Information service for facts extracted from differing sources on a wide area network

A wide area network fact information service system including a processor and non-transitory storage, including:

• non-transitory machine-readable canonical fact entry storage, wherein a plurality of different machine-readable canonical fact entries stored in the canonical fact entry storage each corresponds to a different corresponding occurrence and each includes an electronically stored occurrence timepoint for its corresponding occurrence, wherein the occurrence timepoint identifies a time at which its corresponding occurrence occurred,
• machine-readable fact descriptor entry storage for storing one or more fact machine-readable descriptor entries for each of the different machine-readable canonical fact entries,
• a electronic ranker for ranking the stored fact descriptor entries relative to each other and storing them in the non-transitory storage, wherein the ranker is responsive to received feedback about the stored electronically ranked ranking to adjust the stored electronically ranked ranking of the machine-readable fact descriptor entries relative to each other based on the received feedback, and
• a prediction engine responsive to the adjusted electronically ranked ranking of the stored machine-readable fact descriptor entries and operative to make predictions about future events based on the adjusted electronically ranked ranking of the stored machine-readable fact descriptor entries.

A wide area network fact information service system, including a processor and non-transitory storage, including:

• non-transitory means for storing a plurality of different machine-readable canonical fact entries, wherein a plurality of machine-readable canonical fact entries stored in the means for storing each corresponds to a different corresponding occurrence and each includes an occurrence timepoint for its corresponding occurrence, wherein the occurrence timepoint identifies a time at which its corresponding occurrence occurred,
• non-transitory means for storing one or more machine-readable fact descriptor entries for each of the different machine-readable canonical fact entries, and
• means for electronically ranking the machine-readable fact descriptor entries relative to each other and storing the ranking, wherein the means for ranking is responsive to received feedback about the stored electronically ranked ranking to adjust the stored electronically ranked ranking of the machine-readable fact descriptor entries relative to each other based on the received feedback, and
• means responsive to the means for electronically ranking for making predictions about future events based on the adjusted electronically ranked ranking of the stored machine-readable fact descriptor entries.