US20040067773A1 - In a wireless system, a method of selecting an application while receiving application specific messages and user location method using user location awareness - Google Patents

In a wireless system, a method of selecting an application while receiving application specific messages and user location method using user location awareness Download PDF

Info

Publication number
US20040067773A1
US20040067773A1 US10/665,782 US66578203A US2004067773A1 US 20040067773 A1 US20040067773 A1 US 20040067773A1 US 66578203 A US66578203 A US 66578203A US 2004067773 A1 US2004067773 A1 US 2004067773A1
Authority
US
United States
Prior art keywords
wireless
application
wireless device
user
location
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Abandoned
Application number
US10/665,782
Inventor
Sailesh Rachabathuni
Jonathan Griffiths
Paul Rankin
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
Individual
Original Assignee
Individual
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Individual filed Critical Individual
Priority to US10/665,782 priority Critical patent/US20040067773A1/en
Publication of US20040067773A1 publication Critical patent/US20040067773A1/en
Abandoned legal-status Critical Current

Links

Images

Classifications

    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04WWIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
    • H04W4/00Services specially adapted for wireless communication networks; Facilities therefor
    • H04W4/02Services making use of location information
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04WWIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
    • H04W8/00Network data management
    • H04W8/02Processing of mobility data, e.g. registration information at HLR [Home Location Register] or VLR [Visitor Location Register]; Transfer of mobility data, e.g. between HLR, VLR or external networks
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04LTRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L67/00Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
    • H04L67/01Protocols
    • H04L67/02Protocols based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04LTRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L67/00Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
    • H04L67/01Protocols
    • H04L67/04Protocols specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04LTRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L67/00Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
    • H04L67/50Network services
    • H04L67/52Network services specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04NPICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N21/00Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
    • H04N21/20Servers specifically adapted for the distribution of content, e.g. VOD servers; Operations thereof
    • H04N21/25Management operations performed by the server for facilitating the content distribution or administrating data related to end-users or client devices, e.g. end-user or client device authentication, learning user preferences for recommending movies
    • H04N21/258Client or end-user data management, e.g. managing client capabilities, user preferences or demographics, processing of multiple end-users preferences to derive collaborative data
    • H04N21/25808Management of client data
    • H04N21/25841Management of client data involving the geographical location of the client

Definitions

  • the present invention relates to context aware wireless devices needing context dependent services. Such services may be location or user specific. Such wireless devices may be cell phones or PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) with augmented functions, or dedicated devices, or any other suitable wireless device.
  • PDAs Personal Digital Assistants
  • CA Context-Aware
  • the user's CA terminal may be equipped to filter the information received according to pre-stored user preferences or user profiles and the user is only alerted if an item of data of particular interest has been received.
  • a web presence is accessible by any kind of HTTP client including but not limited to a Web browser, HTML pages being accessible by a client using simple URLs that refer to a home page at a server.
  • URLs become available from wireless “beacons”. These beacons are small infrared or radio transceivers located at a particular location.
  • a method of selecting an application comprising:
  • said application specific messages are received as connectionless transmitted packets.
  • connectionless transmitted packets there is no need for unnecessary procedures such as used for connection-oriented communications.
  • context aware roaming wireless devices that may have a need to quickly change applications a transmission method is needed avoiding exchange of a lot of system control data.
  • the packets are re-assembled to application specific messages.
  • a user location method for use in a wireless system comprising:
  • users in the system are made aware of each other or of their location while moving from one location to the other, thereby providing a mechanism to relate services to users, such as location dependent services to a single user, to location dependent services to multiple users at a single location or at different locations.
  • Such a mechanism is particularly useful in future wireless systems requiring context dependent services.
  • Particularly useful is an application using historical registration data so that a user's movement and behavior can be predicted in advance of providing services. Such movement could be heading into a direction of a particular wireless station, that could be a short-range beacon at a shopping mall or museum, or the like, or could have resulted that the particular wireless device and thus it's user actually is in proximity of the particular wireless station.
  • Another particularly useful application is determining proximity of a user or users to wireless stations.
  • users can be made aware of the location, and users can be made aware of each others locations.
  • Such a mechanism is particularly useful for roaming users who want to contact or meet each other.
  • a user may advantageously also set a user profile to filter whether an alert should be provided in a given context.
  • system behavior may be modified depending on proximity information. Users within range of the same beacon could have their user profiles checked so that users of similar interest could easily contact each other, for instance. Or users could check profiles provided by beacons.
  • the system should be modified in that profiles of users entering and leaving a beacon's area should be added or removed from a beacon's set of profiles.
  • Another useful application is filtering of registration data, either at the side of the client, i.e., the wireless device, or at the side of the server. Such filtering could be necessary if a user passes beacons, particularly short-range beacons, too fast or too frequently, or to avoid system overhead through processing of redundant data.
  • FIG. 1 schematically shows a wireless system according to the invention.
  • FIG. 2 schematically shows another wireless system according to the invention.
  • FIG. 3 shows a wireless device for use in a wireless system according to the invention.
  • FIG. 4 is another representation of a wireless device according to the invention.
  • FIG. 5 illustrates roaming of a wireless device according to the invention.
  • FIG. 6 shows beacon signals used in a wireless system according to the invention.
  • FIG. 7 is still another representation of a wireless device according to the invention.
  • FIG. 8 is a flow chart illustrating operation of the communicating with the wireless beacons 5 and 6 using another communication protocol.
  • the wireless device may also be a dedicated device only capable of communicating with the beacons 5 and 6 .
  • the wireless device may also be a dedicated device only capable of communicating through the base stations 3 and 4 with the wide area network 2 .
  • the wireless device 7 communicates with the beacons 5 and 6 through packet transmission using a packet 10 .
  • the packet 10 conveys small quantities of information at a time. Packet transmission may use a protocol as described in a patent application filed earlier by the same assignee (PHGB000084 (UK Appln No. 0015454.2, Filed Jun. 26, 2000), the contents of which is herewith incorporated by reference.
  • the so-called Bluetooth protocol are piggy backed on inquiry facilitation signals, as sixty four bit payloads.
  • this protocol in a full inquiry cycle over sixteen hopping frequencies and a number of repetitions, and through inclusion of clock information of the beacon for synchronization purposes, a full beacon signal of sixteen kBytes can be transmitted.
  • Other suitable packet transmission systems may be applied as well.
  • connection-oriented communication could be used.
  • the database 9 may store user location information and user identities, applications to be downloaded, or other information used by the invention as will be described in further detail hereafter.
  • the application server 8 may be configured to download applications to the wireless device 7 .
  • FIG. 2 schematically shows another wireless system 20 according to the invention.
  • the wireless system 20 comprises a wide area network or local area network 21 of wireless beacons 22 and 23 .
  • the wireless systems 1 and 2 may comprise further application servers and databases. Such further servers and databases may be located at and dedicated to the wireless beacons 5 , 6 , 22 and 23 , or may be networked to form a dedicated network.
  • the wireless beacons 22 and 23 are networked to form a local area network to provide a tailored set of applications covering a given geographical area, the premises of a museum for instance.
  • the respective servers and databases only serve areas covered by the respective wireless beacons.
  • FIG. 3 in more detail shows the wireless device 7 .
  • the wireless device 7 comprises transceivers 30 and 31 that are respectively configured to communicate with the radio base stations 3 and 4 , and with the wireless beacons 5 , 6 , 22 and 23 .
  • the transceiver 30 is a cellular phone transceiver and includes well-known circuitry for transmission, modulation and demodulation, encoding and decoding, analog-to-digital conversion, and digital-to-analog conversion (not shown in detail here).
  • the transceiver 31 is configured to operate in a Bluetooth environment, preferably with additional data transmission piggy backed on Bluetooth inquiry messages.
  • the wireless device 7 further comprises a processor 32 that is coupled to a programmed ROM (Read Only Memory) 33 and a RAM (Random Access Memory) 34 .
  • the wireless device 7 further comprises a display 35 , a keyboard 36 , and an audio presentation device 37 that can present voice messages, alerts, or voice communication.
  • the wireless device 7 may be programmed to run WAP applications (Wire Access Protocol) and then include a cell phone enabled browser.
  • WAP applications Wireless Access Protocol
  • FIG. 4 is another representation of the wireless device 7 according to the invention to illustrate use of the wireless device 7 of receiving and processing application specific messages.
  • the wireless device 7 comprises a core program 40 continuously running on the processor 32 .
  • Application memory 33 stores applications 41 , 42 and 43 .
  • an application specific identifier AID 1 is also stored, and for application 42 an application specific identifier AID 2 .
  • No identifier is stored for application 43 .
  • Data memory 34 may store data such as weather data 44 , stock data 45 , and game score data 46 .
  • the weather and stock data are received through generic beacon signals.
  • the user of the wireless device 7 may decide that a new application should be loaded into the wireless device 7 and install or download such a new program, or that a stored program is no longer needed and delete such a program.
  • FIG. 5 illustrates roaming of a user carrying the wireless device 7 according to the invention, indicated with a dashed arrow 50 . While roaming the wireless device 7 enters into a range of a wireless beacon and leaves it to enter into a range of another wireless beacon, and so on. While roaming beacon respective signals BS 1 , BS 2 and BS 5 are received from respective wireless beacons B 1 , B 2 and B 5 , the user entering transmission ranges of the beacons B 1 , B 2 and B 5 . No beacon signals are received from beacons B 3 and B 4 .
  • FIG. 6 shows beacon signals used in the wireless systems 1 and 20 according to the invention.
  • the wireless beacons 5 , 6 , 22 and 23 each continuously broadcast beacon signals, such beacon signals including a generic beacon signal 60 as shown in FIG. 6B, and an application specific beacon signal 61 as shown in FIG. 6C.
  • Bytes 62 and 63 are used to indicate the length of a beacon signal
  • byte 64 to indicate the type of a beacon signal, generic or specific.
  • For a generic beacon signal bytes 65 and 66 are used to indicate an information type of information contained in a beacon signal, such as weather data and stock data.
  • For an application specific beacon bytes 65 - 68 contain an application specific identifier, and the remaining bytes application specific data.
  • FIG. 7 is still another representation of the wireless device 7 when receiving and processing application specific messages from wireless beacons. As shown, the wireless device 7 receives application specific messages with respective application specific identifiers AID 1 , AID 2 , and AID 122 , ignores the received application specific message with application specific identifier AID 122 , and processes the received application specific messages with application specific identifiers AID 1 and AID 2 .
  • FIG. 8 is a flow chart illustrating operation of receiving and processing of beacon signals.
  • the wireless device 7 waits for a beacon signal.
  • the wireless device checks a beacon signal's type. If a beacon signal is generic, in block 82 , the wireless device 7 handles the generic beacon signal. If a beacon signal is application specific, in block 83 , the wireless device 7 checks whether an application exists indicated by the received application specific identifier. If no such application exists, returned is to block 80 . If such an application exists, in block 84 it is check whether the application is active.
