Abstract: An object search system generates a hierarchical clustering of objects of a collection based on similarity of the objects. The object search system generates a separate hierarchical clustering of objects for multiple features of the objects. To identify objects similar to a target object, the object search system first generates a feature vector for the target object. For each feature of the feature vector, the object search system uses the hierarchical clustering of objects to identify the cluster of objects that is most “feature similar” to that feature of the target object. The object search system indicates the similarity of each candidate object based on the features for which the candidate object is similar.

Abstract: An exemplary method includes providing a music collection of a particular scale, determining a distance parameter for locality sensitive hashing based at least in part on the scale of the music collection and constructing an index for the music collection. Another exemplary method includes providing a song, extracting snippets from the song, analyzing time-varying timbre characteristics of the snippets and constructing one or more queries based on the analyzing. Such exemplary methods may be implemented by a portable device configured to maintain an index, to perform searches based on selected songs or portions of songs and to generate playlists from search results. Other exemplary methods, devices, systems, etc., are also disclosed.

Abstract: Names of entities, such as people, in an image may be identified automatically. Visually similar images of entities are retrieved, including text proximate to the visually similar images. The collected text is mined for names of entities, and the detected names are analyzed. A name may be associated with the entity in the image, based on the analysis.

Abstract: A method and system for identifying informative links of a web site for use in crawling the web site is provided. A forum crawler analyzes sample web pages of a web forum to identify informative links and then crawls the web forum by following links determined to be informative and not following other links. The forum crawler system determines whether links are informative based on whether they are part of the overall structure of the web site or are used to select sequential information that has been split onto multiple web pages.

Abstract: A method and system for identifying the importance of information areas of a display page. An importance system identifies information areas or blocks of a web page. A block of a web page represents an area of the web page that appears to relate to a similar topic. The importance system provides the characteristics or features of a block to an importance function that generates an indication of the importance of that block to its web page. The importance system “learns” the importance function by generating a model based on the features of blocks and the user-specified importance of those blocks. To learn the importance function, the importance system asks users to provide an indication of the importance of blocks of web pages in a collection of web pages.

Abstract: A method and system for generating a search request from a multimodal query that includes a query image and query text is provided. The multimodal query system identifies images of a collection that are textually related to the query image based on similarity between words associated with each image and the query text. The multimodal query system then selects those images of the identified images that are visually related to the query image. The multimodal query system may formulate a search request based on keywords of web pages that contain the selected images and submit that search request to a search engine service.

Abstract: An importance system calculates the importance of pages using a conditional Markov random walk model rather than a conventional Markov random walk model. The importance system calculates the importance of pages factoring in the importance of sites that contain those pages. The importance system may factor in the importance of sites based on the strength of the correlation of the importance of a page to the importance of a site. The strength of the correlation may be based upon the depth of the page within the site. The importance system may iteratively calculate the importance of the pages using “conditional” transition probabilities. During each iteration, the importance system may recalculate the conditional transition probabilities based on the importance of sites that are derived from the recalculated importance of pages during the iteration.

Abstract: Systems and methods for visual language modeling for image classification are described. In one aspect the systems and methods model training images corresponding to multiple image categories as matrices of visual words. Visual language models are generated from the matrices. In view of a given image, for example, provided by a user or from the Web, the systems and methods determine an image category corresponding to the given image. This image categorization is accomplished by maximizing the posterior probability of visual words associated with the given image over the visual language models. The image category, or a result corresponding to the image category, is presented to the user.

Abstract: A method and system for prioritizing communications based on classifications of sentences within the communications is provided. A sentence classification system may classify sentences of communications according to various classifications such as “sentence mode.” The sentence classification system trains a sentence classifier using training data and then classifies sentences using the trained sentence classifier. After the sentences of a communication are classified, a document ranking system may generate a rank for the communication based on the classifications of the sentences within the communication. The document ranking system trains a document rank classifier using training data and then calculates the rank of communications using the trained document rank classifier.

Abstract: A method and system for identifying informative links of a web site for use in crawling the web site is provided. A forum crawler analyzes sample web pages of a web forum to identify informative links and then crawls the web forum by following links determined to be informative and not following other links. The forum crawler system determines whether links are informative based on whether they are part of the overall structure of the web site or are used to select sequential information that has been split onto multiple web pages.

Abstract: A method and system for identifying the importance of information areas of a display page. An importance system identifies information areas or blocks of a web page. A block of a web page represents an area of the web page that appears to relate to a similar topic. The importance system provides the characteristics or features of a block to an importance function that generates an indication of the importance of that block to its web page. The importance system “learns” the importance function by generating a model based on the features of blocks and the user-specified importance of those blocks. To learn the importance function, the importance system asks users to provide an indication of the importance of blocks of web pages in a collection of web pages.

