Systems and methods for grouping search results into dynamic categories based on query and result set

Abstract

A method and apparatus of a device that indexes donated content from an application on a device is described. In an exemplary embodiment, the device receives donated content for an application object from the application. The device further associates a metadata tag for a topic to the donated content. In addition, the device indexes the donated content with the metadata tag in a local search index of the device.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A machine-readable medium having executable instructions to cause one or more processing units to perform a method to index donated content from an application on a device, the method comprising:
 receiving, with a device, donated content for an application object from the application;   associating a metadata tag for a topic to the donated content; and   indexing the donated content with the metadata tag in a local search index of the device.   
     
     
         2 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 receiving a query search for objects indexed in the local search index;   performing the query search using local search index to obtain a set of search results that includes the donated content; and   categorizing at least some of the set of search results using at least the metadata tag of the donated content.   
     
     
         3 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 generating the metadata tag for the donated content.   
     
     
         4 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 3 , wherein generating the metadata tag comprises:
 performing an analysis on the object, wherein the analysis is selected from the group consisting of latent semantic analysis, explicit semantic analysis, latent Dirichlet allocation, hierarchical Dirichlet process, non-negative matrix factorization, and expectation maximization;   extracting at least one topic from the analysis; and   adding the at least one topic to the metadata tag for the object.   
     
     
         5 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 3 , wherein generating the metadata tag comprises:
 retrieving an application category for the application; and   adding the application category to the metadata tag as a topic for the object.   
     
     
         6 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 1 , wherein the application category for the application is retrieved from an application store. 
     
     
         7 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 1 , wherein generating the metadata tag comprises:
 retrieving a set of tags from the application.   
     
     
         8 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 1 , wherein the application determines the set of tags based on at least a publicly set of available tags. 
     
     
         9 . A machine-readable medium having executable instructions to cause one or more processing units to perform a method to categorize a plurality of search results, the method comprising:
 receiving, with a device, a plurality of search results;   determining a category for at least a subset of the search results, wherein the category is determined using a metadata tag for a corresponding one of the subset of search results and the metadata tag and the corresponding one of the subset of search results is retrieved from a local search index stored on the device; and   causing a presentation of the subset of the search results.   
     
     
         10 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 9 , wherein the metadata tag includes topic information. 
     
     
         11 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 10 , wherein the topic information is generated from an analysis of an object corresponding to the one of the subset of search results, wherein the analysis is selected from the group consisting of latent semantic analysis, explicit semantic analysis, latent Dirichlet allocation, hierarchical Dirichlet process, non-negative matrix factorization, and expectation maximization. 
     
     
         12 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 10 , wherein the topic information is generated from category information of an application that donated an object corresponding to the one of the subset of search results. 
     
     
         13 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 10 , wherein the topic information is generated from a tag determined by an application that donated an object corresponding to the one of the subset of search results. 
     
     
         14 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 9 , wherein the metadata tag is stored in a local search index. 
     
     
         15 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 9 , wherein the determining a category comprises:
 determining overlapping topic information from the subset of search results.   
     
     
         16 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 15 , wherein the overlapping topic information is the same topic for each of the subset of search results. 
     
     
         17 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 15 , wherein the overlapping topic information is a set of related topics associated with the subset of search results. 
     
     
         18 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 9 , wherein the presenting the subset of the search results includes the category. 
     
     
         19 . A method to index donated content from an application on a device, the method comprising:
 receiving, with a device, donated content for an application object from the application;   associating a metadata tag for a topic to the donated content; and   
       indexing the donated content with the metadata tag in a local search index of the device. 
     
     
         20 . A method to categorize a plurality of search results, the method comprising:
 receiving, with a device, a plurality of search results;   determining a category for at least a subset of the search results, wherein the category is determined using a metadata tag for a corresponding one of the subset of search results and the metadata tag and the corresponding one of the subset of search results is retrieved from a local search index stored on the device; and   presenting the subset of the search results to a user of the device.