression based on the characterization. The characterization of facial features may be based on benchmark metrics for a particular expression. One or more ideograms (e.g., written characters, symbols or images that represent an idea or thing) may be selected based on the expression. The selection may be based on one or more match scores for the expression. The match scores may be determined based on an ideogram dictionary or an ideogram usage history. The selected ideograms may then be presented, in association with the face, on a screen for the computing device. | 08-06-2015 |
| 20150213488 | Pacing Objectives of an Advertising Campaign Throughout a Duration of the Advertising Campaign - An advertiser specifies an advertising campaign along with a budget, a duration and one or more objectives associated with the advertising campaign. An online system presenting advertisements from the advertising campaign determines an interval representing a portion of the duration, an interval budget, and one or more interval objectives. Historical information describing selection and presentation of advertisements by the online system is retrieved, and used to determine one or more filters limiting the number of opportunities to present an advertisement in which advertisements from the advertising campaign are included. The scaling filters may be based on the one or more interval objectives, bid amounts determined for advertisements in the advertising campaign, and bid amounts associated with advertisements previously selected for presentation form the historical data. | 07-30-2015 |
| 20150213370 | LABEL INFERENCE IN A SOCIAL NETWORK - At least one embodiment of this disclosure includes a method of inferring attribute labels for a user in a social networking system based on the user's social connections and user-specified attribute labels in the social networking system. The method can include: establishing variational equations based on attribute labels of nodes in an ego network in a social graph of a social networking system; determining likelihood scores for at least a portion of the attribute labels of neighboring nodes from a focal user node in the ego network based on user-specified attribute labels from the social networking system; and calculating probability distributions of possible attribute labels for the focal user node of the ego network based on the variational equations and the likelihood scores. | 07-30-2015 |
| 20150206196 | MODIFYING ADVERTISMENT BID AMOUNTS BASED ON A TARGET AVERAGE PRICE PAID FOR ADVERTISEMENT PRESENTATION - A social networking system modifies a bid amount associated with advertisements in an advertising campaign based on a target average price paid associated with the advertising campaign. A bid amount is determined from the target average price paid and associated with advertisements from the advertising campaigns in various advertisement selection processes. From advertisement selection processes in which an advertisement from the advertising campaign was selected, an average amount charged to the advertiser is determined. Based on the target average price paid and the average amount charged to the advertiser, the bid amount is modified. In subsequent advertisement selection processes, the modified bid amount is associated with advertisements from the advertising campaign. | 07-23-2015 |
| 20150206179 | DYNAMICALLY ALLOCATING COMPUTING RESOURCES TO IDENTIFY ADVERTISEMENTS FOR PRESENTATION - An advertising system has limited computing resources to spend evaluating advertisements of advertisers to determine a “best” advertisement to serve to users of a social networking system. The computing resources are allocated (e.g., by varying the number of advertisements that are considered for presentation to a user) based on the neediness of the user and/or the advertiser on a per impression basis. The neediness of a user may be determined by grouping users into groups and determining a yield curve of expected revenue per computing resource used. Then, the revenue may be maximized across impression opportunities for multiple users. The neediness of an advertiser may be determined by biasing the selection of one advertiser's advertisements over another advertiser's advertisements based on an expected revenue, an expected number of interactions of the advertisement, or otherwise maximizing a satisfaction coefficient for the advertiser. | 07-23-2015 |
| 20150206171 | Validating Components Of An Advertisement For Consistency With An Objective Of The Advertisement - An online system receives an advertisement request from an advertiser and determines an advertisement objective associated with the advertisement request. Validation rules associated with the advertisement request are retrieved and applied to components of the advertisement request. Application of the validation rules determines whether components of the advertisement request are consistent with the advertisement objective. A result of the application of the validation rules to the advertisement request is presented to the advertiser, providing the advertiser with a measure of the effectiveness of the advertisement request in satisfying the advertisement objective. | 07-23-2015 |
| 20150206170 | Biasing Selection of Advertisements from an Advertisement Campaign - For ad campaigns that have multiple advertisements, each associated with an ad creative, which are automatically selected, an online system may bias selection of advertisements away from underestimated advertisements and towards early-selected advertisements with positive user interactions. To increase the likelihood of various advertisements in an ad campaign being evaluated for presentation to users, the online system may: associate a relatively high performance score with each advertisement in an ad campaign, randomly select advertisements from an ad campaign, modify bid amounts associated with advertisements in the ad campaign, or allocate a portion of the ad campaign's budget for allocation across advertisements in the ad campaign. After presenting a threshold number of advertisements in an ad campaign or receiving an instruction from an advertiser, advertisements from the ad campaign may be selected using conventional methods. | 07-23-2015 |
| 20150205858 | Client-Side Search Templates for Online Social Networks - In one embodiment, a method includes receiving an unstructured text query from a first user of an online social network; and accessing, from a data store of the mobile client system, a set of nodes of a social graph of the online social network. The social graph includes a number of nodes and edges connecting the nodes. The nodes include a first node corresponding to the first user and a number of second nodes that each correspond to a concept or a second user associated with the online social network. The method also includes accessing, from the data store of the mobile client system, a set of grammar templates. Each grammar template includes one or more non-terminal tokens and one or more query tokens. The query tokens include references to zero or more second nodes and one or more edges and each grammar template is based on a natural-language string. | 07-23-2015 |
| 20150200988 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR STREAMING DIGITAL CONTENT USING AN INTERMEDIATE SERVER - Techniques provided herein implement systems and methods that can improve access to content items, from an online content source, by a client device. According to some embodiments, an intermediate content streaming system is implemented on a client device for caching digital content locally at the client device as the content is streamed to the client device from an online content source (e.g., content server) over a network. Additionally, according to some embodiments, a priority-based content downloading system is implemented on a client device to facilitate priority-based pre-downloading of content items to the client device before a user at the client device is presented with access to the content items, such as through a social networking news feed. | 07-16-2015 |
| 20150199974 | DETECTING DISTORTED AUDIO SIGNALS BASED ON AUDIO FINGERPRINTING - An audio identification system generates a probe audio fingerprint of an audio signal and determines amount of pitch shifting in the audio signal based on analysis of correlation between the probe audio fingerprint and a reference audio fingerprint. The audio identification system applies a time-to-frequency domain transform to frames of the audio signal and filters the transformed frames. The audio identification system applies a two-dimensional discrete cosine transform (DCT) to the filtered frames and generates the probe audio fingerprint from a selected number of DCT coefficients. The audio identification system calculates a DCT sign-only correlation between the probe audio fingerprint and the reference audio fingerprint, and the DCT sign-only correlation closely approximates the similarity between the audio characteristics of the probe audio fingerprint and those of the reference audio fingerprint. Based on the correlation analysis, the audio identification system determines the amount of pitch shifting in the audio signal. | 07-16-2015 |
| 20150199727 | Sponsoring Brands Detected in User-Generated Social Networking Content - A social networking system identifies user-generated content that can be sponsored to social networking system users based on compensation received from advertisers. Such user-generated content includes photographs, videos, audio files, and so on, that contain advertisable or promotional information such as brands, trademark names, logos, identifiers for product makes or models, or product names that an advertiser may wish to promote. The system tags such user-generated content with the identified promotional or advertisable information. The system matches the tagged content to a sponsor request from an advertiser based on the tag of the tagged content item. The system ranks the tagged content item relative to other non-sponsored content for display to social networking system users, the tagged content ranked higher than the other non-sponsored content based on the tagged content matching the sponsor request. | 07-16-2015 |
| 20150193635 | TECHNIQUES FOR IN-APP USER DATA AUTHORIZATION - Techniques for in-app user data authorization are described. An apparatus may comprise a processor circuit, a permissions component, and a token component. The permissions component may be operative on the processor circuit to receive a request from an application to perform a task on a device and to return a response to the request to the application based on active permissions for the application. The token component may be operative on the processor circuit to manage a token database and to determine the active permissions for the application based on the token database. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 07-09-2015 |
| 20150193539 | OBJECT RECOMMENDATION BASED UPON SIMILARITY DISTANCES - Exemplary methods, apparatuses, and systems receive a candidate object with which a user can interact within a network service. For each of a first plurality of objects with which the user has had a positive interaction, a first value representing a commonality between the candidate object and each of the first plurality of objects is determined. For each of a second plurality of objects with which a user has had a negative interaction, a second value representing a commonality between the candidate object and each of the second plurality of objects is determined. An aggregate positive distance is determined using a plurality of the first values. An aggregate negative distance is determined using a plurality of the second values. The candidate object is displayed or not displayed to the user as a recommendation based upon a difference between the aggregate positive distance and the aggregate negative distance. | 07-09-2015 |
| 20150187092 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR CONTEXT BASED IMAGE COMPRESSION - Techniques for compressing images based on context are provided. A first image and a second image may be identified for display on a client device. One or more contexts of the first image may be identified. One or more contexts of the second image may be identified. A first image quality for the first image may be determined based on the one or more contexts of the first image. A second image quality for the second image may be determined based on the one or more contexts of the second image. The first image may be compressed at the first image quality and the second image at the second image quality. The compressed first image and the compressed second image may be transmitted to the client device. | 07-02-2015 |
| 20150186667 | AGGREGATED ACTIONS - Exemplary methods, apparatuses, and systems receive a first plurality of actions from a first entity with respect to a first plurality of objects. A global object related to each of the first plurality of objects is determined and a representation of the global object is displayed in association with a representation of the first entity. Additionally, in response to receiving user feedback on the representation of the global object displayed in association with the representation of the first entity, an instance of the global object that is unique to the first entity is created. The displayed representation of the global object is converted into a representation of the instance of the global object that is unique to the first entity. | 07-02-2015 |
| 20150186492 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR ADDING USERS TO A NETWORKED COMPUTER SYSTEM - Systems and methods are provided for adding new nodes to a computer networked system. The systems and methods may identify a first set of nodes in a networked computer system. The first set of nodes may be included in a first hash computation that clusters the first set of nodes into communities. An application shard space including a first space and a second space may be generated. The first set of nodes may be mapped to application shards in the first space based on the first hash computation. The application shards in the first space may be assigned to a first set of machines of the networked computer system. The second space may be maintained for mappings of nodes not included in the first hash computation to application shards in the second space. | 07-02-2015 |
| 20150186439 | Field Mappings for Properties to Facilitate Object Inheritance - In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a request for a property of an object, where the property has a property type and includes a property value and a property name, and the property does not conform to a property specification for the property type. The method also includes determining a field mapping for the property of the object, where the field mapping is derived from the property specification, and accessing the property of the object. The method further includes modifying the property of the object according to the field mapping. The method also includes providing as a response to the request the property of the object as modified according to the field mapping. | 07-02-2015 |
