Automatic task creation and execution using browser helper objects

• US 20070130186A1
• Filed: 12/05/2005
• Published: 06/07/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/05/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Katariya, Sanjeev, Chen, Zhanliang, Yao, Qi, Ramsey, William
• Granted Patent: US 7,933,914 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques

Abstract

A task system and method are provided. The system provides an automated approach for task creation, maintenance and/or execution. The system includes a browser that receives search results and at least one task associated with a query from a search engine. The system further includes a browser helper object that binds to the browser at runtime. The browser helper object provides information associated with a user'"'"'s action with respect to the search results and/or at least one task. The information can be employed as feedback to update model(s) (e.g., query classification model(s) and/or slot-filling model(s)) of a semantic reasoning component that retrieves task based, at least in part, upon user query(ies).

Claims

1. A task system, comprising:

a browser that receives search results and at least one task associated with a query from a search engine; and

,

a browser helper object that binds to the browser at runtime, the browser helper object provides information associated with a user'"'"'s action with respect to the search results and/or at least one task.

2. The system of claim 1, the browser helper object creates an object model corresponding to a schema associated with a web page associated with the user'"'"'s action.

3. The system of claim 2, the browser helper object inserts a value into a form associated with the web page based, at least in part, upon the query.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a semantic reasoning component that identifies the at least one task based, at least in part, upon the query.

5. The system of claim 4, the semantic reasoning component comprising an information retrieval model and a query classification model.

6. The system of claim 4, the semantic reasoning component updates the information retrieval model and/or the query classification model based, at least in part, upon the information associated with the user'"'"'s action.

7. The system of claim 4, the semantic reasoning component, the browser and the browser helper object resident on a user'"'"'s computer system.

8. The system of claim 1, the semantic reasoning component creates a new task based, at least in part, upon the information associated with the user'"'"'s action.

9. The system of claim 1, the semantic reasoning component further comprises a slot-filling model that provides a slot value based upon a particular task and the query.

10. The system of claim 9, the slot-filling mode updated based, at least in part, upon the information associated with the user'"'"'s action.

11. The system of claim 1, the information associated with the user'"'"'s action comprising a clicked-through URL.

12. The system of claim 1, the information associated with the user'"'"'s action comprising a manually entered URL.

13. The system of claim 1, the information associated with the user'"'"'s action does not contain any information which is constituted as personally identifiable.

14. The system of claim 1, the task comprising a name, a title, a description and a keyword.

15. A task extractor, comprising:

a crawler that crawls at least one web page under a given seed website and stores them into a data store;

a form filter that.extracts a form from data stored in the data store;

a parser that extracts structured information of the form extracted by the form filter;

a context semantic extractor that captures semantic information from data stored in the data store; and

,

a task object generator that generates a task based, at least in part, upon the structured information extracted by the parser and the semantic information captured by the context semantic extractor.

16. The task extractor of claim 15, the task object generator stores the generated task in a task store.

17. A method facilitating a user query session, comprising:

receiving search results and at least one task responsive to a query;

providing information regarding a selected URL; and

,

performing form filling on a form associated with the selected URL based, at least in part, upon the query.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

providing information regarding a manually navigated website.

19. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

providing information regard a form filled by a user, if any information from the query is included in the form.

20. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

submitting the query to a search engine.