Patent application number | Description | Published |
20080244401 | User interface teaching concepts in an application - Various embodiments provide a wizard integrated as part of an application to assist a user in operating within the application. In one or more embodiments, the wizard comprises an inline portion of the application's user interface and is designed to enable a user to express a desired goal and then present one or more choices that appear to satisfy the user's desired goal. The choices are titled in a manner that obscures or abstracts away more complex choices and concepts with which a user may not be familiar. When the user selects a particular displayed choice, the wizard can present further choices which are progressively narrowed to focus on the user's desired goal, thus directing the user to a suitable feature to accomplish his or her goal and providing just-in-time conceptual information about the feature to enable the user to use that feature. | 10-02-2008 |
20110225192 | AUTO-DETECTION OF HISTORICAL SEARCH CONTEXT - Architecture that automatically detects historical search contexts as well as behaviors related to a search query. Machine learning and hand-authored rules are employed to automatically identify search contexts. Historical information likely to be useful in the current context is surfaced. When a user enters a search query or executes another search behavior, past behaviors are exposed which are contextually related to the current behavior. The architecture also provides automatic discovery of historical contexts, features related to the contexts, and training or authoring of a system for classifying behavior into contexts, using some combination of the machine learning and/or hand-authored rules. A runtime system classifies the current user behavior into a context and surfaces contextual information to the user. | 09-15-2011 |
20110252011 | Integrating a Search Service with a Social Network Resource - A system is described for integrating a search engine and one or more social network resources. The system operates by determining whether a search operation being conducted by a user warrants interaction with a social network resource. If so, the system may provide an invitation to the user to forward a query-related message to the social network resource. The system then sends the message to a group of contacts via the social network resource, where the group of contacts can be defined in various ways. The system receives a response from at least one contact in the group of contacts and presents that response to the user using various delivery mechanisms, as governed by various delivery timings. | 10-13-2011 |
20120036011 | Search Personalization Using Identifiers and Authentication State - Systems, methods, and computer media for personalizing a web page and for personalizing user search query results are provided. A request to view a web page, such as a user search query that produces a search result web page, is received from a computing device. A computing device identifier is detected. Device-specific data corresponding to the detected computing device identifier is accessed. Upon detecting at least one user identifier having an authentication state, user-specific data corresponding to the detected user identifier and authentication state is accessed. The web page is personalized based on at least one of the accessed device-specific data and the accessed user-specific data. | 02-09-2012 |
20130205241 | SEARCHING COMMAND ENHANCEMENTS - A user can access a searching component that allows the user to enter search terms to search for commands associated with a computer program. Some specific embodiments pertain to methods for supporting user access to the searching component, to methods for processing search terms submitted by the user, and to methods for guiding the user in terms of their formulation and selection queries. Methods for generating, organizing and manipulating the search results are also provided. | 08-08-2013 |
20140278983 | USING ENTITY REPOSITORY TO ENHANCE ADVERTISEMENT DISPLAY - In various embodiments, systems and methods are provided for facilitating enhanced advertisement display. In embodiments, an indication of an entity preference and a corresponding entity bid in association with an advertisement are received. Thereafter, the entity preference and the corresponding entity bid associated with the advertisement are provided for use in an advertisement auction when at least one search result for a query is associated with the entity preference. In such a case, the entity bid is used to participate in the advertisement auction. | 09-18-2014 |
20150206446 | AUTHORING, SHARING, AND CONSUMPTION OF ONLINE COURSES - Technologies are described herein for authoring, sharing, and consuming online courses. A lesson creation extension executing in conjunction with a presentation application can be utilized to create an augmented presentation document having one or more slides. A video recording of a presentation of the slides may be made and associated with the slides. Digital ink made on the slides may also be recorded. The slides might also be created to include quizzes, interactive labs, and other types of interactive content. The augmented presentation document can then be published to a portal system for sharing. A lesson player can be utilized to play back the lesson from the portal system. During playback, the recorded audio, video and digital ink are played back in synchronization by the lesson player. | 07-23-2015 |
20160042426 | ITEM MAPS FOR APP STORE APPS - An app in an app store may be associated with a statically or dynamically generated list of the app's features, modes, content, and/or target device. Different descriptions, icons, titles, and the like may be shown in the app store for each of those features, modes, and content. Based on the mapping and display of individual options, users may be enabled to purchase just one of those modes, features, and/or content. If a user finds one of the provided options and acts to acquire it, the app may start up in a mode tailored to the options (feature, mode, content) rather than activating in a generic way. App stores may limit a number of options per app that can appear in search results, to prevent result spamming by collapsing displayed results, limiting the actual number of displayed results, or filtering by user. | 02-11-2016 |