Abstract: A system and method for implementing a multi-step challenge and response test includes steps or acts of: using an input/output subsystem for presenting a series of challenges to a user that require said user to correctly solve each challenge before a next challenge is revealed to the user; receiving the user's response to each challenge; and submitting a last response in the series of challenges to a server for validation. The method further includes: using a processor device configured to perform for each challenge in the series of challenges: internally validating the response by comparing the user's response to a correct response; and using the user's response, decrypting the next challenge to reveal the next challenge; wherein the next challenge remains obfuscated until a previous challenge is correctly solved.

Abstract: A method and apparatus are provided for utilizing social network information to show reviews written by others. In one example, the method includes uploading at least one review written by an entity other than a particular user; filtering the at least one review according to criteria specified by the particular user; and integrating into one central location reviews written by others, wherein the reviews include the at least one review.

Abstract: A system and method for implementing a multi-step challenge and response test includes steps or acts of: using an input/output subsystem for presenting a series of challenges to a user that require said user to correctly solve each challenge before a next challenge is revealed to the user; receiving the user's response to each challenge; and submitting a last response in the series of challenges to a server for validation. The method further includes: using a processor device configured to perform for each challenge in the series of challenges: internally validating the response by comparing the user's response to a correct response; and using the user's response, decrypting the next challenge to reveal the next challenge; wherein the next challenge remains obfuscated until a previous challenge is correctly solved.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for receiving training data that comprise a plurality of event-and-time-specific texts that are contextually related to a plurality of events; iteratively processing the training data to generate a modified network model that defines a plurality of states; receiving additional data that comprise a plurality of additional event-and-time-specific texts that are contextually related to a particular event; processing the additional data by applying the modified network model to the additional data to identify, within the plurality of additional event-and-time specific texts, a particular set of texts that belong to a particular state of the plurality of states; identifying, within the particular set of texts, one or more texts that are most representative of all texts in the particular set of texts that belong to the particular state; wherein the method is performed by one or more special-purpose computing devices.

Abstract: Methods, computer programs, and systems for generating a link title for a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) within a context webpage to be shown as a web result are provided. The method evaluates generation parameters for a plurality of sources for picking words from the link title. Further, the method generates candidates for the link title, and a likelihood is computed for each candidate. When computing the likelihood, the generation parameters, the context webpage and the words are considered. In addition, the method selects a candidate with the highest likelihood from all the computed likelihoods, and presents the URL with the selected candidate as the title.

Abstract: Disclosed are methods and apparatus for clustering news stories, which are to be presented over a computer network. In general, an incremental clustering system is configured to update a current set of news clusters with newly arrived news articles without having to recompute the clusters for the entire corpus, as well as form new clusters for recently generated news topics. In one embodiment, a plurality of news articles are initially obtained via the computer network, and the news articles are clustered into a plurality of initial clusters. For only news articles, including any unclustered news articles, that are less than a predetermined age limit, it is determined in an incremental clustering process whether to form one or more new clusters or assign to the initial clusters.

Abstract: Techniques for clustering of search results are described. In an example embodiment, a plurality of first clusters is determined, in a corpus of articles, independently of user queries issued against the corpus of articles, where each first cluster represents a group of articles that relate to a news story. One or more cluster identifiers are assigned to each article in the corpus, where the one or more cluster identifiers respectively identify one or more of the plurality of first clusters to which the article belongs. A query that specifies search criteria against the corpus of articles is received. In response to receiving the query, a result for the query is generated by at least selecting, from the corpus of articles, a set of articles based on the search criteria. The selected set of articles is grouped into one or more second clusters based at least on the one or more cluster identifiers that are assigned to each article in the set of articles.

Abstract: Descriptive data relating to at least a subset of a plurality of entities on a website is retrieved over a network. Endorsement data relating to the plurality of entities is retrieved from the website. A first set of probabilities is determined reflecting a probability that endorsements can be attributed to specific aspects. A second set of probabilities is determined reflecting a probability that terms can be attributed to aspects. Using the first set of probabilities and the second set of probabilities, a subset of the terms that are most probably associated with each entity are selected. Tags are then generated for each entity using the selected terms.

Abstract: A method of generating a time managed challenge-response test is presented. The method identifies a geometric shape having a volume and generates an entry object of the time managed challenge-response test. The entry object is overlaid onto the geometric shape, such that the entry object is distributed over a surface of the geometric shape, and a portion of the entry object is hidden at any point in time. The geometric shape is rotated, which reveals the portion of the entry object that is hidden. A display region on a display is identified for rendering the geometric shape and the geometric shape is presented in the display region of the display.

Abstract: A method and apparatus is described for assigning functional labels to segments of web pages in an application-independent way. In the approach described herein, one of a generic set functional labels are automatically assigned to each segment of a web page, where the generic functional labels may be topic-independent and application-independent. Applications with different needs can determine which segments of the web page to process based on which functional labels correspond to the types of information needed by each application. Thus, the work of classifying the function of each segment of a web page is separated from the work of selecting which segments satisfy the need of a particular application. The work of classification can be performed in an application-independent way, relieving the burden from every application developer from having to create their own classifiers.

