Abstract: The invention provides a computer system including a router receiving a plurality of requests, a broker and a plurality of service workers, each assigned by the broker receive to receive the request and determining an answer based on the request, the router receiving the answers from the service workers, and the router providing an output that is based on at least one of the answers. A language independent platform is provided that can deploy code online while processing requests, execute multiple commands and join their answers, and scale automatically depending on load.

Abstract: The invention provides a computer system including a router receiving a plurality of requests, a broker and a plurality of service workers, each assigned by the broker receive to receive the request and determining an answer based on the request, the router receiving the answers from the service workers, and the router providing an output that is based on at least one of the answers. A language independent platform is provided that can deploy code online while processing requests, execute multiple commands and join their answers, and scale automatically depending on load.

Abstract: An offline system of a question and answer system includes a batch update crawl cluster that includes a crawl database within the file system, and a map reducer within the index controller, the map reducer having a reducer core with a plurality of slow queues that retrieve the content from the crawl database, and a reducer adapter that writes an output of the reducer core into the hierarchical database. The offline system further includes a fast update crawl cluster that includes a crawl database within the file system, and a map reducer within the index controller, the map reducer having a reducer core with a plurality of fast queues that retrieve the content from the crawl database at a faster frequency than the slow queues, and a reducer adapter that writes an output of the reducer core into the hierarchical database.

Abstract: A question and answer system for providing results to requests comprising an online system and an offline system. The offline system includes a file system, a hierarchical database and an index controller having at least one reducer that retrieves content from the file system and at least one writer that maintains the data store with the content retrieved by the reducer, and maintains the hierarchical database with data reflecting the content in the data store. The offline system includes an image queue, an index controller that updates the image queue with data representing content in the data store that include images, an image extraction service having a thumbnailer generating thumbnails for the images, an uploader and at least one static image server, the uploader uploading the thumbnails and images to the static image server.

Abstract: The invention provides a computer system including a router receiving a plurality of requests, a broker and a plurality of service workers, each assigned by the broker receive to receive the request and determining an answer based on the request, the router receiving the answers from the service workers, and the router providing an output that is based on at least one of the answers. A language independent platform is provided that can deploy code online while processing requests, execute multiple commands and join their answers, and scale automatically depending on load.

Abstract: The invention provides a computer system including a router receiving a plurality of requests, a broker and a plurality of service workers, each assigned by the broker receive to receive the request and determining an answer based on the request, the router receiving the answers from the service workers, and the router providing an output that is based on at least one of the answers. A language independent platform is provided that can deploy code online while processing requests, execute multiple commands and join their answers, and scale automatically depending on load.

Abstract: The invention provides a computer system including a router receiving a plurality of requests, a broker and a plurality of service workers, each assigned by the broker receive to receive the request and determining an answer based on the request, the router receiving the answers from the service workers, and the router providing an output that is based on at least one of the answers. A language independent platform is provided that can deploy code online while processing requests, execute multiple commands and join their answers, and scale automatically depending on load.

Abstract: A query may be answered when a compound result URL including a target page identifier and the query is received at a target computer system. The target page identifier may be used to identify a target page on the target computer system. A call script may then be automatically executed and cause receipt of a plurality of suggestions based on the query by the target computer system. The suggestions may include a text of the suggestion and a suggestion URL. A placement script may then be automatically executed that, for example, places the text of each suggestion on the target page. The text of each suggestion may have an associated suggestion URL. Selection of the text of the suggestion may cause redirection of the user computer based on the suggestion URL.

Abstract: A correlator extracts a plurality of related queries corresponding to each one of a plurality of answers. A classifier matches each one of the related queries corresponding to the answer with a category. A statistical tool determines the relevance of each category relative to the categories matched to the related queries corresponding to the answers.

Abstract: In a method for a direct answer for search, a search query is received over a network, one or more answer candidate snippets for the search query are received, with an answer candidate snippet having at least a portion of content available over the network for an answer candidate, one or more answer entities are determined within a selected answer candidate snippet, a frequency of the one or more answer entities found within the one or more answer candidate snippets for the search query is determined, a confidence score is adjusted for the selected answer candidate in accordance with the frequency of the one or more answer entities found within the one or more answer candidate snippets, and at least one answer candidate snippet is sent for a response to the search query.