  • the application is active, in block 85 , correspondingly received data is passed to the active application or program. If the application is inactive, in block 86 a user profile of user preferences is checked for the desirability to activate the inactive application. If there is such a desirability, in block 87 , the inactive application is activated and correspondingly received data is passed to the active application.
  • the active program may respond to the passed data in various ways. It may bring the passed data to the users attention, it may check from other data stored in the wireless device 7 whether the passed data is of interest to the user, it may consult a central server through the WAN 2 to find out whether the passed data is of interest to the user, or it may send the passed data to the central server, possibly together with already stored data, for further processing.
  • FIG. 9 schematically shows a wireless system 90 .
  • the wireless system 90 comprises a location identification server 91 that is coupled to a location database 92 .
  • the wireless system 90 further comprises wireless devices 93 and 94 of the type of the wireless device 7 , and wireless beacons 95 and 96 .
  • the wireless devices 93 and 94 are configured to communicate with the location identification server 91 through wide area network or carrier network 97 , that may be a cellular network.
  • the wireless beacons 95 and 96 are configured to contact the location identification server 91 through the Internet 98 .
  • the location identification server 91 registers locations and user identities of users of wireless devices.
  • FIG. 10 shows a database record 100 used by the location identification server according to the invention.
  • the record 100 comprises a record number field 101 , a user identity or identification field 102 , a location identification field 103 , and a date and time field 104 registering when the user was last encountered at a given location such as at a location of a wireless beacon.
  • the wireless system 90 may be configured to keep historical location data, to filter location data, and to delete location data.
  • the wireless system 90 may be configured to use historical location data to predict movements of roaming users, to inform a user of it's proximity to a system resource, to make aware users of each other's proximity or to respective proximities to respective locations, or to other applications described or suggested by the present application.
  • the wireless system 90 may also be of a type as shown and described in FIGS. 1 and 2, in so far as location registration is meaningful.
  • the wireless system 90 has the structure of a single network, such as a cellular network, that has the capability to coupled users to locations in terms of proximity to a system resource. Particularly, when such cellular networks are pico-networks, the described location awareness still is meaningful and useful.
  • the wireless system 90 at least also comprises short-range wireless beacons that have a better defined location. Typically, such short-range beacons have a transmission output power of 1 mW to 100 mW, limiting their transmission range.
  • the wireless device 7 when roaming, the users encounter a succession of beacons, possibly encountering beacons more than once.
  • the wireless device 7 then acts as a bridge or relay to pass beacon information to the location identification server 91 .
  • the server 91 updates the location database 92 so that the database 92 reflects which wireless beacons wireless device have or had proximity to.
  • the wireless system 90 may use short term or long term historical proximity data for a given wireless device or set of wireless devices to predict location or proximity changes. As an example, a user carrying a wireless device proceeds along a street into the range of wireless beacons. On the basis of gathered location information, the wireless system 90 may predict when the user arrives as a given location at a certain time.
  • Such a prediction mechanism may be implemented as an application running at the server 91 .
  • the wireless system 90 may use long term history of proximity of location for users to build profiles of their movements, individual or shared interests. Herewith, users can be linked with places, shops, and other users.
  • the database 92 could store a record of matches to these places and people which is averaged over time.
  • FIG. 11 illustrates alternative acquisition of location identification information according to the invention. Shown is a table 110 with location identifiers 111 that uniquely identify a global location, with a description 112 of a location, and with latitude and longitude data of the location.
  • Location identification can be represented in various ways, it can be a geographical description of a location whereby the location identifier itself forms the data to identify a location, it can be a reference to a geographical description of a location, i.e., just a pointer to other information that can be used to determine the location.
  • FIG. 12 shows an embodiment of the location identification server 91 according to the invention.
  • the wireless device 93 passes location and user identity information to the location identification server 91 for inclusion into the database 92 .
  • the location identification server 91 is implemented as a CGI (Common Gateway Interface) script that resides on the web server 121 that can be reached through the Internet.
  • the wireless device 93 calls the CGI script with the location identifier as a parameter, the location identification server's CGI script being invoked by the web server 121 it resides on.
  • the location identification server's CGI script receives the location identifier as a parameter and the CGI script stores the location identifier in the database 92 .
  • FIG. 13 illustrates a proximity alert application according to the invention.
  • wireless device 130 is in-range of beacon 131 at location Li
  • wireless device 132 is in-range of beacon 133 at location Lj
  • wireless device 134 is in-range of beacon 135 at location Lk.
  • a user profile 136 of user1 carrying wireless device 134 .
  • user1 will get a proximity alert “User2 is near”.
  • the proximity alert application uses proximity information received and stored by the location identification server and processes that information to determine the proximity of any two users or one user and a location.
  • the proximity alert application uses the following information to determine the proximity of two users or a user and a location:
  • This application has to make some assumptions as to how long a user is considered to be near a location after the location identification is transmitted to the location identification server 91 . For example, if the last known user location is obtained one hour ago, it is may not be right to assume that user is still at the same location.
  • Determining the distance between two locations represented by given location identifications depends on the implementation of the location identifications. If the location identification represents a geographical description of a location, the distance between two locations can be calculated directly from the location identifications. If the location identifications points to a stored description of geographical location, the stored location description must be retrieved to determine the distance between locations.
  • Proximity alert application allows a user to configure alerts based on the proximity of a user or a location.
  • the proximity alert application upon receipt of new information, determines the proximity between the user and all the users and locations user expressed desired having alerted about. If the application determines any of the locations or users are in the proximity of the user, the user is alerted.
  • Proximity alerts can be of two types, alert of proximity of a user to another user and alert of proximity of a user to a location.
  • FIG. 14 illustrates modification of system behavior in a proximity based wireless system according to the invention.
  • the system 90 comprises a proximity server 140 .
  • the proximity server 140 may be included in the location identification server 91 .
  • Wireless devices 140 and 141 are in-range of beacon 142 .
  • Proximity detection is used to modify the behavior of the system or parts of system based on the proximity of the users. Typically parts of the system are controlled.
  • This application uses the location information collected by the location identification server 91 and processes it to determine the proximity of users to users and users to locations. Based on the information, this application modifies parts of the system it controls accordingly.
  • the proximity server 140 controls the wireless beacon 142 and selection of applications I, J, and K.
  • FIG. 15 shows a hot badge application in such a proximity based system.
  • wireless devices 150 - 152 are in-range of beacon 153 . Further shown are user profiles of users of the wireless devices 150 - 152 , and a hot badge server 154 .
  • the hot badge server may be included in the location identification server 91 .
  • Hot badges broadly is a match making application. Each user has a personal profile. A user sets up a profile of other user he/she would like to meet. When the user enters the range of “Hot Badge Capable” wireless beacon 153 , the wireless beacon 153 informs the user of other users and their profiles that are in-range of the wireless beacon 153 . The user's wireless device, based on user's interest, alerts user of a person being in-range.
  • a user's wireless device when the user enters the range of a beacon, a user's wireless device receives the location identifier ID of the wireless beacon 153 and transmits it to the location identification server 91 .
  • the hot badge server 154 which receives this information from the location database 92 , instructs the wireless beacon the user is close to, to modify its behavior to reflect the new user.
  • a wireless beacon modifies the information it broadcasts to include the new user's profile in the information.
  • the user's wireless device matches all the profiles against a required profile and alerts the user if necessary.
  • wireless devices 150 - 152 are in-range of wireless beacon 153 .
  • a new wireless device 155 with user4 enters into range of the wireless beacon 153 resulting in providing user4's user profile 156 to hot badge server 154 .
  • the end situation is achieved that beacon 153 now broadcasts user profiles of users 1-4.
  • FIG. 16 shows filtering in a proximity alert system according to the invention.
  • a users' wireless device transmits location identification to the location identification server whenever it receives a new location identification from a wireless beacon.
  • the location identification server processes all location identifications it receives and stores them in the location database for use by other applications. But, if a user passes wireless beacon ranges too fast or a set of beacon ranges too frequently, it would be more efficient to filter some of the location identifications that are passed to location identification server or that are stored in the location database.
  • Location data filtering can be done at the side of the client, a wireless device, and at the side of the server.
  • Server side location data filtering is a process that analyzes location data received from wireless device and optimizes the location data for other applications to use it efficiently. Filtering primarily involves removing data that is redundant and does not add any value to the data that is already existing in the database. Such data costs applications time without any use.
  • the location identification server can determine the distance between any two given location identifications. If two successive location identifications received from a handheld are not so far apart that it makes a difference to the applications that are processing the data, the location identification server may choose to ignore the latter location identification.
  • Client side location data filtering is a process, possibly implemented by an application, that optimizes the number location identifications that are transmitted to the location identification server so as to optimize wireless device-location identification server communication. In several situations the wireless device is in a position to determining which data is redundant to the location identification server.
  • a user's wireless device may implement a simple filter that follows the rule “transmit only once a minute”.
  • the wireless device after having transmitted a location identification to the location identification server does not transmit a new location identification until after one minute.
  • Such a method is efficient if the user is moving too fast through wireless beacon ranges.
  • a wireless device can easily recognize that the user is moving fast and there is no value in transmitting all location identifications a user encounters since a user will not stay in range of a wireless beacon for long.
  • FIG. 16A shows client side filtering and FIG. 16B shows server side filtering. Filtering at client's side:
  • a wireless device waits for a location identifier.
  • it checks whether a predetermined period, for instance one minute, since a previous transmission of a location identifier to the location server has expired. If so, in block 162 it transmits the newly acquired location identifier. Otherwise it ignores the newly acquired one and it waits for still another one.
  • the wireless device sets the predetermined period to one minute. Filtering at server's side:
  • the server waits for a location identifier. Upon reception, in block 165 it retrieves a user's last known location. In block 166 , it then calculates a distance between a current and a previous location of the user and checks whether the distance is below a given threshold, e.g. 20 m. If so, no update occurs. If this is not the case, in block 167 the user's interested entries are retrieved and in block 168 it is calculated what is the distance between a user's current location and his interested entries. If the latter distance is too large, as tested in block 169 , e.g. above 100 m, the server waits for another location identification. Otherwise, in block 170 an alert signal is sent to the user.
  • a given threshold e.g. 20 m.

