System and method for an iterative disambiguation interface

• US 8,914,396 B2
• Filed: 12/30/2009
• Issued: 12/16/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/30/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Johnston, Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): Beausoliel, Jr., Robert
• Assistant Examiner(s): BROMELL, ALEXANDRIA Y
• Application Number:
  US12/649,609
• Publication Number:
  US 20110161341A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,812 Days
• Field of Search: 707/766, 706/45, 704/9, 704/200, 715/716
• US Class Current: 707/766
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/739 in form of a video summary, e.g. the video summary being a video sequence, a composite still image or having synthesized frames
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90332 Natural language query formulation or dialogue systems

Abstract

Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media for an iterative disambiguation interface. A system practicing the method receives a search query formatted according to a standard XML markup language for containing and annotating interpretations of user input, the search query being based on a natural language spoken query from a user and retrieves search results based on the search query. The system transmits the search results to a user device and iteratively receives multimodal input from the user to change search attributes and transmits updated search results to the user device based on the changed search attributes. The search results can include a link to additional information, such as a video presentation, related to the search results. The standard XML markup language can be Extensible MultiModal Annotation (EMMA) markup language from W3C. The system can generate an iteration transaction history for each multimodal input and updated search result.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, from two user devices, a natural language search query associated with videos available via mobile video-on-demand, the natural language search query formatted according to a standard language for containing and annotating interpretations of user input;

retrieving search results based on the natural language search query;

transmitting the search results to the user devices;

iteratively updating a finite state edit machine based on multimodal input, wherein the multimodal input is;

received after the natural language search query;

iteratively received from the two user devices to change search attributes of the natural language search query, to yield changed search attributes;

formatted according to the standard language;

interpreted using the finite state edit machine, the finite state edit machine enabling coupling of a stochastic language model for recognition with a deterministic finite state integration and understanding model, resulting in an updated finite state edit machine; and

transmitting updated search results to the two user devices simultaneously, wherein the updated search results are based on the changed search attributes and updated finite state edit machine.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the search results comprise a link to additional information related to the search results.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the additional information is a video presentation from the videos available by mobile video-on-demand.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the standard language is an extensible markup language based extensible multimodal annotation markup language.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the search results are retrieved from a listing of media available for consumption.

6. The method of claim 1, the method further comprising:

generating a transaction history of each iteration of receiving multimodal input and transmitting updated search results.

7. The method of claim 6, the method further comprising:

presenting the transaction history at the user device.

8. A system comprising:

a processor; and

a computer-readable storage device having instructions stored which, when executed by the processor, cause for causing the processor to perform operations comprising;

receiving, from two user devices, a natural language search query associated with videos available via mobile video-on-demand, the natural language search query formatted according to a standard language for containing and annotating interpretations of user input;

retrieving search results based on the natural language search query;

transmitting the search results to the user devices;

iteratively updating a finite state edit machine based on multimodal input, wherein the multimodal input is;

received after the natural language search query;

iteratively received from the two user devices to change search attributes of the natural language search query, to yield changed search attributes;

formatted according to the standard language;

interpreted using the finite state edit machine, the finite state edit machine enabling coupling of a stochastic language model for recognition with a deterministic finite state integration and understanding model, resulting in an updated finite state edit machine; and

transmitting updated search results to the two user devices simultaneously, wherein the updated search results are based on the changed search attributes and updated finite state edit machine.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the search results comprise a link to additional information related to the search results.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the additional information is a video presentation from the videos available by mobile video-on-demand.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the standard language is an extensible markup language based extensible multimodal annotation markup language.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the search results are retrieved from a listing of media available for consumption.

13. A computer-readable storage device having instructions stored which, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:

receiving, from two user devices, a natural language search query associated with videos available via mobile video-on-demand, the natural language search query formatted according to a standard language for containing and annotating interpretations of user input;

retrieving search results based on the natural language search query;

transmitting the search results to the user devices;

iteratively updating a finite state edit machine based on multimodal input, wherein the multimodal input is;

received after the natural language search query;

iteratively received from the two user devices to change search attributes of the natural language search query, to yield changed search attributes;

formatted according to the standard language;

interpreted using the finite state edit machine, the finite state edit machine enabling coupling of a stochastic language model for recognition with a deterministic finite state integration and understanding model, resulting in an updated finite state edit machine; and

transmitting updated search results to the two user devices simultaneously, wherein the updated search results are based on the changed search attributes and updated finite state edit machine.

14. The computer-readable storage device of claim 13, wherein the search results comprise a link to additional information related to the search results.

15. The computer-readable storage device of claim 14, wherein the additional information is a video presentation from the videos available by mobile video-on-demand.

16. The computer-readable storage device of claim 13, wherein the standard language is an extensible markup language based extensible multimodal annotation markup language.

17. The computer-readable storage device of claim 13, wherein the search results are retrieved from a listing of media available for consumption.

18. The computer-readable storage device of claim 13, the computer-readable storage device having additional instructions stored which result in operations comprising:

generating a transaction history of each iteration of receiving multimodal input and transmitting updated search results.