Patent Application
20080092051
An object of the invention is to facilitate fast and parallel review of relevant information instead of the conventional serial search from a search results page. Another object of the invention is to create automatically a flip-book style slide show presentation that allows for interesting, user-friendly, and passive review of selected images and textual information and dramatically reduces the number of user actions (clicks) required as compared with a conventional serial search. This kind of presentation may be particularly effective on internet connected small form factor mobile devices (for example, mobile phones, PDAs, etc.)
Another object of the invention is to enable a user to conveniently organize visual and textual information by automatically authoring a structured document (for example, an XML based document) so that information contained in the structured document could be rendered in different client devices (for example, a personal computer, a mobile device, a television, etc.) as a slideshow presentation. This can enable the same information to be automatically adapted for display in different client devices viewing data from across a vast number of sources.
Another object of the invention is to allow a user to edit and annotate the slideshow presentation of visual, textual, and audio information relating to a subject of interest obtained from the internet, from specific web domains, or from a user's collection and/or database. Adding relevant text over or around the image (user can determine what high-value info they want to add)—creates a compelling and informative snapshot, thus eliminating the need for excessive serial “blind” investigation of links in a convention search results page.
Another object of the invention is to allow a user to share the presentations created by him with others by saving and publishing the slideshow presentation (for example, to a web URL or to a database) and by sending the URL of the presentation to his contacts by email.
Another object of the invention is to facilitate a highly-efficient parallel search paradigm that is not bound by spatial 2D (or even 3D) constraints of the traditional page/list view and incorporates the additional dimension of time in the slide show presentation.
In the following description of various embodiments including the preferred embodiment, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which show by way of illustration the embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. It is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural and functional modifications may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention. Those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that the detailed description given herein with respect to these drawings is for explanatory purposes as the invention extends beyond these limited embodiments.
A user enters a search expression 110 in the client machine 150. A search expression 110 can be a particular word, phrase, or collection of words pertaining to which an image search is to be conducted. The client machine 150 can be a PC, a mobile device, a television, etc. The client machine 150 passes the search expression 110 to the search engines 120. The search engines 120 can be commercial databases of indexed web pages on the World Wide Web (for example, Google™, Altavista™, MSN™, Wikipedia™, Flickr™, and other commercial databases (such as, travelocity.com, car.com) etc.). The search engines 120 return the information corresponding to the search expression such as, but not limited to image URLs, thumbnail URLs, source page URLs, web domain URLs, textual information, tags, metadata, abstracts and alt text, etc.
The information retrieved from the search engines 120 can be sent for conversion to the module 130 for creating structured documents having mark-up tags. The module 130 for creating structured documents converts the retrieved information into a structured document. The structured document can be a document having multiple mark-up tags. Examples of the structured document can be extensible mark up language (XML) based documents, hypertext markup language (HTML) based documents, standard generalized mark-up language (SGML) based documents, etc. The user can view the thumbnails of the images retrieved from the internet. Further, based on choice or requirement the user can edit/annotate the structured document or he can publish the structured document with or without editing. The user can publish the structured document to a unique web URL using the module for publishing structured document to a unique web URL 180 or it can be published to a database 140 (both residing on the web server 100).
If the user opts for editing and annotating the structured document, the system can send the structured document to the editing and annotating module 160 residing on the client machine 150. The editing & annotating module 160 facilitates the user to do a variety of editing tasks, for example, but not limited to, annotate, insert comments, add images, remove images, resize images, crop images, add layered mark-up to images, combine one or more images into a single image file, change the sequence of images, edit the transitions between images, add audio clips to the presentations, and blend in the presentation the images retrieved using the one or more search engines with other images or audio clips retrieved from any other source, etc.
The edited/annotated structured documents can be rendered by the client side presentation module 170 to display a slide show of images. In another embodiment the edited/annotated structured documents can also be rendered by the client side presentation module 170 to display a formatted printable page and/or a PDF document depending upon the user's requirement. The client side presentation module 170 can be a multimedia rendering application, and/or a document rendering application. Examples of the multimedia rendering application can be a Flash player, etc. and the document rendering application can be a Microsoft office tool, Adobe Acrobat Reader, etc. If the user wants, he/she can save the edited/annotated structured document to the database 140 residing on the web server 100 for future use.
In step 200, a search expression can be sent to one or more search engines using a client machine for real time search. A search expression can be a particular word, phrase, or collection of words.
In step 210, the client machine retrieves the information corresponding to the search expression from one or more search engines. The information can include, but not limited to, image URLs, thumbnail URLs, source page URLs, web domain URLs, textual information, tags, metadata, abstracts and alt text, etc.
In step 220, the retrieved information can be sent to a module for creating structured documents, wherein the information can be parsed to create a structured document having mark-up tags.
