Abstract: A method and system for projecting queries and images into a similarity space where queries are close to their relevant images is provided. A similarity space projection (“SSP”) system learns a query projection function and an image projection function based on training data. The query projection function projects the relevance of the most relevant words of a query into a similarity space and the image projection function projects the relevance to an image of the most relevant words of a query into the same similarity space so that queries and their relevant images are close in the similarity space. The SSP system can then identify images that are relevant to a target query and queries that are relevant to a target image using the projection functions.

Abstract: A content object indexing process including creating a content object knowledge index, calculating a description vector of a target content object, and indexing the target content object by searching for the description vector in the content object knowledge database. It may be difficult to search for an exact content object such as a music file or academic researcher as a conventional search index may not include related hierarchical information. A content object indexing process may add hierarchical information taken from a content object knowledge index and incorporate the hierarchical information to the index entry for a specific content object. An application of such a content object indexing process may be a world wide web search engine.

Abstract: A method and system for calculating the significance of a sentence within a document is provided. The summarization system calculates the significance of the sentences of a document and selects the most significant sentences as the summary of the document. The summarization system calculates the significance of a sentence based on the “important” words of the document that are contained within the sentence. The summarization system calculates the importance of words of the document using various scoring techniques and then combines the scores to classify a word as important or not important. The summarization system can then be used to identify significant sentences of the document based on the important words that a sentence contains and select significant sentences as a summary of the document.

Abstract: A method and system for providing a user interface for presenting images of clusters of an image search result is provided. The user interface system displays the search result in a cluster/view form using a cluster panel and a view panel. The cluster panel contains a cluster area for each cluster. The view panel may contain thumbnails of images of the search result in a list view or a mix view. When a user selects a cluster area from the cluster panel, the user interface system displays a list view of thumbnails for that cluster in the view panel. The user interface system may display a thumbnail list near a cluster area of the cluster panel. The thumbnail list contains mini-thumbnails of the images of the selected cluster. The user interface system may also display a detail view of an image in the view panel when a user selects an image.

Abstract: Systems and methods for related term suggestion are described. In one aspect, relationships among respective ones of two or more multi-type data objects are identified. The respective ones of the multi-type data objects include at least one object of a first type and at least one object of a second type that is different from the first type. The multi-type data objects are iteratively clustered in view of respective ones of the relationships to generate reinforced clusters.

Abstract: A method and system for transmitting an image progressively is provided. The transmission system identifies a first region and a second region of the image. The transmission system also identifies a first resolution and a second resolution. The transmission system then transmits the image by transmitting, in the following order, the first region in the first resolution, the second region in the first resolution, the first region in the second resolution, and the second region in the second resolution. The transmission system may identify the regions based on the likelihood of being the focus of user attention.

Abstract: A method and system for adapting search results of a query to the information needs of the user submitting the query is provided. A search system analyzes click-through triplets indicating that a user submitted a query and that the user selected a document from the results of the query. To overcome the large size and sparseness of the click-through data, the search system when presented with an input triplet comprising a user, a query, and a document determines a probability that the user will find the input document important by smoothing the click-through triplets. The search system then orders documents of the result based on the probability of their importance to the input user.

Abstract: A method and system for identifying explanatory text for a referenced web page based on a reference to the referenced web page contained in a repeated pattern of a referencing web page is provided. An anchor explanatory text (“AET”) system uses the hierarchical organization of the web page to identify a repeated pattern of hierarchical elements that contain references to other display pages. After the AET system identifies a repeated pattern, it identifies the dominant reference or anchor within each occurrence of the pattern. The AET system uses the explanatory text surrounding a dominant anchor as a description of the referenced web page.

Abstract: A method and system for ranking documents of search results based on information richness and diversity of topics. A ranking system determines the information richness of each document within a search result. The ranking system groups documents of a search result based on their relatedness, meaning that they are directed to similar topics. The ranking system ranks the documents to ensure that the highest ranking documents may include at least one document covering each topic, that is, one document from each of the groups. The ranking system selects the document from each group that has the highest information richness of the documents within the group. When the documents are presented to a user in rank order, the user will likely find on the first page of the search result documents that cover a variety of topics, rather than just a single popular topic.