| 20150186417 | Identifying Entries in a Location Store Associated with a Common Physical Location - A social networking system generates a location store based on information received from its users. The location store includes entries having a physical location description and one or more terms associated with the physical location description. One or more entries associated with physical location descriptions within an area are identified. A local frequency of occurrence of each term in the identified entry is determined, and a global frequency of occurrence of each term in the identified entries within the location store is determined. Trending terms in the identified entries are determined based on the local frequencies and the global frequencies. Identified entries are compared to each other, with a score based on differing terms in compared entries and whether the differing terms are trending terms is generated. If a score is less than a threshold value, a combined entry is generated from the compared entries. | 07-02-2015 |
| 20150186416 | Identifying Descriptive Terms Associated with a Physical Location from a Location Store - A social networking system generates a location store based on information received from its users. The location store includes entries having a physical location description and one or more terms associated with the physical location description. One or more entries associated with physical location descriptions within an area are identified. A local frequency of occurrence of each term in the identified entry is determined, and a global frequency of occurrence of each term in the identified entries within the location store is determined. Trending terms in the identified entries are determined based on the local frequencies and the global frequencies. Identified entries are compared to each other, with a score based on differing terms in compared entries and whether the differing terms are trending terms is generated. If a score is less than a threshold value, a combined entry is generated from the compared entries. | 07-02-2015 |
| 20150186390 | MAINTAINING CACHED DATA EXTRACTED FROM A LINKED RESOURCE - Exemplary methods, apparatuses, and systems include a network service receiving a request including a hyperlink. The network service acquires data from a resource referenced by the hyperlink. The network service stores the acquired data within a network service cache and sets a refresh interval. The network service utilizes the stored data to respond to additional requests including the hyperlink received during the refresh interval. The network service reacquires data from the resource after the expiration of the refresh interval. The refresh interval is updated by increasing or decreasing a frequency of the refresh interval in response to an amount of change to data associated with the resource over time. | 07-02-2015 |
| 20150178370 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PREDICTIVE DOWNLOAD - A time a user of a client application is likely to access a preferred network connection is predicted. A pre-download index for one or more multimedia content items is calculated, where the pre-download index represents how likely the user is to interact with the one or more multimedia content items at approximately the predicted time. The indexed multimedia content items are ranked based on the pre-download index of each of the one or more multimedia content items. The ranked multimedia content items are provided to the client application at the predicted time. | 06-25-2015 |
| 20150178284 | Ranking Recommended Search Queries on Online Social Networks - In one embodiment, a method includes accessing a social graph that includes a number of nodes and edges connecting the nodes. Each of the edges between two of the nodes representing a single degree of separation between them. The nodes include a first node corresponding to a first user associated with an online social network and a plurality of second nodes that each correspond to a concept or a second user associated with the online social network. The method also includes generating a card cluster including a number of cards. Each card includes a suggested query referencing a query-domain associated with the online social network and zero or more query-filters. Each query-filter references one or more nodes of the plurality of nodes or one or more edges of the plurality of edges. | 06-25-2015 |
| 20150178283 | Grouping Recommended Search Queries on Online Social Networks - In one embodiment, a method includes accessing a social graph that includes a number of nodes and edges connecting the nodes. Each of the edges between two of the nodes representing a single degree of separation between them. The nodes include a first node corresponding to a first user associated with an online social network and a plurality of second nodes that each correspond to a concept or a second user associated with the online social network. The method also includes generating a number of cards. Each card includes a suggested query referencing a query-domain associated with the online social network and zero or more query-filters for the query-domain. Each query-filter references one or more nodes of the plurality of nodes or one or more edges of the plurality of edges. | 06-25-2015 |
| 20150177808 | POWER SHELF FOR COMPUTER SERVERS - At least one embodiment of this disclosure includes a power shelf for serving a power zone within an IT equipment rack. The power shelf includes: a DC bus configured to provide DC power to rack-mounted equipment within the power zone; multiple pairs of backup battery units (BBUs) and power supply units (PSUs), wherein the multiple pairs include at least a redundant pair, such that voltage and power is supplied through the DC bus sufficient to power the rack-mounted equipment even when one of the multiple pairs is inoperative; and a power circuit, in each PSU of each of the multiple pairs, configured to rectify an AC phase from an external multi-phase AC power source, wherein the power circuit is configured to draw power from one of the BBUs paired to the PSU when the PSU fails to provide power sufficient to power the rack-mounted equipment. | 06-25-2015 |
| 20150163258 | Indicating User Availability for Communication - In particular embodiments, a computing device accesses data associated with a first user of a social-networking system. Based at least in part on the data, the computing device determines a current availability of the first user to communicate with a second user of the social-networking system in substantially real time. The availability of the first user is determined based at least in part on a reachability of the first user and a willingness to communicate of the first user. The computing device provides for display to the second user an indication of the current availability of the first user as determined. | 06-11-2015 |
| 20150161680 | Competitive Benchmark Reporting For Online Advertising Auctions - Competitive bidding tools, including a competitive bidding scaler tool and a competitive report generator, may be implemented by an advertiser to improve their advertisement's performance in online advertising auctions. The competitive bidding scaler tool increases the bid amount associated with an advertiser's ad request when a competing advertiser submits a rival ad request to the same online advertising auction. The competitive report tool generates a competitive report for an ad request that benchmarks its performance against rival ad requests. The competitive report comprises a summary of wins and losses experienced by the ad request in an online advertising auction as well as an option to implement the competitive bidding scaler tool for the ad request. | 06-11-2015 |
| 20150161679 | Competitive Bidding Scalers For Online Advertising Auctions - Competitive bidding tools, including a competitive bidding scaler tool and a competitive report generator, may be implemented by an advertiser to improve their advertisement's performance in online advertising auctions. The competitive bidding scaler tool increases the bid amount associated with an advertiser's ad request when a competing advertiser submits a rival ad request to the same online advertising auction. The competitive report tool generates a competitive report for an ad request that benchmarks its performance against rival ad requests. The competitive report comprises a summary of wins and losses experienced by the ad request in an online advertising auction as well as an option to implement the competitive bidding scaler tool for the ad request. | 06-11-2015 |
| 20150161673 | SIMPLIFIED CREATION OF ADVERTISEMENTS FOR OBJECTS MAINTAINED BY A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM - A social networking system generates an advertisement, a recommended budget, and recommended targeting criteria for an object maintained by the social networking system for presentation to social networking system users. Information associated with the object by the social networking system is used to generate elements of the advertisement, the recommended budget, and the recommended targeting criteria. Different budgets, each associated with a predicted return on investment, may be determined, allowing an advertiser to select a budget based on the return the advertiser receives from presentation of the advertisement. Additionally, an advertiser may modify the recommended targeting criteria, recommended budget, or elements of the generated advertisement to customize presentation or distribution of the advertisement. | 06-11-2015 |
| 20150161199 | Service-Abstracting Query Interface - In one embodiment, at run-time, a query engine may receive a request to populate properties of an application class with data. The query engine may use reflection to inspect the application class and identify at least one platform interface providing properties of the application class. The query engine may then generate a query for a specific service associated with the platform interface. The query engine may then retrieve data from the service. After receiving a response from the service, the query engine may use reflection to bind the retrieved data to properties of the application class and return the application class in response to the request. The query engine may have previously analyzed a schema identifying data types provided by the service and generated, based on the schema, platform classes and platform interfaces. | 06-11-2015 |
| 20150160832 | Dismissing Interactive Elements in a User Interface - In particular embodiments, a computing device provides for presentation a user interface including a first interactive element. The computing device receives first user input selecting the first interactive element and, in response to the first user input, provides for presentation a second interactive element. The second interactive element may be associated with functionality to dismiss the first interactive element. The computing device receives second user input comprising moving the first interactive element toward the second interactive element. In response to the first interactive element being within a particular distance of the second interactive element and receiving third user input, the computing device removes the first interactive element and the second interactive element from presentation in the user interface. | 06-11-2015 |
| 20150160808 | Zoom Interactions in a User Interface - In particular embodiments, a computing device provides for presentation a user interface including an image. The computing device receives user input to proceed to a second view of the image and, in response to the user input, provides for presentation the second view of the image. | 06-11-2015 |
| 20150149930 | COMMUNICATION USER INTERFACE SYSTEMS AND METHODS - The principles described herein provide methods and systems of providing a user interface to allow a user to compose and send an electronic communication quickly and conveniently. For example, a user interface includes split-pane interface having a navigable tray area and a composition area. The navigable tray area may include categories of trays, each tray including a navigable listing of content items that may form part of the electronic communication. The navigable tray area allows the user to navigate from one tray to the next to access different types of content items to be used in composing the electronic communication. When composing an electronic communication, a user can select an item in a tray, and the item is previewed in the composition area and can become part of the electronic communication. | 05-28-2015 |
| 20150149927 | COMMUNICATION USER INTERFACE SYSTEMS AND METHODS - The principles described herein provide methods and systems of providing a user interface to allow a user to compose and send an electronic communication quickly and conveniently. For example, a user interface includes split-pane interface having a navigable tray area and a composition area. The navigable tray area may include categories of trays, each tray including a navigable listing of content items that may form part of the electronic communication. The navigable tray area allows the user to navigate from one tray to the next to access different types of content items to be used in composing the electronic communication. When composing an electronic communication, a user can select an item in a tray, and the item is previewed in the composition area and can become part of the electronic communication. | 05-28-2015 |
| 20150149649 | Varied Wi-Fi Service Levels - In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a request from a client computing device of a user to access a communication network; and identifying a particular tier for the client computing device from among a number of tiers of service based at least in part on social-graph information of the user. Each tier of service includes one or more session settings of the communication network. The method also includes configuring a session of the communication network for the client computing device based at least in part on one or more of the session settings of the identified tier of service; and establishing the configured session between the client computing device and the communication network. | 05-28-2015 |
