Temporal Document Sorter and Method Using Semantic Decoding and Prediction

Abstract

Electronic documents are classified and compared according to their temporal qualities. The content of a document relating to an event is analyzed to identify temporal components, including semantic counterparts. These components can be compared with corresponding counterparts in other documents to identify a relative temporal order, and / or to generate predictions of future news stories. The invention can be used in environments such as automated news aggregators, search engines, and other electronic systems which compile information having temporal qualities.

Description

RELATED APPLICATION DATA[0001]The present application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) of the priority date of Provisional Application Ser. No. 60 / 955,775 filed Aug. 14, 2007 which is hereby incorporated by reference. The application is further related to the following applications, all of which are filed on this same date and incorporated by reference herein:[0002]Temporal Document Sorter & Method; Ser. No. ______ (attorney docket number 2008-1)[0003]Temporal Document Trainer & Method; Ser. No. ______ (attorney docket number 2008-2)[0004]News Aggregator and Search Engine Using Temporal Decoding; Ser. No. ______ (attorney docket number 2008-3)[0005]Location Based News and Search Engine; Ser. No. ______ (attorney docket number 2008-4)[0006]Temporal Document Verifier & Method; Ser. No. ______ (attorney docket number 2008-5)[0007]User Based Document Verifier & Method; Ser. No. ______ (attorney docket number 2008-6)[0008]Event Based Document Sorter & Method; Ser. No. ______ (at...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

"The present invention aims to overcome limitations in prior art by providing a system and method for automatically classifying and sorting electronic documents based on their temporal characteristics. This includes automatically training an electronic document sorter, comparing electronic documents to identify content differences and temporal differences, and automatically presenting electronic documents in accordance with their temporal characteristics to users. Other aspects of the invention concern collecting content for news stories, identifying and using human contributors for news / temporal content, and using semantic information to contribute to the temporal decoding, sorting, and presentation of content. The invention can be used in a multitude of different embodiments and can be adapted for use in any Internet-based system."

Problems solved by technology

One limitation of such system, however, is that there is no (apparent) discrimination made by the Google news algorithm to sort the stories in actual chronological order within the main news page.

However even this aspect of the aggregator has limitations, because while the news stories are identified by their release time (i.e., 1 hour ago), this parameter is not in fact helpful for identifying the actual temporal quality of the content of certain stories.

This makes it hard to review the news at a glance and immediately identify the current state of the certain events.

The result is an aggregation of content that is mismatched in time.

Moreover the same lack of temporal relevance problem also exists with search engines purporting to render relevant results to users.

While such systems typically include some mechanism for selecting “recent” content, there is no mechanism available to ensure that such content is indeed fresh and not simply a repeat of older, stale material.

A similar situation can be found in the Blogsphere as well, where it is not easy to determine the actual temporal relevance of material.

To get such information one must leave the news aggregator and visit another site, a fact, of course, which is undesirable from the perspective of trying to maintain the user's attention on the news aggregator.

The problem is exacerbated with smaller computing devices and cellphones as well, where display space is limited.

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