SCENARIO-BASED SEARCH

• US 20080005047A1
• Filed: 06/29/2006
• Published: 01/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/29/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Dumais, Susan T., Naam, Ramez, Flake, Gary W., Huang, Xuedong D., Goodman, Joshua T., Brill, Eric D., Hurst-Hiller, Oliver, Griffin, Trenholme J., Horvitz, Eric J., Gounares, Alexander G., Brunell, Bradly A., Gates, William H.
• Application Number:
  US11/427,686
• Publication Number:
  US 20080005047A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 706/12
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/01 Dynamic search techniques; Heuristics; Dynamic trees; Branch-and-bound

Abstract

The innovation provides for a computer search to become an action that has direct nexus to an inferred (or determined) goal of an individual. The goal can be inferred or determined from any number of context/state factors. The innovation can query a user to determine user context and state factors by which a goal, objective or intent can be automatically established. The innovation can also utilize machine learning/reasoning to establish the goal of a user based upon historical, statistical and/or other probabilistic analysis. Still further, the innovation can monitor a user'"'"'s context and state thereafter dynamically journaling and logging the criterion by which the user'"'"'s objective(s) can be established. Once a goal is established, a goal-based search can be automatically conducted thereafter prompting for an action based upon a subset of the search results.

Claims

1. A system that facilitates computer-based search, comprising:

a user objective analyzer component that analyzes extrinsic information related to a user and infers or determines a goal of the user; and

a search component that executes a scenario-based computer search as a function of the inferred or determined user goal and automatically prompts an action based upon a result of the computer search.

2. The system of claim 1, the scenario-based computer search yields a plurality of search results based at least in part upon the inferred or determined user goal.

3. The system of claim 2, further comprising a user objective generation component that generates user goal-related information based upon user context and state information.

4. The system of claim 2, further comprising a user objective generation component that infers the user goal based upon information received from a plurality of scenario-related data sources.

5. The system of claim 4, the plurality of scenario-related data sources includes at least one of user-defined intent information, personal information management (PIM) data, customer relations management (CRM) data, radio frequency identification (RFID) data, 3^rd-party metadata and/or system generated metadata.

6. The system of claim 2, further comprising a result configuration component that manages the plurality of search results in accordance with the inferred or determined user goal.

7. The system of claim 6, the result configuration component at least one of filters, ranks and orders a subset of the plurality of search results.

8. The system of claim 1, the user objective analyzer component employs a probabilistic-based utility analysis in connection with factoring cost of an incorrect inference as to user goal versus benefit associated with a correct inference.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising a user objective generation component that establishes the goal-related information based upon user context and state information.

10. The system of claim 9, the user objective generation component further comprises an inquiry component that queries a user to determine user context and state information.

11. The system of claim 9, the user objective generation component further comprises an inference component that applies a reasoning-based analysis to infer user context and state information.

12. The system of claim 11, further comprising a machine learning component that employs at least one of a probabilistic and a statistical-based analysis to establish the user context and state information.

13. The system of claim 9, the user objective generation component further comprises a monitoring component that observers a user to establish a subset of the user context and state information.

14. The system of claim 13, the monitoring component includes an auto-journal component that dynamically records a plurality of actions related to the context and state information of the user.

15. The system of claim 13, the monitoring component includes an auto-log component that dynamically records the context and state information related to the user.

16. A computer-implemented method of establishing a goal-related computer-based search, comprising:

dynamically analyzing extrinsic information related to a user;

dynamically inferring an intended goal of the user as a function of the analyzed extrinsic information;

dynamically executing search queries based on the inferred user goal;

dynamically caching and updating the search results; and

automatically prompting for an action as a function of a subset of the search results.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising dynamically displaying a subset of the cached search results to the user based upon a utility-based analysis in connection with content inferred to be desired for current viewing by the user.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising monitoring a plurality of context and state factors related to the user.

19. A computer-executable system that facilitates an objective-based computer search, comprising:

means for determining an objective of a user from a plurality of context/state factors;

means for identifying a plurality of search criteria based at least in part upon the objective;

means for executing a search based at least in part upon a subset of the plurality of search criteria; and

means for initiating an action based upon a result set of the search.

20. The computer-executable system of claim 19, the means for determining the objective comprises at least one of querying the user to identify a subset of the plurality of the context/state factors, means for inferring a subset of the plurality of the context/state factors from a history of actions of the user, and means for monitoring the user to determine a subset of the plurality of the context/state factors.