MULTI-MODAL QUERY GENERATION
A multi-modal search system (and corresponding methodology) is provided. The system employs text, speech, touch and gesture input to establish a search query. Additionally, a subset of the modalities can be used to obtain search results based upon exact or approximate matches to a search result. For example, wildcards, which can either be triggered by the user or inferred by the system, can be employed in the search.
1 . A system that facilitates multi-modal search, comprising:
a query administration component that converts a multi-modal input into a wildcard search query; and
a search engine component that employs the wildcard search query to retrieve a list of query suggestion results.
2 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising:
a query generation component that employs a plurality of modalities to generate the wildcard search query; and
an analysis component that evaluates the wildcard search query and renders the list of query suggestion results as a function of the search query
3 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the plurality of modalities includes at least two of text, touch or speech.
4 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the query generation component facilitates generation of the wildcard search query based upon at least a portion of the list of query suggestion results.
5 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the list of query suggestion results includes one of an n-best list or alternates list from a speech recognizer and a list of supplementary results that includes at least one of an ‘exact’ match via a wildcard expression or an ‘approximate’ match via an information retrieval algorithm.
6 . The system of claim 5 , wherein a wildcard expression is generated from at least part of the n-best list obtained from a speech recognizer and used to retrieve items in an index or database which match the substrings of the wildcard search query.
7 . The system of claim 5 , wherein at least part of the n-best list obtained from the speech recognizer is submitted as a query to an information retrieval algorithm that is indifferent to the order of words in the wildcard search query.
8 . The system of claim 7 , wherein the information retrieval algorithm is a Term Frequency Inverse Document Frequency (TFIDF) algorithm.
9 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the query generation component employs user generated text to constrain speech recognition upon generating the wildcard search query.
10 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the query generation component dynamically converts a user input into a wildcard, and wherein the analysis component employs the wildcard to retrieve a subset of the suggested query results.
11 . The system of claim 10 , wherein a user conveys uncertainty, and wherein the wildcard search query is a regular expression query.
12 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising an artificial intelligence (AI) component that employs at least one of a probabilistic and a statistical-based analysis that infers an action that a user desires to be automatically performed.
13 . A computer-implemented method of multi-modal search, comprising:
receiving a multi-modal input from a user;
establishing a wildcard query based upon portions of the multi-modal input; and
rendering a plurality of suggested query results based upon the wildcard query.
14 . The computer-implemented method of claim 13 , wherein the multi-modal input includes at least two of text, speech, touch or gesture input.
15 . The computer-implemented method of claim 13 , further comprising:
converting a portion of the multi-modal input into a wildcard; and
retrieving a subset of the query suggestion results based upon the wildcard.
16 . The computer-implemented method of claim 13 , further comprising analyzing the input as a function of an algorithm irrespective of word order.
17 . The computer-implemented method of claim 16 , wherein the algorithm is a TFIDF algorithm.
18 . The computer-implemented method of claim 13 , wherein the multi-modal input includes at least a text hint coupled with a spoken input.
19 . A computer-executable system that facilitates generation of a wildcard search query based upon a multi-modal input, comprising:
means for receiving the multi-modal input from a user, wherein the multi-modal input includes at least two of text, speech, touch or gesture input;
means for analyzing the multi-modal input irrespective of order or portions of the order; and
means for generating the wildcard search query based upon the analysis.
20 . The computer-executable system of claim 19 , further comprising means for generating a wildcard based at least in part upon a portion of the multi-modal input, wherein the wildcard search query employs the wildcard to match zero or more characters.