System and method for an iterative disambiguation interface

A system comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a computer-readable storage device having instructions stored which, when executed by the processor, cause for causing the processor to perform operations comprising:
• receiving, from two user devices, a natural language search query associated with videos available via mobile video-on-demand, the natural language search query formatted according to a standard language for containing and annotating interpretations of user input;
• retrieving search results based on the natural language search query;
• transmitting the search results to the user devices;
• iteratively updating a finite state edit machine based on multimodal input, wherein the multimodal input is:
• received after the natural language search query;
• iteratively received from the two user devices to change search attributes of the natural language search query, to yield changed search attributes;
• formatted according to the standard language;
• interpreted using the finite state edit machine, the finite state edit machine enabling coupling of a stochastic language model for recognition with a deterministic finite state integration and understanding model, resulting in an updated finite state edit machine;
• and
• transmitting updated search results to the two user devices simultaneously, wherein the updated search results are based on the changed search attributes and updated finite state edit machine.

A computer-readable storage device having instructions stored which, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:

• receiving, from two user devices, a natural language search query associated with videos available via mobile video-on-demand, the natural language search query formatted according to a standard language for containing and annotating interpretations of user input;
• retrieving search results based on the natural language search query;
• transmitting the search results to the user devices;
• iteratively updating a finite state edit machine based on multimodal input, wherein the multimodal input is:
• received after the natural language search query;
• iteratively received from the two user devices to change search attributes of the natural language search query, to yield changed search attributes;
• formatted according to the standard language;
• interpreted using the finite state edit machine, the finite state edit machine enabling coupling of a stochastic language model for recognition with a deterministic finite state integration and understanding model, resulting in an updated finite state edit machine;
• and
• transmitting updated search results to the two user devices simultaneously, wherein the updated search results are based on the changed search attributes and updated finite state edit machine.