Digital Commons Network^™

Assistant Search Corpus Using Event Metadata, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

A virtual, intelligent, or computational assistant (e.g., also referred to simply as an “assistant”) is described that includes event metadata in its search corpus to determine a response to queries related to a personal calendar of events. The assistant determines a query related to an event that is recorded on a calendar of a user. To determine a response to the query, the assistant searches through an advanced search corpus that includes past and future event data published on the calendar as well as event metadata associated with each past and future event in the calendar. Reliance on the advanced …

Providing Local Or Other Identified News Information Using An Interactive Assistant, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

An interactive assistant, referred to herein as “an interactive assistant,” “a virtual assistant,” or simply “an assistant,” may be configured to identify local or other news information from or more content providers and to output such information to a user. For example, an interactive assistant may accept queries from a user, perform searches, and subsequently identify news information that may be of interest to the user based upon these prior searches. In some cases, the interactive assistant may provide news information to a user in direct response to receiving a request for such information from the user. For instance, the …

Context-Based Selection And Presentation Of Content For Presentation To A User, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

An interactive assistant, referred to herein as “an interactive assistant,” “a virtual assistant,” or simply “an assistant,” may be configured to select content based on various contextual information and to output such content to a user. For example, a user may engage in various different interactions with a computing system and/or with an interactive assistant over time (e.g., by performing certain actions, providing instructions, requesting select information, performing searches, or the like). Based on these interactions, the interactive assistant may identify and store contextual information associated with these interactions, such as, for instance, one or more of user behavior information, …

Preparing An Assistant-Enabled Vehicle

Defensive Publications Series

An interactive assistant computing system, referred to herein as “an interactive assistant,” “a virtual assistant,” “a computational assistant,” or simply an “assistant,” is described that stores information related to settings of a vehicle (e.g., seat locations, cabin temperature, mirror location, music preferences, directions to a destination, etc.) such that the assistant can automatically adjust one or more parameters of the vehicle in response to receiving an indication of an identity of an operator or passenger of the vehicle. The assistant in the vehicle may store settings for various users and prepare the vehicle once a second computing device sends the …

Provision Of Personalized Date-Based Content, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

An interactive assistant computing system, referred to herein as “an interactive assistant,” “a virtual assistant,” “a computational assistant,” or simply an “assistant,” is described that stores and/or retrieves information related to items associated with particular days for a user such that the assistant can automatically retrieve one or more items associated with the current day (e.g., a local weather forecast, a current weather report, upcoming calendar items for the current day, current news stories, stock prices, indications of the day having personal importance, etc.) and provide a personalized report that includes the items specific to the current day. The assistant …

Assistant-Related Tasks Using Context From Multiple Devices, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

An interactive assistant computing system, referred to herein as “an interactive assistant,” “a virtual assistant,” “a computational assistant,” or simply an “assistant,” is described that, in addition to performing general task requests, will request information from a respective assistant on one or more other computing devices to provide additional information and/or tasks to the user of the interactive assistant. The interactive assistant in the main device may receive an indication of a request from a user to perform a particular task. The interactive assistant, in addition to performing the particular task, may send requests to a respective assistant on one …

Assistant With Historical Location Based Triggers, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

A virtual, intelligent, or computational assistant (e.g., also referred to simply as an “assistant”) is described that performs actions based on an inferred user location, user direction of movement, and/or historical actions performed for previous locations or directions of movement. In some implementations, a user may explicitly command the assistant to perform a particular action when the user is moving relative to, or at, a particular location. In other implementations, the assistant may learn what actions the user performs or causes the assistant to perform when the user is moving relative to, or at, a particular location. In either case, …

Disambiguating Assistant Tasks Using Supplemental Data, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

A virtual, intelligent, or computational assistant (e.g., also referred to simply as an “assistant”) is described that relies on supplemental data (e.g., contextual information, user information, etc.) to decipher, and determine actions to perform based on, otherwise ambiguous user commands. With explicit permission from a user, the assistant may access a user’s location history, calendar, e-mail, messages, past assistant interactions, contacts, photos, search history, sensor data, and other contextual or user information to interpret user statements. The supplemental data can be stored locally on a device that is executing the assistant or in a cloud computing environment that is accessible …