Abstract

A method of selecting an application in a wireless device and a user location method are provided. In the method of selecting an application, specific messages are received from a wireless station. The application specific messages are specific to services provided via a wireless station transmitting the application specific messages. The application specific messages have an application specific identifier identifying a specific application and data corresponding to the specific application. It is determined whether an application is present in the wireless device that corresponds to the received application specific identifier. If it is determined that the corresponding application is absent in the wireless device, the correspondingly received data is ignored. In the user location method that is used in a wireless system, locations and user identities of users of wireless devices are registered. The wireless devices are capable of roaming through the wireless system when the wireless devices enter into coverage areas of wireless stations in the system. A user location awareness application uses the registered locations and user identities of the wireless devices.

Description

    BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
  • 1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001]
  • The present invention relates to context aware wireless devices needing context dependent services. Such services may be location or user specific. Such wireless devices may be cell phones or PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) with augmented functions, or dedicated devices, or any other suitable wireless device. [0002]
  • 2. DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART [0003]
  • Recent years have seen a great increase in subscribers world-wide to mobile telephone networks and, through advances in technology and the addition of functionalities, cellular telephones have become personal, trusted devices. A result of this is that a mobile information society is developing, with personalised and localised services becoming increasingly more important. Such “Context-Aware” (CA) mobile telephones are used with low power, short-range base stations in places like shopping malls to provide location-specific information. This information might include local maps, information on nearby shops and restaurants, information on exhibitions at museums and so on. The user's CA terminal may be equipped to filter the information received according to pre-stored user preferences or user profiles and the user is only alerted if an item of data of particular interest has been received. [0004]
  • As example of a CA terminal is given in a technical report published by Hewlett Packard, “Uniform Web Presence Architecture for People, Places, and Things”, HPL-2000-67, 13 pages, June, 2000. This report decribes HP's “Cooltown” vision. The Cooltown vision is that people, places, and things have web representation and that many useful services can be offered by creating a tighter link between the real word entity and its vitual representation. Software architectures are defined enabling the dynamic generation of Web contents based on the user context (location, identity, device capabilities), on his security permission, and on the relationships with other Web presences. In Cooltown, the future consists of nomadic people carrying personal communication and web browsing devices interacting with services that are location specific and customized to the user. [0005]
  • In Cooltown, a patron might enter into an art museum carrying a handheld personal communication device with an embedded web browser. The museum has web pages corresponding to each room of the museum that comes available automatically upon entering the room. Individual paintings also have a web presence. By approaching a painting, the web page for that painting becomes available automatically. Other services such as printing, shopping, and choosing one's next activity can be made more relevant as well by connecting the services to the user's location context. The web presence of the patron could be automatically linked to the web presence of the devices (cell phone, handheld device, etcetera) the patron's husband is currently carrying. The patron's husband clicks on a link representing the patron and a corresponding application pops up at the patron's husband's device, the application establishing a web link to the current patron's web presence. A web presence is accessible by any kind of HTTP client including but not limited to a Web browser, HTML pages being accessible by a client using simple URLs that refer to a home page at a server. At a given location, URLs become available from wireless “beacons”. These beacons are small infrared or radio transceivers located at a particular location. [0006]
  • Thus in the future mobile information society many context, location and application specific services should be made available to a person carrying a handheld device such as a cell phone, a PDA or any other handheld device that is capable of communicating within a defined coverage area within a system. [0007]
  • SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
  • It is an object of the invention to provide a method of selecting an application, for use in a wireless device, on the basis of application specific messages received from a wireless station. [0008]
  • It is another object of the invention to provide such a method wherein availability and/or desirability to run an application is checked. [0009]
  • It is still another object of the invention to provide such a method wherein application specific data in said application specific messages is passed to a selected application. [0010]
  • It is an object of the invention to also provide a wireless system running a user location awareness application using location registration information of context aware wireless devices when such devices roam through a wireless system of wireless stations of limited range. [0011]
  • It is another object of the invention to provide such a wireless system while using historical registration data. [0012]
  • It is still another object of the invention to provide such a wireless system while using proximity information of users to users and/or of users to locations. [0013]
  • It is still another object of the invention to provide such a wireless system while filtering location registration information. [0014]
  • In accordance with the invention, a method of selecting an application is provided, said method comprising: [0015]
  • receiving application specific messages from a wireless station, said application specific messages being specific to services provided via a wireless station transmitting said application specific messages, and said application specific messages comprising an application specific identifier identifying a specific application and data corresponding to said specific application; [0016]
  • determining whether an application is present in said wireless device that corresponds to said received application specific identifier; and [0017]
  • ignoring said correspondingly received data if it is determined that said corresponding application is absent in said wireless device. [0018]
  • Advantageously, said application specific messages are received as connectionless transmitted packets. Herewith, there is no need for unnecessary procedures such as used for connection-oriented communications. Particularly, for context aware roaming wireless devices that may have a need to quickly change applications a transmission method is needed avoiding exchange of a lot of system control data. Upon reception, the packets are re-assembled to application specific messages. [0019]
  • Advantageously, it is checked whether an application corresponding to the received application specific messages is active. Herewith, unnecessary halting of other running applications, particularly of applications needing the user interface of the wireless device, is avoided. [0020]
  • By first checking whether the specific application to be loaded matches a user profile of user preferences in the context wireless environment, it is prevented that currently not needed applications are made active. [0021]
  • In accordance with the invention, also a user location method for use in a wireless system is provided, said method comprising: [0022]
  • registering of locations and user identities of users of wireless devices that capable of roaming through said wireless system when said wireless devices enter into coverage areas of wireless stations in said system; and [0023]
  • running a user location awareness application, said user location awareness application using said registered locations and user identities of said wireless devices. [0024]
  • Herewith users in the system are made aware of each other or of their location while moving from one location to the other, thereby providing a mechanism to relate services to users, such as location dependent services to a single user, to location dependent services to multiple users at a single location or at different locations. Such a mechanism is particularly useful in future wireless systems requiring context dependent services. [0025]
  • Particularly useful is an application using historical registration data so that a user's movement and behavior can be predicted in advance of providing services. Such movement could be heading into a direction of a particular wireless station, that could be a short-range beacon at a shopping mall or museum, or the like, or could have resulted that the particular wireless device and thus it's user actually is in proximity of the particular wireless station. [0026]
  • Another particularly useful application is determining proximity of a user or users to wireless stations. Herewith users can be made aware of the location, and users can be made aware of each others locations. Such a mechanism is particularly useful for roaming users who want to contact or meet each other. A user may advantageously also set a user profile to filter whether an alert should be provided in a given context. Also advantageously system behavior may be modified depending on proximity information. Users within range of the same beacon could have their user profiles checked so that users of similar interest could easily contact each other, for instance. Or users could check profiles provided by beacons. The system should be modified in that profiles of users entering and leaving a beacon's area should be added or removed from a beacon's set of profiles. [0027]
  • Another useful application is filtering of registration data, either at the side of the client, i.e., the wireless device, or at the side of the server. Such filtering could be necessary if a user passes beacons, particularly short-range beacons, too fast or too frequently, or to avoid system overhead through processing of redundant data.[0028]
  • BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING
  • FIG. 1 schematically shows a wireless system according to the invention. [0029]
  • FIG. 2 schematically shows another wireless system according to the invention. [0030]
  • FIG. 3 shows a wireless device for use in a wireless system according to the invention. [0031]
  • FIG. 4 is another representation of a wireless device according to the invention. [0032]
  • FIG. 5 illustrates roaming of a wireless device according to the invention. [0033]
  • FIG. 6 shows beacon signals used in a wireless system according to the invention. [0034]
  • FIG. 7 is still another representation of a wireless device according to the invention. [0035]
  • FIG. 8 is a flow chart illustrating operation of the communicating with the wireless beacons [0036] 5 and 6 using another communication protocol. The wireless device may also be a dedicated device only capable of communicating with the beacons 5 and 6. The wireless device may also be a dedicated device only capable of communicating through the base stations 3 and 4 with the wide area network 2. Preferably, the wireless device 7 communicates with the beacons 5 and 6 through packet transmission using a packet 10. The packet 10 conveys small quantities of information at a time. Packet transmission may use a protocol as described in a patent application filed earlier by the same assignee (PHGB000084 (UK Appln No. 0015454.2, Filed Jun. 26, 2000), the contents of which is herewith incorporated by reference. In the packet transmission protocol described therein added data to an existing protocol, the so-called Bluetooth protocol, are piggy backed on inquiry facilitation signals, as sixty four bit payloads. In this protocol, in a full inquiry cycle over sixteen hopping frequencies and a number of repetitions, and through inclusion of clock information of the beacon for synchronization purposes, a full beacon signal of sixteen kBytes can be transmitted. Other suitable packet transmission systems may be applied as well. In principle, also connection-oriented communication could be used. The database 9 may store user location information and user identities, applications to be downloaded, or other information used by the invention as will be described in further detail hereafter. The application server 8 may be configured to download applications to the wireless device 7.
  • FIG. 2 schematically shows another [0037] wireless system 20 according to the invention. The wireless system 20 comprises a wide area network or local area network 21 of wireless beacons 22 and 23.
  • The [0038] wireless systems 1 and 2 may comprise further application servers and databases. Such further servers and databases may be located at and dedicated to the wireless beacons 5, 6, 22 and 23, or may be networked to form a dedicated network. In the wireless system 20, the wireless beacons 22 and 23 are networked to form a local area network to provide a tailored set of applications covering a given geographical area, the premises of a museum for instance. In an embodiment of dedicated servers and databases to wireless beacons, the respective servers and databases only serve areas covered by the respective wireless beacons.
  • FIG. 3 in more detail shows the [0039] wireless device 7. The wireless device 7 comprises transceivers 30 and 31 that are respectively configured to communicate with the radio base stations 3 and 4, and with the wireless beacons 5, 6, 22 and 23. The transceiver 30 is a cellular phone transceiver and includes well-known circuitry for transmission, modulation and demodulation, encoding and decoding, analog-to-digital conversion, and digital-to-analog conversion (not shown in detail here). The transceiver 31 is configured to operate in a Bluetooth environment, preferably with additional data transmission piggy backed on Bluetooth inquiry messages. The wireless device 7 further comprises a processor 32 that is coupled to a programmed ROM (Read Only Memory) 33 and a RAM (Random Access Memory) 34. The wireless device 7 further comprises a display 35, a keyboard 36, and an audio presentation device 37 that can present voice messages, alerts, or voice communication. The wireless device 7 may be programmed to run WAP applications (Wire Access Protocol) and then include a cell phone enabled browser.
  • FIG. 4 is another representation of the [0040] wireless device 7 according to the invention to illustrate use of the wireless device 7 of receiving and processing application specific messages. The wireless device 7 comprises a core program 40 continuously running on the processor 32. Application memory 33 stores applications 41, 42 and 43. For application 41, an application specific identifier AID1 is also stored, and for application 42 an application specific identifier AID2. No identifier is stored for application 43. Data memory 34 may store data such as weather data 44, stock data 45, and game score data 46. The weather and stock data are received through generic beacon signals. The user of the wireless device 7 may decide that a new application should be loaded into the wireless device 7 and install or download such a new program, or that a stored program is no longer needed and delete such a program.
  • FIG. 5 illustrates roaming of a user carrying the [0041] wireless device 7 according to the invention, indicated with a dashed arrow 50. While roaming the wireless device 7 enters into a range of a wireless beacon and leaves it to enter into a range of another wireless beacon, and so on. While roaming beacon respective signals BS1, BS2 and BS5 are received from respective wireless beacons B1, B2 and B5, the user entering transmission ranges of the beacons B1, B2 and B5. No beacon signals are received from beacons B3 and B4.
  • FIG. 6 shows beacon signals used in the [0042] wireless systems 1 and 20 according to the invention. The wireless beacons 5, 6, 22 and 23 each continuously broadcast beacon signals, such beacon signals including a generic beacon signal 60 as shown in FIG. 6B, and an application specific beacon signal 61 as shown in FIG. 6C. Bytes 62 and 63 are used to indicate the length of a beacon signal, and byte 64 to indicate the type of a beacon signal, generic or specific. For a generic beacon signal bytes 65 and 66 are used to indicate an information type of information contained in a beacon signal, such as weather data and stock data. For an application specific beacon, bytes 65-68 contain an application specific identifier, and the remaining bytes application specific data.
