International Business Machines Corporation

Awemane Ltd.

Christopher S Alkov

Travis M Grigsby

Peter Frederick Haggar

Kevin B Haverlock

Suzanne L Estrada

Lisa Seacat DeLuca

Ruthie D Lyle

Jana Helton Jenkins

Lisa A Seacat

Denise Bell

Brian S Farrell

Nazgol Sedghi

Michael N Abernethy

A mechanism for determining a chat distance associated with an environmental chat based on the chat amount within an area of a virtual universe associated with the environmental chat. An environmental chat distance may be determined based on the number of words or characters in a text chat or voice chat between avatars within the area of the virtual universe. The environmental chat distance may be inversely proportional to the detected words or characters in the environmental chat.

Modifying environmental chat distance based on chat density of an area in a virtual world

Mechanisms are provided for performing load balancing of question processing in a Question and Answer (QA) system, implemented by the data processing system, having a plurality of QA system pipelines. The mechanisms receive an input question for processing by the QA system and determine a predicted question difficulty of the input question. The mechanisms select a QA system pipeline from the plurality of QA system pipelines based on the predicted question difficulty and route the input question to the selected QA system pipeline for processing. In addition, the mechanisms process the input question with the selected QA system pipeline to generate an answer for the input question.

Dynamic load balancing based on question difficulty

Mechanisms are provided for performing an operation based on an identification of similar lines of questioning by input question sources. Question information identifying extracted features of an input question and a first source of the input question is obtained. A clustering operation is performed to cluster the input question with one or more other questions of a cluster based on a similarity of the extracted features of the input question to features of the one or more other questions. An operation is performed based on results of the clustering of the input question with the one or more other questions.

Categorizing users based on similarity of posed questions, answers and supporting evidence

A device for providing spatially-oriented traversal animations during web navigation. The device is configured to perform operations that include receiving a destination Internet address for a destination web page into a graphical web browser that is displaying a current web page having a current Internet address on an electronic display. The operations can further include determining, via electronic analysis of the destination Internet address and the current Internet address, a relationship between the destination Internet address and the current Internet address. The operations can further include determining a spatially-oriented traversal animation based on the relationship. The spatially-oriented traversal animation is from a plurality of different types of animations associated with different hierarchical relationships between Internet pages within the Internet domain. The operations can further include animating bringing the destination web page onto the electronic display using the spatially-oriented traversal animation and, afterwards, displaying the destination web page.

Spatially-oriented traversal animations for network address transitions

Modifying environmental chat distance based on chat density in an area of a virtual world

Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to deep tagging of media content and provide a method, system and computer program product for coordinating deep tagging of media content with chat postings. In an embodiment of the invention, a method for coordinating deep tagging of media content with chat postings can be provided. The method can include monitoring a group chat of participants co-browsing media content, identifying a token in the group chat appearing a threshold number of times within a temporal window, and creating a deep tag in the media content in association with a portion of the media content played back concurrently with the temporal window.

Coordinated deep tagging of media content with community chat postings

Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to virtual world management and provide a method, data processing system and computer program product for conversation detection in a virtual world. In an embodiment of the invention, a method for conversation management in a virtual world data processing system can include detecting a sequence of statements from at least two avatars in a virtual world, and locating the avatars in the virtual world, computing a temporal proximity of the statements. The statements can be grouped in the virtual world if the avatars are geographically proximate to one another in the virtual world and if the statements have occurred within a threshold temporal proximity of one another. Thereafter, the grouped statements can be persisted in the virtual world as a conversation.

Conversation detection in a virtual world

Embodiments include a method that includes receiving a destination Internet address for a destination web page into a graphical web browser that is displaying a current web page having a current Internet address on a display. The method includes determining a relationship between the destination Internet address and the current Internet address. The relationship is determined by determining differences between the current Internet address and the destination Internet address. The method also includes determining a spatially-oriented traversal animation based, at least in part, on the relationship between the destination Internet address and the current Internet address. The method includes animating bringing the destination web page onto the display using the spatially-oriented traversal animation. The method also includes displaying the destination web page after the spatially-oriented traversal animation.

A mechanism for modifying a chat distance associated with an environmental chat based on the avatar population density of an area of a virtual universe associated with the environmental chat. An initial environmental chat distance may be determined based on the avatar population density, i.e., the number of avatars, in the area of the virtual universe associated with the environmental chat. The environmental chat distance may be modified in response to a change in the number of avatars in the area of the virtual universe associated with the environmental chat. The environmental chat distance may be modified such that the environmental chat distance is inversely proportional to the detected number of avatars in the virtual universe area associated with the environmental chat.

Modifying environmental chat distance based on avatar population density in an area of a virtual world

Mechanisms for generating an answer to an input question are provided. The mechanisms receive an input question and route the input question to a plurality of Question and Answer (QA) system pipelines. The mechanisms receive results of processing the input question from each QA system pipeline in the plurality of QA system pipelines. The results comprise one or more candidate answers to the input question and associated confidence scores. The mechanisms adjust, for each QA system pipeline, the confidence scores of the one or more candidate answers associated with the QA system pipeline based on one or more weighting factors. In addition, the mechanisms generate the answer to the input question based on the adjusted confidence scores of the one or more candidate answers for each QA system pipeline.

Growing community of inventors

Austin, TX, United States of America

Christopher S Alkov