CALO Express (CE) is a lightweight personal desktop assistant that uses learning technology to identify relevant information on the workstation. CE finds and organizes information in email, on a workstation, and on shared drives, to quickly assemble new presentations and to prepare for meetings by gathering relevant information. CE provides a plug-in architecture to easily insert java or C# code for new learning algorithms, user interfaces, and application logic.

Overview

CALO Express (CE) is a lightweight personal desktop assistant that uses learning technology to identify relevant information on the workstation. CALO Express scans local files, shared files, and Microsoft Outlook’s email, calendar, and contact information to harvest data for a semantic data store. This semantic data is leveraged through CALO Express learning applications to provide the following capabilities:

In addition, this semantic information is exploited directly within CALO Express to provide the following capabilities:

• CALO Express Search supports various types of queries via the CE search bar and shows the results in MS Windows Explorer. The user may choose 1) natural language query, 2) keyword search, 3) search shortcuts, or 4) “more like this” searches (to find similar documents). The system learns from implicit feedback by the active use of the result, such as opening a document, or from explicit feedback from the user indicating whether he likes the result or not. This learning is used to rank results in future searches.

• PrepPak (Preparation Package) finds and gathers relevant information for a meeting or briefing. When a user asks for a PrepPak for a meeting, the system returns a set of documents and emails based on the meeting name, description and attendees. User refinement of this set provides feedback to improve future suggestions.

• Presentation Assistant helps the user prepare presentations by finding slides matching a descriptive phrase as well as suggesting slides that are similar to a given example. User preferences are learned over time from responses to suggestions, thus enabling improved recommendation over time.

CE provides a plug-in architecture to easily insert Java or C# code for new learning algorithms, user interfaces, and application logic. The plug-in framework also supports integration with other PAL Framework technologies, including Content Management and Semantic Extraction.

CALO Express fits seamlessly into Windows XP, adding only a small CALO Express icon to the toolbar.

Use the following links for further details.

1. CE Desktop Harvesting
2. CE Plug-in Framework

Prerequisites

• Windows XP
• 1GB RAM, 500 MHz, 1.5 GB disk space

Limitations

• CALO Express runs in Windows XP; it is not yet available under Windows Vista or Windows 7.
• CALO Express harvests information from Outlook, Thunderbird, certain Microsoft Office applications (Word, Excel and PowerPoint), and PDF documents, but does not currently support harvesting of web browser data.

Links

• Download CALO Express Framework 1.6.1.5 – Windows XP Installer and user documentation.
• CALO Express User’s Guide
• Download source code for CE sample plug-in – Sample C# and Java plug-in for CE plug-in Framework.
• JavaDoc API for CALO Express Java utilities – Public Java bindings, including the Search API.
• C# API in Microsoft Compiled HTML Help format (.chm). Note that you may have to right click on this file and select Properties->Unblock to view this file.
• Download source code for Java DB Search Example – Sample Java code for CE Desktop Harvesting.
• Calo Express Installer License Information