  • FIG. 7 is still another representation of the [0043] wireless device 7 when receiving and processing application specific messages from wireless beacons. As shown, the wireless device 7 receives application specific messages with respective application specific identifiers AID1, AID2, and AID122, ignores the received application specific message with application specific identifier AID122, and processes the received application specific messages with application specific identifiers AID1 and AID2.
  • FIG. 8 is a flow chart illustrating operation of receiving and processing of beacon signals. In [0044] block 80, the wireless device 7 waits for a beacon signal. In block 81, upon reception of a beacon signal, that is re-assembled from received packets, the wireless device checks a beacon signal's type. If a beacon signal is generic, in block 82, the wireless device 7 handles the generic beacon signal. If a beacon signal is application specific, in block 83, the wireless device 7 checks whether an application exists indicated by the received application specific identifier. If no such application exists, returned is to block 80. If such an application exists, in block 84 it is check whether the application is active. If the application is active, in block 85, correspondingly received data is passed to the active application or program. If the application is inactive, in block 86 a user profile of user preferences is checked for the desirability to activate the inactive application. If there is such a desirability, in block 87, the inactive application is activated and correspondingly received data is passed to the active application. The active program may respond to the passed data in various ways. It may bring the passed data to the users attention, it may check from other data stored in the wireless device 7 whether the passed data is of interest to the user, it may consult a central server through the WAN 2 to find out whether the passed data is of interest to the user, or it may send the passed data to the central server, possibly together with already stored data, for further processing.
  • FIG. 9 schematically shows a [0045] wireless system 90. The wireless system 90 comprises a location identification server 91 that is coupled to a location database 92. The wireless system 90 further comprises wireless devices 93 and 94 of the type of the wireless device 7, and wireless beacons 95 and 96. The wireless devices 93 and 94 are configured to communicate with the location identification server 91 through wide area network or carrier network 97, that may be a cellular network. The wireless beacons 95 and 96 are configured to contact the location identification server 91 through the Internet 98. The location identification server 91 registers locations and user identities of users of wireless devices.
  • FIG. 10 shows a [0046] database record 100 used by the location identification server according to the invention. The record 100 comprises a record number field 101, a user identity or identification field 102, a location identification field 103, and a date and time field 104 registering when the user was last encountered at a given location such as at a location of a wireless beacon. The wireless system 90 may be configured to keep historical location data, to filter location data, and to delete location data. The wireless system 90 may be configured to use historical location data to predict movements of roaming users, to inform a user of it's proximity to a system resource, to make aware users of each other's proximity or to respective proximities to respective locations, or to other applications described or suggested by the present application. Services may be provided that use relative location information, describing the proximity of users and wireless devices to a known location or other users and wireless devices. The wireless system 90 may also be of a type as shown and described in FIGS. 1 and 2, in so far as location registration is meaningful. In it's simplest form, the wireless system 90 has the structure of a single network, such as a cellular network, that has the capability to coupled users to locations in terms of proximity to a system resource. Particularly, when such cellular networks are pico-networks, the described location awareness still is meaningful and useful. Preferably, the wireless system 90 at least also comprises short-range wireless beacons that have a better defined location. Typically, such short-range beacons have a transmission output power of 1 mW to 100 mW, limiting their transmission range.
  • In a system also containing wireless beacons, when roaming, the users encounter a succession of beacons, possibly encountering beacons more than once. The [0047] wireless device 7 then acts as a bridge or relay to pass beacon information to the location identification server 91. Upon reception of passed beacon information, the server 91 updates the location database 92 so that the database 92 reflects which wireless beacons wireless device have or had proximity to. The wireless system 90 may use short term or long term historical proximity data for a given wireless device or set of wireless devices to predict location or proximity changes. As an example, a user carrying a wireless device proceeds along a street into the range of wireless beacons. On the basis of gathered location information, the wireless system 90 may predict when the user arrives as a given location at a certain time. Such a prediction mechanism may be implemented as an application running at the server 91. The wireless system 90 may use long term history of proximity of location for users to build profiles of their movements, individual or shared interests. Herewith, users can be linked with places, shops, and other users. The database 92 could store a record of matches to these places and people which is averaged over time.
  • FIG. 11 illustrates alternative acquisition of location identification information according to the invention. Shown is a table [0048] 110 with location identifiers 111 that uniquely identify a global location, with a description 112 of a location, and with latitude and longitude data of the location. Location identification can be represented in various ways, it can be a geographical description of a location whereby the location identifier itself forms the data to identify a location, it can be a reference to a geographical description of a location, i.e., just a pointer to other information that can be used to determine the location.
  • FIG. 12 shows an embodiment of the [0049] location identification server 91 according to the invention. Through the cellular network 97, a WAP gateway 120 and an Internet server 121, the wireless device 93 passes location and user identity information to the location identification server 91 for inclusion into the database 92. The location identification server 91 is implemented as a CGI (Common Gateway Interface) script that resides on the web server 121 that can be reached through the Internet. The wireless device 93 transmits a location identifier it acquired from the wireless beacon 95 to the location identification server 91 using WAP: “http://1.1.1.1/locsrvr.cgi?loc_id=Li&user_id=Ui”. The wireless device 93 calls the CGI script with the location identifier as a parameter, the location identification server's CGI script being invoked by the web server 121 it resides on. When being invoked, the location identification server's CGI script receives the location identifier as a parameter and the CGI script stores the location identifier in the database 92.
  • FIG. 13 illustrates a proximity alert application according to the invention. [0050]
  • As shown, [0051] wireless device 130 is in-range of beacon 131 at location Li, wireless device 132 is in-range of beacon 133 at location Lj, and wireless device 134 is in-range of beacon 135 at location Lk. Further shown is a user profile 136 of user1 carrying wireless device 134. As a result of user2 matching user1's user profile 136, user1 will get a proximity alert “User2 is near”.
  • The proximity alert application uses proximity information received and stored by the location identification server and processes that information to determine the proximity of any two users or one user and a location. The proximity alert application uses the following information to determine the proximity of two users or a user and a location: [0052]
  • Location of a User: [0053]
  • This can be determined from the information that is stored by the [0054] location identification server 91. This application has to make some assumptions as to how long a user is considered to be near a location after the location identification is transmitted to the location identification server 91. For example, if the last known user location is obtained one hour ago, it is may not be right to assume that user is still at the same location.
  • Distance Between Two Given Location Identifications: [0055]
  • Determining the distance between two locations represented by given location identifications depends on the implementation of the location identifications. If the location identification represents a geographical description of a location, the distance between two locations can be calculated directly from the location identifications. If the location identifications points to a stored description of geographical location, the stored location description must be retrieved to determine the distance between locations. [0056]
  • An application of being able to determine proximity of two users or a user and a location is proximity alert. Proximity alert application allows a user to configure alerts based on the proximity of a user or a location. The proximity alert application, upon receipt of new information, determines the proximity between the user and all the users and locations user expressed desired having alerted about. If the application determines any of the locations or users are in the proximity of the user, the user is alerted. Proximity alerts can be of two types, alert of proximity of a user to another user and alert of proximity of a user to a location. [0057]
  • FIG. 14 illustrates modification of system behavior in a proximity based wireless system according to the invention. In addition to the [0058] location identification server 91, the system 90 comprises a proximity server 140. The proximity server 140 may be included in the location identification server 91. Wireless devices 140 and 141 are in-range of beacon 142.
  • Proximity detection is used to modify the behavior of the system or parts of system based on the proximity of the users. Typically parts of the system are controlled. This application uses the location information collected by the [0059] location identification server 91 and processes it to determine the proximity of users to users and users to locations. Based on the information, this application modifies parts of the system it controls accordingly. In the example given, the proximity server 140 controls the wireless beacon 142 and selection of applications I, J, and K.
  • FIG. 15 shows a hot badge application in such a proximity based system. As shown, wireless devices [0060] 150-152 are in-range of beacon 153. Further shown are user profiles of users of the wireless devices 150-152, and a hot badge server 154. The hot badge server may be included in the location identification server 91.
  • Hot badges broadly is a match making application. Each user has a personal profile. A user sets up a profile of other user he/she would like to meet. When the user enters the range of “Hot Badge Capable” [0061] wireless beacon 153, the wireless beacon 153 informs the user of other users and their profiles that are in-range of the wireless beacon 153. The user's wireless device, based on user's interest, alerts user of a person being in-range.
  • In this scenario, when the user enters the range of a beacon, a user's wireless device receives the location identifier ID of the [0062] wireless beacon 153 and transmits it to the location identification server 91. The hot badge server 154 which receives this information from the location database 92, instructs the wireless beacon the user is close to, to modify its behavior to reflect the new user. A wireless beacon modifies the information it broadcasts to include the new user's profile in the information. When a user receives the information, the user's wireless device matches all the profiles against a required profile and alerts the user if necessary.
  • In FIG. 15A, wireless devices [0063] 150-152 are in-range of wireless beacon 153. In FIG. 15B a new wireless device 155 with user4 enters into range of the wireless beacon 153 resulting in providing user4's user profile 156 to hot badge server 154. In FIG. 15A, the end situation is achieved that beacon 153 now broadcasts user profiles of users 1-4.
  • FIG. 16 shows filtering in a proximity alert system according to the invention. [0064]
  • A users' wireless device transmits location identification to the location identification server whenever it receives a new location identification from a wireless beacon. The location identification server processes all location identifications it receives and stores them in the location database for use by other applications. But, if a user passes wireless beacon ranges too fast or a set of beacon ranges too frequently, it would be more efficient to filter some of the location identifications that are passed to location identification server or that are stored in the location database. [0065]
  • Location data filtering can be done at the side of the client, a wireless device, and at the side of the server. [0066]
  • Server side location data filtering is a process that analyzes location data received from wireless device and optimizes the location data for other applications to use it efficiently. Filtering primarily involves removing data that is redundant and does not add any value to the data that is already existing in the database. Such data costs applications time without any use. [0067]
  • Example of redundant data that can be filtered by server side location data filtering: [0068]
  • The location identification server can determine the distance between any two given location identifications. If two successive location identifications received from a handheld are not so far apart that it makes a difference to the applications that are processing the data, the location identification server may choose to ignore the latter location identification. [0069]
  • Client side location data filtering is a process, possibly implemented by an application, that optimizes the number location identifications that are transmitted to the location identification server so as to optimize wireless device-location identification server communication. In several situations the wireless device is in a position to determining which data is redundant to the location identification server. [0070]
  • For instance, a user's wireless device may implement a simple filter that follows the rule “transmit only once a minute”. The wireless device after having transmitted a location identification to the location identification server does not transmit a new location identification until after one minute. Such a method is efficient if the user is moving too fast through wireless beacon ranges. A wireless device can easily recognize that the user is moving fast and there is no value in transmitting all location identifications a user encounters since a user will not stay in range of a wireless beacon for long. [0071]
  • FIG. 16A shows client side filtering and FIG. 16B shows server side filtering. Filtering at client's side: [0072]
  • In [0073] block 160, a wireless device waits for a location identifier. When received, in block 161 it checks whether a predetermined period, for instance one minute, since a previous transmission of a location identifier to the location server has expired. If so, in block 162 it transmits the newly acquired location identifier. Otherwise it ignores the newly acquired one and it waits for still another one. Upon transmission of a location identifier, in block 163 the wireless device sets the predetermined period to one minute. Filtering at server's side:
  • In [0074] block 164, the server waits for a location identifier. Upon reception, in block 165 it retrieves a user's last known location. In block 166, it then calculates a distance between a current and a previous location of the user and checks whether the distance is below a given threshold, e.g. 20 m. If so, no update occurs. If this is not the case, in block 167 the user's interested entries are retrieved and in block 168 it is calculated what is the distance between a user's current location and his interested entries. If the latter distance is too large, as tested in block 169, e.g. above 100 m, the server waits for another location identification. Otherwise, in block 170 an alert signal is sent to the user.
  • In view of the foregoing it will be evident to a person skilled in the art that various modifications may be made within the spirit and the scope of the invention as hereinafter defined by the appended claims and that the invention is thus not limited to the examples provided. The word “comprising” does not exclude the presence of other elements or steps than those listed in a claim. What is claimed is:[0075]

