MULTI-MODAL SEARCH WILDCARDS

• US 20090287681A1
• Filed: 08/28/2008
• Published: 11/19/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/14/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Ju, Yun-Cheng, Meek, Christopher A., Lee, Bongshin, Thiesson, Bo, Paek, Timothy Seung Yoon
• Granted Patent: US 8,090,738 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3322 using system suggestions G06F16/3325 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence

Abstract

A multi-modal search system (and corresponding methodology) that employs wildcards is provided. Wildcards can be employed in the search query either initiated by the user or inferred by the system. These wildcards can represent uncertainty conveyed by a user in a multi-modal search query input. In examples, the words “something” or “whatchamacallit” can be used to convey uncertainty and partial knowledge about portions of the query and to dynamically trigger wildcard generation.

Claims

1. A system that facilitates multi-modal search, comprising:

a wildcard generation component that establishes one or more wildcards based upon analysis of a multi-modal input; and

a search engine component that employs a query that includes the wildcards in addition to zero or more fixed words to identify a list of query suggestion results.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a wildcard identification component that analyzes the multi-modal input and triggers establishment of the wildcard based upon the analysis.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the analysis identifies a text hint from the multi-modal input, wherein the text hint constrains speech recognition as a function of the multi-modal input.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the analysis identifies the use of at least one of ‘

something’

or ‘

whatchamacallit.’

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the wildcard conveys uncertainty in a spoken input, and non-wildcard characters represent constraints for the search engine component.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the query is a regular expression query with at least one wildcard.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the multi-modal input includes at least two of text, speech, or touch and wherein the list of query suggestion results represent approximate matches to at least a portion of the multi-modal input.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising a user interface that enables a user to identify a wildcard trigger that is employed to establish the wildcard.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the list of query suggestion results includes an n-best list from a speech recognizer and a list of supplementary results including at least one of an ‘

exact’

match via a wildcard expression or an ‘

approximate’

match via information retrieval algorithms.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein at least part of the n-best list obtained from the speech recognizer is submitted to an information retrieval algorithm that is indifferent to the order of words in the query.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the information retrieval algorithm is an algorithm that is indifferent to word order in the query or is the Term Frequency Inverse Document Frequency (TFIDF) algorithm.

12. The system of claim 1, further comprising an artificial intelligence (AI) component that employs at least one of a probabilistic and a statistical-based analysis that infers an action that a user desires to be automatically performed.

13. A computer-implemented method of multi-modal search, comprising:

receiving an input from a user;

identifying one or more wildcards based upon a portion of the input; and

establishing a wildcard query expression as a function of the wildcards,

wherein the wildcard query expression represents a desired search query intent.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 13, further comprising locating a plurality of query suggestion results based upon the wildcard query expression.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 13, further comprising defining a wildcard trigger that is employed to identify the wildcard from the input.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 13, wherein the input includes a text hint coupled with speech, wherein the text hint is employed to constrain the established the wildcard query.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 13, wherein the wildcard is established based upon usage of at least one of ‘

something’

or ‘

whatchamacallit.’

18. A computer-executable system for defining a search query, comprising:

means for identifying uncertainty in a user input; and

means for establishing a wildcard query based upon the uncertainty.

19. The computer-executable system of claim 18, wherein the uncertainty includes at least one of “

something”

or “

whatchamacallit.”

20. The computer-executable system of claim 18, further comprising means for establishing a wildcard trigger, wherein the wildcard trigger is employed to identify the uncertainty and to generate a wildcard that is included within the wildcard query.