| 20150149353 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR OBTAINING MERCHANT IDENTIFICATION WITHIN PAYMENT AUTHORIZATION NETWORKS - Exemplary methods and systems for enabling a multi-merchant gift card program are disclosed. In particular, the present application details exemplary methods and systems for obtaining merchant identification information associated with a merchant. Upon obtaining the merchant identification for a merchant, the present application further details exemplary methods and systems for enabling a gift card services for the merchant. | 05-28-2015 |
| 20150149289 | PROVIDING CONTENT IN A TIMESLOT ON A CLIENT COMPUTING DEVICE - In particular embodiments, a client computing device identifies an available timeslot for displaying content on a screen. The client computing device notifies one or more applications of the available timeslot and receives from each of one or more applications a bid to fill the available timeslot with content associated with the application. Each bid indicates the application, indicates a format of the content associated with the application, and provides at least a portion of the content associated with the application. The client computing device selects one of the bids and displays in the available timeslot on the screen the content associated with the selected bid with the format indicated by the selected bid. | 05-28-2015 |
| 20150143260 | State-Machine-Driven User-Interface Interactions - In one embodiment, a method includes receiving, by a client computing device, an input associated with a user interface of an application. The user interface may include multiple elements. The client computing device may transition from a first state of the application to a second state of the application based on the input. The client computing device may then determine one or more listeners associated with the application that are registered to receive information when the second state of the application is entered. The client computing device may provide information associated with the second state of the application to one or more of the listeners, and the listeners may implement one or more changes to one or more elements of the user interface in response to the transition to the second state of the application. | 05-21-2015 |
| 20150142721 | Selecting Users to Receive a Recommendation to Establish Connection to an Object in a Social Networking System - A social networking system identifies users to receive a recommendation to establish a connection to an object maintained by the social networking system. The social networking system determines one or more classifiers identifying attributes of users to receive the recommendation based on attributes of users connected to the object and additional users connected to those users. The attributes of an additional user may be weighted by a factor that provides a measure of the overlap between the attributes of the additional user and a user connected to the object. | 05-21-2015 |
| 20150142551 | OFFLINE CONVERSION MEASUREMENT FOR ADVERTISEMENTS PRESENTED TO USERS OF AN ONLINE SYSTEM - An online system identifies a conversion of an advertisement when a client device associated with an online system user is within a threshold distance of a physical location associated with the advertisement. The client device sends obfuscated information identifying the user associated with the client device and the location of the client device to an independent third party when the client device is within a threshold distance of the physical location associated with the advertisement. Using information from the client device, the third party requests information from the online system identifying one or more groups including the user. Based on information identifying groups including various online system users, the third party generates information identifying conversions associated with different groups. The online system may determine effectiveness of various advertisements using the information from the third party identifying conversions associated with different groups. | 05-21-2015 |
| 20150135303 | TECHNIQUES TO RATE-ADJUST DATA USAGE WITH A VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORK - Techniques to rate-adjust data usage on mobile devices using a virtual private network are described. In one embodiment, an apparatus may include a processor circuit, and an application component operative on the processor circuit to present a link to third party data, receive a control directive to follow the link, and to request to access the third party data. The apparatus may also include a client virtual private network (VPN) component operative on the processor circuit to communicate with a server having a server VPN component, receive the request to access the third party data from the application component, determine whether the accessing is rate-adjusted, and connect to a source of the third party data via the server VPN component. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 05-14-2015 |
| 20150134659 | DETERMINING COLLECTIONS CAPABLE OF INCLUDING AN OBJECT PRESENTED BY A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM - A social networking system allows users to create collections including objects associated with products, services, games, videos, books or other similar items. An object is associated with a type and one or more actions are associated with the type to identify actions capable of being performed on the object. When an object is presented to a user, the type of the object is compared to types of objects capable of being included in a collection. If the type of the object is capable of being included in a collection, one or more collections associated with actions associated with the type of the object are identified. Information describing the identified collections is generated and presented to the user. By selecting information identifying a collection, the user includes the object in the collection corresponding to the selected information. | 05-14-2015 |
| 20150128086 | Intervention Conditions - In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a touch input within a particular region of a display area of the computing device. The display area presents a user interface (UI) including a number of views organized in a hierarchy. One or more of the views has a gesture recognizer configured to process a touch input detected within the regions of the display area associated with each of the views. Each of the views corresponds to one or more regions of the display area. One or more of the gesture recognizers has one or more intervention conditions. A particular one of the views is a default view to process the touch input. The method also includes evaluating the intervention conditions to identify a particular one of the views from among the number of views to process the touch input. | 05-07-2015 |
| 20150127727 | Media Plug-In for Third-Party System - In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a request to display a media plug-in on a third-party website hosted by a third-party system, determining media content associated with the request to display the media plug-in, and determining whether the third-party website is being viewed by a user that is currently logged in to the social-networking system. The method further includes determining one or more user-selectable objects based at least on the determined media content and the determination of whether the user is currently logged in to the social-networking system and providing the determined one or more user-selectable objects for display in the media plug-in on the third-party website. The third-party system is separate from the social-networking system. The user-selectable objects, once selected, cause an action related to the determined media content. | 05-07-2015 |
| 20150127418 | NOTIFYING AN ADVERTISER OF HIGH ENGAGEMENT POSTS IN A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM - To enhance user engagement with a page posts maintained by a social networking system, a social networking system reviews posts associated with a page (e.g., a business or brand page) in a social networking system and measures a degree of user engagement with each post at one or more measures of exposure (e.g., time points or impressions). The social networking system then identifies posts for which the user engagement exceeds a threshold as high engagement or “hot” posts. An administrator associated with the page is notified of the identified high engagement post and can use this information for further promotion or boosting of the identified high engagement post. | 05-07-2015 |
| 20150113381 | TECHNIQUES TO LEVERAGE DATA FROM MOBILE HEADERS - Techniques to leverage data from mobile headers are described. In one embodiment, for example, an apparatus may comprise a network component, a data component, and a web component. The network component may be operative to receive a request for a web page from a phone, the request transmitted using one or more network packets, and to transmit the web page to the phone. The data component may be operative to extract a phone number from a header of the one or more network packets. The web component may be operative to customize the web page based on the extracted phone number. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 04-23-2015 |
| 20150113366 | METHODS FOR DYNAMIC DOCUMENT GENERATION - Dynamic web page generation is optimized by reducing the processing overhead required to parse the web page HTML code for tokens and insert dynamic content. Using the invention, an HTML file for a dynamic web page need be read and parsed only once throughout the life of the server. A software object parses the HTML, decomposes the page into constituent pieces and saves them to data structures as byte streams, which are cached, along with the software object, rendering multiple disk accesses unnecessary when the page is reconstituted. For subsequent requests, the dynamic page is created from the cached version, which is shareable across users and across requests. The optimization reduces server resource usage for dynamic page generation to near zero. The invention is also applicable to other documents combining static and dynamic content that require composition tools for editing. | 04-23-2015 |
| 20150113060 | NODE PROPERTIES IN A SOCIAL-NETWORKING SYSTEM - In one embodiment, one or more server computing devices receive, from a client computing device, a request for first information associated with a first node of a graph. The one or more server computing devices determine whether the first node is associated with a cluster of nodes. A cluster of nodes includes one or more concept nodes of the graph that are related to each other. When the first node is associated with a cluster of nodes, the one or more server computing devices access the cluster of nodes that the first node is associated with, obtain second information from one or more of the nodes in the cluster of nodes that the first node is associated with, and provide the second information for rendering by the client computing device. | 04-23-2015 |
| 20150112977 | TECHNIQUES FOR RANKING CHARACTER SEARCHES - Techniques for asynchronous rendering are described. An apparatus may comprise a character set converter application, an index server, and a ranking application. The character set converter application may receive a search string comprised of one or more first character set characters, and convert the search string to one or more second character set characters that are different than the first character set. The index server may execute a search on the converted search string to obtain ranked individual search results. The ranking application may compare any first character set characters in the ranked individual search results to the first character set characters in the search string and sub-rank the ranked individual search results based on the strength of any matches. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 04-23-2015 |
| 20150106731 | POSITIONING OF COMPONENTS IN A USER INTERFACE - In particular embodiments, a client computing device of a user provides for presentation a user interface that includes one or more components. The client computing device may receive an indication of a message to the user. The client computing device may automatically modify the user interface to accommodate presentation of an interactive element associated with the message. The client computing device may modify the user interface at least in part by automatically modifying one or more of the components. The client computing device may automatically provide for presentation the user interface as modified and the interactive element associated with the message. | 04-16-2015 |
| 20150106263 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR DYNAMICALLY PROCESSING CARD PAYMENT AUTHORIZATION REQUESTS - Exemplary methods and systems for dynamically processing payment authorization requests for gift card purchases. An exemplary method includes maintaining information associated with a gift card, receiving a payment authorization request for the gift card from a particular merchant, detecting a trigger associated with the received payment authorization request, and sending, based on the detected trigger, a response to the payment authorization request. Corresponding methods and systems are also disclosed. | 04-16-2015 |
| 20150106192 | IDENTIFYING POSTS IN A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM FOR PRESENTATION TO ONE OR MORE USER DEMOGRAPHIC GROUPS - To promote an object maintained by a social networking system, an advertiser identifies the object to the social networking system. Based on the user interaction with one or more posts associated with the object, the social networking system selects one or more candidate posts from the one or more posts. Promotion efficacies of each candidate post for a group of users having one or more common demographic characteristics are determined and a candidate post is selected based at least in part on the promotion efficacies. The selected candidate post may be identified to the advertiser or presented to additional users having the common demographic characteristic by the social networking system. | 04-16-2015 |
| 20150103189 | Applying Video Stabilization to a Multimedia Clip - In one embodiment, a method includes determining one or more motions of a camera, where the motions correspond to movements of the camera during recording of a multimedia clip. The method also includes determining one or more amounts of light present during the recording, and from the determined motions and amounts of light, determining a motion-blur metric for the multimedia clip. The method further includes determining whether to apply a video-stabilization routine to the multimedia clip based on the motion-blur metric. | 04-16-2015 |