Assistance For Calendar Milestone Planning, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

A virtual, intelligent, or computational assistant (e.g., also referred to simply as an “assistant”) is described is configured to aid in user planning, celebrating, or otherwise remembering calendar milestones. The assistant determines steps that other users perform, including what sort of gifts to buy or events to plan, when celebrating or otherwise remembering a calendar milestone (e.g., an anniversary, a birthday, a holiday, or other important date). The assistant determines when an important date of a user will occur and automatically recommend ways for the user to plan for, celebrate, or otherwise remember the date. This way, rather than simply …

Device Settings Assistant, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

An interactive assistant, referred to herein as “an interactive assistant,” “a virtual assistant,” or simply “an assistant” may execute on counter-top devices, mobile phones, automobiles, and many other type of computing devices. The interactive assistant may be configured to guide the user to access features and settings of the computer device, and may also introduce features and settings of the computer device to the user.

Audible Indicator When A Third Party Enters An Assistant Conversation

Defensive Publications Series

In some cases, a user may primarily interacts with an interactive assistant, referred to herein as “an interactive assistant,” “a virtual assistant,” or simply “an assistant,” via voice communications. An interactive assistant may receive input that includes requests for the interactive assistant to perform actions, and the interactive assistant may provide feedback to the user via audible output. An interactive assistant that interacts with third-party services when performing the requested actions may output various audible indications to indicate the state of its interaction with the third-party services.

Compound Task Request And Translation, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

An interactive assistant, referred to herein as “an interactive assistant,” “a virtual assistant,” or simply “an assistant,” may be configured to receive a compound task request. A compound task request is a single request to perform multiple (i.e., more than one) tasks. The compound task request may be in the form of a single spoken phrase. The interactive assistance may receive the spoken phrase, determine that the spoken phrase contains a request to perform multiple actions, and perform all of the actions requested by the spoken phrase. For example, the compound task request may be a request to translate a …

Using An Interactive Assistant As A Password Vault, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

An interactive assistant, referred to herein as “an interactive assistant,” “a virtual assistant,” or simply “an assistant,” may be configured to securely store passwords, access codes, private keys, digital certificates, and other secret information. When the interactive assistant receives a request from the user to perform an action that requires the use of the secret information stored by the interactive assistant, the interactive assistant can provide such secret information to web sites, services, devices, systems, and the like to authenticate the interactive assistant to gain access to resources as part of performing the requested action. For example, when the interactive …

User Control Of Content Playback By An Interactive Assistant, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

An interactive assistant, referred to herein as “an interactive assistant,” “a virtual assistant,” or simply “an assistant,” may be configured to dynamically adjust the playback of content (e.g., audible content output by the interactive assistant) in response to receiving a user command. Over the course of time, a user may engage in various different interactions with the assistant by submitting queries, performing searches, requesting select information, providing instructions, and the like. At any point in time, during playback of content provided by the interactive assistant, the user may issue a command to adjust the playback of such content. For example, …

Sleep Mode For An Interactive Assistant, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

An interactive assistant, referred to herein as “an interactive assistant,” “a virtual assistant,” or simply “an assistant,” may, after previously receiving explicit user authorization to process user input, be configured to stop processing further user input (e.g., audible user input) for a period of time or until the occurrence of one or more detected events. Over the course of time, a user may engage in various different interactions with the assistant by submitting queries, performing searches, requesting select information, providing instructions, and the like. At any point in time, the user may request that the interactive assistant enter a sleep …

Allocation Of Advertisement Extensions & Formats, Patrick Hummel, Roberto J. Bayardo Jr, Shaohua Sun, Gagan Aggarwal, Kishor Barman, Kshipra Uday Bhawalkar, Jean-Francois Crespo, Ying Wang

Defensive Publications Series

This document describes a process of optimizing the selection of a budget-constrained advertiser's formats when allocating the budget of a budget-constrained advertiser. Such optimization is performed by selectively choosing which formats to allocate to this advertiser based on the advertiser's budget. In particular, this document describes allocating formats to budget-constrained advertisers in advertising auctions to create value for the advertisers and an advertiser manager.

