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Information providing method

  • US 10,318,994 B2
  • Filed: 11/06/2013
  • Issued: 06/11/2019
  • Est. Priority Date: 11/30/2012
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. An information providing method for generating and providing information, the information providing method comprising:

  • (a) forecasting, by a processor, demand for a particular item or a particular service at a particular place, in accordance with (i) a plurality of pieces of lifestyle information respectively corresponding to a plurality of users, each of the pieces of lifestyle information being obtained by a lifestyle information obtaining unit from a first device including a household device belonging to the corresponding user and including information on a state of operation of the first device and (ii) a plurality of pieces of location information respectively corresponding to the plurality of users, each of the pieces of the location information being obtained by a location information obtaining unit from a mobile device belonging to the corresponding user;

    (b) generating information to be provided based on a result of forecasting the demand in step (a), whereinin step (a), the demand is forecasted based on the number of users, from among the plurality of users, who are predicted to be at the particular place in the future and whose likelihood of being in need for the particular item or the particular service is equal to or above a certain baseline, the particular place being different from a place where the first device is installed, the particular place being identified from historical information, the historical information being a history of the obtained pieces of location information, andthe number of users is obtained by, for each of the plurality of users;

    estimating a habit of the user that the user conducts a specific behavior at a particular time from the state of operation of the first device included with obtained pieces of lifestyle information corresponding to the user, the habit of the user being an estimate that the user uses the first device belonging to the user in a specific time slot;

    predicting a likelihood that the user is in need for the particular item or the particular service, corresponding to the specific behavior, at a time in the future based on a mismatch between (i) the specific behavior at the particular time indicated by the habit and (ii) behavior of the user at the particular time in the past, and (iii) an estimated location of the user at the particular time, the behavior being estimated from the obtained pieces of lifestyle information corresponding to the user; and

    predicting a location of the user in the future from the obtained pieces of location information corresponding to the user,(c) generating control information and providing the control information to a second device when the location of the user is the predicted location which is the same as the location of the second device, the control information controlling an operation of the second device based on the generated information in step (b).

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