Situation-aware personal information management for a mobile device

• US 20090192702A1
• Filed: 08/30/2008
• Published: 07/30/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ProxPro, Inc.
• Original Assignee: ProxPro, Inc.
• Inventors: Bourne, Julian J.
• Granted Patent: US 8,190,359 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/200
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/20 Instruments for performing navigational calculations G01C21/24, G01C21/26 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3469 Fuel consumption; Energy use; Emission aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3492 employing speed data or traffic data, e.g. real-time or historical traffic control systems for road vehicles involving transmission of navigation instructions to the vehicle G08G1/0968
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting

Abstract

A technique for providing a mobile device user with a “when to leave” alarm on his or her mobile device. The user has scheduled an appointment at a given time and location in the user'"'"'s personal information manager (PIM) executing on the mobile device. A representative PIM is a calendar on the mobile device. The “when to leave” alarm is provided to the end user in the form of a display widget (or “countdown alarm”) that automatically activates a given time (e.g., 30 minutes) before a latest departure time for an event in the user'"'"'s PIM.

Claims

1. A machine-implemented method to provide situation-awareness to a user of a mobile device, comprising:

receiving first information identifying a first time, and a starting location;

receiving second information identifying a second time, and an ending location;

receiving third information indicative of a recommended vehicle route from the starting location to the ending location, the third information also including data associated with traffic conditions along the recommended vehicle route; and

based on the first, second and third information, generating fourth information for output from a mobile device to indicate a latest departure time from the starting location to ensure that the user of the mobile device can arrive at the ending location at the second time via the recommended vehicle route.

2. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the fourth information includes a data stream that generates a countdown timer widget for display on the mobile device.

3. The method as described in claim 2 wherein the countdown time widget includes a first portion, and a second portion, the first portion indicating a time period between the first time and the latest departure time, and the second portion indicating a travel time over the recommended vehicle route given the traffic conditions.

4. The method as described in claim 3 wherein the first portion is displayed in a first color, and the second portion is displayed in a second color.

5. The method as described in claim 2 wherein the countdown time widget includes a first portion, a second portion, and a third portion, the first portion indicating a time period between the first time and the latest departure time, the second portion indicating a travel time over the recommended vehicle route given the traffic conditions, and the third portion indicating an incremental traffic delay over historic traffic for the recommended vehicle route.

6. The method as described in claim 5 wherein each of the first, second and third portions of the countdown time widget are displayed in different colors.

7. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the traffic conditions include one of:

real-time traffic conditions, predicted traffic conditions based on historic traffic conditions, and combinations thereof.

8. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the second information is obtained from a personal information manager (PIM) associated with the mobile device.

9. The method as described in claim 3 further including adjusting at least the first portion of the countdown timer as the current time approaches the latest departure time.

10. The method as described in claim 3 further including adjusting at least the second portion of the countdown timer as the mobile device travels along the recommended vehicle route.

11. The method as described in claim 10 further including displaying an alert if during the travel the mobile device will not arrive at the ending location prior to the second time.

12. The method as described in claim 11 further including enabling the user to issue a notification indicating that the user will not arrive at the ending location prior to the second time.

13. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the first time is a future time.

14. The method as described in claim 1 further including providing fifth information indicative of a predicted weather condition along at least a portion of the recommended vehicle route at the latest departure time.

15. A machine-implemented method to provide situation-awareness to a user of a computing device, the computing device having a display and a calendar tool associated therewith, comprising:

for a given vehicle route having a starting location and an ending location, generating at least two departure options;

predicting a carbon footprint value associated with travel along the given vehicle route at each of the two departure options; and

displaying information on the display associated with the predicted carbon footprint values to enable a user to make an informed decision with respect to the departure options.

16. The method as described in claim 15 wherein the computing device is a mobile device and the calendar tool is a personal information manager (PIM).

17. The method as described in claim 15 wherein the step of generating the departure options is based in part on a given user configurable priority.