Patent Application
20080154874
Embodiments of the present invention relate to the field of data processing. More specifically, various embodiments relate to methods and systems for providing more relevant answers to a query.
Advances in processor, networking, and related technologies have led to the availability of an abundant amount of information, accessible to a user at his/her fingertips through the use of a networked computing device. This abundant availability of information, however, can become frustrating at times with the relevant information buried under a mountain of irrelevant information.
Recently, home networks, and networks in general, connecting more than one network device have become popular fueled by many factors including the growth of broadband internet usage and the proliferation of digital media. As a result, an unprecedented level of complexity is being created for the home and office consumer. When networking problems arise, consumers will often formulate queries and present them through email, telephone, or online chat to a support technician, or simply present the query to the internet at-large through an internet search engine. These queries receive imprecise and often ineffectual answers, in part, because it is difficult for the consumer to formulate a well-framed query, and in part because of the volume of information available. Consequently, the consumer fails to find a viable solution to their problem in a timely manner and the business entity responsible for supplying the technical support is required to allocate large amounts of time and revenue into researching and solving the consumer's problems.
Embodiments of the present invention will be readily understood by the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. Embodiments of the invention are illustrated by way of example and not by way of limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings.
Various embodiments, described below, have been developed in response to the current state of the art and, in particular, in response to the previously identified problems and factors associated with queries based on network configurations that have not been solved by currently available systems, e.g. email support services, telephony support services, online chat-room support services, and information available through the internet at-large. Embodiments provide more relevant answer to a query. Embodiments provide a method for a host device to receive device specific information associated with a device within a network, create a list of synonymous terms correlated to the device specific information, and finally, to use the list of synonymous terms to modify a query. The modification of the query can occur prior to submitting a query by concatenating or expanding a query with the synonymous terms thereby creating a well-framed question; or modification can occur by submitting the query as received and ranking the results based on the list of synonymous terms thereby creating answers ranked by relevance. Exemplary device specific information received by the host device includes product categories, model numbers, manufacturer names, and firmware versions of devices within the network.
In the following detailed description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof, and in which is shown by way of illustration embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. It is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural or logical changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. Therefore, the following detailed description is not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of embodiments in accordance with the present invention is defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.
Various operations may be described as multiple discrete operations in turn, in a manner that may be helpful in understanding embodiments of the present invention; however, the order of description should not be construed to imply that these operations are order dependent.
For the purposes of the description, a phrase in the form “A/B” means A or B. For the purposes of the description, a phrase in the form “A and/or B” means “(A), (B), or (A and B)”. For the purposes of the description, a phrase in the form “at least one of A, B, and C” means “(A), (B), (C), (A and B), (A and C), (B and C), or (A, B and C)”. For the purposes of the description, a phrase in the form “(A)B” means “(B) or (AB)” that is, A is an optional element.
For ease of understanding, the description will be in large part presented in the context of home networking; however, the present invention is not so limited, and may be practiced to provide more relevant answers to a variety of queries. Reference in the specification to a network “device” and/or “appliance” means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, namely device operable connectivity, such as the ability for the device to be connected to communicate across the network, and/or programmability, such as the ability for the device to be configured to perform designated functions, is included in at least one embodiment of the digital device as used herein. Typically, digital devices may include general and/or special purpose computing devices, connected personal computers, network printers, network attached storage devices, voice over internet protocol devices, security cameras, baby cameras, media adapters, entertainment personal computers, and/or other networked devices suitably configured for practicing the present invention in accordance with at least one embodiment.
The description may use the phrases “in an embodiment,” or “in embodiments,” which may each refer to one or more of the same or different embodiments. Furthermore, the terms “comprising,” “including,” “having,” and the like, as used with respect to embodiments of the present invention, are synonymous.
Referring now to
The network connections of the various network capable devices may be direct connections as illustrated by the host platform 110a, media center 112a, personal multimedia device 114a, personal digital assistant 116a, and printer 118a in Room 1 or indirect connections using another network capable device as illustrated in Room 2 by the host platform 110b connecting the personal multimedia device 114b, personal digital assistant 116b, the video camera 117b, the printer 118b, and the camera 119b to the home network 100. The digital home network 100 may include both wired and wireless connections to the different home network devices (110-165) as seen.
