INFORMATION PRESENTATION SYSTEM

• US 20110264645A1
• Filed: 04/22/2010
• Published: 10/27/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/22/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Beckman, Brian C., Mital, Vijay
• Granted Patent: US 8,868,538 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/708
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24553 of query operations
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/335 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles filtering in web context G06F16/9535, G06F16/9536
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/38 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/383 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/51 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/907 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• 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 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions

Abstract

An information presentation system that identifies information of interest to a user based on identifying tasks that may be relevant to the user given the user'"'"'s current context. The user may be presented with an option to select from among relevant tasks and/or goals of completing the task. For each selected task and goal, the system may generate one or more sets of items that are relevant to completing the task. The user may be presented with the option to select from among the sets of items or to navigate among the sets of items. Such a system may be used to provide an easy-to-use interface on a portable computing device to support shopping applications.

Claims

1. A method of presenting information to a user, the method comprising:

with at least one processor;

identifying, based on context information associated with the user, one or more sets of criteria;

selecting, based on the identified one or more sets of criteria, a plurality of data sets; and

in response to user input, selecting a data set of the plurality of data sets for presentation to the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the user input comprises first user input;

the data set selected for presentation comprises a first data set; and

the method further comprises, in response to second user input, selecting a second data set of the plurality of data sets for presentation to the user.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the one or more sets of criteria comprise a plurality of sets of criteria;

the user input comprises user input identifying a selected set of criteria of the plurality of sets of criteria; and

selecting a data set of the plurality of data sets comprises;

selecting a data set generated based on the selected set of criteria.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein:

the user input comprises first user input;

a plurality of data sets are generated based on the selected set of criteria; and

selecting a data set generated based on the selected set of criteria comprises presenting at different times, in response to second user input, different ones of the plurality of data sets.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein:

the generation of the plurality of data sets comprises generating a data set from the plurality of data sets,

the generation of the data set comprises solving at least one of a set of equations and a set of inequalities representing a task model for a task, wherein the data set completes the task.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein completing the task comprises at least one measure of how well the task is completed, and wherein the data set is characterized by the at least one measure.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating the context information, the method of generating the context information comprising;

receiving a user input indicative of a selection of a first item from a plurality of items presented to a user of a computing device on a display of the computing device;

storing first information relating to the first item in the context information;

collecting second information acquired by at least one sensor from an environment around the user and storing the second information in the context information;

collecting third information generated in response a request for information on a second item by the user, wherein the request for information on the second item is received by a search engine that generates the third information; and

storing the third information in the context information; and

identifying at least one task model that describes a subset of items from the collection of items, wherein the subset of items achieves the task.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the at least one sensor comprises at least one of a camera, a microphone, a compass, a motion detector, and a global positioning system device.

9. An information-presentation system, comprising:

at least one first computer storage medium comprising context information associated with a user;

at least one second computer storage medium comprising a plurality of task models;

at least one third computer storage medium comprising a mapping, the mapping defining associations between each of a plurality of patterns of data within the context information and one or more task models;

a first engine for applying the mapping to the context information to identify one or more of the task models applicable based on the context information;

a second engine for generating one or more data sets based on a task model;

at least one user-interface component for;

sending to a user-interface device an indication of one or more applicable task models identified by the first engine;

receiving from the user-interface device a user selection of a selected task model of the one or more applicable task models;

sending to the user-interface device at least one data set generated by the second engine based on the selected task model.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein:

the system further comprises a search engine coupled to the second engine;

the second engine generates at least a portion of the one or more data sets by sending a search query to the search engine, the search query being based on the selected task model.

11. The system of claim 10, further comprising:

a context-management component for receiving data associated with the user and updating the context information.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the data associated with the user comprises sensor data from a portable electronic device associated with the user.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein each of the plurality of task models is associated with an identified task and comprises a plurality of rules, equations, constraints and/or computations that collectively define characteristics of data in a data set applicable to completion of the identified task.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein at least a portion of the plurality of task models comprises models relating to tasks involved in shopping.

15. The system of claim 9, further comprising:

a learning component that modifies the mapping based on user feedback to the at least one data set generated by the second engine based on the selected task model.

16. A method of operating a portable electronic device to present information to a user, the method comprising:

obtaining information indicative of user context;

providing the information to an information retrieval system;

receiving from the information retrieval system an indication of a plurality of tasks;

presenting a first user interface for selecting a selected task of the plurality of tasks;

providing an indication of the selected task to the information retrieval system;

receiving from the information-retrieval system a plurality of data sets; and

presenting a second user interface indentifying the plurality of data sets as completing the selected task, the second user interface comprising control elements whereby a user may selectively display, at one time, data from only a portion of the data sets of the plurality of data sets.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

in response to user input received through the second user interface, changing a display on the portable electronic device to change a data set of the plurality of data sets visible on the display.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein presenting the first user interface comprises presenting a scrollable list of text strings, each text string identifying a task of the plurality of tasks.

19. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

caching the plurality of data sets; and

displaying at each of a plurality of different times, different portions of the data from the plurality of data sets from the cached plurality of data sets.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein obtaining information indicative of user context comprises acquiring an image.