Claims (34)

1. In a wireless device, a method of selecting an application, said method comprising:
receiving application specific messages from a wireless station, said application specific messages being specific to services provided via a wireless station transmitting said application specific messages, and said application specific messages comprising an application specific identifier identifying a specific application and data corresponding to said specific application;
determining whether an application is present in said wireless device that corresponds to said received application specific identifier; and
ignoring said correspondingly received data if it is determined that said corresponding application is absent in said wireless device.
2. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising
receiving said application specific messages through packet data transmission, prior to transmission said application specific messages each being distributed over a plurality of packets, and
re-assembling said received packets into said received application specific messages upon reception of said packets.
3. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein said application specific messages are comprised in a data stream further comprising non-application-specific messages.
4. The method as claimed in claim 1, further determining, if it has been determined that said corresponding application is present in said wireless device, whether said corresponding application is currently active in said wireless device, and, if it has been determined that said corresponding application is active passing said correspondingly received data to said corresponding application.
5. The method as claimed in claim 1, further determining, if it has been determined that said corresponding application is present in said wireless device, whether said corresponding application is currently active in said wireless device, and, if it has been determined that said corresponding application is inactive only passing said correspondingly received data to said corresponding application if it has been an application specific profile in said wireless device matches with said received application specific identifier.
6. The method as claimed in claim 5, upon matching with said received application specific identifier, activating said corresponding application and passing said correspondingly received data to said activated corresponding application.
7. A wireless device comprising:
means for receiving application specific messages from a wireless station transmitting said application specific messages, said application specific messages being specific to services provided via said wireless station, and said application specific messages comprising an application specific identifier identifying a specific application and data corresponding to said specific application;
means for determining whether an application is present in said wireless device that corresponds to said received application specific identifier; and
means for ignoring said correspondingly received data if it is determined that said corresponding application is absent in said wireless device.
8. A wireless device as claimed in claim 7, wherein said application specific messages are received through packet data transmission and said application specific messages each are distributed over a plurality of packets, said wireless device further comprising re-assembling means for upon reception of said packets re-assembling said received packets into said received application specific messages.
9. A wireless device as claimed in claim 7, wherein said application specific messages are comprised in a data stream further comprising non-application-specific messages.
10. A wireless device as claimed in claim 7, further comprising means for determining, if it has been determined that said corresponding application is present in said wireless device, whether said corresponding application is currently active in said wireless device, and, if it has been determined that said corresponding application is active said wireless device being configured to pass said correspondingly received data to said corresponding application.
11. A wireless device as claimed in claim 7, wherein said wireless station is arranged to transmit said application specific messages as additional data to data transmitted in accordance with a Bluetooth specification, said additional data being transmitted in a transmit guard space otherwise unused under said Bluetooth specification.
12. A wireless device as claimed in claim 7, whereby said wireless station is configured to transmit over a predetermined coverage area within a system comprising further wireless stations.
13. A wireless system comprising:
a plurality of wireless devices capable of roaming through said wireless system;
a location identification server that registers locations and user identities of users of said wireless devices;
a plurality of wireless stations of limited wireless coverage within said system, said wireless stations being coupled to said location identification server,
said location identification server registering a location of a wireless device in said system when said wireless device enters into a coverage area of a wireless station in said system,
said system running a user location awareness application, said user location awareness application using said registered locations and user identities of said wireless devices.
14. A wireless system as claimed in claim 13, wherein said registered locations include current and historical locations of said users.
15. A wireless system as claimed in claim 14, said user location awareness application predicting future system movements of said users.
16. A wireless system as claimed in claim 14, said user location awareness application predicting future proximities of said users to said wireless stations.
17. A wireless system as claimed in claim 13, said user location awareness application determining proximity to a wireless station for at least one user.
18. A wireless system as claimed in claim 17, wherein said user location awareness application determines said proximity for one user and alerts said one user of said determined proximity.
19. A wireless system as claimed in claim 17, wherein said user location awareness application determines said proximity for two users and at least alerts one of said two users of said determined proximity for two users.
20. A wireless system as claimed in claim 17, said wireless system being configured to modify a system function based on said determined proximity.
21. A wireless system as claimed in claim 18, wherein a user of a wireless device sets up a user profile for contacting another user, and a wireless station is configured to match said set up user profile with profiles of other users that are within a coverage range of said matching wireless station, said modified system function being including said set up user profile into said profiles of said other users.
22. A wireless system as claimed in claim 21, wherein said matching wireless station transmits profiles of in-range users to a wireless device coming into range of said matching wireless station.
23. A wireless system as claimed in claim 13, wherein said system is configured to do said registration of said locations selectively so as to filter location registration information.
24. A wireless system as claimed in claim 23, wherein said filtering is done at a side of said location identification server.
25. A wireless system as claimed in claim 23, wherein said filtering is done at a side of a wireless device.
26. A wireless system as claimed in claim 13, wherein said wireless stations are located at fixed geographical locations.
27. A user location method for use in a wireless system, said user location method comprising:
registering of locations and user identities of users of wireless devices that capable of roaming through said wireless system when said wireless devices enter into coverage areas of wireless stations in said system; and
running a user location awareness application, said user location awareness application using said registered locations and user identities of said wireless devices.
28. A user location method as claimed in claim 27, said registered locations include current and historical locations of said users.
29. A user location method as claimed in claim 27, wherein said user location awareness application determines proximity to a wireless station for at least one user.
30. A user location method as claimed in claim 27, doing said registration of said locations selectively so as to filter location registration information.
31. A wireless device for use in a wireless system, said wireless device comprising:
means for causing said wireless system to register a location of said wireless device when said wireless device enters a coverage area of a wireless station of a limited wireless coverage, said wireless station being configured to contact other wireless devices that are within said coverage area;
means for interacting with a user location awareness application running in said system, said user location awareness application using said registered location and registrations of said other and still other wireless devices.
32. A wireless device as claimed in claim 31, weherin said registered locations include current and historical locations of said users.
33. A wireless device as claimed in claim 31, wherein said user location awareness application determines proximity to a wireless station for at least one user.
34. A wireless device as claimed in claim 31, wherein said registration of said locations is done selectively so as to filter location registration information.
US10/665,782 2000-08-14 2003-09-19 In a wireless system, a method of selecting an application while receiving application specific messages and user location method using user location awareness Abandoned US20040067773A1 (en)

Priority Applications (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US10/665,782 US20040067773A1 (en) 2000-08-14 2003-09-19 In a wireless system, a method of selecting an application while receiving application specific messages and user location method using user location awareness

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US09/639,715 US6628938B1 (en) 2000-08-14 2000-08-14 Wireless system, a method of selecting an application while receiving application specific messages and user location method using user location awareness
US10/665,782 US20040067773A1 (en) 2000-08-14 2003-09-19 In a wireless system, a method of selecting an application while receiving application specific messages and user location method using user location awareness

Related Parent Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
US09/639,715 Division US6628938B1 (en) 2000-08-14 2000-08-14 Wireless system, a method of selecting an application while receiving application specific messages and user location method using user location awareness

Publications (1)

Publication Number Publication Date
US20040067773A1 true US20040067773A1 (en) 2004-04-08

Family

ID=24565251

Family Applications (2)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
US09/639,715 Expired - Fee Related US6628938B1 (en) 2000-08-14 2000-08-14 Wireless system, a method of selecting an application while receiving application specific messages and user location method using user location awareness
US10/665,782 Abandoned US20040067773A1 (en) 2000-08-14 2003-09-19 In a wireless system, a method of selecting an application while receiving application specific messages and user location method using user location awareness

Family Applications Before (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
US09/639,715 Expired - Fee Related US6628938B1 (en) 2000-08-14 2000-08-14 Wireless system, a method of selecting an application while receiving application specific messages and user location method using user location awareness

Country Status (8)

Country Link
US (2) US6628938B1 (en)
EP (1) EP1310110A2 (en)
JP (1) JP2004507182A (en)
KR (1) KR20020043631A (en)
CN (1) CN1631046A (en)
AU (1) AU2001282052A1 (en)
TW (1) TW543331B (en)
WO (1) WO2002015601A2 (en)

Cited By (44)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US20020155844A1 (en) * 2001-04-20 2002-10-24 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Distributed location based service system
US20020183056A1 (en) * 2001-05-31 2002-12-05 Laurence Lundblade Safe application distribution and execution in a wireless environment
US20060075344A1 (en) * 2004-09-30 2006-04-06 Searete Llc, A Limited Liability Corporation Of The State Of Delaware Providing assistance
US20060076398A1 (en) * 2004-09-30 2006-04-13 Searete Llc Obtaining user assistance
US20060081695A1 (en) * 2004-09-30 2006-04-20 Searete Llc, A Limited Liability Corporation Of The State Of Delaware. Enhanced user assistance
US20060090132A1 (en) * 2004-10-26 2006-04-27 Searete Llc, A Limited Liability Corporation Of The State Of Delaware Enhanced user assistance
US20060086781A1 (en) * 2004-10-27 2006-04-27 Searete Llc, A Limited Liability Corporation Of The State Of Delaware Enhanced contextual user assistance
US20060116979A1 (en) * 2004-12-01 2006-06-01 Jung Edward K Enhanced user assistance
US20060117001A1 (en) * 2004-12-01 2006-06-01 Jung Edward K Enhanced user assistance
US20070038529A1 (en) * 2004-09-30 2007-02-15 Searete Llc, A Limited Liability Corporation Of The State Of Delaware Supply-chain side assistance
US20070118615A1 (en) * 2005-11-23 2007-05-24 Utilit Technologies, Inc. Information technology system with multiple item targeting
US20070150444A1 (en) * 2005-12-22 2007-06-28 Pascal Chesnais Methods and apparatus for organizing and presenting contact information in a mobile communication system
US20070213046A1 (en) * 2006-01-11 2007-09-13 Junyi Li Cognitive communications
US20080147737A1 (en) * 2006-09-20 2008-06-19 At&T Bls Intellectual Property, Inc. Publish-subscription platforms for alert messages and related methods and computer program products
US20080229198A1 (en) * 2004-09-30 2008-09-18 Searete Llc, A Limited Liability Corporaiton Of The State Of Delaware Electronically providing user assistance
US20080248813A1 (en) * 2007-04-06 2008-10-09 Palm, Inc. System and Methods for Obtaining Coarse Location for a Mobile Device
US20080254780A1 (en) * 2004-06-14 2008-10-16 Carmen Kuhl Automated Application-Selective Processing of Information Obtained Through Wireless Data Communication Links
US20090040996A1 (en) * 2006-01-11 2009-02-12 Qualcomm Incorporated Methods and apparatus for supporting multiple communications modes of operation
US20090070445A1 (en) * 2007-09-11 2009-03-12 Regan Gill Dynamic configuration of mobile station location services
US20090282253A1 (en) * 2008-05-09 2009-11-12 Qualcomm Incorporated Network helper for authentication between a token and verifiers
US20100146390A1 (en) * 2004-09-30 2010-06-10 Searete Llc, A Limited Liability Corporation Obtaining user assestance
US20100217802A1 (en) * 2009-01-19 2010-08-26 Vodafone Group Plc Socializing web services
US20100218095A1 (en) * 2004-09-30 2010-08-26 Searete Llc, A Limited Liability Corporation Of The State Of Delaware Obtaining user assistance
US8009013B1 (en) * 2007-09-21 2011-08-30 Precision Control Systems of Chicago, Inc. Access control system and method using user location information for controlling access to a restricted area
US8073441B1 (en) * 2010-08-24 2011-12-06 Metropcs Wireless, Inc. Location-based network selection method for a mobile device
US8203426B1 (en) 2007-07-11 2012-06-19 Precision Edge Access Control, Inc. Feed protocol used to report status and event information in physical access control system
EP2525591A1 (en) * 2011-05-18 2012-11-21 Sony Mobile Communications AB Indoor map distribution
US8704675B2 (en) 2004-09-30 2014-04-22 The Invention Science Fund I, Llc Obtaining user assistance
US8762839B2 (en) 2004-09-30 2014-06-24 The Invention Science Fund I, Llc Supply-chain side assistance
US8983503B1 (en) * 2010-11-08 2015-03-17 West Corporation Method and apparatus of requesting customized location information at a mobile station
US9098826B2 (en) 2004-09-30 2015-08-04 The Invention Science Fund I, Llc Enhanced user assistance
US9247386B2 (en) 2013-12-18 2016-01-26 International Business Machines Corporation Location-based mobile application and service selection
US9285239B2 (en) 2008-10-07 2016-03-15 Telecommunication Systems, Inc. User interface for content channel HUD (heads-up display) and channel sets for location-based maps
US9307577B2 (en) 2005-01-21 2016-04-05 The Invention Science Fund I, Llc User assistance
US20160169693A1 (en) * 2008-10-06 2016-06-16 Telecommunication Systems, Inc. Probabilistic Reverse Geocoding
US9420398B2 (en) 2008-10-06 2016-08-16 Telecommunication Systems, Inc. Remotely provisioned wireless proxy
US20160357616A1 (en) * 2013-03-29 2016-12-08 Beijing Zhigu Rui Tuo Tech Co., Ltd Application management method and application management apparatus
US10339474B2 (en) 2014-05-06 2019-07-02 Modern Geographia, Llc Real-time carpooling coordinating system and methods
US10445799B2 (en) 2004-09-30 2019-10-15 Uber Technologies, Inc. Supply-chain side assistance
US10458801B2 (en) 2014-05-06 2019-10-29 Uber Technologies, Inc. Systems and methods for travel planning that calls for at least one transportation vehicle unit
US10657468B2 (en) 2014-05-06 2020-05-19 Uber Technologies, Inc. System and methods for verifying that one or more directives that direct transport of a second end user does not conflict with one or more obligations to transport a first end user
US10681199B2 (en) 2006-03-24 2020-06-09 Uber Technologies, Inc. Wireless device with an aggregate user interface for controlling other devices
US11100434B2 (en) 2014-05-06 2021-08-24 Uber Technologies, Inc. Real-time carpooling coordinating system and methods
EP4149126A4 (en) * 2020-06-10 2023-11-08 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. Application-based short-range notification method, electronic device, and system