Abstract: Techniques are described herein for providing a marketplace for CAPTCHA developers. A CAPTCHA is a type of challenge-response test that a content provider may present to users for authorizing the users to access content that is hosted by the content provider. CAPTCHA developers may propose CAPTCHAs for testing in the marketplace. A server is configured to provide instances of proposed CAPTCHAs to users along with instances of reference CAPTCHAs that have known difficulties to determine the relative difficulties of the proposed CAPTCHAs for the users. The server may determine a reward to be provided to a developer of a proposed CAPTCHA based on a difficulty that the predetermined automated systems encounter when they attempt to solve the proposed CAPTCHA and an ease with which the users solve the proposed CAPTCHA. The server may determine rewards to be provided to developers of predetermined automated systems that solve the proposed CAPTCHAs.

Abstract: Techniques are described herein for generating CAPTCHAs that include overlapped characters, projections on virtual three-dimensional (3D) surfaces, and/or virtual 3D objects. A CAPTCHA is a type of challenge-response test that a content provider may present to users for authorizing the users to access content that the content provider hosts. For example, when a user attempts to access content, a CAPTCHA may be generated in accordance with one or more of the techniques described herein and provided to the user. The user may be asked to identify characters that overlap in the CAPTCHA, characters that are projected on a virtual 3D surface, and/or a designated virtual 3D object, so that the user may be authorized to access the content. The user may enter the characters and/or select the designated virtual 3D object that is identified in the CAPTCHA using an input device, such as a keyboard, touch screen, pointing device, etc.

Abstract: An improved system and method is provided for detecting a web page template. A web page template detector may be provided for performing page-level template detection on a web page. In general, the web page template classifier may be trained using automatically generated training data, and then the web page template classifier may be applied to web pages to identify web page templates. A web page template may be detected by classifying segments of a web page as template structures, by assigning classification scores to the segments of the web page classified as template structures, and then by smoothing the classification scores assigned to the segments of the web page. Generalized isotonic regression may be applied for smoothing scores associated with the nodes of a hierarchy by minimizing an optimization function using dynamic programming.

Abstract: A method of segmenting a webpage into visually and semantically cohesive pieces uses an optimization problem on a weighted graph, where the weights reflect whether two nodes in the webpage's DOM tree should be placed together or apart in the segmentation; the weights are informed by manually labeled data.

Abstract: An improved system and method is provided for detecting a web page template. A web page template detector may be provided for performing page-level template detection on a web page. In general, the web page template classifier may be trained using automatically generated training data, and then the web page template classifier may be applied to web pages to identify web page templates. A web page template may be detected by classifying segments of a web page as template structures, by assigning classification scores to the segments of the web page classified as template structures, and then by smoothing the classification scores assigned to the segments of the web page. Generalized isotonic regression may be applied for smoothing scores associated with the nodes of a hierarchy by minimizing an optimization function using dynamic programming.

Abstract: According to techniques described herein, the best set of quicklinks is picked to maximize the benefits for a majority of the users of a search engine, since the “real estate” on a search results page is constrained and valuable. Quicklinks are navigational shortcuts that are displayed below the website homepage on a search results page. Using user browsing trails obtained from browser toolbars, and a simple probabilistic model, the quicklink selection program is formulated as a combinatorial optimization problem. Two techniques are proposed herein: a greedy technique and a tree-based technique. The tree-based technique finds an optimal solution, but may do so in a greater amount of time than the greedy technique takes to find a solution that is not guaranteed to be optimal. The tree-based technique may incorporate natural constraints on the set of chosen quicklinks.

Abstract: An image CAPTCHA having one or more images, a challenge, and a correct answer to the challenge is constructed by selecting the one or more images from a plurality of candidate images based at least in part on each image's public information and private information. The private information of each of the images is accessible only to an entity responsible for constructing the CAPTCHA. Optionally, the one or more images are selected further based on the specific type of the CAPTCHA to be constructed.

Abstract: An optimization-based framework is utilized to extract broad query aspects from query reformulations performed by users in historical user session logs. Objective functions are optimized to yield query aspects. At run-time, the best broad but unspecified query aspects relevant to any user query are presented along with the results of the run time query.

Abstract: An improved system and method for aggregating a list of top ranked objects from ranked combination lists using an early termination algorithm is provided. Ranked lists of individual object attributes may be aggregated into ranked lists of combination object attributes. The ranked lists of object attributes, including ranked lists of individual object attributes as well as ranked lists of combination object attributes, may be scanned in parallel. A fixed number of top scoring objects may be stored in a results list of top ranked objects. An upper bound of best possible aggregation scores of unseen object in the ranked lists of object attributes may be computed to incorporate the extra information given by the combination lists of attributes. If the upper bound computed is less than the score of top scoring objects in the results list, then the top scoring objects in the results list may be output.

Abstract: Methods, computer programs, and systems for generating a link title for a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) within a context webpage to be shown as a web result are provided. The method evaluates generation parameters for a plurality of sources for picking words from the link title. Further, the method generates candidates for the link title, and a likelihood is computed for each candidate. When computing the likelihood, the generation parameters, the context webpage and the words are considered. In addition, the method selects a candidate with the highest likelihood from all the computed likelihoods, and presents the URL with the selected candidate as the title.