Geographic reminders

• US 10,192,424 B2
• Filed: 09/17/2013
• Issued: 01/29/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 05/20/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Khachaturov, Vassilii, Novik, Lev, Khosravy, Moe
• Primary Examiner(s): Syed, Nabil H
• Assistant Examiner(s): Eustaquio, Cal
• Application Number:
  US14/029,772
• Publication Number:
  US 20140009285A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,960 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/24 Reminder alarms, e.g. anti-loss alarms

Abstract

Described is a technology by which a mobile device outputs an alert for a reminder based upon a current location of the mobile device with respect to an entity (person, place or thing) associated with the reminder. The reminders may be maintained and provided by a service. Each reminder includes a reference to target-related information. When the device moves to within a threshold proximity of the target, and other criteria (e.g., time of day) is satisfied, an alert is output by the device. A user may gesture with a device towards an entity to set a reminder associated with that entity, or to get any reminder associated with that entity. A device may also get reminders by scanning or image processing, e.g., by reading a barcode associated with a product to get any reminders associated with that product.

Claims

1. In a computing environment, a method comprising:

receiving current location information and context data associated with historical movement data for a mobile device,

receiving, by the mobile device, a reminder from a remote computing device that maintains a plurality of reminders;

determining, by the mobile device, whether to output an alert corresponding to the reminder to a user interface of the mobile device, including;

evaluating one or more criteria associated with a user profile that includes user preference data against current state data that includes current location information and a direction of movement associated with the mobile device;

responsive to a determination that the one or more criteria are satisfied, selecting at least a portion of target data within the reminder and outputting the selected portion of the target data with the alert to the user interface of the mobile device;

detecting a pointing of the mobile device to a geographical feature;

generating a new reminder based on the pointing of the mobile device to the geographical feature; and

transmitting the new reminder to the remote computing device.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein evaluating the one or more criteria comprises evaluating the user-specified parameters including at least one of a resource-specific parameter, system-specific parameter, time-specific parameter, locality-specific parameter, or priority-specific parameter.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more criteria include target-related information corresponding to a category, and wherein evaluating the criteria comprises determining whether the current location-related data indicates a threshold proximity to any entity that corresponds to that category.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more criteria include target-related information corresponding to a location having specified hours of operation, wherein the current state data includes current time, and wherein evaluating the one or more criteria includes comparing the specified hours of operation against the current time to determine if the one or more criteria associated with the reminder are satisfied.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more criteria include target-related information corresponding to a trigger area proximity associated with the user-specified parameters, and wherein evaluating the one or more criteria includes comparing the current location-related data for the mobile device against the trigger area proximity to determine if the one or more criteria associated with the reminder are satisfied.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more criteria include a user gesture, and wherein evaluating the one or more criteria includes evaluating the detected motion made with the user device against the current state data and one or more entities corresponding to the current state data.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more criteria include an image scanned by the mobile device, and wherein evaluating the one or more criteria includes evaluating the image scanned against the user-specified parameters to determine whether to output the alert corresponding to the reminder.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the new reminder based on the pointing of the mobile device further comprises:

translating at least some input data received at the mobile device into a relevant query to submit to the remote computing device, the relevant query further extracting relevant parameters at the remote computing device based at least in part on other user experiences of other user interaction with the remote computing device to facilitate setting the new reminder at the remote computing device.

8. A computing device, comprising:

a memory and a processor that are respectively configured to store and execute processor-executable instructions to cause the computing device to;

obtain current location information and context data associated with a user device, the context data obtained via a prediction based on historical movement data;

identify a set of one or more reminders associated with the current location information, the context data, and user preference data;

select at least a portion of the set of one or more reminders to download to the user device based at least in part on the current location information, the context data, a direction of movement associated with the user device, and the user preference data;

identify another set of one or more reminders cached on the user device;

select at least a portion of the other set of one or more reminders cached on the user device to remove from the user device based upon at least one of the direction of movement associated with the user device, a speed of movement associated with the user device, or a learned user habit associated with the user device; and

download the selected portion of the set of one or more reminders to the user device and remove the selected portion of the other set of one or more reminders from the user device.

9. The computing device of claim 8 wherein the processor-executable instructions are also to cause the computing device is to:

locate target objects associated with the selected portion of the set of one or more reminders;

retrieve target information for the associated target objects; and

download the retrieved target information and the associated target objects along with the selected portion of the set of the one or more selected reminders to the user device.

10. The computing device of claim 8 wherein the processor-executable instructions are also to cause the computing device to:

determine a plurality of geographic tiles from the current location information, and select at least the portion of the set of one or more selected reminders to download based upon whether an individual reminder corresponds to a location within one of the geographic tiles.

11. The computing device of claim 8 wherein the user preference data includes at least one of a resource-specific preference, system-specific preference, time-specific preference, locality-specific preference, or priority-specific preference.

12. The computing device of claim 8 wherein other context data is obtained based on a user gesture detected by the user device.

13. The computing device of claim 8 wherein other context data is obtained based on an image scanned by the user device.

19. The computing device of claim 8, wherein the service is a cloud service, and wherein the user device is communicatively coupled to the cloud service.

14. One or more computer storage media storing computer-executable instructions, which in response to execution by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations, the operations comprising:

caching, by a mobile device, one or more reminders received from a reminder service on a local cache of the mobile device;

detecting, by the mobile device, a pointing of the mobile device directed towards a person, place, or thing;

generating, by the mobile device, a new reminder associated with the person, place, or thing pointed to with the mobile device;

caching the new reminder;

determining, by the mobile device, whether criteria associated with a cached reminder have been satisfied; and

outputting an alert corresponding to the cached reminder to a user interface of the mobile device responsive to determining that the criteria associated with the cached reminder are satisfied, the criteria including user preference data, a current location of the mobile device, historical movement data associated with the mobile device, and a direction of movement associated with the mobile device.

15. The one or more computer storage media of claim 14, wherein the operations further comprise:

providing the new reminder to the reminder service.

16. The one or more computer storage media of claim 14 wherein the user preference data includes at least one of a resource-specific preference, system-specific preference, time-specific preference, locality-specific preference, or priority-specific preference.

17. The one or more computer storage media of claim 14 wherein the one or more criteria associated with the reminder includes a space-time constraint that prevents outputting of the alert if the mobile device cannot satisfy a location-related criterion associated with the reminder by a certain time, given traveling conditions with respect to at least one of a current location, current time, current direction, or current speed of the location-aware mobile device.

18. The one or more computer storage media of claim 14 wherein the reminder is associated with a product, and wherein the operations further comprise:

outputting an alert for that reminder upon identifying that product via a scanning, gesturing or image processing operation.