| 20150100459 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR USING A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM TO ADD PRODUCTS TO SHOPPING CARTS OF THIRD-PARTY MERCHANTS - Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to marketing products through a social networking system. More specifically, one or more embodiments of the present invention relate to allowing social networking users to purchase products through the social networking system and to add products to shopping carts associated with third-party merchants. | 04-09-2015 |
| 20150100458 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR USING A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM TO PURCHASE PRODUCTS - Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to marketing products through a social networking system. More specifically, one or more embodiments of the present invention relate to allowing social networking users to purchase products through the social networking system and to add products to shopping carts associated with third-party merchants. | 04-09-2015 |
| 20150100415 | Position Discount Model Of Content Presented To Online System Users - An online system applies position discounts to values of various content items based on the positions in a display in which the content items are presented. The value of presenting a content item is based on historical user interactions with the content item or similar content items. A position discount reflects a change between user interacting with a content item presented in a position offset from a reference position and user interaction with the content item if it was presented in the reference position. A position discount may be determined for various content items presented in one or more positions based on user-specific, contextual, and other types of information describing user interaction with content items. Position discounts may be used by the online system to optimize selection and presentation of content items to its users. | 04-09-2015 |
| 20150088663 | Targeting Advertisements To Customized Groups Of Users Of An Online System - An online system enables developers of third-party applications to specify online system users to receive advertisements. The online system generates and sends a user-specific identifier for online system users that use a third-party application when an advertiser associated with the third-party application requests a user-specific identifier from the online system. For example, the online system retrieves user identifying information associated with a client device identifier provided by an advertiser and generates a user identifier by encrypting the retrieved user identifying information. The advertiser may include one or more user-specific identifiers in an advertisement request sent to an online system to present an advertisement in the advertisement request to online system users corresponding to the user-specific identifiers. The online system determines whether to present the advertisement to users based in part on whether users correspond to user-specific identifiers included in the advertisement request. | 03-26-2015 |
| 20150082382 | TECHNIQUES FOR MULTI-STANDARD PEER-TO-PEER CONNECTION - Techniques for multi-protocol peer-to-peer connection are described. An apparatus may comprise a discovery component to discover a remote device using a first protocol, and receive discovery information from the remote device, the discovery information including protocol information. The apparatus may comprise an authentication component to authenticate the remote device. The apparatus may comprise a connection component to establish a peer-to-peer connection with the remote device using a second protocol based on the protocol information. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 03-19-2015 |
| 20150081884 | TECHNIQUES FOR SMART DATA ROUTING - Techniques for smart data routing are described. A system may include a storage module configured to store network conditions for a plurality of networks and locations and a server device. The server device may be configured to determine network conditions for each of a plurality of networks and locations based upon detected usage of at least one mobile application being accessed via each of the plurality of networks and in each of the locations. Determined network conditions may be stored at the storage module. The server may be further configured to receive a request for a communication from a client device. Based upon at least the determined network conditions, the server may be configured to determine routing information for the communication. Once determined, the server may be configured to provide the routing information for the communication to the client device. | 03-19-2015 |
| 20150081630 | Generating Offline Content - In one embodiment, a method includes receiving, from a user of a client computing device and when the client computing device is disconnected from an on-line service, input associated with the on-line service. The method further includes locally storing or modifying locally stored content associated with the on-line service based on the input. The client computing device may determine data contemporaneous with the content and locally associate the data with the content. The method further includes automatically uploading the content as locally stored or modified and the data locally associated with the content to the on-line service when the client computing device is connected to the on-line service. | 03-19-2015 |
| 20150081449 | Selecting Content Items For Presentation To A Social Networking System User In A Newsfeed - To increase the likelihood of a user viewing content items previously identified for presentation but not viewed by the user, a social networking system accesses a view state associated with the user that identifies content items provided to the user and provided content items viewed by the user. Based on the view state, content items previously provided to the user but not viewed by the user are identified. Additional content items whose state has changed since presentation of the content items to the user are also identified. Content items previously presented to the user but not viewed with at least a threshold relevance to the user are ranked along with the additional content items. Based on the ranking, content items are selected for presentation to the user. | 03-19-2015 |
| 20150079961 | TECHNIQUES FOR PHONE NUMBER AND DATA MANAGEMENT - Techniques for phone number and data management are described. A storage module may be configured to store contact information for a plurality of users, which may be members of a social network. A server device may be configured to receive a SIM change event from a mobile device associated with a first user of the plurality of users. The SIM change event may include updated contact information for the first user. The server may further be configured to identify one or more users from the plurality of users associated with the first user, and provide the updated contact information to one or more mobile devices associated with the one or more identified users. | 03-19-2015 |
| 20150079935 | TECHNIQUES FOR MOBILE DEVICE PERSONALIZATION - Techniques for mobile device personalization are described. In an embodiment, user credentials for an online service are received at a mobile device kiosk. The user credentials may be authenticated and, upon authentication, user data associated with the user credentials may be transferred to a mobile device of the mobile device kiosk. The user data may be transferred between the mobile device kiosk and a wireless transmitter embedded on a printed circuit board (PCB) of the mobile device. Further, the user data may be transferred to the mobile device without powering on the mobile device. Once the data transfer is complete, the mobile device may be provided to a user. | 03-19-2015 |
| 20150074596 | TECHNIQUES TO DISPLAY LOCATION-BASED INFORMATION - Techniques to display location-based information are described. An apparatus may comprise a screen management component and an interface component. The screen management component may be operative to display in a first screen area location-based information on a map according to geographic location, to display in a second screen area a list comprising the location-based information, and to adjust a relative size of the first screen area and the second screen area in response to a received interaction with one of the first screen area and second screen area. The interface component may be operative to receive the interaction with one of the first screen area and second screen area. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 03-12-2015 |
| 20150074020 | SENTIMENT POLARITY FOR USERS OF A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM - A social networking system infers a sentiment polarity of a user toward content of a page. The sentiment polarity of the user is inferred based on received information about an interaction between the user and the page (e.g., like, report, etc.), and may be based on analysis of a topic extracted from text on the page. The system infers a positive or negative sentiment polarity of the user toward the content of the page, and that sentiment polarity then may be associated with any second or subsequent interaction from the user related to the page content. The system may identify a set of trusted users with strong sentiment polarities toward the content of a page or topic, and may use the trusted user data as training data for a machine learning model, which can be used to more accurately infer sentiment polarity of users as new data is received. | 03-12-2015 |
| 20150073920 | Allocating Information For Content Selection Among Computing Resources Of An Online System - When an online system receives a request to present content items to a user, a content selection system included in the online system selects content items for presentation to the user during a latency period from the time the request was received until the time when the content items are sent. A feedback control mechanism communicates with each computing device of the content selection system to determine the latency period of each computing device. The feedback control mechanism also determines a target latency period in which content items are selected. By comparing the latency period of each computing device to the target latency period, an amount of information to be evaluated by each computing device is determined based on whether a computing device's latency period is greater than or less than the target latency period. | 03-12-2015 |
| 20150067032 | TECHNIQUES FOR SERVER-CONTROLLED TILING OF LOCATION-BASED INFORMATION - Techniques for server-controlled tiling of location-based information are described. An apparatus may comprise a communication component and a tile component. The communication component may be operative to receive a location-based search request from a client application, the location-based search request comprising a geographic area, and to transmit a plurality of tiles to the client application. The tile component may be operative to determine the plurality of tiles as a set of tiles that cover the geographic area, each tile of the plurality of tiles covering a portion of the geographic area and comprising a set of locations. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 03-05-2015 |
| 20150066614 | PROMOTION WITH FRIENDS - Exemplary methods and apparatuses facilitate a promotion for users of a social networking system by receiving a promotional identifier from a user device of a first user in the social networking system and entering the first user into the promotion. Selection of a second user for participation in the promotion is received from the first user. In response to receiving an indication that the second user has completed an action within the social networking system, the likelihood of the first user winning an award or the quality of the award is increased. | 03-05-2015 |
| 20150062179 | TILTING TO SCROLL - In one embodiment, a method includes determining, by a computing device, a scroll range for an image based on a dimension of the image, determining the image's origin position device's initial tilt, determining a second tilt and a rate of rotation about a first axis, and determining a rate of rotation about a second axis. The method includes comparing the device's rate of rotation about the first axis with the device's rate of rotation about the second axis or one of its components. The method further includes determining, based on the comparison, whether to render a scrolling presentation of the image. When the scrolling presentation of the image is to be rendered, the method includes determining a progress parameter based on the scroll range, the origin position, the initial tilt, and the second tilt; and rendering a scrolling presentation of the image based on the progress parameter. | 03-05-2015 |
| 20150062178 | TILTING TO SCROLL - In one embodiment, a method includes determining, by a computing device, an origin position of an image for display on the device and determining a subsequent position of the image. The method further includes rendering the image in its origin position when a predetermined movement of the device is detected. | 03-05-2015 |
| 20150058758 | PLATFORM SHOW PAGES - In one embodiment, a method includes determining available shows from one or more content sources, providing at least a portion of the available shows for display in a programming guide on a display device of a user, receiving a selection by the user of a particular entry in the programming guide, determining a plurality of modules for the particular show, and providing a show page that includes the determined modules for display on the display device in response to the selection by the user. The entries of the programming guide are each associated with one of the available shows. At least one of the determined modules includes social content from a social graph of the social-networking system. | 02-26-2015 |
| 20150058757 | CONTENT OWNER MODULES - In one embodiment, a method includes providing a show page for display on a display device of a user in response to a selection by the user of an entry in a programming guide displayed on the display device, determining that the show page has previously been claimed by a content owner, accessing a content-owner module provided by the content owner, and providing the content-owner module for display on the show page. The show page includes a plurality of modules, and the show page is associated with particular media content. | 02-26-2015 |