Families Citing this family (109)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US5835061A (en) 1995-06-06 1998-11-10 Wayport, Inc. Method and apparatus for geographic-based communications service
US8606851B2 (en) 1995-06-06 2013-12-10 Wayport, Inc. Method and apparatus for geographic-based communications service
EP1226697B1 (en) 1999-11-03 2010-09-22 Wayport, Inc. Distributed network communication system which enables multiple network providers to use a common distributed network infrastructure
US6738808B1 (en) * 2000-06-30 2004-05-18 Bell South Intellectual Property Corporation Anonymous location service for wireless networks
US6675017B1 (en) * 2000-06-30 2004-01-06 Bellsouth Intellectual Property Corporation Location blocking service for wireless networks
US8041817B2 (en) 2000-06-30 2011-10-18 At&T Intellectual Property I, Lp Anonymous location service for wireless networks
US7796998B1 (en) 2000-08-01 2010-09-14 At&T Intellectual Property, I, L.P. Method and system for delivery of a calling party's location
US20020034292A1 (en) * 2000-08-22 2002-03-21 Tuoriniemi Veijo M. System and a method to match demand and supply based on geographical location derived from a positioning system
KR20000072603A (en) * 2000-09-15 2000-12-05 이재학 The individual museum system utilizing the internet network
JP2002123438A (en) * 2000-10-17 2002-04-26 Sony Corp System, device and method for distributing information
AUPR157600A0 (en) * 2000-11-20 2000-12-14 Silverbrook Research Pty. Ltd. An apparatus and method (bin04)
KR100731013B1 (en) * 2000-12-14 2007-06-22 엘지전자 주식회사 service system for providing commercial district information and operation method of this system
US7116977B1 (en) * 2000-12-19 2006-10-03 Bellsouth Intellectual Property Corporation System and method for using location information to execute an action
US7130630B1 (en) 2000-12-19 2006-10-31 Bellsouth Intellectual Property Corporation Location query service for wireless networks
US7085555B2 (en) 2000-12-19 2006-08-01 Bellsouth Intellectual Property Corporation Location blocking service from a web advertiser
US7181225B1 (en) * 2000-12-19 2007-02-20 Bellsouth Intellectual Property Corporation System and method for surveying wireless device users by location
US7245925B2 (en) 2000-12-19 2007-07-17 At&T Intellectual Property, Inc. System and method for using location information to execute an action
US7428411B2 (en) * 2000-12-19 2008-09-23 At&T Delaware Intellectual Property, Inc. Location-based security rules
US7110749B2 (en) 2000-12-19 2006-09-19 Bellsouth Intellectual Property Corporation Identity blocking service from a wireless service provider
US7224978B2 (en) 2000-12-19 2007-05-29 Bellsouth Intellectual Property Corporation Location blocking service from a wireless service provider
US7139252B2 (en) * 2001-01-31 2006-11-21 International Business Machines Corporation System and method for aggregating information to determine users' locations
US20080119207A1 (en) * 2001-02-21 2008-05-22 Harris Scott C Applications of broadband media and position sensing phones
CN1636361A (en) * 2001-03-20 2005-07-06 皇家菲利浦电子有限公司 Beacon update mechanism
WO2002076113A2 (en) * 2001-03-20 2002-09-26 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Beacon infrastructure
US8069157B2 (en) * 2001-04-17 2011-11-29 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. System and method for providing context-aware computer management using smart identification badges
FI112584B (en) * 2001-05-08 2003-12-15 Nokia Corp A method for informing the characteristics of a communication network, a system, and a wireless terminal
WO2003012722A1 (en) * 2001-07-17 2003-02-13 Nohr Steven P System and method for content delivery
KR100458562B1 (en) * 2001-07-20 2004-12-03 주식회사 사주닷컴 Methods for telling no less than 2 people's common fortune and systems therefor
US7192235B2 (en) 2001-11-01 2007-03-20 Palm, Inc. Temporary messaging address system and method
US20030088647A1 (en) * 2001-11-06 2003-05-08 Shamrao Andrew Divaker Communication process for retrieving information for a computer
JPWO2003048926A1 (en) * 2001-12-07 2005-04-14 株式会社エヌ・ティ・ティ・ドコモ Mobile communication terminal, application software activation device, application software activation system, application software activation method, and application software activation program
EP1479257B1 (en) * 2002-02-26 2009-03-25 Nokia Corporation Method and device for adapting the configuration of an application of a mobile terminal to an accessible data connection
US7218944B2 (en) * 2002-03-21 2007-05-15 International Business Machines Corporation Frequency beacon to broadcast allowed frequency
US9635540B2 (en) 2002-03-25 2017-04-25 Jeffrey D. Mullen Systems and methods for locating cellular phones and security measures for the same
US20040203847A1 (en) * 2002-03-28 2004-10-14 Knauerhase Robert C. Location-based task notification
US7047041B2 (en) 2002-06-17 2006-05-16 Nokia Corporation Method and device for storing and accessing personal information
FR2841087A1 (en) * 2002-06-18 2003-12-19 Cegetel Groupe Mobile telephone management distance placed equipment having first step providing time slot division attributes with second step server synchronization third step terminal storing specified time slots each terminal.
AU2002950134A0 (en) * 2002-07-11 2002-09-12 Youramigo Pty Ltd A link generation system
US7155437B2 (en) * 2002-07-29 2006-12-26 Inventec Appliances Corp. Method for multiple configurations of wireless network connection settings
US7274909B2 (en) * 2002-10-31 2007-09-25 Nokia Corporation Method and system for selecting data items for service requests
JP4263473B2 (en) * 2002-12-26 2009-05-13 Kddi株式会社 Service information provision system
US7835504B1 (en) * 2003-03-16 2010-11-16 Palm, Inc. Telephone number parsing and linking
JP2004297187A (en) * 2003-03-25 2004-10-21 Matsushita Electric Ind Co Ltd Mobile unit and service information providing apparatus
US7775432B2 (en) 2003-10-16 2010-08-17 Nokia Corporation Terminal, method and computer program product for interacting with a signaling tag
US20050096040A1 (en) * 2003-10-31 2005-05-05 Haberman William E. Presenting broadcast received by mobile device based on proximity
US20050113115A1 (en) * 2003-10-31 2005-05-26 Haberman William E. Presenting broadcast received by mobile device based on proximity and content
US7664048B1 (en) 2003-11-24 2010-02-16 Packeteer, Inc. Heuristic behavior pattern matching of data flows in enhanced network traffic classification
US9606714B2 (en) 2003-12-17 2017-03-28 Nokia Technologies Oy Terminal, method and computer program product for interacting with a physical entity
US8639819B2 (en) 2004-02-05 2014-01-28 Nokia Corporation Ad-hoc connection between electronic devices
US7949726B2 (en) * 2004-03-12 2011-05-24 Ocean And Coastal Environmental Sensing, Inc. System and method for delivering information on demand
FI117313B (en) 2004-04-05 2006-08-31 Nokia Corp Message handling method in telecommunication system, involves obtaining capability data relating to client terminal and checking whether obtained data comprises upper-level application that is supported by client terminal
US8688143B2 (en) * 2004-08-24 2014-04-01 Qualcomm Incorporated Location based service (LBS) system and method for creating a social network
US7647022B2 (en) * 2004-09-29 2010-01-12 Alcatel-Lucent Usa Inc. Methods and systems for proximity communication
US7554983B1 (en) * 2004-12-20 2009-06-30 Packeteer, Inc. Probing hosts against network application profiles to facilitate classification of network traffic
US7353034B2 (en) 2005-04-04 2008-04-01 X One, Inc. Location sharing and tracking using mobile phones or other wireless devices
KR100857019B1 (en) * 2005-04-19 2008-09-05 주식회사 엘지화학 Mechanically and Electrically Connecting Member
US9398137B2 (en) 2005-04-19 2016-07-19 Nokia Technologies Oy Method, device and system for controlling application launching in a mobile terminal device
GB0513433D0 (en) 2005-06-30 2005-08-10 Nokia Corp Signal message compressor
ES2359413T3 (en) * 2005-07-29 2011-05-23 Telefonaktiebolaget Lm Ericsson (Publ) NEAREST USER TERMINAL SEARCH METHOD FOR A TELECOMMUNICATION NETWORK AND SERVICE NODE THAT APPLIES SUCH METHOD.
US8295851B2 (en) 2005-08-03 2012-10-23 Michael Edward Finnegan Realtime, interactive and geographically defined computerized personal matching systems and methods
US8880047B2 (en) 2005-08-03 2014-11-04 Jeffrey C. Konicek Realtime, location-based cell phone enhancements, uses, and applications
US8688148B2 (en) * 2005-10-25 2014-04-01 Qualcomm Incorporated Dynamic resource matching system
FR2894099A1 (en) * 2005-11-30 2007-06-01 Christian Pierre Geo Chabrerie Data e.g. name, transmitting method for e.g. mobile telephone, involves identifying mobile terminal in remote memory by direct point-to-point connection between terminal and third party terminal, based on localization of former terminal
US8005194B2 (en) * 2005-12-21 2011-08-23 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Technique for handling incoming reply messages
US8233885B2 (en) * 2006-09-08 2012-07-31 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Apparatus and methods for providing enhanced mobile messaging services
US7890576B2 (en) * 2006-11-13 2011-02-15 Microsoft Corporation Selective communication of targeted information
US8014793B2 (en) * 2007-02-08 2011-09-06 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Use of previously-calculated position fix for location based query
US9031583B2 (en) 2007-04-11 2015-05-12 Qualcomm Incorporated Notification on mobile device based on location of other mobile device
US9140552B2 (en) 2008-07-02 2015-09-22 Qualcomm Incorporated User defined names for displaying monitored location
US20080254811A1 (en) 2007-04-11 2008-10-16 Palm, Inc. System and method for monitoring locations of mobile devices
US8948046B2 (en) 2007-04-27 2015-02-03 Aerohive Networks, Inc. Routing method and system for a wireless network
EP1988721A1 (en) * 2007-05-04 2008-11-05 Siemens Aktiengesellschaft Method for providing local services to subscriber terminals of a mobile communications system
US20110047471A1 (en) * 2008-02-25 2011-02-24 Locamoda, Inc. Apparatus and Methods for Associating a User's Activity in Relation to a Physical Location with a Virtual Community
US8600341B2 (en) 2008-03-14 2013-12-03 William J. Johnson System and method for location based exchanges of data facilitating distributed locational applications
US8761751B2 (en) 2008-03-14 2014-06-24 William J. Johnson System and method for targeting data processing system(s) with data
US8897742B2 (en) 2009-11-13 2014-11-25 William J. Johnson System and method for sudden proximal user interface
US8566839B2 (en) 2008-03-14 2013-10-22 William J. Johnson System and method for automated content presentation objects
US8634796B2 (en) 2008-03-14 2014-01-21 William J. Johnson System and method for location based exchanges of data facilitating distributed location applications
US8639267B2 (en) 2008-03-14 2014-01-28 William J. Johnson System and method for location based exchanges of data facilitating distributed locational applications
US8218502B1 (en) 2008-05-14 2012-07-10 Aerohive Networks Predictive and nomadic roaming of wireless clients across different network subnets
US9674892B1 (en) 2008-11-04 2017-06-06 Aerohive Networks, Inc. Exclusive preshared key authentication
US20100151850A1 (en) * 2008-12-15 2010-06-17 At&T Corp. System and Method for Adapting Mobile Applications
US20100162132A1 (en) * 2008-12-23 2010-06-24 Microsoft Corporation Techniques to manage and display related communications
US8483194B1 (en) 2009-01-21 2013-07-09 Aerohive Networks, Inc. Airtime-based scheduling
CN101932367B (en) * 2009-03-30 2014-02-19 华为技术有限公司 Method, apparatus and system for processing the private message
US7957319B2 (en) 2009-05-08 2011-06-07 Blue Coat Systems, Inc. Classification techniques for encrypted network traffic
JP5566637B2 (en) * 2009-07-09 2014-08-06 株式会社日立製作所 Information providing method, information providing server for executing the method, service providing system including the information providing server, wireless communication terminal receiving information provided, and operation program thereof
US11115857B2 (en) 2009-07-10 2021-09-07 Extreme Networks, Inc. Bandwidth sentinel
US9900251B1 (en) 2009-07-10 2018-02-20 Aerohive Networks, Inc. Bandwidth sentinel
CN101997827B (en) * 2009-08-28 2013-11-06 中国移动通信集团公司 Method, device and network for providing position related service
US20110191662A1 (en) * 2010-01-29 2011-08-04 Poteet Ii David Crawford Travel guides formed by aggregation of location-aware content from multiple publishers through a unified interface
US8671187B1 (en) 2010-07-27 2014-03-11 Aerohive Networks, Inc. Client-independent network supervision application
US9002277B2 (en) 2010-09-07 2015-04-07 Aerohive Networks, Inc. Distributed channel selection for wireless networks
US10091065B1 (en) 2011-10-31 2018-10-02 Aerohive Networks, Inc. Zero configuration networking on a subnetted network
EP2823413A4 (en) 2012-03-07 2016-05-04 Snap Trends Inc Methods and systems of aggregating information of social networks based on geographical locations via a network
US9972026B2 (en) * 2012-04-27 2018-05-15 Beelinx Usa, Llc Use of localized broadcast signals to modify mobile application behavior
EP2862301B1 (en) 2012-06-14 2020-12-02 Extreme Networks, Inc. Multicast to unicast conversion technique
US10389650B2 (en) 2013-03-15 2019-08-20 Aerohive Networks, Inc. Building and maintaining a network
US9413772B2 (en) 2013-03-15 2016-08-09 Aerohive Networks, Inc. Managing rogue devices through a network backhaul
US9351105B2 (en) 2013-07-02 2016-05-24 Sap Se Location based applications
US9477991B2 (en) 2013-08-27 2016-10-25 Snap Trends, Inc. Methods and systems of aggregating information of geographic context regions of social networks based on geographical locations via a network
US9894489B2 (en) 2013-09-30 2018-02-13 William J. Johnson System and method for situational proximity observation alerting privileged recipients
GB201319622D0 (en) * 2013-11-06 2013-12-18 Universal Display Fittings Co Ltd Display Systems and method
US9326226B2 (en) * 2014-08-08 2016-04-26 Microsoft Technology Licensing, Llc Beacon discovery service
KR102538335B1 (en) * 2016-08-05 2023-05-31 삼성전자 주식회사 Method and Apparatus for resource allocation in a wireless communication system
JP6812336B2 (en) * 2017-12-21 2021-01-13 株式会社クボタ Work equipment communication system, work equipment communication processing method
JP7027156B2 (en) * 2017-12-21 2022-03-01 株式会社クボタ Communication device of work machine, mobile terminal, communication system of work machine and communication processing method of work machine
JP6935322B2 (en) * 2017-12-21 2021-09-15 株式会社クボタ Work equipment communication device, mobile terminal, work equipment communication system, and work equipment communication processing method
US11061543B1 (en) * 2020-05-11 2021-07-13 Apple Inc. Providing relevant data items based on context

