An intelligent automated assistant system engages with the user in an integrated, conversational manner using natural language dialog, and invokes external services when appropriate to obtain information or perform various actions. The system can be implemented using any of a number of different platforms, such as the web, email, smartphone, and the like, or any combination thereof. In one embodiment, the system is based on sets of interrelated domains and tasks, and employs additional functionally powered by external services with which the system can interact.

Intelligent Automated Assistant

The various methods and devices described herein relate to devices which, in at least certain embodiments, may include one or more sensors for providing data relating to user activity and at least one processor for causing the device to respond based on the user activity which was determined, at least in part, through the sensors. The response by the device may include a change of state of the device, and the response may be automatically performed after the user activity is determined.

Automated Response to and Sensing of User Activity in Portable Devices

A virtual assistant uses context information to supplement natural language or gestural input from a user. Context helps to clarify the user's intent and to reduce the number of candidate interpretations of the user's input, and reduces the need for the user to provide excessive clarification input. Context can include any available information that is usable by the assistant to supplement explicit user input to constrain an information-processing problem and/or to personalize results. Context can be used to constrain solutions during various phases of processing, including, for example, speech recognition, natural language processing, task flow processing, and dialog generation.

Using context information to facilitate processing of commands in a virtual assistant

A method is provided for modifying an image. The method comprises displaying an image, the image comprising a portion of an object; and determining if an edge of the object is in a location within the portion. The method further comprises detecting movement, in a member direction, of an operating member with respect to the edge. The method still further comprises moving, if the edge is not in the location, the object in an object direction corresponding to the detected movement; and modifying, if the edge is in the location, the image in response to the detected movement, the modified image comprising the edge in the location.

Information processing apparatus, information processing method and program

A method and apparatus are provided for building an intelligent automated assistant. Embodiments of the present invention rely on the concept of “active ontologies” (e.g., execution environments constructed in an ontology-like manner) to build and run applications for use by intelligent automated assistants. In one specific embodiment, a method for building an automated assistant includes interfacing a service-oriented architecture that includes a plurality of remote services to an active ontology, where the active ontology includes at least one active processing element that models a domain. At least one of the remote services is then registered for use in the domain.

Method and apparatus for building an intelligent automated assistant

A term-by-document matrix is compiled from a corpus of documents representative of a particular subject matter that represents the frequency of occurrence of each term per document. A weighted term dictionary is created using a global weighting algorithm and then applied to the term-by-document matrix forming a weighted term-by-document matrix. A term vector matrix and a singular value concept matrix are computed by singular value decomposition of the weighted term-document index. The k largest singular concept values are kept and all others are set to zero thereby reducing to the concept dimensions in the term vector matrix and a singular value concept matrix. The reduced term vector matrix, reduced singular value concept matrix and weighted term-document dictionary can be used to project pseudo-document vectors representing documents not appearing in the original document corpus in a representative semantic space. The similarities of those documents can be ascertained from the position of their respective pseudo-document vectors in the representative semantic space.

Method and system for optimally searching a document database using a representative semantic space

Disclosed information exploration system and method embodiments operate on a document set to determine a document cluster hierarchy. An exclusionary phrase index is determined for each cluster, and representative phrases are selected from the indexes. The selection process may enforce pathwise uniqueness and balanced sub-cluster representation. The representative phrases may be used as cluster labels in an interactive information exploration interface.

Information exploration systems and methods

L'invention concerne un systeme et un procede d'exploration de donnees mis en oeuvre dans un document configure pour determiner une hierarchie de blocs. Un index syntagmatique exclusif est determine pour chaque bloc, et des syntagmes representatifs sont choisis dans les index. Le processus de selection peut etayer l'unicite de voie et une representation de sous-blocs equilibree. Les syntagmes representatifs peuvent etre utilises comme etiquettes de blocs dans une interface interactive d'exploration de donnees.

Matthew S. Sommer

Papers

Method and system for optimally searching a document database using a representative semantic space

Information exploration systems and methods

Systemes et procedes d'exploration de donnees