Selectively processing user input

• US 8,370,143 B1
• Filed: 09/30/2011
• Issued: 02/05/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 08/23/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Coker, Doug
• Primary Examiner(s): JACKSON, JAKIEDA R
• Application Number:
  US13/250,543
• Time in Patent Office: 494 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 704/240
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/117 Tagging; Marking up details of markup languages G06F40/143; Designating a block; Setting of attributes style sheets, e.g. eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation [XSLT], G06F40/154
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/232 Orthographic correction, e.g. spell checking or vowelisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/274 Converting codes to words; Guess-ahead of partial word inputs
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/289 Phrasal analysis, e.g. finite state techniques or chunking
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence

Abstract

In general, the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods, systems, and program products. A computing system receives text that represents content input by a user. A computing system determines a randomness level for a portion of the text. A computing system determines whether the randomness level for the portion of text exceeds a threshold level. A computing system, responsive to determining that the randomness level does not exceed the threshold level, provides the portion of text for processing by a text processing system.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving, by a computing system, text of a message entered by a user into a communication application program, wherein the text represents typed or audibly spoken content input by the user;

determining, by a computing system, a level of randomness of characters in a portion of the text;

identifying a threshold level of randomness from a plurality of different threshold levels of randomness based at least in part on a particular label of a text entry field into which the portion of the text was input;

determining, by a computing system, whether the level of randomness of the characters in the portion of the text satisfies the threshold level of randomness; and

responsive to determining that the level of randomness of the characters in the portion of the text satisfies the threshold level of randomness, precluding, by a computing system, a text processing system from performing a spell checking procedure on the portion of the text or from performing a word auto complete procedure on the portion of the text.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising receiving, by a computing system, the input by the user.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the text was generated by a speech recognition system based on the audibly spoken content.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, further comprising receiving, by a computing system, the audibly spoken content.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the randomness level is expressed as an entropy value in bits per character of the portion of text.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising identifying, by a computing system, whether the portion of the text is a contiguous set of characters that are without intervening spaces and that is bounded by spaces.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein identifying the threshold level of randomness comprises identifying the threshold level of randomness based at least in part on whether the portion of the text includes only hexadecimal characters.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein identifying the threshold level of randomness comprises identifying the threshold level of randomness based at least in part on a property of an application program in which the user provided the input.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the particular label of a text entry field is for a text entry field that is identified as being used for providing a password.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the particular label of a text entry field is for a text entry field that receives a maximum quantity of characters that is identified as being less than a threshold quantity of characters.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein identifying a threshold level of randomness comprises:

identifying the threshold level of randomness based at least in part on whether the portion of the text is displayed to the user as masked characters.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the text processing system is operable to provide a process for training a language model and the portion of the text is used to train the language model.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the level of randomness of characters in the portion of text is expressed using an entropy rate of English text.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

responsive to determining that the level of randomness of the characters in the portion of the text does not satisfy the threshold level of randomness, permitting, by a computing system, the text processing system to perform a spell checking procedure on the portion of the text or to perform a word auto complete procedure on the portion of the text.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein responsive to determining that the level of randomness of the characters in the portion of the text satisfy the threshold level of randomness comprises:

responsive to determining that the level of randomness of the characters in the portion of the text satisfy the threshold level of randomness, determining that an arrangement of the characters in the portion of the text is classified as being random.

16. A computer-implemented system, comprising:

one or more computer readable storage devices comprising instructions; and

one or more processors configured to execute the instructions to perform operations comprising;

receiving input of text of a message entered by a user into a communication application program, the text having been typed by the user or generated from audio that was input by the user;

determining a level of randomness of characters in the text;

identifying a threshold level of randomness from a plurality of different threshold levels of randomness based at least in part on a particular label of a text entry field into which the text was input;

in response to determining that the level of randomness of characters in the text does not exceed the threshold level of randomness, sending the text to a text processing system for execution of a spell checking procedure on the text or execution of a word auto-complete procedure on the text; and

in response to determining that the level of randomness of characters in the text does exceed the threshold level of randomness, precluding the system from sending the text to the text processing system for execution of a spell checking procedure on the text or execution of a word auto-complete procedure on the text.

17. The computer-implemented system of claim 16, wherein the level of randomness of characters in the text is expressed using an entropy rate of English text.

18. A computerized system, comprising:

a first computing subsystem that is configured to receive text of a message entered by a user into a communication application program that represents typed or audibly spoken content of input provided by the user, parse the text into multiple different portions of the text, and provide the multiple different portions to another subsystem for analysis;

a second computing subsystem that is configured to repeatedly receive a portion of text from the first computing subsystem, determine a level of randomness of characters in the received portion of text, identify a threshold level of randomness from a plurality of different threshold levels of randomness based at least in part on a particular label of a text entry field into which the received portion of the text was input; and

provide the determined level of randomness of the characters in the received portion of text and the identified threshold level of randomness to yet another subsystem for analysis; and

a third computing subsystem that is configured to repeatedly receive from the second computing subsystem a determined level of randomness of characters in a received portion of text, determine whether the determined level of randomness of characters in the received portion of text exceeds a corresponding threshold level of randomness, and to prevent portions of text with randomness levels that do exceed the corresponding threshold level of randomness from being provided to a text processing system to execute a spell checking procedure on the received portions of text or a word auto-complete procedure on the received portions of text.

19. The computerized system of claim 18, wherein the first computing subsystem is configured to parse the text into multiple different portions of the text by performing a sliding window parsing operation on the text in order to generate portions of text that are of a same size and so that a character in the text is included in more than one of the multiple different portions of the text.

20. The computerized system of claim 18, further comprising the text processing system, wherein the text processing system is configured to receive from the third computing subsystem the portions of text that have been determined to not exceed the threshold randomness level.

21. The computerized system of claim 18, wherein the level of randomness of the characters in the received portion of text is expressed using an entropy rate of English text.