| 20150058751 | Facepile Integrated Communications - In one embodiment, a method includes determining, from a social graph, a plurality of second users having a connection to a first user, providing a facepile for display on a display device of the first user, and providing a communications composer for display on the display device in response to a user-selection by the first user within the facepile. The facepile includes a plurality of visual indications of the plurality of second users having a connection to the first user and each visual indication is associated with one of the plurality of second users. The communications composer includes a user interface that provides communication between the first user and the plurality of second users associated with the visual indications displayed in the facepile. | 02-26-2015 |
| 20150052270 | Techniques for Transmitting a Command to Control a Peripheral Device through an Audio Port - Examples are disclosed for transmitting a command to control a peripheral device through an audio port. In some examples, the peripheral device may be coupled to a computing device via an interconnect. The interconnect may have an audio jack to couple with the computing device through an audio port and a connector to couple with a serial interface at the peripheral device. For these examples, elements of the computing device may receive a command to control the peripheral device and may generate analog signals including the command and a clock signal. The analog signals may then be transmitted through the audio port. The interconnect may be capable of converting the analog signals to a digital signal that includes the command and clock signal then provide the digital signal to the serial interface at the peripheral device. Other examples are described and claimed. | 02-19-2015 |
| 20150052070 | TECHNIQUES TO PROMOTE MESSAGES - Techniques to promote messages in a social networking services to increase communication opportunities while throttling unsolicited messages are described. In one embodiment, an apparatus may have a message generation component and a message delivery component. The message generation component may be operative to receive a request from a first member of a social networking service (SNS) to send a message for a second member of the SNS. The message delivery component may be operative to deliver the message to one of multiple mailboxes for the second member based on a tiered payment schedule. The tiered payment schedule may include a first parameter to represent a relationship type between the first and second members, a second parameter to represent a subscriber tier for the second member, and a third parameter to represent a promotional cost associated with the subscriber tier. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 02-19-2015 |
| 20150052061 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR FACILITATING E-COMMERCE PAYMENTS - Methods for facilitating financial transactions include facilitating or otherwise increasing the ease and speed of checkout processes. In particular, one or more implementations comprise an e-commerce payment facilitator that acts as an intermediary between a commerce application and a payment gateway. The e-commerce payment facilitator can provide stored payment information to a commerce application based on a few simple selections by a user. This allows a user to easily and securely complete commerce transactions, which simplifies the user's checkout experience and reduces barriers to purchase. Furthermore, the e-commerce payment facilitator can pass payment details to the commerce application's payment gateway. In addition to the foregoing, methods involve dynamically and intelligently providing a user the option of using payment information stored by the network application. | 02-19-2015 |
| 20150052036 | DYNAMICALLY PROVIDING A THIRD-PARTY CHECKOUT OPTION - Methods for facilitating financial transactions include facilitating or otherwise increasing the ease and speed of checkout processes. In particular, one or more implementations comprise an e-commerce payment facilitator that acts as an intermediary between a commerce application and a payment gateway. The e-commerce payment facilitator can provide stored payment information to a commerce application based on a few simple selections by a user. This allows a user to easily and securely complete commerce transactions, which simplifies the user's checkout experience and reduces barriers to purchase. Furthermore, the e-commerce payment facilitator can pass payment details to the commerce application's payment gateway. In addition to the foregoing, methods involve dynamically and intelligently providing a user the option of using payment information stored by the network application. | 02-19-2015 |
| 20150051987 | ADVERTISEMENT SELECTION AND PRICING BASED ON ADVERTISEMENT TYPE AND PLACEMENT - An online system selects advertisements for presentation in various advertisement slots to maximize the total value to the online system for advertisement presentation. Candidate advertisements for presentation to a user are identified and types of advertisements are associated with various advertisement slots. For example, types of advertisements are associated with advertisement slots based on values for presenting various types of advertisements in different advertisement slots and one or more ad placement rules. Candidate advertisements having an advertisement type associated with each advertisement slot are identified, and an expected value of various placements of the candidate advertisements having a type corresponding to advertisement slots is determined. Based on the expected values, a placement of candidate advertisements in advertisement slots is selected and presented to a user. | 02-19-2015 |
| 20150051981 | SELECTING ADVERTISEMENTS FOR PRESENTATION BY A CLIENT DEVICE IN A LIMITED FUNCTIONALITY STATE - A social networking system selects advertisements for presentation to a user while a client device used by the user is in a state that provides limited functionality to the user, such as a locked state. Based on objectives associated with various advertisements, the social networking system determines interactions associated with advertisements and selects advertisements associated with interactions capable of being performed while the client device is in the state that provides limited functionality to the user or associated with no interaction. The social networking system sends the advertisements to the client device for display to the user while the client device is in the state of limited functionality. | 02-19-2015 |
| 20150051980 | PRICING ADVERTISEMENTS PRESENTED BY A CLIENT DEVICE IN A LIMITED FUNCTIONALITY STATE - A social networking system prices advertisements presented to a user of a social networking system via a client device in a state that provides the user with limited functionality by applying discount factors to bid amounts associated with advertisements selected for presentation. A discount factor is based on the likelihood of the user viewing or interacting with an advertisement via the social networking system presented while the client device is in the state providing the user with limited functionality. This likelihood is determined based on information including a history of user interaction with the client device and contextual information indicating whether the client device is in use. | 02-19-2015 |
| 20150050993 | TECHNIQUES TO INTERACT WITH AN APPLICATION VIA MESSAGING - Techniques to interact with an application via messaging are described. An apparatus may comprise an application support component and a communication component. The application support component may be operative to generate an image representing a state of an application and to update the state of the application according to a text command. The communication component may be operative to transmit the image to a client device via a messaging system as an image attachment to a first message and to receive a second message from the client device via the messaging system, the second message comprising the text command. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 02-19-2015 |
| 20150046934 | IDENTIFYING SOFTWARE APPLICATION EVENTS - In one embodiment, a method includes receiving, by a server computing device, a notification which includes: information associated with the identity of the user associated with the user-initiated event or with the identity of the client computing device; a variable, pre-determined string of symbols for the user-initiated event associated with the notification; a variable number describing a value of an attribute associated with the user-initiated event; and a variable parameter describing an attribute of the user at or near the time of the event or an attribute of the variable number. The method includes correlating, by the server computing device, the user-initiated events with a user; and determining, by the computing device, a description of the user-initiated event associated with the notification based at least in part on the string of symbols. | 02-12-2015 |
| 20150046841 | User Experience/User Interface Based on Interaction History - In one embodiment, a method includes determining, relative to a base user experience (UX), one or more modifications to one or more graphical elements of a user interface (UI) for display to a particular user. The modifications are configured to personalize the UI individually to the particular user and based on a computational determination of one or more categories applicable to the particular user. The method also includes applying the modifications to the UI; and providing the UI as modified for display to the particular user. | 02-12-2015 |
| 20150046528 | OBJECTIVE VALUE MODELS FOR ENTITY RECOMMENDATION - A method for making entity recommendations to users of a social networking system (SNS) by maximizing a predicted benefit to the SNS through objective value models. The method includes generating a plurality of candidate entities eligible for recommendation, and determining a weight for each candidate entity based upon an output score generated by an objective value model. The objective value model utilizes objectively measurable input values describing the candidate entities and generates larger output scores for those candidate entities that would create larger predicted increases in an objectively measurable amount of benefit for the SNS created by a potential connection being created between the user and the respective candidate entity. One or more entities are selected based upon the determined weights, and an entity recommendation user interface is presented to the user that includes one or more recommendation modules identifying the selected one or more entities. | 02-12-2015 |
| 20150046436 | REAL-TIME TREND DETECTION IN A SOCIAL NETWORK - Systems, methods, and apparatuses for tracking trends at an online presence are described. In some embodiments, an interactivity data structure and a tenured interactivity data structure are utilized in determining trends quickly. | 02-12-2015 |
| 20150046225 | Survey Targeting - Exemplary methods, apparatuses, and systems generate a first candidate list of users that meet a first set one or more characteristics and a second candidate list of users that meet a second set one or more characteristics. When a user appears in both of the first and second candidate lists, the user is selected to receive only the first survey or only the second survey based upon a first priority value for the first survey and a second priority value for the second survey. | 02-12-2015 |
| 20150039597 | Rewriting Search Queries on Online Social Networks - In one embodiment, a method includes accessing a set of queries of an online social network received from one or more users of the online social network, parsing each query using a parsing algorithm to generate a query command based on each query, each query command comprising one or more query constraints for a specified number of objects of a specified object-type as specified by parsing-configuration parameters of the parsing algorithm, retrieving the specified number of objects that match at least a portion of the query constraint from one or more data stores associated with the online social network, scoring each retrieved object based on a scoring algorithm, and generating one or more revised parsing-configuration parameters based on a comparison of the scores of the retrieved objects and the specified number of objects of the query constraints. | 02-05-2015 |
| 20150039596 | Static Rankings for Search Queries on Online Social Networks - In one embodiment, a method includes accessing a set of queries of an online social network received from one or more users of the online social network, retrieving for each query a number of objects that match at least a portion of the query from one or more data stores associated with the online social network, where each object is associated with a pre-determined static-score based on a static-scoring algorithm, calculating a final-score for each retrieved object based on a final-scoring algorithm, and determining one or more revised static-scores for one or more of the retrieved objects based on a comparison of the final-scores and the static-scores of the retrieved objects. | 02-05-2015 |
| 20150039524 | Detecting And Responding To Sentiment-Based Communications About A Business On A Social Networking System - A social networking system identifies communications about an object associated with a brand owner. For each communication, the social networking system identifies users who were generated the communication, users who were exposed to the communication, and users who were not exposed to the communication. The social networking system determines a sentiment associated with a communication and may send a report based on the sentiment of the communications towards the brand owner. A request from a brand owner to present one or more response communications to users based on the users' relationship to a communication from a user about the object and the sentiment determined from the communication may be received by the social networking system. Based on the request, the social networking system presents a response communication to one or more users. | 02-05-2015 |
| 20150033119 | Index for Electronic String of Symbols - In one embodiment, a method includes accessing a string of symbols by a computing device. The string is divided into one or more string components each including at least one of the symbols, and each string component is associated with at least one string-position identifier. The string components and their respective associated string-position identifiers are stored for the string of symbols. | 01-29-2015 |
| 20150032866 | Native Application Testing - In one embodiment, a method includes deploying an application to a plurality of client system, providing a treatment of the application to a set of client systems by receiving a request from the client system, determining whether the client system belongs in a treat group, remotely activating the treatment, and synchronizing activation of the treatment in response to subsequent requests, and receiving exposure data from the set of client system identifying exposure of the users to the treatment. | 01-29-2015 |
