Abstract: An information retrieval system for automatically retrieving information related to the context of an active task being manipulated by a user. The system observes the operation of the active task and user interactions, and utilizes predetermined criteria to generate context representation of the active task that are relevant to the context of the active task. The information retrieval system then processes the context representation to generate queries or search terms for conducting an information search. The information retrieval system determines the relevance of a word to the context by utilizing an adaptive weighting system. The information retrieval system assigns varying weights to different attributes of a word and calculates an accumulated weight of the word by accumulating all weights assigned to the word. The attributes may include word size, style, location of the word, etc.

Abstract: A networked presentation system manages transmission of presentation units to the audience, and ensures that the presentation units are displayed to, or accessible by, the audience in the same sequence as the presenter intends. The networked presentation system includes a presenter system, a presentation server and at least one audience system that connect to each other using a data transmission network. The networked presentation system controls to deliver the active presentation unit to the audience systems such that whenever the presenter renders one presentation unit active, the networked presentation system makes the active presentation unit available to the audience system. The networked presentation system allows users of the audience system to configure the way the presentation units are displayed on the audience system, and to attach notes to the presentation units.

Abstract: A system and method in accordance with the present invention include means for providing interactive assistance for the performance of a set of predefined steps, including selecting the set of predefined steps and automatically generating a step-sensitive grammar for each step. Generating the step-sensitive grammar includes generating a set of navigation commands related to each step and generating a set of rules to recognize potential queries related to each step. A recognizer is configured for determining if a received utterance forms one of the navigation commands or one of the potential queries, within a context of the current step. Form this determination, provided are navigation to a different step if the utterance was a navigation command or a response if the utterance was a query.