State-dependent query response

• US 10,496,714 B2
• Filed: 08/06/2010
• Issued: 12/03/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 08/06/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Jitkoff, John Nicholas, Lebeau, Michael J., Byrne, William J., Singleton, David P.
• Primary Examiner(s): Filipczyk, Marcin R
• Application Number:
  US12/851,879
• Publication Number:
  US 20120036121A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,406 Days
• Field of Search: 707705, 707722, 707759, 707760, 704235, 704260, 704277
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3329 Natural language query formulation or dialogue systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/338 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/638 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/16 Sound input; Sound output speech processing G10L
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/167 Audio in a user interface, e.g. using voice commands for navigating, audio feedback
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/20 Natural language analysis semantic analysis of natural language G06F40/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/58 Use of machine translation, e.g. for multi-lingual retrieval, for server-side translation for client devices or for real-time translation
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/30 Distributed recognition, e.g. in client-server systems, for mobile phones or network applications
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/225 Feedback of the input speech
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/6041 Portable telephones adapted for handsfree use
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72454 according to context-related or environment-related conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 29/004 for microphones H04R29/007 takes precedence

Abstract

In general, the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods, systems, and program products for receiving user input that defines a search query, and providing the search query to a server system. Information that a search engine system determined was responsive to the search query is received at a computing device. The computing device is identified as in a first state, and a first output mode for audibly outputting at least a portion of the information is selected. The first output mode is selected from a collection of the first output mode and a second output mode. The second output mode is selected in response to the computing device being in a second state and is for visually outputting at least the portion of the information and not audibly outputting the at least portion of the information. At least the portion of information is audibly output.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, by a computing device, a search results page that is responsive to a natural language query;

determining, by the computing device, (i) that the computing device is in an audible output state, and (ii) that in addition to search results, the search results page includes a summarized natural language query response that represents a server system'"'"'s attempt to answer the natural language query;

in response to determining, by the computing device, (i) that the computing device is in the audible output state, and (ii) that in addition to search results, the search results page includes the summarized natural language query response that represents the server system'"'"'s attempt to answer the natural language query, generating, by the computing device, a human-understandable, audio representation of the summarized natural language query response; and

providing, by the computing device, the human-understandable, audio representation of the summarized natural language query response for audible output concurrently with providing the search results page wherein the search results page includes links to documents that have been determined to be responsive to the natural language query and wherein the summarized natural language query response included in the search results page, has been constructed using content from one of the documents that have been determined to be responsive to the natural language query,

wherein the summarized natural language query response included in the search results page, includes (a) words that are specified by a template for generating a summarized natural language query response from one or more documents that have been determined to be responsive to a natural language query, and (b) words that are not specified by the template for generating the summarized natural language query response, but that instead are specified by the one of the documents.