Methods and apparatus to provide a consumer services cloud in a communications network are disclosed. An example apparatus includes a processor; and a computer readable storage medium including computer readable instructions which, when executed, cause the processor to perform operations. The operations include identifying which of multiple possible users associated with a communications network customer is a current user of a client device based on authentication information included in a request for access from the client device to a communication network. The network communication containing the request is diverted to the apparatus by a software-defined networking switch. The operations also include, in response to identifying the current user, accessing a first profile corresponding to the identified current user to determine a rule to be used to handle network communications within the communications network. Further operations include configuring the software-defined networking switch.

A computer readable storage medium, system and method for improving automated testing systems to include a first and second behavioral data. The first behavioral data is collected periodically and the second behavioral data is collected in real time. The receipt of the first behavioral data and a second behavioral data are followed by the receipt of a system configuration template. A test case is updated based on the first and second behavioral data, and an automated test environment is reconfigured based on the first behavioral data, second behavioral data, and the system configuration template. The test executes in the automated test environment producing a test result.

Systems and methods are described herein for detecting information that indicates that a user will be traveling from a first geographic location to a second geographic location, and responsively accessing a playlist indicated by a profile of the user that indicates a plurality of streaming media that the user intends to consume. Control circuitry may then compare data corresponding to each streaming media of the plurality of streaming media to a database to determine whether each streaming media of the plurality of streaming media is accessible to the user at the second geographic location, and may determine that a subset of the plurality of media is not accessible to the user at the second geographic location. In response to determining that the subset is not accessible to the user at the second geographic location, the control circuitry may download each media of the subset.

An initial data center is selected to host the online conference. This data center can be selected based on the locations of the participants, a weighting (or ‘priority’) of the participants, or a combination of the two (e.g., locations that are weighted by the participant's priority.) Typically, the data center closest to the centroid (i.e., geometric center, or ‘center of mass’) of the participants is selected. In anticipation that participants will join and/or leaver the conference, a list is calculated that each possible change to a respective data center that will be selected if that change occurs. This list may be distributed to the data centers that, if selected, would host the online conference.

Network node devices that may be embedded into luxury goods are described. These devices may allow luxury goods to offer access to a social networking system that is based upon ownership of luxury goods, and may also be used to verify the authenticity of the luxury goods. The devices may include an interface so that the device may communicate with other network node devices, including other products or a smartphone or other device, and a memory that stores a unique identifier of the brand or of the luxury good itself.

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for providing grouped data of interest. In some configurations, a computing device can include a user interface with one or more groups configured to receive messages. The groups can be computer-defined groups, such as by the computing device or other system, or user-defined groups. Techniques and technologies described herein receive a message in the one or more groups, and determine a message relevance (e.g., utility) based on the content and/or context (e.g., time of day, sender, geo-location of recipient, message urgency, etc.) of the message. In some configurations, the message relevance can be based, at least in part, on the particular group or a cluster of groups to which the message is associated.

Aspects of the technology described herein allocate limited computing resources, such as available bandwidth and battery power, to transferring the most urgent and important data from a client device to an online service. Client devices have enormous amounts of information about the user's activities that could be communicated to the service at any given time. However, the wireless transfer of information uses available battery power and can consume a user's data plan. The technology described herein uses a model to determine how often information should be sent to a service. The model can also determine what information to send. Different models can be implemented in different scenarios. The different models can include different weighting that will produce different decisions given the same inputs.

Systems and methods for stitching advertisements in streaming content are disclosed. In some embodiments, a method comprises receiving one or more advertisements. An unmarked content item may be received, the unmarked content item comprising a stream-enabled video including a set of sequential black frames. An insertion point may be identified based on a location of at least one black frame of the set of sequential black frames without requiring user input, the insertion point identified during streaming of the unmarked content item to a consumer system, the insertion point being ahead of a current playback point of the unmarked content item streaming to the consumer system. The one or more advertisements may be stitched in the unmarked content item at the insertion point. The unmarked content item may be streamed to a consumer system until the insertion point is reached, and the one or more advertisements may be streamed to the consumer system when the insertion point is reached.

Methods, systems, and media for sending a message about a new video to a group of related users are provided. In accordance with some embodiments, the method comprises: determining that a new video associated with a content creator has been uploaded to a video sharing service; identifying a group of candidate users to receive a message indicating that the new video is available; identifying a sub-group of users within the group of candidate users based on relationships of users within the group to each other; determining a time to send the message; transmitting the message to the sub-group of users at the determined time; determining that the message has been selected by a user device associated with a user of the sub-group of users; and causing the new video to be presented in a user interface including a communication interface associated with the sub-group of users on the user device.

In one aspect, a method for managing streaming of video content to a client device includes providing the video content to a content distribution network for storage in a plurality of geographically separated resources of the content distribution network and receiving, from the client device via a packet-based telecommunication network, signaling to have the stored video content streamed to the client device. In response to the received signaling, one or more files are transmitted to the client device via the packet-based telecommunication network, each of the one or more files being in a format compatible with a media player on the client device, the one or more files comprising (i) an identification of one or more of the resources of the content distribution network available to facilitate streaming of one or more segments of the stored video content to the client device, the identification being dependent at least in part on a relationship between a geographic location of the client device and geographic locations of the resources of the content distribution network, and (ii) an identification of an advertising server, the identification of the advertising server being dependent at least in part on a relationship between the geographic location of the client device and a geographic location of the advertising server, wherein the one or more files, when processed by the client device, cause the client device to communicate with the identified one or more resources of the content distribution network and the advertising server to cause the one or more segments of the stored video to be streamed to the client device by the identified one or more resources of the content distribution network and cause one or more advertisements to be streamed from the advertising server to the client device.