METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DEPLOYMENT OF SENSORS

• US 20050273201A1
• Filed: 06/30/2004
• Published: 12/08/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 06/06/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Pitney Bowes Incorporated (Böwe Systec AG)
• Original Assignee: Pitney Bowes Incorporated (Böwe Systec AG)
• Inventors: Parkos, Arthur J., Rojas, John W., Zukowski, Deborra J., Norris, James R. Jr.
• Application Number:
  US10/710,295
• Publication Number:
  US 20050273201A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/258
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

Systems and methods for consistent deployment of sensors for both physical and virtual objects in a context aware environment for responsive environments are described. A method and apparatus that supports user interactions with both virtual and physical objects wherein any type of object can be explicitly instrumented with a sensor, either virtual or physical. User actions are sensed through these sensors and responses can be determined consistently, regardless of whether the object is physical or virtual.

Claims

1. A method for processing a physical token in a responsive environment comprising:

placing a sensor in proximity to the token;

placing the token in an association bin;

launching a document browser application;

obtaining user selection data identifying a document to register with the token; and

creating a sensor model instance.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

setting a sensor name property.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

setting a sensor type property to indicate a physical sensor.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

setting a sensor class property to indicate touch detection.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein,

the sensor is attached to the token.

3. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

setting the sensor name property using an identifier associated with the document.

7. A method for processing a virtual sensor associated with a virtual document in a responsive environment comprising:

obtaining an indication that a user selected a document;

determining the identifier for a model instance of the virtual document;

creating a sensor model instance; and

setting a sensor lifetime value variable associated with the virtual sensor.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

setting a sensor name property.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

setting a sensor type property to indicate a virtual sensor.

10. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

setting a sensor class property to indicate touch detection.

11. A method for processing a physical selection of a projection of a target virtual document identifier associated with a document in a responsive environment comprising:

displaying a plurality of virtual document identifiers including the target virtual document identifier on a smart display;

determining whether the smart display is touched in an area corresponding to the display of the target virtual document identifier; and

if the smart display is touched in an area corresponding to the display of the target virtual document identifier, sending a touch message to a device application manager.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

sending touch message data to the smart display.