| 20150013016 | PRIVACY MODEL FOR SHARED COLLECTIONS OF CONTENT ON A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM - A social networking system user creates an album including a shared collection of content (a “shared album”) and associates a privacy model with the shared album. The privacy model specifies additional users of the social networking system authorized to access content items in the shared album and specifies types of actions users authorized to access content items in the shared album are permitted to perform to content items in the shared album. Notifications describing actions associated with content items in a shared album may be presented to users authorized to access the shared album. The social networking system may prompt a user to create a shared album containing based on actions performed by the user or performed by connected to the user. | 01-08-2015 |
| 20150012710 | CACHE STICKINESS INDEX FOR CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORKING SYSTEMS - Various embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a cache stickiness index for providing measurable metrics associated with caches of a content delivery networking system. In one embodiment, a method for generating a cache stickiness index, including a cluster stickiness index and a region stickiness index, is disclosed. In embodiments, the cluster stickiness index is generated by comparing cache keys shared among a plurality of front-end clusters. In embodiments, the region stickiness index is generated by comparing cache keys shared among a plurality of data centers. In one embodiment, a system comprising means for generating a stickiness index is disclosed. | 01-08-2015 |
| 20140379483 | USER-SPECIFIED DISTRIBUTION OF STORIES DESCRIBING USER ACTIONS IN A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM - A social networking system receives a sponsored story request identifying a story describing an action performed by a social networking system user and generates a sponsored story accordingly. The sponsored story request may also include a bid amount and other information for generating a sponsored story from the sponsored story request. When an action is included in a sponsored story presented to a social networking system user, the social networking system notifies the user associated with the action and provides one or more settings regulating inclusion of actions associated with the user in sponsored story requests. For example, settings allow a user to prevent generation of sponsored stories including a specified type of action, a specific action, or multiple actions associated with the user. Hence, the settings allow a user to limit or prevent generation of sponsored stories describing actions associated with the user. | 12-25-2014 |
| 20140365320 | VIEW-BASED PLACEMENT OF ADVERTISEMENTS IN SCROLLABLE ADVERTISEMENT UNITS - An online system selects advertisements for inclusion in a scrollable advertisement unit that includes a display area and multiple advertisements, each associated with a position in the scrollable advertisement unit. Positions in the scrollable advertisement unit are ranked based on a measure of predicted performance of an advertisement in each position. Advertisements are ranked based on a probability of being viewed by a user if associated with a particular position in the scrollable advertisement unit and, optionally, on a probability of presenting an advertisement based on characteristics of the advertisement. The position ranking and the advertisement ranking are used to associate advertisements with positions. For example, an advertisement is associated with a position having a location in the position ranking corresponding to the advertisement's position in the advertisement ranking. | 12-11-2014 |
| 20140358555 | Periodic Ambient Waveform Analysis for Enhanced Social Functions - In particular embodiments, one or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media embody software that is operable when executed to receive an audio waveform fingerprint and a client-determined location from a client device. The received audio waveform fingerprint may be compared to a database of stored audio waveform fingerprints, each stored audio waveform fingerprint associated with an object in an object database. One or more matching audio waveform fingerprints may be found from a comparison set of audio waveform fingerprints obtained from the audio waveform fingerprint database. Location information associated with a location of the client device may be determined, and the location information may be sent to the client device. The client device may be operable to update the client-determined location based at least in part on the location information. | 12-04-2014 |
| 20140354657 | TECHNIQUES FOR RENDERING AND CACHING GRAPHICS ASSETS - Various embodiments are generally directed to techniques for downloading graphics assets of a software application in a form in which they are rendered as needed on a computing device based on its characteristics and then stored therein for later use. A computer-implemented method includes determining whether a requested graphics asset is stored in a storage of a computing device, retrieving the graphics asset from the storage when the graphics asset is stored in the storage, rendering the graphics asset when the graphics asset is not stored in the storage, and visually presenting the graphics asset on a display of the computing device. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 12-04-2014 |
| 20140351717 | User-Based Interactive Elements For Content Sharing - In one embodiment, a method includes providing for display to a user of a computing device a first user interface of a first application. The device provides for display in connection with the first user interface multiple interactive elements that each correspond to a node of a social graph associated with a social-networking system. The device receives user input selecting one of the interactive elements and in response to the user input provides for presentation to the user a second user interface of a second application for communicating with the node of the social graph corresponding to the selected interactive element. The second user interface provided for presentation is automatically associated with the user, the node of the social graph corresponding to the selected one of the interactive elements, and content associated with the first application. | 11-27-2014 |
| 20140351687 | Contextual Alternate Text for Images - In one embodiment, one or more server computing devices receive from a client computing device associate with a user a request for a structured document including an image; the server computing devices access a data store for data associated with the image; the server computing devices construct based at least in part on at least some of the data associated with the image a text string corresponding to the image in the structured document; the text string is configured to be audibly read out by the client computing device; the server computing devices also send the structured document with the text string to the client computing device for presentation to the user. | 11-27-2014 |
| 20140351204 | Database Sharding with Incorporated Updates - In one embodiment, a method includes receiving an update of activity associated with one or more content objects associated with a search term. The content objects associated with the search term are indexed on a list of one or more index servers or a term server. The list of the term server include identifier information of one or more content object types. The list of the index servers include identifier information of a single content object type. The method also includes determining whether the search term has a number of associated content objects exceeding a pre-determined threshold number; and modifying the list associated with the search term of a term server or one or more of the index servers based at least in part on the determination and in response to the update. | 11-27-2014 |
| 20140351203 | Database Sharding with Update Layer - In one embodiment, a method includes receiving an update of activity associated with one or more content objects associated with a search term. The search term is associated with a number of content objects exceeding a pre-determined threshold number. The content objects associated with the search term are indexed on a list of one or more index servers. The list includes identifier information corresponding to the content objects. The method also includes modifying the list of one or more of the index servers in response to the update. | 11-27-2014 |
| 20140337007 | HYBRID, OFFLINE/ONLINE SPEECH TRANSLATION SYSTEM - A hybrid speech translation system whereby a wireless-enabled client computing device can, in an offline mode, translate input speech utterances from one language to another locally, and also, in an online mode when there is wireless network connectivity, have a remote computer perform the translation and transmit it back to the client computing device via the wireless network for audible outputting by client computing device. The user of the client computing device can transition between modes or the transition can be automatic based on user preferences or settings. The back-end speech translation server system can adapt the various recognition and translation models used by the client computing device in the offline mode based on analysis of user data over time, to thereby configure the client computing device with scaled-down, yet more efficient and faster, models than the back-end speech translation server system, while still be adapted for the user's domain. | 11-13-2014 |
| 20140331201 | OPTIMIZING INTERMEDIATE REPRESENTATION OF SCRIPT CODE FOR FAST PATH EXECUTION - Disclosed here are methods, systems, paradigms and structures for optimizing intermediate representation (IR) of a script code for fast path execution. A fast path is typically a path that handles most commonly occurring tasks more efficiently than less commonly occurring ones which are handled by slow paths. The less commonly occurring tasks may include uncommon cases, error handling, and other anomalies. The IR includes checkpoints which evaluate to two possible values resulting in either a fast path or slow path execution. The IR is optimized for fast path execution by regenerating a checkpoint as a labeled checkpoint. The code in the portion of the IR following the checkpoint is optimized assuming the checkpoint evaluates to a value resulting in fast path. The code for handling situations where the checkpoint evaluates to a value resulting in slow path is transferred to a portion of the IR identified by the label. | 11-06-2014 |
| 20140329456 | PROXIMITY SYNCHRONIZATION OF AUDIO CONTENT AMONG MULTIPLE PLAYBACK AND STORAGE DEVICES - A wireless communication system and in particular to a wireless communication system for digital audio players that provides for increased functionality, such as communication, interaction and synchronization between a computing platform and various mobile, portable or fixed digital audio players, as well as providing a communication link between the various digital audio players themselves. The computing platform may act, for example, through a wireless network or wireless communication platform, to control the digital audio players; to act as a cache of digital audio data for the digital audio players; as well as provide a gateway to the Internet to enable the digital audio players to access additional digital audio content and other information. The computing platform may also be used to automatically update digital audio content on the digital audio players; synchronize digital audio content and playlists between digital audio players; and automatically continue a particular playlist as the user moves from one digital audio player to another. | 11-06-2014 |
| 20140324741 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS OF CLASSIFYING SPAM URL - A method of operation of a URL spam detection system includes: identifying a feature dimension of a user action on a social networking system to detect anomalies; extracting URL chunks from a content associated with the user action; aggregating a non-content feature of the user action along the feature dimension into a URL distribution store to produce a feature distribution for each of the URL chunks; determining whether the feature distribution of a particular URL chunk within the URL chunks exceeds an expectation threshold for the feature dimension; and classifying the particular URL chunk as an illegitimate URL when the feature distribution exceeds the expectation threshold to restrict access to a particular URL chunk on a social networking system. | 10-30-2014 |
| 20140317732 | CATEGORIZING SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM USERS BASED ON USER CONNECTIONS TO OBJECTS - When a social networking system receives a report of malicious activity, the social networking system calculates disabled connectivity score for a user reporting the activity or identified by the report. The disabled connectivity score indicates how strongly the user is associated with other objects that have been disabled by the social networking system. Hence, the disabled connectivity score provides a measure of the user's trustworthiness that is used to determine a type of action to be taken in response to the report. Examples of actions that may be taken when a report is received include ignoring the report, further reviewing the report, or taking remedial action by disabling or deleting an object maintained by the social networking system that is the subject of the report. | 10-23-2014 |
| 20140317607 | OPTIMIZING INTERMEDIATE REPRESENTATION OF SCRIPT CODE BY ELIMINATING REDUNDANT REFERENCE COUNT OPERATIONS - Disclosed here are methods, systems, paradigms and structures for optimizing generation of intermediate representation (IR) for a script code by eliminating redundant object reference count operations from the IR. An IR of the script includes (a) a set of first code that increments a reference count of an object when a programming construct refers to the object, and (b) an associated set of second code which decrements the reference count of the object when a reference to the object is removed. The IR is analyzed to identify a subset of the set of second code which, upon execution, does not decrement the reference count of the object to a zero value. The subset of second code and the first code corresponding to the subset is removed from the IR to generate an optimized IR. The optimized IR is further converted to an executable code. | 10-23-2014 |
