Abstract: Entities that answer questions are organized into entity groups. An interface determines an answer to a question from one of the entity groups with a confidence that is greater than a second confidence threshold. To determine the answer, the interface performs an exploration phase where the interface asks the question to each of the entity groups. Entity groups that provide answers with a confidence that is greater than a first confidence threshold are selected for a subset. The interface enters an exploitation phase where the question is asked of the entity groups in the subset. If an answer is determined with a confidence that is greater than the second confidence threshold, then the answer is provided. If no answer is determined before a duration of time expires, then the interface enters a rollback phase where all of the entity groups are considered.

Abstract: Architecture that enables extraction of pieces of content from the Internet, social networks, in particular, and/or of a user's immediate circle of friends and family, where the content relates to trending topics of those networks as relevant to a search query. The content effectively summarizes a trending topic (e.g., of a single social network or across multiple social networks). The summary can be characterized by different content types, such as images only, text only, and so on. The extracted content can then be presented in a number of different ways such as in a display that visually rotates through the different types of content, such as trending images, summarizing updates, and trending webpages, for example. Another technique for presentation of the extracted social content can be as user-selectable “hotspots” on a page or desktop, and which can display the trending topic summaries.

Abstract: Entities that answer questions are organized into entity groups. An interface determines an answer to a question from one of the entity groups with a confidence that is greater than a second confidence threshold. To determine the answer, the interface performs an exploration phase where the interface asks the question to each of the entity groups. Entity groups that provide answers with a confidence that is greater than a first confidence threshold are selected for a subset. The interface enters an exploitation phase where the question is asked of the entity groups in the subset. If an answer is determined with a confidence that is greater than the second confidence threshold, then the answer is provided. If no answer is determined before a duration of time expires, then the interface enters a rollback phase where all of the entity groups are considered.