Abstract: A method and system for generating wrappers for hierarchically organized documents by jointly optimizing template detection and wrapper generation is provided. A wrapper generation system generates a wrapper for documents with similar templates by identifying a cluster of document trees and generating a wrapper tree for the cluster. A wrapper tree defines the wrapper for documents that match the template of the cluster. The wrapper generation system clusters document trees by generating a wrapper tree for the cluster based on an initial document tree. The wrapper generation system then repeatedly determines whether any other document tree matches or nearly matches the wrapper tree for the cluster and, if so, adds the document tree to the cluster and adjusts the wrapper tree as appropriate so that all the document trees, including the newly added one, match the wrapper tree.

Abstract: A method and system for identifying sights associated with a location and for displaying images associated with those sights is provided. A tour system identifies sights associated with a location by submitting a search request formed using the location to an image search service. The tour system identifies salient phrases of metadata of the search results to be the candidate sight names. The tour system also provides a user interface for displaying the images associated with the locations. The user interface may present a slideshow of sights encountered when traveling on a trip.

Abstract: A method and system for classifying an image as a photograph or a graphic based on a ranked prevalent color histogram feature or a ranked region size feature is provided. The prevalent color histogram feature contains counts of the colors that are most prevalent in the image sorted in descending order. The region size feature contains counts of the largest regions of the image sorted in descending order. The classification system then classifies the image based on the ranked prevalent color histogram feature and/or the ranked region size feature using a previously trained classifier.

Abstract: An implicit links enhancement system and method for search engines that generates implicit links obtained from mining user access logs to facilitate enhanced local searching of web sites and intranets. Embodiments of the implicit links search enhancement system and method includes extracting implicit links by mining users' access patterns and then using a modified link analysis algorithm to re-rank search results obtained from traditional search engines. More specifically, embodiments of the method include extracting implicit links from a user access log, generating an implicit links graph from the extracted implicit links, and computing page rankings using the implicit links graph. The implicit links are extracted from the log using a two-item sequential pattern mining technique. Search results obtained from a search engine are re-ranked based on an implicit links analysis performed using an updated implicit links graph, a modified re-ranking formula, and at least one re-ranking technique.

Abstract: A method and system for providing location-based advertisements to requesting devices is provided. An advertisement system aggregates advertisements by collecting advertisements from multiple advertisement sources, extracting data from the collected advertisements, and storing the extracted data in a common format. After aggregating the advertisements, the advertisement system transforms each advertisement into multiple advertisement formats that are specific to protocols supported by the various device types. When the advertisement system receives queries for advertisements, it identifies matching advertisements and ranks them based on a location. The advertisement system then selects an advertisement format that is appropriate for the requesting device.

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: A duplicate image detection system generates an image table that maps hash codes of images to their corresponding images. The image table may group images according to their group identifiers generated from the most significant elements of the hash codes based on significance of the elements in representing an image. The image table thus segregates images by their group identifiers. To detect a duplicate image of a target image, the detection system generates a target hash code for the target image. The detection system then identifies the group of the target image based on the group identifier of the target hash code. After identifying the group identifier, the detection system searches the corresponding group table to identify hash codes that have values that are similar to the target hash code. The detection system then selects the images associated with those similar hash codes as being duplicates of the target image.

Abstract: A method and system for providing a user interface for presenting images of clusters of an image search result is provided. The user interface system displays the search result in a cluster/view form using a cluster panel and a view panel. The cluster panel contains a cluster area for each cluster. The view panel may contain thumbnails of images of the search result in a list view or a mix view. When a user selects a cluster area from the cluster panel, the user interface system displays a list view of thumbnails for that cluster in the view panel. The user interface system may display a thumbnail list near a cluster area of the cluster panel. The thumbnail list contains mini-thumbnails of the images of the selected cluster. The user interface system may also display a detail view of an image in the view panel when a user selects an image.

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: Described is using density to efficiently mine co-location patterns, such as closely located businesses frequently found together in business listing databases, geographic search logs, and/or GPS-based data. A data space of such information is geographically partitioned into a grid of cells, with dense cells scanned first. A dynamic upper bound of prevalence measure of co-location patterns is maintained during the scanning process. If the current upper bound is smaller than a threshold, the scanning is stopped, thereby significantly reducing the computation cost for processing many cells, while providing suitable results.

Abstract: A method and system for recommending potential contacts to a target user is provided. A recommendation system identifies users who are related to the target user through no more than a maximum degree of separation. The recommendation system identifies the users by starting with the contacts of the target user and identifying users who are contacts of the target user's contacts, contacts of those contacts, and so on. The recommendation system then ranks the identified users, who are potential contacts for the target user, based on a likelihood that the target user will want to have a direct relationship with the identified users. The recommendation system then presents to the target user a ranking of the users who have not been filtered out.