Method and system of obtaining contact information for a person or an entity

1. A method comprising:

performing recognition on content captured from a display of a mobile device;

identifying an entity in the content;

issuing a search for the entity;

extracting contact information for the entity from a data source;

generating a contact card for the entity, wherein an action associated with the contact card for the entity is generated from the contact information extracted from the data source; and

providing the contact card for display to a user of the mobile device, wherein the mobile device displays the contact card.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein issuing a search for the entity comprises:

determining that the first entity is classified as a name;

searching a contact list of the user of the mobile device using the entity; and

returning information from the contact list as search results for the search when the entity corresponds to a contact in the contact list.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein issuing the search for the entity comprises:

searching an Internet data source when the entity fails to correspond to a contact in the contact list.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the action for the entity is a communication modality.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the search results comprise a graphical aid that indicates a relative proximity to the entity.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating the contact card for the entity comprises:

identifying a service for the entity;

determining that service corresponds to a mobile application installed on the mobile device; and

displaying an icon associated with the action, wherein the action opens the mobile application.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the entity corresponds to a contact in a contact list and generating the contact card comprises:

determining a communication modality for the entity according to an application on the mobile device; and

generating the contact card using information from a contact list that corresponds to the communication modality.

8. A system comprising a software code of a client side application which can be loaded in a memory of a mobile device, and executed by a processor to perform operations comprising:

performing recognition on content captured from a display of the mobile device;

identifying a first entity in the content;

issuing a search for the first entity;

extracting contact information for the first entity from a location-based Internet service;

generating a first contact card for the first entity, wherein an action associated with the first contact card for the first entity is generated from the contact information extracted from the location-based Internet service; and

providing the first contact card for display to a user of the mobile device, wherein the mobile device displays the first contact card, and wherein a graphical aid associated with the display to the user is indicative of a distance between the user and the first entity.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the operations comprise:

identifying a second entity in the content; and

generating a second contact card for the second entity.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the operations comprise:

displaying that the user is geographically closer to one of the first entity and the second entity.

11. A system comprising a software code of a client side application which can be loaded in a memory of a mobile device, and executed by a processor to perform operations comprising:

performing recognition on content captured from a display of the mobile device;

identifying a first entity in the content;

issuing a search for the first entity in a contact list for a user of the mobile device;

extracting contact information for the first entity from the contact list;

accessing presence information for the first entity from a presence-providing application running on the mobile device;

generating a first contact card for the first entity, wherein a first action associated with the first contact card for the first entity is generated according to the contact information and the presence information; and

providing the first contact card for display to the user of the mobile device, wherein the mobile device displays the first contact card.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the operations comprise:

accessing an online calendar of the first entity; and

determining the presence information according to the availability of the first entity.

13. The system of claim 11 , wherein the operations comprise:

displaying the first contact card is in a position corresponding to a location of the first entity in the content.

14. The system of claim 11 , wherein the operations comprise:

identifying a second entity in the content; and

generating a second contact card for the second entity.

15. The system of claim 11 , wherein the first action initiates a first mobile application, and wherein a second action associated with the first contact card for the first entity initiates a second mobile application.

16. The system of claim 15 , wherein the memory stores instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the mobile device to:

receive a selection of the first action; and

launch the first mobile application using the contact information.

17. The system of claim 11 , wherein performing recognition on the content displayed on the display includes: examining accessibility data generated for the content displayed on the display.

18. The system of claim 11 , wherein identifying the first entity includes using a name classifier to determine a set of words that are classified as a name.

19. The system of claim 11 , wherein the presence information for the first entity is periodically updated over time.

20. The system of claim 11 , wherein the contact list for the user comprises information from a remote Internet page.