Detection and ranking of entities from mobile onscreen content

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9788179-B1
Application number	US-201514712679-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	May 14, 2015
Priority date	Jul 11, 2014
Publication date	Oct 10, 2017
Grant date	Oct 10, 2017

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for detecting and ranking entities identified in screen content displayed on a mobile device. For example, a method includes receiving an image captured from a mobile device display for a mobile application and determining a window that includes a chronological set of images, the images each representing a respective screen captured from a display of a mobile device and having an associated timestamp. The method also includes identifying entities appearing in images in a first portion of the window using text for images in a remaining portion of the window as context to disambiguate ambiguous entity references.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
receiving an image captured from a mobile device display for a first mobile application;
determining a window that includes a chronological set of images, the images each representing a respective screen captured from a display of a mobile device and having an associated timestamp;
identifying entities appearing in images in a first portion of the window using text for images in a remaining portion of the window as context to disambiguate ambiguous entity references; and
providing the identified entities to the mobile device for customizing a second mobile application executing on the mobile device.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first portion is a middle portion and the remaining portion includes a front portion of images having a timestamp prior to timestamps for images in the middle portion and a back portion of images having a timestamp after the timestamps for the images in the middle portion.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein selecting the set of images includes:
determining that a next chronological image is associated with a mobile application that differs from a mobile application associated with a last image in the set; and
closing the set in response to the determining.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the first portion is a last portion and the remaining portion includes images having a timestamp prior to timestamps for images in the last portion.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein selecting the set of images includes:
determining that a next chronological image is associated with a third mobile application that differs from the first mobile application, which is associated with a last image in the set;
determining that the first mobile application launched the third mobile application; and
including the next chronological image in the set.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the entities are entities in a data graph storing entities connected by labeled edges that represent relationships.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
calculating a rank for a first entity of the entities identified in the first portion based on an amount of time the first entity appears in the images.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein calculating the rank includes:
determining that a location of the first entity remains constant; and
downgrading the rank in response to the determining.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises:
determining a quantity of mobile applications associated with images having a first entity; and
boosting a rank of the first entity when the first entity is associated with more than one mobile application.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the window represents a fixed time period.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the window represents a quantity of images.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein disambiguating ambiguous entity mentions includes:
determining a first candidate entity and a second candidate entity that each correspond to a same recognized item for the image;
determine that the first candidate entity shares a category with the first mobile application; and
select the first candidate entity over the second candidate entity based on sharing the category.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the second candidate entity has a higher prior probability than the first candidate entity.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein each of the images has a mobile application associated with the image and the method further includes:
using the associated mobile applications to determine the window.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first mobile application and the second mobile application are the same mobile application.

16. A mobile device comprising:
at least one processor; and
memory storing:
a plurality of images of screens captured on the mobile device, each of the plurality of images having an associated timestamp, and
instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the mobile device to:
receive an image captured from a mobile device display for a first mobile application,
determine a window that includes a chronological set of the plurality of images,
identify entities appearing in images in a first portion of the window using text for images in a remaining portion of the window as context to disambiguate ambiguous entity references, and
using the identified entities for customizing mobile applications executing on the mobile device.

17. The mobile device of claim 16 , wherein the first portion is a middle portion and the remaining portion includes a front portion of images having a timestamp prior to timestamps for images in the middle portion and a back portion of images having a timestamp after the timestamps for the images in the middle portion.

18. The mobile device of claim 16 , wherein each of the plurality of images has an associated mobile application and determining the set of images in the window includes:
using the associated mobile applications to determine the window.

19. The mobile device of claim 16 , wherein each of the plurality of images has an associated mobile application and determining the set of images in the window includes:
determining that a next chronological image is associated with a mobile application that differs from a mobile application associated with a last image in the set; and
closing the set in response to the determining.

20. The mobile device of claim 19 , wherein the first portion is a last portion in the set and the remaining portion includes images having a timestamp prior to timestamps for images in the last portion.

21. The mobile device of claim 16 , wherein each of the plurality of images has an associated mobile application and determining the set of images in the window includes:
determining that a next chronological image is associated with a third mobile application that differs from the first mobile application, which is associated with a last image in the set;
determining that the first mobile application launched the third mobile application; and
including the next chronological image in the set.

22. The mobile device of claim 16 , wherein the instructions further include instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the mobile device to:
determine, from the entities in the first portion, at least one entity that is an outlier; and
store, in a user profile in the memory, the entities identified in the first portion except for the at least one entity.

23. The mobile device of claim 16 , wherein the instructions further include instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the mobile device to:
calculate a rank for a first entity of the entities identified in the first portion based on an amount of time the first entity appears in the images.

24. The mobile device of claim 23 , wherein calculating the rank includes:
determining that a location of the first entity remains constant across images; and
downgrading the rank in response to the determining.

25. A computer system comprising:
at least one processor; and
memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the system to:
receive, from a mobile device, an image of a screen generated by a first mobile application executing on the mobile device,
determine a window that includes a chronological set of images, the images each representin

Assignees

• Google Inc

Inventors

• Sharifi Matthew
• Petrou David

Classifications

• G06F18/22

  Matching criteria, e.g. proximity measures · CPC title

• G06F40/134

  Hyperlinking · CPC title

• G06F40/295

  Named entity recognition · CPC title

• G06F40/169 Primary

  Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes · CPC title

• G06F16/24578

  using ranking · CPC title