Calendaring Location-Based Events and Associated Travel

• US 20100175001A1
• Filed: 11/24/2009
• Published: 07/08/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/06/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ARO, Inc. (Dibona Holding)
• Original Assignee: Kiha Software, Inc.
• Inventors: Eustice, Kevin Francis, Lazarus, Jonathan D., Perkowitz, Michael, Hayes, Ned Dykstra
• Granted Patent: US 9,886,683 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/753
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting

Abstract

A user interface for an electronic calendar represents different locations or different users or different user calendars in different portions of the display. Calendar entries can be associated with one or more locations, one or more users, and with one or more user calendars. The different locations may reside in different time zones and a timeline for each time zone is displayed. The position of the calendar entry provides a visual identifier of the timeline with which the event is associated. Travel time to and from events in the calendar are calculated for calendared events and shown adjacent to the beginning and end of the event. A user'"'"'s future location at a point in time is inferred from patterns in the user'"'"'s locations and by analyzing the user'"'"'s calendared events and correspondence in order to calculate travel time to calendared events.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of inferring travel time to a calendared event, the method comprising:

creating a shadow calendar based on a user'"'"'s patterns in places and time;

receiving a new calendar event referencing a name associated with a place the user has been;

inferring a user'"'"'s starting location prior to the new calendar event from the shadow calendar;

estimating a travel time to the place of the calendared event from the user'"'"'s inferred starting location; and

displaying a representation of the estimated travel time to the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein creating a shadow calendar comprises:

tracking a user'"'"'s location; and

identifying recurrences of the user'"'"'s location at places from the user'"'"'s tracked location.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

associating names with the places from the user'"'"'s tracked location.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein associating names with the places from the user'"'"'s tracked location comprises matching calendar events that were scheduled to occur at scheduled times and the location of the user at the scheduled times.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein associating names with the places from the user'"'"'s tracked location comprises matching correspondence referencing a scheduled time and place and the location of the user at the scheduled time.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein associating names with the places from the user'"'"'s tracked location comprises matching labeled map data to the location of the user.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein associating names with the places from the user'"'"'s tracked location comprises matching business data to the location of the user.

8. The method of claim 3, wherein associating names with the places from the user'"'"'s tracked location comprises matching user input to the location of the user.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein displaying a representation of the estimated travel time to the user comprises displaying a travel time calendar entry adjacent to the calendared event.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein estimating a travel time to the place of the calendared event from the user'"'"'s inferred starting location comprises estimating the travel time to the place based on previous travel times to the place.

11. A computer-readable storage medium storing executable computer program instructions for inferring travel time to a calendared event, the computer program instructions comprising instructions for:

creating a shadow calendar based on a user'"'"'s patterns in places and time;

receiving a new calendar event referencing a name associated with a place the user has been;

inferring a user'"'"'s starting location prior to the new calendar event from the shadow calendar;

estimating a travel time to the place of the calendared event from the user'"'"'s inferred starting location; and

displaying a representation of the estimated travel time to the user.

12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the instructions for creating a shadow calendar comprises instructions for:

tracking a user'"'"'s location; and

identifying recurrences of the user'"'"'s location at places from the user'"'"'s tracked location.

13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the computer program instructions further comprise instructions for:

associating names with the places from the user'"'"'s tracked location.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the instructions for associating names with the places from the user'"'"'s tracked location comprise instructions for matching calendar events that were scheduled to occur at scheduled times and the location of the user at the scheduled times.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the instructions for associating names with the places from the user'"'"'s tracked location comprise instructions for matching correspondence referencing a scheduled time and place and the location of the user at the scheduled time.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the instructions for associating names with the places from the user'"'"'s tracked location comprise instructions for matching labeled map data to the location of the user.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the instructions for associating names with the places from the user'"'"'s tracked location comprise instructions for matching business data to the location of the user.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the instructions for associating names with the places from the user'"'"'s tracked location comprise instructions for matching user input to the location of the user.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the instructions for displaying a representation of the estimated travel time to the user comprise instructions for displaying a travel time calendar entry adjacent to the calendared event.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the instructions for estimating a travel time to the place of the calendared event from the user'"'"'s inferred starting location comprise instructions for estimating the travel time to the place based on previous travel times to the place.

21. A system for inferring travel time to a calendared event, the system comprising:

a place identification module for identifying places of importance from a user'"'"'s location data;

a place naming module for naming identified places;

a shadow calendar module for creating a shadow calendar based on patterns in the user'"'"'s location data; and

a travel time estimation module for estimating a travel time to a calendared event at a named place based on a user'"'"'s starting location inferred from the shadow calendar.