Citations (6)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US5086394A (en) * 1989-05-12 1992-02-04 Shmuel Shapira Introduction system for locating compatible persons
US6208866B1 (en) * 1998-12-30 2001-03-27 Ericsson Inc. System and method for location-based marketing to mobile stations within a cellular network
US6542749B2 (en) * 2000-06-10 2003-04-01 Telcontar Method and system for connecting proximately located mobile users based on compatible attributes
US6618593B1 (en) * 2000-09-08 2003-09-09 Rovingradar, Inc. Location dependent user matching system
US6647257B2 (en) * 1998-01-21 2003-11-11 Leap Wireless International, Inc. System and method for providing targeted messages based on wireless mobile location
US6664891B2 (en) * 2000-06-26 2003-12-16 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Data delivery through portable devices

Family Cites Families (9)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US5835861A (en) 1994-11-22 1998-11-10 Lucent Technologies Inc. Enhanced automatic operation of wireless telephones
US5719918A (en) * 1995-07-06 1998-02-17 Newnet, Inc. Short message transaction handling system
FI102869B1 (en) * 1996-02-26 1999-02-26 Nokia Mobile Phones Ltd Device, method and system for transmitting and receiving information in connection with various applications
JP3370526B2 (en) 1996-04-24 2003-01-27 富士通株式会社 Mobile communication system and mobile terminal and information center used in the mobile communication system
GB2340336A (en) 1998-08-01 2000-02-16 Motorola Ltd A virtual local environment in a communications system
US6549625B1 (en) 1999-06-24 2003-04-15 Nokia Corporation Method and system for connecting a mobile terminal to a database
EP1067808A1 (en) * 1999-07-09 2001-01-10 Brain Storm Technologies Ltd. System and method for service provision through a cellular telephone connection
GB0009658D0 (en) * 2000-04-20 2000-06-07 Hewlett Packard Co Shopping asistance method and service system
GB0012132D0 (en) * 2000-05-20 2000-07-12 Hewlett Packard Co Targeted information display

Patent Citations (6)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US5086394A (en) * 1989-05-12 1992-02-04 Shmuel Shapira Introduction system for locating compatible persons
US6647257B2 (en) * 1998-01-21 2003-11-11 Leap Wireless International, Inc. System and method for providing targeted messages based on wireless mobile location
US6208866B1 (en) * 1998-12-30 2001-03-27 Ericsson Inc. System and method for location-based marketing to mobile stations within a cellular network
US6542749B2 (en) * 2000-06-10 2003-04-01 Telcontar Method and system for connecting proximately located mobile users based on compatible attributes
US6664891B2 (en) * 2000-06-26 2003-12-16 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Data delivery through portable devices
US6618593B1 (en) * 2000-09-08 2003-09-09 Rovingradar, Inc. Location dependent user matching system