Composite Digital Content Optimization, Wanghuan Chu, Shuchao Bi

Defensive Publications Series

A digital content rotation system that distributes digital content items a sufficient number of times to generate a statistical model for prediction of performance of the digital content items, while also preventing overall system degradation of content provided by content providers. The predicted performance of various digital content items is used as weights in a distribution rotation, thereby providing an optimal balance of exploitation and exploration of content performance.

Reservation Model For Real-Time Bidding Based Advertising System, Renuka Chadha, Bernhard Suter, Reto Strobl, Beverly Wong, Shashank Gupta, Sujata Kosalge, Radu Jurca, Ivan Romanov, Razvan Constantin

Defensive Publications Series

An advertisement management system can enable an advertiser to switch between realtime bidding and reservation delivery modes. A request is received to transition a campaign from a real-time bidding mode to a reservation mode. A reservation engine determines proposed terms for a reservation contract. An acceptance of the proposed terms is received from the advertiser. The campaign is transitioned from the real-time bidding mode to the reservation mode and a reservation contract is established between the advertisement management system and the advertiser, with campaign parameters made immutable for the duration of the contract.

Automatic Context-Based Customization Of Voicemail Response, Alexandru Damian, Victor Carbune

Defensive Publications Series

This disclosure describes a voicemail generator to provide automatic context-based custom voicemail responses, when users provide consent to access contextual data for generation of voicemail responses. The voicemail generator employs a prediction model that is configured to predict multiple factors, e.g., action type, user availability, and caller-specific customizations, that are used to automatically generate a customized voicemail response.

Creation Of Music Playlists Using An Interactive Assistant, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

An interactive assistant, referred to herein as “an interactive assistant,” “a virtual assistant,” or simply “an assistant,” may be configured to create artist-specific or other criteria-based music playlists based on queries from a user. For example, an interactive assistant may accept queries from a user, perform a search of songs and related content based on certain criteria specified in the queries, and generate or modify music playlists based on the search results. The interactive assistant may also execute one or more applications, such as a music application, to play the songs included in the generated playlists.

Creation Of Theme-Based And/Or Genre-Based Music Playlists Using An Interactive Assistant, Google Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

An interactive assistant, referred to herein as “an interactive assistant,” “a virtual assistant,” or simply “an assistant,” may be configured to create comprehensive playlists based on singer/artist, composer, genre, theme, or other criteria, based on queries from a user. For example, an interactive assistant may accept queries from a user, perform searches for songs and related content based on certain theme-based and/or genre-based criteria specified in the queries (e.g., criteria for one or more love songs, happy songs, scary songs, sad songs, hard-rock songs, and the like), and generate or modify music playlists based on the search results. The interactive …

Using Object Detection To Extract Structured Content From Documents, Natalya Fridman Noy, Jeffrey Dudek

Defensive Publications Series

Structured content such as figures, tables, graphs, captions, and other graphical material often capture the essence of a document. Experienced readers often review the graphical material in a document first to quickly grasp the contents of the document. It is thus evident that identifying and extracting the structured content of a document, e.g., graphical components, is important in building a deeper semantic understanding of the document.

Techniques presented herein automatically extract the structured content of documents. Machine-learning techniques, e.g., object detection, computer vision, etc., are used to recognize and extract the structured content. The techniques work well regardless of the …

Verifying Client Media Playback Using Unique Embedded Metadata, Benjamin Seligman, Christopher Dinn, Damien Levin

Defensive Publications Series

The described subject matter is directed to injecting metadata into a media stream at (or just after) a cache edge of a content delivery network (“CDN”). A unique instance value (e.g., included within a tag or uniform resource locator (“URL”)), is embedded by an edge device into metadata for the media stream. Examples of media stream metadata include, but are not limited to, D3 timed metadata inserted in an MPEG-2 transport stream or an emsg box in the ISO-BMFF video container for MPEG-DASH. When a streaming media player receives the metadata, it generates a network request or callback request including …

