Undesirable encounter avoidance

• US 10,117,054 B1
• Filed: 06/14/2017
• Issued: 10/30/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 06/14/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Schlesinger, Benny, Borsutsky, Yuval, Damari, Keren
• Primary Examiner(s): Patel, Ajit
• Application Number:
  US15/623,155
• Time in Patent Office: 503 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3415 Dynamic re-routing, e.g. recalculating the route when the user deviates from calculated route or after detecting real-time traffic data or accidents
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3484 Personalized, e.g. from learned user behaviour or user-defined profiles
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/39 the satellite radio beacon positioning system transmitting time-stamped messages, e.g. GPS [Global Positioning System], GLONASS [Global Orbiting Navigation Satellite System] or GALILEO
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/393 Trajectory determination or predictive tracking, e.g. Kalman filtering
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services

Abstract

A method disclosed herein for allows users to avoid such undesirable encounters by determining whether an undesirable contact of the user has opted for sharing location information, in response to determining that the undesirable contact has opted for sharing location information, collecting location signal from the undesirable contact, forecasting anticipated locations of the undesirable contact over a period based on the location signal of the undesirable contact, forecasting anticipated locations of the user over the period, determining potential of encounter between the user and the undesirable contact based on analysis of anticipated locations of the user and the anticipated locations of the undesirable contact over the period, generating an undesirable contact avoidance scheme based on the potential of encounter, and optionally notifying the user of the undesirable contact avoidance scheme.

Claims

1. A method of allowing a user to avoid unwanted encounters, the method comprising:

determining whether an undesirable contact of the user has opted for sharing location information;

in response to determining that the undesirable contact has opted for sharing location information, collecting a location signal from the undesirable contact;

forecasting anticipated locations of the user over a period;

forecasting anticipated locations of the undesirable contact over the period based on the location signal of the undesirable contact;

determining a potential of encounter between the user and the undesirable contact based on analysis of anticipated locations of the user and the anticipated locations of the undesirable contact over the period; and

generating an undesirable encounter avoidance scheme based on the potential of encounter.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising notifying the user of the undesirable encounter avoidance scheme, wherein notifying the user of the undesirable contact avoidance scheme further comprising notifying the user of the undesirable contact avoidance scheme without disclosing an identity of the undesirable contact.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein collecting the location signal of the user further comprises collecting the location signal based on GPS of a mobile device of the user and collecting the location signal of the undesirable contact further comprises collecting the location signal based on GPS of a mobile device of the undesirable contact.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein forecasting anticipated locations of the user over the period further comprises forecasting anticipated locations of the user over the period based on a location signal collected from the user'"'"'s mobile device.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining that the user has provided at least a predetermined number of contacts within a geographic region of the undesirable contact before collecting the location signal from the undesirable contact.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining that the user has not provided at least a predetermined number of contacts within a geographic region of the undesirable contact and in response to the determination generating a plurality of dummy contacts.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a potential of encounter between the user and the undesirable contact further comprises evaluating one or more location parameters of an anticipated encounter location to determine probability of encounter at the anticipated encounter location.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the undesirable encounter avoidance scheme is based on at least one of an alternative destination for the user, an alternative route for the user, and an alternative schedule for the user.

9. The method of claim 2, wherein notifying the user of the undesirable encounter avoidance scheme further comprises notifying a navigation application on a mobile device of the user to alter navigation route.

10. A physical article of manufacture including one or more devices encoding computer-executable instructions for executing on a computer system a computer process, the computer process comprising:

in response to determining that an undesirable contact has opted for sharing location information, collecting a location signal from the undesirable contact;

forecasting anticipated locations of the user over a period;

forecasting anticipated locations of the undesirable contact over the period based on the location signal of the undesirable contact;

determining a potential of encounter between the user and the undesirable contact based on analysis of anticipated locations of the user and the anticipated locations of the undesirable contact over the period; and

generating an undesirable encounter avoidance scheme based on the potential of encounter.

11. The physical article of manufacture of claim 10, wherein the computer process further comprising notifying a navigation app of the user'"'"'s mobile device of the undesirable encounter avoidance scheme.

12. The physical article of manufacture of claim 10, wherein the computer process of generating an undesirable encounter avoidance scheme based on the potential of encounter further comprising generating an undesirable encounter avoidance scheme based on an alternative destination for the user.

13. The physical article of manufacture of claim 10, wherein the computer process of generating an undesirable encounter avoidance scheme based on the potential of encounter further comprising generating an undesirable encounter avoidance scheme based on an alternative navigation route for the user.

14. The physical article of manufacture of claim 10, wherein the computer process of generating an undesirable encounter avoidance scheme based on the potential of encounter further comprising generating an undesirable encounter avoidance scheme based on an alternative schedule for the user.

15. The physical article of manufacture of claim 10, wherein the computer process of wherein notifying the user of the undesirable contact avoidance scheme further comprising notifying the user of the undesirable contact avoidance scheme without disclosing an identity of the undesirable contact.

16. The physical article of manufacture of claim 10, wherein the computer process further comprising determining that the user has provided at least a predetermined number of contacts within a geographic region of the undesirable contact before collecting the location signal from the undesirable contact.

17. The physical article of manufacture of claim 10, wherein the computer process further comprising determining that the user has not provided at least a predetermined number of contacts within a geographic region of the undesirable contact and in response to the determination generating a plurality of dummy contacts.

18. A system for delivering personalized user experience, comprising:

memory;

one or more processors;

one or more computer-executable instructions stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors to collect location signals from a user and a plurality of undesirable contacts;

one or more computer-executable instructions stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors to determine locations of the user and the plurality of undesirable contacts over a predetermined time period;

one or more computer-executable instructions stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors to collect a location signal from the undesirable contact in response to determining that the undesirable contact has opted for sharing location information; and

one or more computer-executable instructions stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors to determine a potential of encounter between the user and the undesirable contact based on analysis of anticipated locations of the user and the anticipated locations of the undesirable contact over the period and generate an undesirable encounter avoidance scheme based on the potential of encounter.

19. The system of claim 18, further comprising one or more computer-executable instructions stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors to interact a navigation app of the user'"'"'s mobile device of the undesirable encounter avoidance scheme.

20. The system of claim 18, further comprising one or more computer-executable instructions stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors to determine that the user has not provided at least a predetermined number of contacts within a geographic region of the undesirable contact and in response to the determination generating a plurality of dummy contacts.