Abstract: Methods and apparatus are described herein for selecting, from one or more electronic data sources, a candidate textual statement associated with an entity, identifying one or more attributes of the candidate textual statement; and determining, based on the identified one or more attributes of the candidate textual statement, a measure of suitability of the candidate textual statement for presentation as a testimonial about the entity.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus for determining a tone differential between a given segment of a document and a larger segment of the document. The tone differential may be based on comparison of a first tone associated with the given segment and a second tone associated with the larger segment. The tone differential is indicative of the variance between the tone of the given segment and the tone of the larger segment.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus are described herein for classifying user reviews or portions thereof as being related to various entities, and for associating extracted descriptive segments of text contained in those user reviews or portions thereof with entities based on the classifications. In various implementations, one or more categories of observed user interest may be identified based on a corpus of user queries. One or more segments of text related to the one or more categories of observed user interest may be detected in one or more user reviews associated with a product. Based on the detecting, the product may be indexed on the one or more categories of observed user interest in a searchable database. In some implementations, the searchable database may be accessible to one or more remote client devices, and may be searchable by the one or more categories of observed user interest to provide search results to be rendered by the one or more remote client devices.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus related to automatically rewriting a string of text utilizing one or more rewrite rules. Some implementations are directed to scoring rewrite rules based at least in part on user interactions with rewrites that are generated by applying the rewrite rules. Some implementations are directed to determining the effectiveness of a rewrite generated based on applying one or more rewrite rules to a string of text. In some of those implementations, the determination may be based at least in part on one or more characteristics of the string of text, one or more characteristics of the rewrite, and/or scores associated with the rewrite rules.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus are described herein for classifying user reviews or portions thereof as being related to various entities, and for associating extracted descriptive segments of text contained in those user reviews or portions thereof with entities based on the classifications. In various implementations, one or more portions of a corpus of user reviews may be classified as being related to a first entity or a second entity. One or more descriptive segments of text may be extracted from the one or more classified portions. The one or more extracted descriptive segments of text may be associated with the first or second entity based on classifications of the one or more classified portions.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus are disclosed for determining similarities and/or differences between entities in a segment of text based on various signals are presented, and for determining one or more likelihoods that one or more subjects found in a segment of text are capable of performing one or more associated actions based on various signals.

Abstract: The present disclosure describes a data indexing and search service that resides locally on a computing device (e.g., a mobile phone) and that can host data for multiple applications on the device. By centralizing the storage of data as well as the search and query functions, unified search queries can be performed by the service.

Abstract: Systems and methods are disclosed for determining media consumption preferences. A method may include accessing media consumption history associated with a user. The media consumption history may include at least one of media purchase history of the user, media viewing history of the user, and media listening history of the user. A media category preference of the user may be determined, based on the media consumption history. The media category preference may include a popularity indication for each of a plurality of media categories of media items in the media consumption history. Search results provided in response to a search query by the user and/or media recommendations prepared for the user may be scored based on the media category preference. The media may include a video, a movie, a TV show, a book, an audio recording, a music album and/or another type of digital media.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus related to using web resources to determine an answer for a query. Some implementations are directed generally to determining answers to interrogative queries that are submitted by users via computing devices of the users, such as typed or spoken queries submitted via a search engine interface. Some implementations are directed to determining answers to interrogative queries that are automatically formulated to identify missing information, verify existing information, and/or update existing information in a structured entity database.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus related to automatically rewriting a string of text utilizing one or more rewrite rules. Some implementations are directed to scoring rewrite rules based at least in part on user interactions with rewrites that are generated by applying the rewrite rules. Some implementations are directed to determining the effectiveness of a rewrite generated based on applying one or more rewrite rules to a string of text. In some of those implementations, the determination may be based at least in part on one or more characteristics of the string of text, one or more characteristics of the rewrite, and/or scores associated with the rewrite rules.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus are disclosed for determining similarities and/or differences between entities in a segment of text based on various signals are presented, and for determining one or more likelihoods that one or more subjects found in a segment of text are capable of performing one or more associated actions based on various signals.

Abstract: A server system, which manages distribution or download of content, may be configured to distribute content lists generated by users. In this regard, the server system may allow users to follow other users and/or particular individual content lists that may be made available by the server system. Accordingly, users of the server system may be allowed to become list producers and/or list followers. Distribution of the content lists may be based on one or more of: an indication by a user of a selection to follow another user, a match between user search criteria specified by the user and at least some of the data associated with the other user, a match between list search criteria specified by the user and at least some of the data of distributed list(s), and a match between the particular user recommendation ranking and ranking criteria specified by the user.

Abstract: The present disclosure describes a data indexing and search service that resides locally on a computing device (e.g., a mobile phone) and that can host data for multiple applications on the device. By centralizing the storage of data as well as the search and query functions, unified search queries can be performed by the service.

Abstract: Disclosed are apparatus and methods for providing machine-learning services. A context-identification system executing on a mobile platform can receive data comprising context-related data associated with the mobile platform and application-related data received from the mobile platform. The context-identification system can identify a context using the context-related data associated with the mobile platform and/or the application-related data received from the mobile platform. Based on at least one context identified, context-identification system can predict a communicative action associated with the mobile platform by performing a machine-learning operation on the received data. An instruction can be received to execute the communicative action associated with the mobile platform.

Abstract: A system ranks documents based on contexts associated with the documents. The system identifies a reference in a first document, where the reference is associated with a second document. The system analyzes a portion of the first document associated with the reference, identifies a rare word (or words) from the portion, creates a context identifier based on the rare word(s), and ranks the second document based on the context identifier.

Abstract: An information retrieval system uses phrases to index, retrieve, organize and describe documents. Phrases are extracted from the document collection. Documents are the indexed according to their included phrases, using phrase posting lists. The phrase posting lists are stored in an cluster of index servers. The phrase posting lists can be tiered into groups, and sharded into partitions. Phrases in a query are identified based on possible phrasifications. A query schedule based on the phrases is created from the phrases, and then optimized to reduce query processing and communication costs. The execution of the query schedule is managed to further reduce or eliminate query processing operations at various ones of the index servers.

Abstract: An information retrieval system uses phrases to index, retrieve, organize and describe documents. Phrases are identified that predict the presence of other phrases in documents. Documents are the indexed according to their included phrases. A spam document is identified based on the number of related phrases included in a document.

Abstract: An information retrieval system uses phrases to index, retrieve, organize and describe documents. Phrases are identified that predict the presence of other phrases in documents. Documents are the indexed according to their included phrases. The document index is partitioned into multiple indexes, including a primary index and a secondary index. The primary index stores phrase posting lists with relevance rank ordered documents. The secondary index stores excess documents from the posting lists in document order.

Abstract: An information retrieval system uses phrases to index, retrieve, organize and describe documents. Phrases are identified that predict the presence of other phrases in documents. Documents are the indexed according to their included phrases. Related phrases and phrase extensions are also identified. Phrases in a query are identified and used to retrieve and rank documents. Phrases are also used to cluster documents in the search results, create document descriptions, and eliminate duplicate documents from the search results, and from the index.

Abstract: An information retrieval system uses phrases to index, retrieve, organize and describe documents. Phrases are identified that predict the presence of other phrases in documents. Documents are the indexed according to their included phrases. Related phrases and phrase extensions are also identified. Phrases in a query are identified and used to retrieve and rank documents. Phrases are also used to cluster documents in the search results, create document descriptions, and eliminate duplicate documents from the search results, and from the index.