| 20140317557 | CONSTRAINING DISPLAY MOTION IN DISPLAY NAVIGATION - Navigating on a display includes tracking motion of an input tool on a display, comparing a motion of the input tool to a threshold, and changing a position of the visible portion of a page of information on the display if the input tool motion exceeds the threshold. The position of the visible portion of the page of information on the display is constrained if the motion does not exceed the threshold. | 10-23-2014 |
| 20140317448 | INCREMENTAL CHECKPOINTS - A method and system on failure recovery in a storage system are disclosed. In the storage system, user data streams (e.g., log data) are collected by a scribeh system. The scribeh system may include a plurality of Calligraphus servers, HDFS and Zookeeper. The Calligraphus servers may shard the user data streams based on keys (e.g., category and bucket pairs) and stream the user data streams to Puma nodes. Sharded user data streams may be aggregated according to the keys in memory of a specific Puma node. Periodically, aggregated user data streams cached in memory of the specific Puma node, together with a Incremental checkpoint, are persisted to HBase. When a specific process on the specific Puma node fails, Ptail retrieves the Incremental checkpoint from HBase and then restores the specific process by requesting user data streams processed by the specific process from the scribeh system according to the Incremental checkpoint. | 10-23-2014 |
| 20140317184 | Pre-Fetching Newsfeed Stories from a Social Networking System for Presentation to a User - A social networking system presents a viewing user with a newsfeed of stories describing actions performed by other social networking system users. In particular, the social networking system provides a pre-fetched set of newsfeed stories to a user device of the viewing user and a presentation order for the stories. The social networking system does not “lock” the set of newsfeed stories or the presentation order. The user device locally stores the pre-fetched ranked set of newsfeed stories upon receipt. When the viewing user later requests presentation of newsfeed stories, the user device retrieves the set of newsfeed stories and presents, to the viewing user, stories from the set according to the presentation order. A request is also sent to the social networking system to “lock” the presented newsfeed stories and the order in which the newsfeed stories were presented. | 10-23-2014 |
| 20140306986 | Identifying Content in Electronic Images - In one embodiment, a method includes accessing an electronic image comprising a surface area and dividing the electronic image into a plurality of surfaces. The method further includes determining that one or more of the surfaces comprise a type of graphics, and determining a percentage of the surface area of the image that is occupied by the one or more surfaces determined to comprise the type of graphics. | 10-16-2014 |
| 20140304061 | Obtaining Metrics for Online Advertising Using Multiple Sources of User Data - A system for obtaining metrics for online advertising uses multiple sources of user data, including panel data, social networking system data, and user data from other online service providers. An advertising impression system notifies each data source when an advertising impression occurs for an advertising campaign. The user data sources identify users corresponding to the impression by referencing a look-up table that matches a user ID at the advertising impression system with the user ID of users at the user data source. Each user data source generates a demographics report based on the user data known to that user data source. The user data sources transmit the demographics reports to a data aggregator, which determines estimated viewing statistics based on the various user data sources without revealing personally identifiable information from the user data sources. | 10-09-2014 |
| 20140298220 | Interactive Elements in a User Interface - In particular embodiments, a computing device provides for presentation to a user a user interface, the user interface including a plurality of related interactive elements. The computing device may receive touch gesture input from the user selecting one of the plurality of related interactive elements. The touch gesture input may have a duration of at least a pre-determined amount of time. The computing device, in response to the touch gesture input, may rearrange the plurality of related interactive elements, rearranging including stacking the plurality of related interactive elements for presentation to the user. | 10-02-2014 |
| 20140298191 | Interactive Elements in a User Interface - In particular embodiments, a computing device provides for presentation to a user a first user interface, the first user interface including a plurality of interactive elements. The computing device receives first user input selecting one of the interactive elements. In response to the first user input, the computing device provides for presentation to the user an animation associated with the selected one of the interactive elements. The computing device receives second user input associated with the selected one of the interactive element and, in response to the second user input, provides for presentation to the user a second user interface, the second user interface being associated with the selected one of the interactive elements. | 10-02-2014 |
| 20140297404 | Obtaining Metrics for Online Advertising Using Multiple Sources of User Data - A system for obtaining metrics for online advertising uses multiple sources of user data, including panel data, social networking system data, and user data from other online service providers. To avoid data leakage that could occur if the different providers were to share their user data, an advertising server accesses user data from the various sources and applies rules for obtaining the advertising metrics from the various user data sources. The rules may determine what data to use when there are conflicts between the different sources. Derived data may also be used to provide an indication of underlying demographics data without revealing personal information from the data source. | 10-02-2014 |
| 20140289815 | Authorization and Authentication Based on an Individual's Social Network - In particular embodiments, a method includes receiving a request for a first user to access a loan from a lender, the request identifying a user identifier (ID) of the first user; determining whether the first user is authorized to access the loan based at least in part on a gray list comprising user IDs of the users who are not authorized to access loans, wherein the gray list is based on a black list; and permitting the loan to be accessed by the first user if the first user is authorized to access the loan based on the gray list. | 09-25-2014 |
| 20140289734 | CACHE MANAGEMENT IN A MULTI-THREADED ENVIRONMENT - Disclosed here are methods, systems, paradigms and structures for deleting shared resources from a cache in a multi-threaded system. The shared resources can be used by a plurality of requests belonging to multiple threads executing in the system. When requests, such as requests for executing script code, and work items, such as work items for deleting a shared resource, are created, a global sequence number is assigned to each of them. The sequence number indicates the order in which the requests and work items are created. A particular work item can be executed to delete the shared resource if there are no requests having a sequence number lesser than that of the particular work item executing in the system. However, if there is at least one request with a sequence number lesser than that of the particular work item executing, the work item is ignored until the request completes executing. | 09-25-2014 |
| 20140289028 | Location Aware Deals - In one embodiment, a request is received from a first user to create a location-triggered benefit that may be redeemed by a second user at a vendor and associated with a condition. The first user is not the vendor, and the condition may require that the second user go to a particular location. A record of the location-triggered benefit may be created in a database. Information may be received that the second user has satisfied the condition, and in response, the second user may be allowed to redeem the location-triggered benefit at the vendor. | 09-25-2014 |
| 20140282884 | INSTANT PERSONALIZATION SECURITY - A method and system for instant personalization security are provided. The system includes a platform on a user to open applications and/or access web sites. When an application is integrated with the platform, the identification of the application can be combined with the ID of the user and encrypted into a hashed ID. The application does not have access to the user's fully identifying profile (e.g., UID or other public information). Instead, the application only has access to pseudonymous profile (e.g., the hashed ID, first name, last initial, small profile pictures and/or other non-fully identifying profile information) of the user. One or more options are then provided for the user to authorize or reject the application to access the user's fully identifying profile. Upon the user's authorization, an access token is provided to the application to access a subset of the user's fully identifying profile. | 09-18-2014 |
| 20140282837 | PRIVACY VERIFICATION TOOL - Systems and methods for protecting the privacy of users by controlling access to the users' data. In particular, some embodiments provide for a higher-level declarative language for expressing privacy policies which can be verified using a computer-aided verification tool. The verification tool uses the expressed privacy policies along with language-level assumptions and assertions in the verification process. For example, high-level models of the privacy policies can be reduced to a simpler verification representation (e.g., a Boolean representation) based on a set of assertions. This verification representation can then be submitted to a constraint solver (e.g., Satisfiability Modulo Theories solver) for verification. | 09-18-2014 |
| 20140282114 | Interactive Elements with Labels in a User Interface - In particular embodiments, a computing device provides for presentation a first user interface including a first interactive element. The computing device receives first user input selecting the first interactive element and, in response to the first user input, provides for presentation multiple second interactive elements, each of the second interactive elements being presented with an associated label. The computing device receives a second user input selecting one of the second interactive elements and, in response to the second user input, provides for presentation a second user interface. | 09-18-2014 |
| 20140281847 | Overlaying Photographs With Text On A Social Networking System - When a social networking system receives an image and associated text for presentation to one or more users, the social networking system determines how to present the text and the image. For example, the social networking system determines if to overlay the text onto an area of the image. A readability score indicating the readability of the text if overlaid onto an area of the image is determined based on attributes of the image and of the text. Using the readability score, the social networking system overlays the text onto an area of the image when presented to other users or presents the text adjacent to the image when presented to other users. | 09-18-2014 |
| 20140280945 | Authorization and Authentication Based on an Individual's Social Network - In particular embodiments, a method includes receiving a request to transmit content related to a first user to a second user, determining whether transmission of the content is authorized based on a list of unauthorized users, and transmitting the content to the second user if the transmission is authorized based on the list. | 09-18-2014 |
| 20140280655 | Controlling Notification Based on Power Expense and Social Factors - In one embodiment, a computer system determines a wireless transmit cost for each of one or more outgoing messages for a first user, and transmits to the first user's mobile device at least one of the one or more outgoing messages based on the mobile device's power state and respective wireless transmit costs of the one or more outgoing messages. | 09-18-2014 |
| 20140280126 | CACHING SLIDING WINDOW DATA - Disclosed are methods, systems, paradigms and structures for caching data associated with a sliding window in computer systems. A sliding window can include a time window that progresses with time, and the data can include time series data. As time progresses, the sliding window changes bringing in new data. The cache is updated with new data as and when the sliding window moves. The sliding window data is cached at various granularity levels. The method includes storing a first portion of the data at a first granularity level and a second portion at a second granularity level. The data is cached at various granularity levels in order to effectively use the cache considering at least cache updating criteria such as (i) number of times a storage unit is queried to retrieve the data for updating the cache, (ii) the day/date/time at which the storage unit is queried. | 09-18-2014 |
| 20140280105 | GENERATING METRICS FOR CONTENT ITEMS PRESENTED IN AN ONLINE SYSTEM - An online system allows creators and owners of content items presented within the system to view real-time metrics related to the content items. The online system stores data describing user interactions with content items in one or more activity logs and processes the activity logs in a distributed manner activity to identify user interactions with content items. For example, activity logs are divided into several portions that are processed in parallel using aggregation operators to generate user interaction aggregations. An aggregation includes one or more user interactions associated with the same content item and sharing certain criteria. From the user interaction aggregations, the online system determines one or more requested metrics, and may combine user interaction aggregations related to different content items when computing metrics. | 09-18-2014 |
| 20140279595 | REVIEWING ADVERTISEMENT COMPONENTS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH POLICIES OF AN ONLINE SYSTEM - An advertisement is received by an online system, which divides the advertisement into components. The online system determines whether the components satisfy one or more policies of the online system. Tags may be associated with components of the advertisement that describe characteristics of the component. Tags are compared to one or more advertisement rules from a policy to determine if a component corresponding to the tags satisfies the policy. The online system may notify advertisers of advertisement components that do not satisfy the a policy of the online system to allow the advertiser to more easily modify advertisements for subsequent compliance. | 09-18-2014 |