For illustrative purpose, home networks 100 may have a number of complex devices (e.g. 112-165) in which problems arise and induce the consumer to seek technical support. For example, home network 100 may contain a media center 112a in which the Compact Disk Player will not stream certain file formats. More specifically, the consumer may attempt to access information regarding this issue via the internet with a query similar to, “what file formats can my CD Player stream?”
In accordance with one embodiment, digital devices or appliances incorporating the processor host platform described in greater detail in
Referring to
In one embodiment, the network interface 230 may be configured to monitor the network for packets of device information and descriptions of devices within the network, e.g. device specific information. In various embodiments, the network interface may monitor the network for device specific information from a dedicated virtual partition 233 on the host platform. In this manner, the monitoring and obtaining of device specific information may be accomplished with resources not allocated to the main partition, and accordingly, if the main partition 223 is busy or hibernating, the virtual partition 233 is able to continue monitoring for new devices. In the alternative, the network interface may monitor the network for device specific information from a main partition 233 along side other software components 227.
In one embodiment, system memory 240 may store a plurality of programming instructions, as seen in
The plurality of processors 210 are the primary resources allocated to the respective partitions and may include any variety of processors known in the art including, in one embodiment, processors having a plurality of processing cores, for example Intel® Pentium® D Processors, Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme, and Intel® Core™ 2 Duo. The processors may be adapted to function within generic computer systems, as well as, Intel® ViiV Embedded Personal Computers (“ViiV EPC”). The plurality of processors 210 may comprise an integrated circuit (“IC”), such as a semiconductor integrated circuit chip. In the embodiment illustrated in
The at least one primary host processor associated with the main partition 223 is adapted to execute the one or more software components 227 and the operating system 225 which may include, for example, a general operating system such as Windows® operating systems, Linux, etc. The at least one processor associated with virtual partition 233 may be adapted to perform the monitoring and obtaining of device specific information from devices within or added to the network.
System memory 240 may include semiconductor firmware memory, programmable memory, non-volatile memory, read only memory, electrically programmable memory, random access memory, flash memory (which may include, for example, NAND or NOR type memory structures), magnetic disk memory, and/or optical disk memory. Either additionally or alternatively, memory 240 may comprise other and/or later-developed types of computer readable memory. Machines-readable firmware program instructions may be stored in memory 240. As described above, the instructions may be accessed and executed by the main partition 223 and/or the virtual partition 233 of host processor 210.
Referring to
In one embodiment, network devices 300 transmit device specific information 310 to a transmit/receive module 320 via a network interface 230. It is contemplated that the transmit/receive module may be implemented in a hardware configuration or a software configuration. In one embodiment, the transmit/receive module 320 may contain a packet monitor 420. The packet monitor 420 may be integrated into a network interface card (not shown), run in a dedicated virtual partition 233 on a computer system, or run in a main partition 223 along side other applications. In various embodiments, the packet monitor 420 extracts or receives device information from a network device 300. In a preferred embodiment, the packet monitor 420 monitors for Universal Plug and Play advertisements and device descriptions and maintains a time ordered log of the device information it receives. This log allows for query modification, as discussed below, when the network device 300 is not present, not powered on, or incapable of transmitting device specific information 230.
In one embodiment, the packet monitor 420 transmits the time ordered log 311, from the transmit/receive module 320, to a configuration extractor 430 located in a processing module 330. The processing module 330 may be implemented in a hardware configuration or a software configuration similar to the transmit/receive module 320. The configuration extractor 430 takes the device specific information 311 and creates word groups that are correlated with each other. In one embodiment, the word groups are stored in a configuration table 312 as seen in
In various embodiments, a query may be entered by either of a user interface 350 or a generator 351. The user interface may be any one of a keyboard, a mouse, a computer screen, a touch pad, or any other user device capable of submitting a query. The generator 351 may be implemented in a hardware or software configuration.
In one embodiment, the generator 351 automatically generates a query 301 upon an occurrence of a network device being detected or a problem occurring within the network. The query 301 may pertain to common issues regarding the network device or specific issues relating to the network device or the network in general. Similarly, in other embodiments, the user may generate a query 301 upon an occurrence of a problem with a device or a network.