Decoding Text With Errors Due To Auto-Correction, Thomas Deselaers, Victor Carbune

Defensive Publications Series

Auto-correction techniques implemented in software keyboards attempt to mitigate user errors in text entry by analyzing user input and automatically generating corrections. This approach can result in inaccurate corrections (auto-corruptions), e.g., when users enter words that are out of vocabulary, uncommon words, abbreviations, etc. When such phrases are sent, e.g., as messages, recipient users may not understand the sender’s intent or make sense of the received text.

This disclosure describes techniques to decode received text that has errors produced by auto-correction. The techniques include reconstructing possible touch point sequences that led to the phrase, determining alternative phrases that correspond to …

Disposable Apps, Leon Nicholls

Defensive Publications Series

This disclosure describes techniques that enable end users that do not possess technical knowhow, e.g., knowledge of software development, to create apps. The apps can be standalone, e.g., run directly on an operating system, or be integrated into other apps or software. For example, the apps can be integrated into a conversational assistant, a browser, etc. The user-generated apps are designated for a specific event and/or a specific time period. When the user-generated app is no longer needed, the app and its data are automatically destroyed.

Competitor Identification Based On Organic Impressions, Yunting Sun, Aiyou Chen, Abinaya Selvam

Defensive Publications Series

This document describes a technique for identifying competitors of a brand based on organic impression data. The system identifies relevant search queries that lead to the brand website based on a selection of search queries from historical data. The system assigns a weight to each search query associated with the brand website. The system calculates an organic impression count based on the search query. The system calculates a score for each candidate competitor as it relates to the brand website. The system ranks/sorts each candidate brand based on its calculated score to determine the top competitors for the brand website. …

Incremental Evaluation Of Complex Conditions, Madhu Kallazhi Vasu, Nagaraju Pothineni, Bin Liu

Defensive Publications Series

Evaluating a complex condition such as users who have visited a certain type of website in the last week requires a great deal of processing power. The present disclosure describes an incremental evaluation technique that makes use of shortcuts and intermediate results in order to reduce the amount of time and processing needed to produce a final result. The main component of a visitor condition as described is a unified segment which can contain any number of simple or sequence type segment filters. Each segment filter can be evaluated using shortcuts and intermediate results. The evaluation of the entire unified …

Displaying Web Pages Within A Software Keyboard, Dong Kim, John Arendt

Defensive Publications Series

Techniques described in this disclosure display entire web pages with a display area of a software keyboard. In response to user selection of a search result, an optimized version of a web page is retrieved and displayed in the display area. Use of optimized versions of web pages ensures that the software keyboard does not experience crashes or performance problems, e.g., due to inefficient web pages, web pages that include incompatible content, etc. Display of entire web pages in the keyboard display area saves the user the effort to switch to a browser application to view the web page to …

Dynamic Determination Of Rcs Video Share Capability, Jean-Philippe Cormier

Defensive Publications Series

Mobile video calling requires determination of whether the available network is capable of supporting video calls. In Rich Communication Suite (RCS), such determination is static and is made at the time of call initiation. Such an approach limits usefulness of video share call functionality, e.g., when network conditions change during a call.

This disclosure describes techniques to determine at regular intervals whether an available network at a user location or cell site supports video calling. A network performance database is queried periodically to determine whether the network at a user’s location supports video calling. If video calling is supported, the …

Leveraging High Quality Information To Generate New Ad Content, Sanchit Gupta, Ashwin Kumar

Defensive Publications Series

A system and method are disclosed that leverages high quality information present in ads of a particular advertiser to provide content for ads that may appear during a search. The system includes a server which stores ads under a particular category to determine and extract relevant high quality information from a group of ads provided by an advertiser. When a user presents a commercial query, the system collects high quality information from stored ads for formatting into a new ad. The ad is then displayed to the user. This system thus automatically generates high quality data for ad content.