Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090144638 | AUTOMATIC INCREASING OF CAPACITY OF A VIRTUAL SPACE IN A VIRTUAL WORLD - A system and method for automatically increasing a capacity of a virtual space in a virtual world. It is determined if an allowable number of avatars are currently in the virtual space, and a capacity of the virtual space is increased when the allowable number of avatars are currently in the virtual space. The capacity of the virtual space may be increased by spawning a replicate new virtual space. The capacity of the virtual space may also be increased by expanding a size of the virtual space. The virtual space may include any type of virtual space such as for example, a store, a business, an arena, a building, a land area, a room, etc. The allowable number of avatars may be a maximum avatar capacity for the virtual space, or may be an ideal avatar capacity for the virtual space. | 06-04-2009 |
20090267938 | THREE-DIMENSIONAL (3D) VIRTUAL WORLD WORMHOLES - A three dimensional (3D) virtual world wormhole includes hosting a 3D virtual world, and creating a wormhole at a selected location in the 3D virtual world for automatic transport of an avatar from the selected location to a selected destination in the 3D virtual world. Policies may be defined for the wormhole where the wormhole operates in accordance with the defined policies. An avatar may be automatically transported from the location to any one of a plurality of destinations based on a current capacity of each of the plurality of destinations. | 10-29-2009 |
20090300582 | Generation and Synchronization of offline 3D virtual world content - Generation and synchronization of offline three-dimensional (3D) virtual world content that include hosting 3D virtual world content, providing access to a portion of the 3D virtual world content, allowing storing offline of a copy of the accessed portion of the 3D virtual world content, and receiving changes made in the stored offline copy of the accessed portion of the 3D virtual world content and synchronizing the received changes with the hosted 3D virtual world content. The accessed portion of the 3D virtual world content may be recreated offline using a rendering engine on a processing device offline from the hosted 3D virtual world. | 12-03-2009 |
20100094890 | URL VIRTUAL NAMING AND METADATA MAPPING - Mapping of a universal resource locator (URL) to a virtual world location may include receiving a URL for access to an entity, accessing a mapping of the URL to coordinates of a location of the entity in a virtual world, and providing access to the entity in the virtual world. A device that may include a network interface, the network interface being configured to receive a URL and provide access to a virtual world, and a memory, the memory containing at least one mapping of a URL to coordinates in the virtual world. | 04-15-2010 |
20100115425 | COLLABORATIVE VIRTUAL BUSINESS OBJECTS SOCIAL SHARING IN A VIRTUAL WORLD - Collaborative virtual business object (VBO) social sharing that may include generating a VBO responsive to an avatar performing a transaction, and providing access to the VBO to other avatars desiring access. Access to the VBO may be provided by registering information regarding accessing the VBO in an inventory of the avatar, registering information regarding accessing the VBO in a centralized registry, allowing some portions of the VBO to be searchable, or uploading a modified copy of the VBO to a centralized VBO data upload facility. Portions of the VBO may be identified as private or public and access provided to only the public portions. An apparatus for collaborative virtual business object (VBO) social sharing may include an interface configured to access virtual world and a processor configured to generate a VBO responsive to a transaction in the virtual world and provide access to the VBO. | 05-06-2010 |
20100179871 | USER DRIVEN TRANSACTIONS THROUGH REFERRED VIRTUAL BUSINESS OBJECT - Providing traceability in a Virtual Business Object (VBO) may include generating a VBO comprising components and actions that may be performed using the VBO, attaching traceability information regarding an avatar to the VBO and providing the VBO to the avatar. Also, a network entity configured to access a virtual world environment may include a network interface configured to provide access to the virtual world environment and a controller configured to perform a transaction with an avatar in the virtual world environment, generate a Virtual Business Object (VBO) related to the transaction, attach traceability information regarding the avatar to the VBO, and provide the VBO to the avatar. | 07-15-2010 |
20120124189 | AUTOMATIC INCREASING OF CAPACITY OF A VIRTUAL SPACE IN A VIRTUAL WORLD - A system for automatically increasing a capacity of a virtual space in a virtual world may include a processor and a module operating on the processor for detecting an attempt by an avatar to enter a virtual space in a virtual world. The system may also include another module for determining if an allowable number of avatars is currently in the virtual space. The allowable number of avatars may be determined by at least a capacity of a server that is hosting the virtual space. Another module may be provided for increasing a capacity of the virtual space when the allowable number of avatars is currently in the virtual space. Increasing the capacity of the virtual space may include spawning a replicate new virtual space on a different server in response to the capacity of the server that is hosting the virtual space reaching the allowable number of avatars. | 05-17-2012 |