In various embodiments, the query 301 initiated by the generator 351 or the user interface 350 is received by the transmit/receive module 320 and transmitted to at least one of a configuration based query expander 440 in a processing module 330, or a query processing system 450. In one embodiment, the transmit/receive module 320 sends the query 301, as received, directly to a query processing system 450. The query processing system may be any of an internet search engine, a telephony system, an online chat-room, or any other software or hardware configuration capable of receiving queries. In response to receiving the query 301, the query processing system returns query answers 360. In various embodiments, the configuration extractor 430 may then apply the configuration table 312 to the query answers to perform the post processing function of ranking the answers resulting in ranked answers 361. The ranked answers 361 may provide a fast and viable solution to a user's query or, in one embodiment, provide a list of the most likely causes of a problem or a list of the most common problems associated with a device should the generator 351 initiate the query.
In another embodiment, the query 301 is received by the transmit/receive module 320 and transmitted to a configuration based query expander 440 located in a processing module 330. Once a query 301 is received, the configuration based query expander 440 may apply the configuration table 312 from the configuration extractor 430 in order to concatenate or expand the query 301 with synonymous terms from the table 312. The expansion may include simply adding terms, deleting terms while adding others, or simply concatenating terms. In one embodiment, the configuration based query expander 440 then sends the modified query 302 to a query processing system 450 which returns query answers 360. The process of modifying the query prior to submitting it to a query processing system, or pre-processing, may create a more well-framed query which returns more relevant answers.
In yet another embodiment, pre-processing on a query 301 is performed and returns query answers 360. The query answers may then undergo a similar post processing procedure to that describe above in which the configuration extractor applies the configuration table 312 to the pre-processed query answers returning ranked answers 361. In such a manner the system may incorporate pre-processing and post processing; only post processing; or only pre-processing.
Referring now to
A machine-accessible medium or storage medium includes any mechanism that provides (i.e., stores and/or transmits) information in a form readable by a machine (e.g. a computer). For example, a storage medium includes read only memory (“ROM”), random access memory (“RAM”), magnetic disk storage media, optical storage media, flash memory devices, electrical, optical, acoustical or other form of propagated signals (e.g., carrier waves, infrared signals, digital signals), and the like.
Describing the methods by reference to a flow diagram enables one skilled in the art to develop such programs, including instructions to carry out the methods on suitably configured host platforms and/or remote devices. In various embodiments, at least one of the processors of a suitably configured host platform and/or remote device executes the instructions from the storage medium. In various embodiments, the computer-executable instructions may be written in a computer programming language or may be embodied in firmware logic, reconfigurable logic, a hardware description language, a state machine, an application-specific integrated circuit, or combinations thereof. If written in a programming language conforming to a recognized standard, such instructions may be executed on a variety of hardware platforms and may interface with a variety of operating systems.
The present various embodiments are not described with reference to any particular programming language. It will be appreciated that a variety of programming languages may be used to implement the teachings of the embodiments as described herein. Furthermore, it is common in the art to speak of software in one form or another (e.g., program, procedure, process, application, etc.) as taking an action or causing a result. Such expressions are merely a shorthand way of saying that execution of the software by a network device causes the processor of the computer to perform an action or produce a result.
Referring to
If, in one embodiment, a decision is made not to perform pre-processing, the query will be transmitted, as received, to a query processing system 450. The query processing system then returns answers on which a decision may be made to perform post processing, block 443. If post processing is desired, the answers are ranked and/or re-ranked using the information contained in the configuration extractor table 312 resulting in ranked answers 361.
If, in one embodiment, a decision at block 442 is made to perform pre-processing, the query is then transmitted to block 440 where the configuration based query expander concatenates or expands the query based on the configuration extractor table 312 created by the configuration extractor 430. The modified query may then be transmitted to a query processing system at block 450. The query processing system returns answers to the modified query and at block 443 a decision may be made whether to perform post processing on the pre-processed answers or simply return the pre-processed answers unranked at block 360. In such a way, both pre-processing and post processing may be accomplished independently or together to return more relevant answers.
Referring to
Although certain embodiments have been illustrated and described herein for purposes of description of the preferred embodiment, it will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that a wide variety of alternate and/or equivalent embodiments or implementations calculated to achieve the same purposes may be substituted for the embodiments shown and described without departing from the scope of the present invention. Those with skill in the art will readily appreciate that embodiments in accordance with the present invention may be implemented in a very wide variety of ways. This application is intended to cover any adaptations or variations of the embodiments discussed herein. Therefore, it is manifestly intended that embodiments in accordance with the present invention be limited only by the claims and the equivalents thereof.
