SEGMENTED GRAPHICAL REVIEW SYSTEM AND METHOD

1 . A method for processing a plurality of electronic items, the method comprising:

for each item of the electronic items, each item being associated with an item identifier, segmenting, on a processing device comprising a processor and memory, each item into a plurality of segments, for each segment of the plurality of segments:

hashing the segment to produce a segment hash value;

updating a first table with the segment and the segment hash value; and

adding an entry to a second table, the entry comprising the item identifier, metadata related to the segment in the item, and the segment hash value; and

outputting, from the processing device, the first table and the second table.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the updating the first table comprises:

using the segment hash value to determine if the segment is already in the first table; and if the segment is not in the first table:

computing an entropy of the segment; and

creating a new entry for the segment in the first table, the entry comprising:

the segment;

the segment hash value; and

the entropy of the segment.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the segmenting each item into a plurality of segments comprises:

canonizing the item, the canonizing comprising:

detecting an alias in the item; and

replacing the detected alias with a canonical name.

4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the alias is one of a name, an address, a telephone number, an account name, an account number, a date, a credit card number, a social security number, an e-mail address, and a user defined pattern.

5 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the item comprises text, the text comprising a plurality of paragraphs and wherein each of the plurality of segments corresponds to one of the paragraphs.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the item comprises an image and wherein hashing the image comprises:

scaling the image to have a first dimension equal to a normalized image size;

padding the image to have a second dimension equal to the normalized image size; and

computing the segment hash value of the scaled and padded image.

7 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising clustering similar segments of the items.

8 . A method for processing a plurality of items, each of the items comprising a plurality of segments, the method comprising:

receiving, on a processing device, a request to display a first item of the items;

retrieving, from a second table in a database stored on a computer, a first list of segments associated with the first item;

retrieving, from a first table stored in the database, a first plurality of segments corresponding to the first list of segments; and

outputting the first plurality of segments.

9 . The method of claim 8 , further comprising:

receiving a request to tag a first segment of the first plurality of segments of the first item with a tag;

storing the tag in an entry associated with the first segment; and

storing the entry in a tag table.

10 . The method of claim 9 , wherein the tag stored in the entry in the tag table is an indication that the first segment has been reviewed.

11 . The method of claim 9 , further comprising:

loading, from the database, a second plurality of segments associated with a second item of the items, the second plurality of segments comprising the first segment;

loading the entry associated with the first segment; and

displaying the second plurality of segments and the tag stored in the entry associated with the first segment.

12 . The method of claim 11 , wherein the displaying the second plurality of segments comprises displaying the first segment in a color different from a color of at least one of the second plurality of segments.

13 . The method of claim 11 , wherein the first plurality of segments is displayed to a first user and wherein the second plurality of segments is displayed to a second user.

14 . The method of claim 8 , wherein each of the segments has a timestamp and wherein the request further comprises a request to display a second item of the items, the method further comprising:

retrieving the second item;

aggregating the segments of the first item and the segments of the second item;

sorting the aggregated segments by timestamp;

removing duplicate segments to produce a reduced list of segments; and

displaying the reduced list of segments, sorted by timestamp.

15 . The method of claim 14 , wherein the first item is a first email and the second item is a second email.

16 . The method of claim 14 , further comprising displaying a first segment of a first item adjacent to a second segment of a second item, the first segment differing from and having a same position as the second segment.

17 . The method of claim 8 , further comprising:

searching the plurality of items, the searching comprising:

receiving a search query;

searching the first table for entries matching the search query; and

returning a plurality of matching entries, wherein the first item comprises at least one segment associated with a corresponding one of the matching entries.

18 . The method of claim 17 , further comprising

receiving a selection of a segment of the matching segments; and

returning a plurality of items containing the selected segment.

19 . The method of claim 8 , further comprising:

displaying a list of items being a subset of the plurality of items, the list of items comprising the first item, and the first item having a first item identifier;

displaying the first plurality of segments;

receiving a request to display a second item;

saving position information, the position information comprising the list of items, the first item identifier, and a segment hash;

displaying the second item;

loading the position information; and

displaying the first item in accordance with the position information.

20 . A system for processing a plurality of electronic items, the system comprising:

a database running on a computer, the database being configured to store a first table and a second table;

a processing device configured to:

segment each item into a plurality of segments, each item being associated with an item identifier;

for each segment of the plurality of segments:

hash the segment to produce a segment hash value;

update the first table with the segment and the segment hash value; and

add an entry to the second table, the entry comprising the item identifier and the segment hash value.

21 . A method for displaying segments of a plurality of items, the method comprising:

segmenting each the plurality of items into a plurality of segments

computing, on a processing device comprising a processor and memory, a plurality of similarities between segments of the plurality of segments;

clustering, on the processing device, the plurality of segments into a plurality of clusters in accordance with the computed similarities, each of the clusters comprising a plurality of similar segments of the plurality of segments; and

displaying a cluster of the plurality of clusters.

22 . A method for translating an item, the method comprising:

segmenting, on a processing device comprising a processor and memory, the item into a plurality of segments;

computing, on the processing device, a plurality of segment hash values, each of the segment hash values corresponding to one of the plurality of segments;

identifying, on the processing device, a translated segment in a translation table in accordance with a segment hash value of the plurality of segment hash values, the identified translated segment corresponding to a segment of the plurality of segments; and

displaying the identified translated segment.

23 . A method for displaying a plurality of items, each of the plurality of items being a different version of an item, the method comprising:

segmenting, on a processing device comprising a processor and memory, each of the items into a plurality of segments;

hashing, on the processing device, each of the plurality of segments;

identifying, on the processing device, a first differing segment of a first item of the plurality of items and a second differing segment of a second item of the plurality of items, the first differing segment having a segment hash value different from a segment hash value of the second differing segment and the first differing segment and the second differing segment having a same respective position within the first item and the second item; and

displaying the first differing segment adjacent to the second differing segment.