Aggregating data from different sources

• US 7,634,632 B2
• Filed: 01/08/2009
• Issued: 12/15/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 04/12/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Liu, Yue, Wu, Qiang, Suponau, Dzmitry, Wad, Rohit Vishwas, Girotto, Jay
• Primary Examiner(s): Elmore; Reba I
• Application Number:
  US12/350,713
• Publication Number:
  US 20090125701A1
• Time in Patent Office: 341 Days
• Field of Search: 711/216, 707/3, 715/501.1, 715/526
• US Class Current: 711/216
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/313 Selection or weighting of terms for indexing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/325 Hash tables
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

A method and system that aggregates data associated with one or more entities from different data sources are provided. The data sources include documents, web pages, or images that have information about one or more entities. The information is extracted from the data sources based on criteria that define the entities. The extracted information is utilized to generate a hash identifier that corresponds to each entity and one or more storage locations. The one or more storage locations and associated hash identifiers are utilized to store the extracted information corresponding to the entities, and the extracted information for each entity is structured as a virtual page that is stored in an index having references to the data sources. The index storing the virtual pages is notified or updated when the associated data sources are modified.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method to propagate updates to virtual pages, the method comprising:

scanning a collection of documents to identify changes based an a hash identifier associated with a virtual page;

generating update notifications that include instructions for implementing update data based on the identified changes;

communicating the update notification to an index storing the virtual page; and

updating the virtual page in accordance with the instruction included in the update notification.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the collection of documents comprise image files, text files, and web pages.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the virtual page corresponds to an entity defined by an application owner.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the entity is one of:

a book, science, shopping, or an author.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the hash identifier is generated by a MD-5 component.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the hash identifier is generated by a SHA-1 component.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the hash identifier is generated by a SHA-2 component.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the hash identifier is content sensitive.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein the hash identifier represents a subset of previously extracted data from documents in the collection of documents.

10. The method according to claim 8, wherein the hash identifier is a URL.

11. A computer-implemented method to aggregate data from different sources, the method comprising:

receiving a collection of criteria associated with an entity;

generating a hash identifier corresponding to the entity from the collection of criteria;

accessing a corpus of documents referenced in a document index as having data related to the entity;

for each accessed document in the corpus of documents having data related to the entity, extracting information from the corpus of documents according to the collection of criteria;

generating a virtual page representative of the entity based on the extracted information;

storing the virtual page in a storage location locatable according to the hash identifier; and

incorporating the virtual page into the document index.

12. The method according to claim 11, further comprising receiving search queries that specify terms associated with the virtual pages and corpus of documents stored in the document index.

13. The method according to claim 12, further comprising generating a results page that includes the virtual pages and corpus of documents stored in the document index that match the received search terms.

14. The method according to claim 11, wherein the corpus of documents comprise image files, text files, and web pages.

15. The method according to claim 11, wherein the virtual pages correspond to entities defined by an application owner.

16. The method according to claim 15, wherein the entities are subjects of interest to the application owner and comprise:

books, science, shopping, towns, universities, and authors.

17. A computing system for aggregating data from different sources, the system comprising:

an interface component configured to obtain a collection of criteria associated with an entity;

an access component configured to access a corpus of documents referenced in a document index, the corpus of documents having data associated with the entity;

a hashing component configured to generate a hash identifier corresponding to the entity from a subset of the collection of criteria associated with the entity;

an extraction component configured to extract data from the corpus of documents according to the collection of criteria;

an aggregation component configured to aggregate the extracted data into a virtual page and storing the virtual page in a storage location locatable by the hash identifier generated by the hashing component; and

an indexing component configured to incorporate a virtual page generated by the aggregation component in the document index.

18. The computing system according to claim 17, further comprising a communication network communicatively connecting client devices to the computing system, which receives search queries, issued by users of the client devices, that specify terms associated with the virtual pages and the corpus of documents stored in the document index.

19. The computing system according to claim 18, wherein the client devices comprise:

portable devices, laptop computers, and personal digital assistants.

20. The computing system according to claim 18, further comprising generating a results page, at the computing system, that includes the virtual pages and corpus of documents stored in the document index that match the received search terms.