Cited By (113)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US6879838B2 (en) * 2001-04-20 2005-04-12 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Distributed location based service system
US20020155844A1 (en) * 2001-04-20 2002-10-24 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Distributed location based service system
US20100173608A1 (en) * 2001-05-31 2010-07-08 Laurence Lundblade Safe application distribution and execution in a wireless environment
US20020183056A1 (en) * 2001-05-31 2002-12-05 Laurence Lundblade Safe application distribution and execution in a wireless environment
US8588766B2 (en) 2001-05-31 2013-11-19 Qualcomm Incorporated Safe application distribution and execution in a wireless environment
US8112076B2 (en) 2001-05-31 2012-02-07 Qualcomm Incorporated Safe application distribution and execution in a wireless environment
US7684792B2 (en) 2001-05-31 2010-03-23 Qualcomm Incorporated Safe application distribution and execution in a wireless environment
USRE48001E1 (en) 2001-05-31 2020-05-19 Qualcomm Incorporated Safe application distribution and execution in a wireless environment
US7099663B2 (en) * 2001-05-31 2006-08-29 Qualcomm Inc. Safe application distribution and execution in a wireless environment
US20060287958A1 (en) * 2001-05-31 2006-12-21 Laurence Lundblade Safe application distribution and execution in a wireless environment
US8385899B2 (en) * 2004-06-14 2013-02-26 Nokia Corporation Automated application-selective processing of information obtained through wireless data communication links
US20080254780A1 (en) * 2004-06-14 2008-10-16 Carmen Kuhl Automated Application-Selective Processing of Information Obtained Through Wireless Data Communication Links
US20100218095A1 (en) * 2004-09-30 2010-08-26 Searete Llc, A Limited Liability Corporation Of The State Of Delaware Obtaining user assistance
US8704675B2 (en) 2004-09-30 2014-04-22 The Invention Science Fund I, Llc Obtaining user assistance
US20080229198A1 (en) * 2004-09-30 2008-09-18 Searete Llc, A Limited Liability Corporaiton Of The State Of Delaware Electronically providing user assistance
US10872365B2 (en) 2004-09-30 2020-12-22 Uber Technologies, Inc. Supply-chain side assistance
US10687166B2 (en) * 2004-09-30 2020-06-16 Uber Technologies, Inc. Obtaining user assistance
US20100146390A1 (en) * 2004-09-30 2010-06-10 Searete Llc, A Limited Liability Corporation Obtaining user assestance
US8282003B2 (en) 2004-09-30 2012-10-09 The Invention Science Fund I, Llc Supply-chain side assistance
US10445799B2 (en) 2004-09-30 2019-10-15 Uber Technologies, Inc. Supply-chain side assistance
US9747579B2 (en) 2004-09-30 2017-08-29 The Invention Science Fund I, Llc Enhanced user assistance
US20060075344A1 (en) * 2004-09-30 2006-04-06 Searete Llc, A Limited Liability Corporation Of The State Of Delaware Providing assistance
US9098826B2 (en) 2004-09-30 2015-08-04 The Invention Science Fund I, Llc Enhanced user assistance
US9038899B2 (en) 2004-09-30 2015-05-26 The Invention Science Fund I, Llc Obtaining user assistance
US8762839B2 (en) 2004-09-30 2014-06-24 The Invention Science Fund I, Llc Supply-chain side assistance
US20070038529A1 (en) * 2004-09-30 2007-02-15 Searete Llc, A Limited Liability Corporation Of The State Of Delaware Supply-chain side assistance
US20060081695A1 (en) * 2004-09-30 2006-04-20 Searete Llc, A Limited Liability Corporation Of The State Of Delaware. Enhanced user assistance
US20060076398A1 (en) * 2004-09-30 2006-04-13 Searete Llc Obtaining user assistance
US20060090132A1 (en) * 2004-10-26 2006-04-27 Searete Llc, A Limited Liability Corporation Of The State Of Delaware Enhanced user assistance
US8341522B2 (en) 2004-10-27 2012-12-25 The Invention Science Fund I, Llc Enhanced contextual user assistance
US20060086781A1 (en) * 2004-10-27 2006-04-27 Searete Llc, A Limited Liability Corporation Of The State Of Delaware Enhanced contextual user assistance
US20060117001A1 (en) * 2004-12-01 2006-06-01 Jung Edward K Enhanced user assistance
US10514816B2 (en) 2004-12-01 2019-12-24 Uber Technologies, Inc. Enhanced user assistance
US20060116979A1 (en) * 2004-12-01 2006-06-01 Jung Edward K Enhanced user assistance
US9307577B2 (en) 2005-01-21 2016-04-05 The Invention Science Fund I, Llc User assistance
US20070118615A1 (en) * 2005-11-23 2007-05-24 Utilit Technologies, Inc. Information technology system with multiple item targeting
US20070150444A1 (en) * 2005-12-22 2007-06-28 Pascal Chesnais Methods and apparatus for organizing and presenting contact information in a mobile communication system
US7620404B2 (en) * 2005-12-22 2009-11-17 Pascal Chesnais Methods and apparatus for organizing and presenting contact information in a mobile communication system
US20080039066A1 (en) * 2006-01-11 2008-02-14 Rajiv Laroia Wireless communication methods and apparatus supporting synchronization
US8885572B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2014-11-11 Qualcomm Incorporated Wireless communication methods and apparatus using beacon signals
US20090092075A1 (en) * 2006-01-11 2009-04-09 Corson M Scott Methods and apparatus for establishing communications between devices with differing capabilities
US20070213046A1 (en) * 2006-01-11 2007-09-13 Junyi Li Cognitive communications
US20090059841A1 (en) * 2006-01-11 2009-03-05 Rajiv Laroia Wireless communication methods and apparatus using beacon signals
US20070211678A1 (en) * 2006-01-11 2007-09-13 Junyi Li Encoding beacon signals to provide identification in peer-to-peer communication
US20090040996A1 (en) * 2006-01-11 2009-02-12 Qualcomm Incorporated Methods and apparatus for supporting multiple communications modes of operation
US20070211680A1 (en) * 2006-01-11 2007-09-13 Rajiv Laroia Communication methods and apparatus related to wireless terminal monitoring for and use of beacon signals
US20070211677A1 (en) * 2006-01-11 2007-09-13 Rajiv Laroia Support for wide area networks and local area peer-to-peer networks
US20070247365A1 (en) * 2006-01-11 2007-10-25 Rajiv Laroia Methods and apparatus relating to wireless terminal beacon signal generation, transmission, and/or use
US20070274276A1 (en) * 2006-01-11 2007-11-29 Rajiv Laroia Wireless communication methods and apparatus supporting wireless terminal mode control signaling
US9369943B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2016-06-14 Qualcomm Incorporated Cognitive communications
US20070274275A1 (en) * 2006-01-11 2007-11-29 Rajiv Laroia Wireless communication methods and apparatus supporting multiple modes
US20080112334A1 (en) * 2006-01-11 2008-05-15 Rajiv Laroia Wireless device discovery in a wireless peer-to-peer network
US20080037487A1 (en) * 2006-01-11 2008-02-14 Junyi Li Encoding beacon signals to provide identification in peer-to-peer communication
US9277481B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2016-03-01 Qualcomm Incorporated Wireless communication methods and apparatus supporting different types of wireless communciation approaches
US8498237B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2013-07-30 Qualcomm Incorporated Methods and apparatus for communicating device capability and/or setup information
US8504099B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2013-08-06 Qualcomm Incorporated Communication methods and apparatus relating to cooperative and non-cooperative modes of operation
US8542658B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2013-09-24 Qualcomm Incorporated Support for wide area networks and local area peer-to-peer networks
US8553644B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2013-10-08 Qualcomm Incorporated Wireless communication methods and apparatus supporting different types of wireless communication approaches
US20080031193A1 (en) * 2006-01-11 2008-02-07 Rajiv Laroia Wireless communication methods and apparatus supporting different types of wireless communciation approaches
US20070291714A1 (en) * 2006-01-11 2007-12-20 Rajiv Laroia Wireless communication methods and apparatus supporting paging and peer to peer communications
US20080002648A1 (en) * 2006-01-11 2008-01-03 Rajiv Laroia Wireless communication methods and apparatus using beacon signals
US20070291715A1 (en) * 2006-01-11 2007-12-20 Rajiv Laroia Wireless communication methods and apparatus supporting peer to peer communications
US8743843B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2014-06-03 Qualcomm Incorporated Methods and apparatus relating to timing and/or synchronization including the use of wireless terminals beacon signals
US8750868B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2014-06-10 Qualcomm Incorporated Communication methods and apparatus related to wireless terminal monitoring for and use of beacon signals
US8750262B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2014-06-10 Qualcomm Incorporated Communications methods and apparatus related to beacon signals some of which may communicate priority information
US8750261B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2014-06-10 Qualcomm Incorporated Encoding beacon signals to provide identification in peer-to-peer communication
US8755362B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2014-06-17 Qualcomm Incorporated Wireless communication methods and apparatus supporting paging and peer to peer communications
US20080002647A1 (en) * 2006-01-11 2008-01-03 Rajiv Laroia Choosing parameters in a peer-to-peer communcations system
US8774846B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2014-07-08 Qualcomm Incorporated Methods and apparatus relating to wireless terminal beacon signal generation, transmission, and/or use
US8787323B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2014-07-22 Qualcomm Incorporated Wireless communication methods and apparatus supporting synchronization
US8804677B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2014-08-12 Qualcomm Incorporated Methods and apparatus for establishing communications between devices with differing capabilities
US8811369B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2014-08-19 Qualcomm Incorporated Methods and apparatus for supporting multiple communications modes of operation
US8923317B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2014-12-30 Qualcomm Incorporated Wireless device discovery in a wireless peer-to-peer network
US8879519B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2014-11-04 Qualcomm Incorporated Wireless communication methods and apparatus supporting peer to peer communications
US8879520B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2014-11-04 Qualcomm Incorporated Wireless communication methods and apparatus supporting wireless terminal mode control signaling
US8902866B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2014-12-02 Qualcomm Incorporated Communication methods and apparatus which may be used in the absence or presence of beacon signals
US8902864B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2014-12-02 Qualcomm Incorporated Choosing parameters in a peer-to-peer communications system
US8902860B2 (en) * 2006-01-11 2014-12-02 Qualcomm Incorporated Wireless communication methods and apparatus using beacon signals
US8902865B2 (en) 2006-01-11 2014-12-02 Qualcomm Incorporated Wireless communication methods and apparatus supporting multiple modes
US10681199B2 (en) 2006-03-24 2020-06-09 Uber Technologies, Inc. Wireless device with an aggregate user interface for controlling other devices
US11012552B2 (en) 2006-03-24 2021-05-18 Uber Technologies, Inc. Wireless device with an aggregate user interface for controlling other devices
US20080147737A1 (en) * 2006-09-20 2008-06-19 At&T Bls Intellectual Property, Inc. Publish-subscription platforms for alert messages and related methods and computer program products
US8914433B2 (en) * 2006-09-20 2014-12-16 At&T Intellectual Property I, L.P. Publish-subscription platforms for alert messages and related methods and computer program products
US20080248813A1 (en) * 2007-04-06 2008-10-09 Palm, Inc. System and Methods for Obtaining Coarse Location for a Mobile Device
US8478299B2 (en) * 2007-04-06 2013-07-02 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. System and methods for obtaining coarse location for a mobile device
US8203426B1 (en) 2007-07-11 2012-06-19 Precision Edge Access Control, Inc. Feed protocol used to report status and event information in physical access control system
US8862710B2 (en) * 2007-09-11 2014-10-14 Telecommunication Systems, Inc. Dynamic configuration of mobile station location services
US20090070445A1 (en) * 2007-09-11 2009-03-12 Regan Gill Dynamic configuration of mobile station location services
US9554245B2 (en) 2007-09-11 2017-01-24 Telecommunication Systems, Inc. Dynamic configuration of mobile station location services
US8009013B1 (en) * 2007-09-21 2011-08-30 Precision Control Systems of Chicago, Inc. Access control system and method using user location information for controlling access to a restricted area
US8595501B2 (en) 2008-05-09 2013-11-26 Qualcomm Incorporated Network helper for authentication between a token and verifiers
US20090282253A1 (en) * 2008-05-09 2009-11-12 Qualcomm Incorporated Network helper for authentication between a token and verifiers
US20160169693A1 (en) * 2008-10-06 2016-06-16 Telecommunication Systems, Inc. Probabilistic Reverse Geocoding
US9400182B2 (en) 2008-10-06 2016-07-26 Telecommunication Systems, Inc. Probabilistic reverse geocoding
US9420398B2 (en) 2008-10-06 2016-08-16 Telecommunication Systems, Inc. Remotely provisioned wireless proxy
US9285239B2 (en) 2008-10-07 2016-03-15 Telecommunication Systems, Inc. User interface for content channel HUD (heads-up display) and channel sets for location-based maps
US20100217802A1 (en) * 2009-01-19 2010-08-26 Vodafone Group Plc Socializing web services
US8725805B2 (en) * 2009-01-19 2014-05-13 Vodafone Group Plc Socializing web services
US8903380B2 (en) 2010-08-24 2014-12-02 Metropcs Wireless, Inc. Location-based network selection method for a mobile device
US8073441B1 (en) * 2010-08-24 2011-12-06 Metropcs Wireless, Inc. Location-based network selection method for a mobile device
US9633369B1 (en) 2010-11-08 2017-04-25 West Corporation Method and apparatus of requesting customized location information at a mobile station
US8983503B1 (en) * 2010-11-08 2015-03-17 West Corporation Method and apparatus of requesting customized location information at a mobile station
US9143895B1 (en) * 2010-11-08 2015-09-22 West Corporation Method and apparatus of requesting customized location information at a mobile station
EP2525591A1 (en) * 2011-05-18 2012-11-21 Sony Mobile Communications AB Indoor map distribution
US20160357616A1 (en) * 2013-03-29 2016-12-08 Beijing Zhigu Rui Tuo Tech Co., Ltd Application management method and application management apparatus
US9247386B2 (en) 2013-12-18 2016-01-26 International Business Machines Corporation Location-based mobile application and service selection
US10657468B2 (en) 2014-05-06 2020-05-19 Uber Technologies, Inc. System and methods for verifying that one or more directives that direct transport of a second end user does not conflict with one or more obligations to transport a first end user
US10458801B2 (en) 2014-05-06 2019-10-29 Uber Technologies, Inc. Systems and methods for travel planning that calls for at least one transportation vehicle unit
US10339474B2 (en) 2014-05-06 2019-07-02 Modern Geographia, Llc Real-time carpooling coordinating system and methods
US11100434B2 (en) 2014-05-06 2021-08-24 Uber Technologies, Inc. Real-time carpooling coordinating system and methods
US11466993B2 (en) 2014-05-06 2022-10-11 Uber Technologies, Inc. Systems and methods for travel planning that calls for at least one transportation vehicle unit
US11669785B2 (en) 2014-05-06 2023-06-06 Uber Technologies, Inc. System and methods for verifying that one or more directives that direct transport of a second end user does not conflict with one or more obligations to transport a first end user
EP4149126A4 (en) * 2020-06-10 2023-11-08 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. Application-based short-range notification method, electronic device, and system

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
TW543331B (en) 2003-07-21
AU2001282052A1 (en) 2002-02-25
KR20020043631A (en) 2002-06-10
JP2004507182A (en) 2004-03-04
CN1631046A (en) 2005-06-22
WO2002015601A3 (en) 2002-12-12
US6628938B1 (en) 2003-09-30
EP1310110A2 (en) 2003-05-14
WO2002015601A2 (en) 2002-02-21

Similar Documents

Publication Publication Date Title
US6628938B1 (en) Wireless system, a method of selecting an application while receiving application specific messages and user location method using user location awareness
EP1561351B1 (en) Method and apparatus providing user programmable, personalized location-aware services
EP1609290B1 (en) Managing context-related information with a mobile station
US6868256B2 (en) Portable device interaction with beacons
US6879838B2 (en) Distributed location based service system
US8069219B2 (en) Method and apparatus for implementing a mobile web server based system
US20030096621A1 (en) Method and apparatus for identifying a group of users of a wireless service
US20040082351A1 (en) User group creation
US20030220114A1 (en) Consensual data delivery through beacons
US20050059410A1 (en) System and method for providing differential location services
US20050136946A1 (en) System, method and computer program product for providing differential location services with mobile-based location tracking
US20020137462A1 (en) Communication system and method
JP2005505172A (en) Communication system and method for position sensitive information
WO2012149031A2 (en) System and method for management of a dynamic network using wireless communication devices
US20040203611A1 (en) Architecture and services for wireless data
JP2004530336A (en) Beacon infrastructure
WO2002017180A1 (en) An information retrieval system
EP1482760B1 (en) A method and a system for transferring an electronic service in a communication network to a terminal
KR20030019907A (en) Consensual data delivery through beacons
KR20030005369A (en) Broadcasting system for power line network
WO2005027564A1 (en) Method and arrangement of telecommunications infrastructure for transmitting warning signals automatically and for providing related communications services to mobile devices

Legal Events

Date Code Title Description
STCB Information on status: application discontinuation

Free format text: ABANDONED -- FAILURE TO RESPOND TO AN OFFICE ACTION