20120221604 | GENERATING AND NAVIGATING BINARY XML DATA - According to exemplary embodiments, a method and system for generating binary Extensible Markup Language (XML) data is provided. The generating includes acquiring an XML data source and generating a first child distance (FCD) token and a next sibling distance (NSD) token of an element node in the XML data source. The generating also includes generating binary XML data of the XML data source by using the FCD token and the NSD token, where the binary XML data includes the FCD token and the NSD token. | 08-30-2012 |
20130178853 | SURGICAL TOOL MANAGEMENT - The different illustrative embodiments provide a method, computer program product, and apparatus for managing a number of surgical tools. A determination is made whether a number of surgical tools is to be used in performing a procedure based on information. Responsive to a determination that the number of surgical tools is to be used in performing the procedure, a determination is made whether a signal received by the number of surgical tools indicates that the number of surgical tools is present within a predetermined distance of a location on the patient where the procedure is to be performed. Responsive to a determination that the signal received by the number of surgical tools indicates that the number of surgical tools is within the predetermined distance of the location on the patient where the procedure is to be performed, the number of surgical tools is enabled for use in performing the procedure. | 07-11-2013 |
20140358922 | Routing of Questions to Appropriately Trained Question and Answer System Pipelines Using Clustering - Mechanisms for selecting a pipeline of a question and answer (QA) system to process an input question are provided. An input question is received and analyzed to identify at least one feature of the input question. Clustering of the input question, with one or more previously generated clusters of questions, is performed based on the at least one feature of the input question. Based on results of the clustering, a matching cluster, of the one or more previously generated clusters, is identified with which the input question is associated. A QA system pipeline associated with the matching cluster is identified and the input question is processed using the identified QA system pipeline to generate one or more candidate answers for the input question. Each cluster in the one or more previously generated clusters has an associated QA system pipeline. | 12-04-2014 |
20140358928 | Clustering Based Question Set Generation for Training and Testing of a Question and Answer System - Mechanisms for selecting questions for a cluster of questions to be used with a question and answer (QA) system are provided. An input question is received and analyzed to identify at least one feature of the input question. Clustering of the input question with one or more other questions in a cluster of questions based on the at least one feature of the input question is performed. Based on results of the clustering, a determination is made as to whether to include or reject the input question as part of the cluster of questions. In response to determining to include the input question as part of the cluster of questions, the cluster of questions is updated to include the input question. The updated cluster of questions is stored in a storage device associated with a data processing system. | 12-04-2014 |
20140359022 | ALIGNING CONTENT AND SOCIAL NETWORK AUDIENCE USING ANALYTICS AND/OR VISUALIZATION - Various embodiments provide for the use of analytics to determine a number of key factors prior to a user sending a communication (e.g., an email or instant message, making an online social media post, or accepting or requesting friendship on a social media site). The analytics may determine content, subject, emotion, relationships, and other relevant details when users interact (e.g., with email or other social software). Any alerts/suggestions provided can be provided in real-time as the person types. | 12-04-2014 |
20140365502 | Determining Answers in a Question/Answer System when Answer is Not Contained in Corpus - Mechanisms are provided for generating an answer for an input question when the answer is not directly present in a corpus of information. An input question is received from a computing device and analyzed to determine whether the input question is requesting an answer that is calculable. In response to a determination that the input question is requesting an answer that is calculable, one or more constituent data values are retrieved, from a corpus of information, for calculating the requested answer to the input question. A value corresponding to the requested answer is calculated based on the one or more retrieved constituent data values and is then output as the requested answer to the input question. | 12-11-2014 |
20150026163 | Correlating Corpus/Corpora Value from Answered Questions - Mechanisms are provided for dynamically selecting a subset of candidate answer sources for use by a question and answer (QA) system. The QA system receives an input question for which an answer is sought and generates one or more queries based on the input question. The QA system selects a subset of candidate answer sources, from a group of candidate answer sources, based on a ranked listing of candidate answer sources. The ranked listing of candidate answer sources is generated based on characteristics of previous candidate answers generated by the QA system for previously input questions. The QA system applies the one or more queries to the subset of candidate answer sources and generates at least one candidate answer for the input question based on results of applying the one or more queries to the subset of candidate answer sources. | 01-22-2015 |