In step 230, the structured document can be rendered as a slide show presentation, a formatted printable page, and/or a PDF document in the client device using a client side presentation module or the structured document can be sent to the editing and annotating module.
In step 240, the structured document can be sent for editing and annotating as per user's choice. The user can do a variety of editing and annotating tasks.
In step 250, the structured document after editing/annotating can be stored to the database or can be published to a unique web URL that can be accessed using any web browser, and/or it can be rendered as a slide show to the user.
A user enters a search expression 310 using the client machine 350. The client machine 350 can be a PC, a mobile device, a television, etc. The client machine 350 using a web browser sends the search expression 310 to the web server 300. The web server 300 can be any computer, which is responsible for accepting HTTP requests from the web browser on the client machine 350 and responding to the HTTP requests and serving back to the web browser the required information.
The web server 300 passes the search expression 310 to the one or more search engines 320. The one or more search engines 320 return the information corresponding to the search expression 310. The information can include, but not be limited to, image URLs, thumbnail URLs, source page URLs, web domain URLs, textual information, tags, metadata, abstracts and alt text, etc.
The information retrieved from the one or more search engines 320 can be sent to the module 330 for creating a structured document having mark-up tags. The structured document can be a document having multiple mark-up tags. Examples of structured documents can be extensible mark up language (XML) based documents, hypertext markup language (HTML) based documents, standard generalized mark-up language (SGML) based documents, and the like.
The structured document may be edited and annotated by a user using the editing & annotating module 360 residing on the client machine 350. The user may publish the structured document to a unique web URL 380, or to a database 340 residing on the web server 300 depending upon his/her choice. The editing & annotating module 360 enables the user to do a variety of editing and annotating tasks, for example, but not limited to, annotate, insert comments, add images, remove images, resize images, crop images, add layered mark-up to images, combine one or more images into a single image file, change the sequence of images, edit the transitions between images, add audio clips to the presentations, and to blend in the presentation the images retrieved using the one or more search engines with other images or audio clips retrieved from any other source, etc. The structured document can be rendered by the client side presentation module 370 to display a slide show of images before or after sending the structured document to the editing and annotating module. The structured document can also be displayed as a formatted printable page and/or a PDF document depending upon the user's requirement. The client side presentation module 170 can be a multimedia rendering application, and/or a document rendering application. Example of the multimedia rendering application can be a Flash player, etc and the document rendering application can be a Microsoft office tool, Adobe Acrobat Reader, etc. The structured document can be published to a unique web URL or it can be saved to the database 340 for future use.
In step 400, a search expression can be sent to a web server using a client machine. A search expression can be a particular word, phrase, or collection of words.
In step 410, the search expression can be transmitted from the web server to one or more search engines for real time search.
In step 420, the web server retrieves the information corresponding to the search expression from the one or more search engines.
In step 430, the retrieved information can be sent to a module for creating structured documents, wherein the retrieved information can be parsed to create a structured document having mark-up tags.
In step 440, the structured document can be rendered as a slide show presentation, a formatted printable document and/or a PDF document in the client device using the client side presentation module and/or it may be sent to an editing and annotating module.
In step 450, the structured document can be sent for editing and annotating as per user's choice.
In step 460, the structured document after editing/annotating can be stored to the database or can be published to a unique web URL that can be accessed using any web browser, and/or it can be rendered as a slide show, a formatted printable document and/or a PDF document to the user.
The information retrieved from the one or more search engines for the selected set of thumbnails can be sent to a module for creating a structured document (not shown) having mark-up tags. The module for creating structured documents converts the information corresponding to the selected set of thumbnails into a structured document. The structured document can be rendered by the client side presentation module (not shown) to display a slide show presentation 540 on the user-interface. The method enables the user to view the complete slideshow of selected and ordered images without having to serially drill the link for each image.
In a conventional search system, search results entirely depend upon the formation of search expressions. Variation of single word in a search expression may lead to entire new set of search results. Thus, to facilitate a user, the embodiment discloses an alternative way of forming a search query, which can be termed as a rollover search expression. In the rollover search expression as the user's mouse will roll over a suggested search phrase, an automatic search query is generated, which will yield search results from search engines.
Having fully described the preferred embodiment, other equivalent or alternative methods of retrieving information, creating structured documents, editing and annotating the structured documents, rendering the structured documents as slide show presentations by a rendering software, and publishing the documents according to the present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art. The invention has been described above by way of illustration, and the specific embodiment disclosed is not intended to limit the invention to the particular forms disclosed. For example, the embodiments described in the foregoing were directed to providing you clear ideas about the preferred modes, including the best mode, of making and using the present invention; however, in alternate embodiments, those skilled in the art may implement the invention using various other means without deviating from the central idea of the invention. The invention therefore covers all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the following claims.