Abstract: A large web page is analyzed and partitioned into smaller sub-pages so that a user can navigate the web page on a small form factor device. The user can browse the sub-pages to find and read information in the content of the large web page. The partitioning can be performed at a web server, an edge server, at the small form factor device, or can be distributed across one or more such devices. The analysis leverages design habits of a web page author to extract a representation structure of an authored web page. The extracted representation structure includes high level structure using several markup language tag selection rules and low level structure using visual boundary detection in which visual units of the low level structure are provided by clustering markup language tags. User viewing habits can be learned to display favorite parts of a web page.

Abstract: While browsing, a user may interact with a wide variety of images. The user may upload and share images taken with a digital camera and/or search for image using a search engine. Because images are rich in contextual information, it may be advantageous to provide additional information, such as adjacent market advertising based upon matching advertisements with contextual information of the images. Accordingly, a query image may be used to retrieve a video frame set. The video frame set may be expanded with related video frames, which may comprise video frames correlating to adjacent markets. The expanded video frame set may be grouped into clusters of similar frames. The clusters may be used to rank advertisements based upon how similar the advertisements are to the clusters and/or video frames within the clusters. In this way, one or more ranked advertisements may be presented with the query image.

Abstract: A method and system for generating a search request from a multimodal query that includes a query image and query text is provided. The multimodal query system identifies images of a collection that are textually related to the query image based on similarity between words associated with each image and the query text. The multimodal query system then selects those images of the identified images that are visually related to the query image. The multimodal query system may formulate a search request based on keywords of web pages that contain the selected images and submit that search request to a search engine service.

Abstract: A pattern tree is constructed based on a plurality of key-value pairs representing portions of a data set. In some implementations, the pattern tree may be used for learning one or more rules for interacting with a source of the data set.

Abstract: Many users make use of search engines to locate desired internet content by submitting search queries. For example, a user may search for photos, applications, websites, videos, documents, and/or information regarding people, places, and things. Unfortunately, search engines may provide a plethora of information that a user may be left to sift through to find relevant content. Accordingly, one or more systems and/or techniques for organizing search results are disclosed herein. In particular, user generated content, such as photos, may be retrieved based upon a search query. The user generated content may be grouped into clusters of user generated content having similar features. Search results of the search query may be obtained and organized based upon comparing the search results with the clusters. The organized search results and/or a table of content comprising the clusters may be presented to provide an enhanced user experience.

Abstract: Described is a technology by which uploaded GPS data is indexed according to spatio-temporal relationships to facilitate efficient insertion and retrieval. The indexes may be converted to significantly smaller-sized data structures when new updates to that structure are not likely. GPS data is processed into a track of spatially-partitioned segments such that each segment has a cell. Each cell has an associated temporal index (a compressed start-end tree), into which data for that cell's segments are inserted. The temporal index may include an end time index that relates each segment's end time to a matching start time index. Given query input comprising a spatial predicate and a temporal predicate, tracks may be searched for by determining which spatial candidate cells may contain matching results. For each candidate cell, the search accesses the cell's associated temporal index to find any track or tracks that correspond to the temporal predicate.

Abstract: A method and system for identifying locations associated with a web resource is provided. The location system identifies three different types of geographic locations: a provider location, a content location, and a serving location. A provider location identifies the geographic location of the entity that provides the web resource. A content location identifies the geographic location that is the subject of the web resource. A serving location identifies the geographic scope that the web page reaches. An application can select to use the type of location that is of particular interest.

Abstract: Techniques for identifying near-duplicates of a media object and associating metadata of the near-duplicates with the media object are described herein. One or more devices implementing the techniques are configured to identify the near duplicates based at least on similarity attributes included in the media object. Metadata is then extracted from the near-duplicates and is associated with the media object as descriptors of the media object to enable discovery of the media object based on the descriptors.

Abstract: A concept network that can be generated in response to a user query. Various embodiments include analysis of structure information, for example, where such information is based at least in part on Universal Resource Locators (URLs) of Web sites or data storage locations. A concept network may be used with a search tool where the search tool searches a plurality of sites (e.g., Web sites, data storage locations, etc.). In such an example, each site location is arranged with a node. Certain ones of the nodes are connected by at least one link. The concept network selects a portion of certain ones of the nodes based on the link, wherein the at least one link is used for content purposes.