| 20140279509 | METHOD FOR IMPLEMENTING AN ALTERNATIVE PAYMENT - One variation of a method includes: receiving a transaction request, the transaction request comprising an identity of a user, a location of a vendor, and a price of a transaction; identifying a set of payment methods available to the user, a particular payment method in the set of payment methods characterized by a discrete payment structure defining a discrete payment increment; ranking the available payment methods according to a preferred payment method associated with the location of the vendor, according to the discrete payment structure of the particular payment method, and according to the price of the transaction; receiving a selection from the user for the particular payment method for the transaction; and authorizing a payment to the vendor with the particular payment method. | 09-18-2014 |
| 20140279418 | ASSOCIATING AN INDICATION OF USER EMOTIONAL REACTION WITH CONTENT ITEMS PRESENTED BY A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM - A social networking system user may associate an emoji representing the user's emotional reaction with a content item presented by the social networking system. The user is presented with one or more emoji maintained by the social networking system and selects an emoji for associating with the content item. If certain emoji are selected, the social networking system prompts the user for compensation or requests compensation from an entity associated with the selected emoji. The selected emoji is associated with the content item and a connection, or other information, between the user and the object identifying the selected emoji is stored by the social networking system. The selected emoji may be displayed with the content item to the user and to other users connected to the user. | 09-18-2014 |
| 20140279069 | DETERMINING EFFECTIVENESS OF PROMOTING STORIES WITHIN A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM - A social networking system provides stories about objects in the social networking system to a viewing user. To increase the likelihood that a story will also be provided to other users, the social networking system allows the viewing user to promote the story. When a user promotes a story, the social networking system may monitor the effectiveness of the promotion. For example, the social networking system generates a ghost story corresponding to a promoted story and not associated with promotion information. When a promoted story is selected to be provided to a user, the social networking system determines whether the ghost story would have been selected to be provided to the user. If the ghost story would have been selected, the social networking system determines the promotion did not affect selection of the promoted story. | 09-18-2014 |
| 20140279068 | METHODS FOR LINKING IMAGES IN SOCIAL FEEDS TO BRANDED CONTENT - One variation of a method for linking images in social feeds to branded content includes: loading an image to a social networking system; receiving, from a first user, a tag including identification of an item visible in a particular region of the image; associating the tag with the particular region of the image; based on the tag, correlating the item with a particular brand; posting the image to a social feed of the particular brand within the social networking system; and in response to interaction with the image, in the social feed, by a second user, directing the second user to brand content specified by the particular brand. | 09-18-2014 |
| 20140279066 | SOCIAL DATING - Systems and methods for social dating are provided. In particular, some embodiments provide recommendations for connections (i.e., candidate users) based on a user's social graph. These recommendations can identify potential single individuals that may be good matches for dating or can identify individuals with other commonalities or shared experiences to create dialog. For example, the recommendations for a user can include single individuals that are friends of a friend. The user can be presented with information about the recommendation and then ask for an introduction from the user's friend. As another example, the recommendations can be based on subject matter selected by the user (e.g., twins, cancer, phone type, etc.) with or without any friendship connections. The user may also be able to filter or further refine the searches based on other criteria such as interests, location, age, and/or other constraints. Rewards can be provided in some cases to encourage participation. | 09-18-2014 |
| 20140279039 | METHOD FOR SELECTIVELY ADVERTISING ITEMS IN AN IMAGE - One variation of a method for selectively advertising items in an image includes: loading an image to a social feed; receiving a first tag and a second tag including identification of a first item and a second item visible in the image, respectively; based on the first tag and the second tag, correlating the first item with a first product and the second item with the second product; based on the first product and the second product, sourcing a first link to a first electronic storefront and a second link to a second electronic storefront that facilitate purchase of the first product and the second product, respectively; and selectively displaying a first visual cue of the first link and a second visual cue of the second link to a first user and to a second user, respectively, according to demographics of the first user and the second user. | 09-18-2014 |
| 20140278998 | METHOD FOR DISPLAYING A PRODUCT-RELATED IMAGE TO A USER WHILE SHOPPING - One variation of a method for displaying a product-related image to a user while shopping includes: loading an image to a social networking system; receiving a tag including identification of an item visible in a region of the image; based on the tag, correlating the item with a product; posting the image to a social feed within the social networking system, the social feed including a set of photos related to the product; receiving a scan from a user, the scan generated through a mobile computing device carried by the user; correlating the scan with the product; and displaying the image within a social networking interface accessible through a display of the mobile computing device. | 09-18-2014 |
| 20140278896 | METHODS FOR CALCULATING ADVERTISEMENT EFFECTIVENESS - One variation of a method for calculating advertisement effectiveness includes: posting an advertisement for a product to a social feed within a social networking system; tracking a view of the advertisement by a user; determining a proximity of the user to a store of a merchant; in accordance with a privacy setting of the user, selecting personal data of the user from data stored in the social networking system, the personal data including an identity of the user and an interest of the user; in response to the determined proximity of the user to the store, transmitting the selected personal data to the store; and, in response to a transaction between the user and the store, assessing an effectiveness of the advertisement according to a determined correlation between the transaction and the view of the advertisement by the user. | 09-18-2014 |
| 20140277641 | Managing Silence In Audio Signal Identification - An audio identification system determines whether a portion of a sample of an audio signal includes silence and generates a test audio fingerprint for the audio signal based on the presence of silence. In one embodiment, the audio identification system uses a value indicating silence for a portion of the test audio fingerprint corresponding to the portion of the audio signal that includes silence. When comparing the test audio fingerprint to reference audio fingerprints, the portion of the test audio fingerprint including the value indicating the presence of silence is not used. In another embodiment, the audio identification system replaces the portion including silence with additive audio and generates a test audio fingerprint for comparison based on the resulting modified sample. | 09-18-2014 |
| 20140277640 | Generating Audio Fingerprints based on Audio Signal Complexity - An audio identification system accounts for an audio signal's complexity when generating a test audio fingerprint for identification of the audio signal. In particular, the audio identification system determines a complexity of an audio signal to be fingerprinted. For example, the audio signal's complexity may be determined by performance of an autocorrelation on the audio signal. Based on the determined complexity, the audio identification system determines a length of a sample of the audio signal used to generate a test audio fingerprint. A sample having the length is then obtained and used to generate a test audio fingerprint for the audio signal. The test audio fingerprint may be compared to a set of reference audio fingerprints to identify the audio signal. | 09-18-2014 |
| 20140258521 | Load Balancing Web Service by Rejecting Connections - A load balancer allocates requests to a pool of web servers configured to have low queue capacities. If the queue capacity of a web server is reached, the web server responds to an additional request with a rejection notification to the load balancer, which enables the load balancer to quickly send the rejected request to another web server. Each web server self-monitors its rejection rate. If the rejection rate exceeds a threshold, the number of processes concurrently running on the web server is increased. If the rejection rate falls below a threshold, the number of processes concurrently running on the web server is decreased. | 09-11-2014 |
| 20140258410 | AUDIENCE MANAGEMENT IN A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM - A social networking system manages the accessibility of content items provided by users and directed to various audiences in the social networking system. An author provides the social networking system with a content item, a content item tag indicating an association between the content item and a tagged user, and a definition of a first audience who may view the content item. The social networking system then allows the tagged user to provide a definition of a second audience who may view the content item, where the second audience may contains users who are not in the first audience defined by the original author. The social networking system then determines whether a viewing user may view the posted content item (and tag) based on whether the viewing user is in at least one of the first audience and the second audience. | 09-11-2014 |
| 20140258287 | Compatibility Scoring of Users - The compatibility score of members of a social network is based on the compatibility of their expressed interests. The compatibility score between any two interests is calculated as the log of the estimated probability that a member of the social network will express both interests divided by the product of: (i) the estimated probability that a member of the social network will express the first of the two interests and (ii) the estimated probability that a member of the social network will express the second of the two interests. The compatibility score between two individuals is calculated as the sum of the compatibility scores between each interest appearing in a set of interests expressed by the first of the two individuals and each interest appearing in a set of interests expressed by the second of the two individuals. | 09-11-2014 |
| 20140258282 | AGGREGATING SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM USER INFORMATION FOR DIVERSIFIED TIMELINE VIEW - The invention provides a display interface in a social networking system that enables the presentation of information related to a user in a timeline view. The system accesses information about a user of a social networking system. The system then selects one or more of these pieces of data and/or activities from a certain time period and gathers them into timeline units based on their relatedness and their relevance to users. These timeline units are ranked by relevance to the user, and a diversity policy is applied to prevent overrepresentation of timeline unit type(s). The timeline units are used to generate a timeline view for the user containing visual representations of the timeline units organized by location or time. The timeline view is then provided to other users of the social networking system that wish to view information about the user. | 09-11-2014 |
| 20140258191 | ADAPTIVE RANKING OF NEWS FEED IN SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEMS - Machine learning models are used for ranking news feed stories presented to users of a social networking system. The social networking system divides its users into different sets, for example, based on demographic characteristics of the users and generates one model for each set of users. The models are periodically retrained. The news feed ranking model may rank news feeds for a user based on information describing other users connected to the user in the social networking system. Information describing other users connected to the user includes interactions of the other users with objects associated with news feed stories. These interactions include commenting on a news feed story, liking a news feed story, or retrieving information, for example, images, videos associated with a news feed story. | 09-11-2014 |
| 20140250137 | QUERYING FEATURES BASED ON USER ACTIONS IN ONLINE SYSTEMS - Online systems, for example, social networking systems store features describing relations between entities represented in the online system. The information describing the features is represented as a graph. The online system maintains a cumulative feature graph and an incremental feature graph. Feature values based on recent user actions are stored in the incremental graph and feature values based on previous actions are stored in the cumulative graph. Periodically, the information stored in the incremental feature graph is merged with the information stored in the cumulative feature graph. The incremental graph is marked as inactive during the merge and information based on new user actions is stored in an active incremental feature graph. If a request for feature information is received, the feature information obtained from the cumulative feature graph, inactive incremental feature graph and the active incremental feature graph are combined to determine the feature information. | 09-04-2014 |
