Various arrangements for detecting items in home are presented. Imaging devices may capture images of a user's home. The images may be analyzed and compared against a user approved list of item definitions. Using the definitions, items, brands, trademarks, and the like may be identified in the images. The items identified in the images may be used to determine preferences of a user and provide targeted marketing content using the television receiver. In some cases, analysis of items in a home may be used to determine the effectiveness of marketing content by determining causality or correlations between marketing content viewed by a user and items in the home.

Techniques are disclosed utilizing cognitive computing to improve banking experiences. A user's financial account(s) and location may be monitored to predict when a user is near a retail store and the user has not used a particular account in a predetermined amount of time. The techniques disclosed include receiving a location for a user's mobile device, and determining when the mobile device is within a predetermined threshold distance of a retail store. The techniques include building a shopping profile for the user based upon shopping habits for the user. The shopping profile may be used to determine what commercial communications should be transmitted to the user to encourage them to utilize an inactive account to make a purchase at the retail store when the user is within the threshold distance of the retail store.

Methods and systems for performing an advertisement-based electronic transaction are provided. According to one aspect, a system for performing an advertisement-based electronic transaction comprises a mobile backend server comprising a network interface, one or more processors, and memory. The mobile backend server receives, from a first electronic device, first information for identifying the user and second information for identifying an advertisement; identifies the user based on the first information; identifies an advertisement based on the second information; identifies a transaction object associated with the identified advertisement; determines transaction information for an electronic transaction involving the identified transaction object; determines payment information for the identified user; and initiates an electronic transaction using the transaction information and payment information. The first electronic device may be a mobile phone that captures the second information by scanning a QR code or by displaying an advertisement that the user clicks, touches, or otherwise selects.

Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, a machine-readable storage medium that includes executable instructions that, when executed by a processing system, facilitate performance of operations which include modifying advertising content at a display responsive to a person being determined to be in a first zone relative to the display, determining a presence of a communication device of the person, wherein the second zone is closer in range to the display than the first zone, transmitting a query to the communication device, receiving from the communication device the identifying characteristic of the person, obtaining an image of the person responsive to the person being determined to be in a third zone relative to the display, wherein the third zone is closer in range to the display than the first zone and the second zone, and obtaining modified content for the person based on the identifying characteristic.

An enhanced beacon system that detects attributes of a user based on information obtained from or about a user device when the user device is in close proximity to a beacon device. Actions include receiving a first unique identifier of the user device and the user's information collected the beacon device. The user information can include at least attributes associated with physical movements of the user. The user information can be used to populate a user profile for the user. A campaign can be estimated for the user and transmitted to the user device based on at least partly on a calculation of attributes from the user information in the user profile and target criteria of the campaign.

Disclosed herein are methods and systems for real-time image and signal processing in an augmented reality environment; for example, for video conferencing in a virtual environment of the participants' choice. In particular, image information of a real life object is extracted by separating the object from its actual environment in one or more images that are captured in real-time using a comprehensive characteristic-based mechanism. The extracted real life object is then integrated with a virtual environment based on image relations between each pixel of the image information of the real life object and a corresponding pixel of each image of the plurality of images of the virtual environment through a pixel-by-pixel integration approach. The image relations comprise at least a depth relation or a transparency relation.

Described are methods, systems, and apparatus for customizing applications based on user behavior data. User behavior data is collected and stored by an ad system based on a user's interactions. The user behavior data is associated with an ad system user ID. A request for first user customization data including an application user ID associated with a user device is sent by an application executing on a user device. The ad system user ID associated with the application user ID is determined by the ad system. User customization data is determined by the ad system based on the user behavior data stored by the ad system as associated with the ad system user ID. The user customization data is sent to the user device. A customization based on the user customization data is implemented by the application executing on the user device.

Content presented to a user of an online system is presented along with an option allowing the user to view one or more reasons for presentation of the advertisement content to the user and one or more characteristics of the user satisfying targeting criteria associated with the content. For example, a description identifying one or more selected characteristics of the user satisfying the targeting criteria is presented along with the content. The online system selects the one or more characteristics presented along with the content by applying one or more rules to characteristics of the user satisfying targeting criteria included in the content. The rules may account for accuracy of models used to determine whether the user has characteristics, revenue received by the online system from presenting content associated with targeting criteria identifying various characteristics, or prevalence of characteristics among users or targeting criteria of content.

A method for identifying and removing malicious code uses a personal computing device that can communicate with a remote server. The remote server manages a blacklist and a whitelist. The blacklist is a list of programs that are known to contain malicious code. The whitelist is a list of programs that are known to be free of malicious code. The method begins when a scan request is received. The scan request is a command that directs the personal computing device to work with the remote server to perform a scan of a collection of files that will identify malicious code. The method then performs a sandboxed-evaluation process to identify files that are found to contain malicious code. The sandboxed-evaluation process is an isolated testing routine that runs program files to detect malicious code. Finally, the method executes a threat remediation process if malicious code is found.

Various embodiments are directed towards a product placement system that enable a media buyer to define a persona, which is a visual representation of a fictitious individual that represents a target audience for a placement campaign, and a placement is a visible display of a product that is placed in a media vehicle. The invention stores the persona, which represents a target audience, ingests data that about placement opportunities, identifying one or more opportunities whose characteristics overlap the characteristics of the target audience, calculates an audience score, identifies one or more opportunities with which the target audience engages using social media, and calculates an engagement score that measures the relative level of engagement with the identified opportunities by the target audience.