Abstract: A question and answer system for providing results to requests comprising an online system and an offline system. The offline system includes a question and answer extraction module extracting question and answer pairs from the hierarchical database and a question type detector determining a type of question for each question in the question and answer pairs. An index controller indexes question and answer pairs based on the question type.

Abstract: A question and answer system for providing results to requests comprising an online system and an offline system. The offline system includes a file system, a hierarchical database and an index controller having at least one reducer that retrieves content from the file system and at least one writer that maintains the data store with the content retrieved by the reducer, and maintains the hierarchical database with data reflecting the content in the data store. The offline system includes an image queue, an index controller that updates the image queue with data representing content in the data store that include images, an image extraction service having a thumbnailer generating thumbnails for the images, an uploader and at least one static image server, the uploader uploading the thumbnails and images to the static image server.

Abstract: An offline system of a question and answer system includes a batch update crawl cluster that includes a crawl database within the file system, and a map reducer within the index controller, the map reducer having a reducer core with a plurality of slow queues that retrieve the content from the crawl database, and a reducer adapter that writes an output of the reducer core into the hierarchical database. The offline system further includes a fast update crawl cluster that includes a crawl database within the file system, and a map reducer within the index controller, the map reducer having a reducer core with a plurality of fast queues that retrieve the content from the crawl database at a faster frequency than the slow queues, and a reducer adapter that writes an output of the reducer core into the hierarchical database.

Abstract: A question and answer search engine includes a load balancer that receives the request from the user computer system, a plurality of front end systems that receive the requests from the load balancer, including the request from the user computer system, an aggregator and a plurality of retrievers, the aggregator being connected to the front end systems and to the retrievers, the request passing from a respective front end system via the aggregator to at least a first of the retrievers, the first retriever returning a result via the aggregator and the respective front end system to the user computer system in response to the request.

Abstract: A question and answer system for providing results to requests comprising an online system and an offline system. The online system includes at least one data store, a question and answer search engine that receives a request from a user computer system, determines a result from the data store based on the request and returns the answer to the user computer system. The question and answer search engine includes a request type determinator determining a type of the request and a plurality of answer mode modules that are executed based on the request type. The offline system includes a file system, a hierarchical database and an index controller having at least one reducer that retrieves content from the file system and at least one writer that maintains the data store with the content retrieved by the reducer, and maintains the hierarchical database with data reflecting the content in the data store.

Abstract: In one embodiment, a method for presenting factoids includes receiving a user query concerning an object, providing object information associated with the object for presentation to a user, and providing one or more factoids pertaining to the object for presentation to the user. The factoids are presented independently from the object information, and each of the factoids indicates at least one special characteristic of the object in a distinct area.

Abstract: A method of processing data is described. A set of documents is stored in a data store. A hierarchical data structure is created based on concepts within the documents. The hierarchical data structure's generated by generating phrases from the documents, initiating clustering of the phrases by entering respective documents into each of a plurality of slots, wherein only one result is entered for multiple documents that are similar, clustering the documents for each slot by creating trees with respective nodes representing the documents that are similar, and labeling each tree by determining a concept of each tree and its nodes. Once labeling is completed, a sentence summarizer and sentence filtering and scoring are applied to create summary sentences and scores.

Abstract: Systems and methods for answering user questions using databases annotated with answerable questions are disclosed. The database includes database items organized into columns. Each of the columns may have a question annotated thereto. The question is a parameterized question that is answerable by the database items in the column. A question answering algorithm is used to search the database for an annotated question corresponding to a question that needs to be answered.

Abstract: Preferred embodiments of the invention include systems and methods for selecting content from a plurality of channels in response to a received query are described. The invention embodiments include systems and methods that optimize content selection based on received queries and an identification of the user together with analysis of historical data. Embodiments of the invention also include methods for storing historical data including a plurality of queries and user data from a plurality of user databases, analyzing the stored historical data to classify the relevancy of a channel to each of the plurality of queries and user data, storing the classification, and displaying content to user based on such factors as user habits, queries, timing of searches, and content preferences.

Abstract: The invention further provides a method and system for providing results in response to queries. A challenge keyword is transmitted to a remote search engine computer system and a reference result is received from the search engine computer system. A reference score is calculated based on the reference search result. The challenge keyword in entered into at least a first engine and a challenge result is received from the first engine. A challenge answer score is calculated based on the challenge result. A challenge reference score for the first engine based on a comparison of the challenge answer score for the first engine with the reference score, and published for further analysis.