NAVIGATING RELATIONSHIPS AMONG ENTITIES

• US 20110307460A1
• Filed: 06/09/2010
• Published: 12/15/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/09/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: VADLAMANI, VISWANATH, NAJM, TAREK, SURENDRAN, ARUNGUNRAM CHANDRASEKARAN
• Application Number:
  US12/796,753
• Publication Number:
  US 20110307460A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/706
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results

Abstract

Graphical user interfaces, methods, and computer-storage media for navigating relationships among entities are provided. The method is executed by a computer system that generates a graphical user interface having entities associated with a query. The query is issued to a search engine that searches multiple sources to locate results. The computer system extracts the entities from the results. In turn, a graph is added to the graphical user interface to group the entities. The graph links the query and the entities and provides a visual overview of the results for the query.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method to navigate relationships among entities, the method comprising:

receiving a query;

generating search results for the query;

identifying entities within the search results;

generating a graph that includes the query and entities that correspond to the query, wherein the nodes of the graph represent the query and the entities and edges connect the nodes; and

extracting additional information from the results for the selected query or the selected entity in response to traversal of the graph.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the results are generated by searching multiple sources for items that match the query.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the multiple sources include video, web, audio, and social networking sources.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the entities are identified based on appearance frequency.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the relationships selected for display include entities having appearance frequencies above a specified threshold.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the entities are any combination of noun, phrase, adjective, or adverb.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the nouns, phrases, adjectives or adverbs correspond to the query.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the graph is displayed on a graphical user interface.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the graph is displayed on a graphical user interface.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the graph is a toolbar configured in a web browser that transmitted the query to the search engine.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein hovering over the nodes causes a details window to display attributes for the node that is hovered over.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the graphical user interface shifts focus to the node that is hovered over.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein some nodes in the graph are nested within other nodes.

14. A graphical user interface generated by a computer system having processors and computer-readable media, wherein the graphical user interface provides controls to navigate relationships and entities, the graphical user interface comprising:

a graph displaying dominant relationships, wherein the graph includes nodes that represent entities and a query, wherein the entities are extracted from results returned by a search engine that received the query;

an algorithm control that allows a user to update the entities displayed for the query; and

a history area that is available to show the user previously selected nodes.

15. The graphical user interface of claim 14, wherein selecting a node causes a window to open and show attributes for the selected node.

16. The graphical user interface of claim 14, wherein hovering over or selecting a node causes a change in focus by moving and formatting the graph to bring attention to the nodes or relationship that is selected or hovered over.

17. The graphical user interface of claim 14, wherein the algorithm control is a drop-down box that includes cluster, value-based, performance-based, and nearest-neighbor operations.

18. The graphical user interface of claim 17, wherein the nearest-neighbor operation provides additional entities that are related to a selected node.

19. One or more computer-readable media storing computer-usable instructions for performing a method to navigate dominant concepts extracted from multiple sources, the method further comprising

receiving a query;

generating search results for the query;

identifying entities within the search results;

generating a graph that includes the query and entities that correspond to the query, wherein the nodes of the graph represent the query and the entities and edges connect the nodes; and

extracting additional information from the results for the selected query or the selected entity when the graph is traversed.