Northwestern University

Perfect Market, Inc.

Here Global B.v.

Yp LLC

Pulsepoint, Inc.

Allvoices, Inc.

Sanjay Chand Sood

Lawrence A Birnbaum

Kristian J Hammond

Jerome Louis Budzik

Andrew Joseph Crossen

Amra Q Tareen

Erik Sundelof

Aaron J Dannenbring

Vladimir Boroditsky

Sudheer Sahu

Kiran Sugana

Nathan Lih Feng Diep

Guobin He

Krishna Krishnamaneni

Vaibhav Chaudhary

Xin Chen

Xiang Ma

Mark David Tabb

Qilin Zhang

Chen Luo

Embodiments include apparatus and method for collecting observation data for updating a geographic database. An initial observation is collected by a first mobile device, a first vehicle, or a first sensor. Along with the geographic position, data indicative of the first observation is send to a server. The central server may analyze of the initial observation data to determine if additional observations should be made and define a bounding box from the geographic position of the first mobile device and the analysis of the initial observation data. A request for additional observations is generated and sent to at least one second mobile device, second vehicle, or second sensor based on the bounding box.

Map based feedback loop for vehicle observations

Map based feedback loop for vehicle observation

Apparatus and methods are described for generating geometries for stripe-shaped objects. An image is identified that includes a roadway having one or more stripe-shaped objects. The stripe-shaped objects may include lane lines for road edges or lanes of the roadway. The stripe-shaped objects may include a barrier. At least one targeted region within the image is determined. The at least one targeted region is shaped to intersect the one or more stripe-shaped objects and includes a plurality of pixels. An image analysis is performed on the image to determine when the at least one target region includes a pixel in common with the one or more stripe-shaped objects. A geometry is constructed using the pixel in common. The geometry may be used to update a map or subsequently perform localization.

Automatic localization geometry generator for stripe-shaped objects

Systems and methods for generating geo-aware auto-suggestions for searching are provided. Characters corresponding to user input for a search query to a searching service may be processed prior to completion of the search query. Information about a geographical location may be processed. A geographical area of interest and potential correction(s) may be identified. Geo-specific suggestions may be determined based on the search query and/or a selected correction. The geo-specific suggestions may correspond to one or more identified businesses located in the geographical area of interest. The determining the geo-specific suggestions may include identifying business listing information corresponding to the geographical area of interest and the search query and/or a selected correction. The geo-specific suggestions may be indicated as a user-selectable option to complete the search query in a search query field for a search engine and/or to submit to the search engine as a selected search query.

Geo-aware spellchecking and auto-suggest search engines

Aggregating a content item with an event is disclosed. An event is created based on a user-provided or a feed sourced content item. The user-provided or feed sourced content item is aggregated with the event. The user-provided or feed sourced content item is identified using a query to one or more repositories.

Processing a content item with regard to an event

Associating a content item with an event is disclosed. A location associated with a received content item is determined. The received content item is associated with an event, at least in part based on an indicia of relatedness, other than the determined location, between the received content item and the event. A criterion that the indicia of relatedness is required to satisfy for the content item to be determined to be associated with the event has a lower value if the determined location associated with the received content item has a first degree of correspondence to a location associated with the event than if the determined location associated with the received content item has a second, lower degree of correspondence to the location associated with the event.

Processing a content item with regard to an event and a location

Ranking content items is disclosed. A user input is received from each of one or more users indicating an opinion of the user with respect to a content item included in a plurality of content items. Based at least in part on a number of users from whom user input has been received, a degree is determined to which a ranking of the content item relative to one or more other content items in the plurality of content items is determined by user input.

Ranking content items related to an event

The invention described herein can be implemented in numerous ways, including as a process; an apparatus; a system; a composition of matter; a computer program; a product embodied on a computer readable storage medium, e.g., RAM, ROM, and other hardware storage devices; and/or a processor, such as a processor configured to execute instructions stored on and/or provided by a memory coupled to the processor. In this specification, these implementations, or any other form that the invention may take, may be referred to as techniques. In general, the order of the steps of disclosed processes may be altered within the scope of the invention. Unless stated otherwise, a component such as a processor or a memory described as being configured to perform a task may be implemented as a general component that is temporarily configured to perform the task at a given time or a specific component that is manufactured to perform the task. As used herein, the term 'processor' refers to one or more devices, circuits, and/or processing cores configured to process data, such as computer program instructions.

Methods and apparatus assessing, ranking, organizing, and presenting search results associated with a user's current work context are disclosed. The system disclosed assesses, ranks, organizes and presents search results against a user's current work context by comparing statistical and heuristic models of the search results to a statistical and heuristic model of the user's current work context. In this manner, search results are assessed, ranked, organized, and/or presented with the benefit of attributes of the user's current work context that are predictive of relevance, such as words in a user's document (e.g., web page or word processing document) that may not have been included in the search query. In addition, search results from multiple search engines are combined into an organization scheme that best reflects the user's current task. As a result, lists of search results from different search engines can be more usefully presented to the user.

Growing community of inventors

Evanston, IL, United States of America

Sanjay Chand Sood