Establishing Directed Communication Based Upon Physical Interaction Between Two Devices

• US 20110110371A1
• Filed: 01/12/2011
• Published: 05/12/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/24/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Scenera Mobile Technologies LLC (Scenera Research LLC)
• Original Assignee: Scenera Technologies LLC (Scenera Research LLC)
• Inventors: Fry, Jared S.
• Granted Patent: US 8,437,353 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/392
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5038 for local use, e.g. in LAN or USB networks, or in a controller area network [CAN]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/16 Discovering, processing access restriction or access information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/10 Connection setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/26 Network addressing or numbering for mobility support

Abstract

A method and system for establishing communication with a device is provided. Aspects of an exemplary embodiment include detecting, at a first device, a physical interaction involving the first device and a second device; requesting assignment of a network address usable for establishing communication between the first device and the second device, wherein the network address is based on information associated with the detected physical interaction; and automatically transferring content between the first device and the second device using the network address based on information associated with the detected physical interaction.

Claims

1. A method for establishing communication with a device, the method comprising:

detecting, at a first device, a physical interaction involving the first device and a second device;

requesting assignment of a network address usable for establishing communication between the first device and the second device, wherein the network address is based on information associated with the detected physical interaction; and

automatically transferring content between the first device and the second device using the network address based on information associated with the detected physical interaction.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing for at least one of sending a message directed to the network address from the first device to the second device and assigning the network address to the first device for receiving a message directed to the network address.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the message directed to the network address is sent from the first device to the second device, and wherein the network address comprises a first network address, the method further comprising:

detecting, at the second device, the physical interaction between the second device and the first device;

determining a second network address for the second device based on information associated with the detected physical interaction; and

receiving the message sent by the first device directed to the second network address for the second device, wherein the first and second network addresses are substantially similar.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining the network address based on the information associated with the physical interaction.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein determining the network address is based on a tapping characteristic of the physical interaction.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the tapping characteristic of the physical interaction is a signature of a tapping sequence.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the information associated with the detected physical interaction includes at least one of timing information and acceleration information.

8. The method of claim 1 comprising determining a role for the first device.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein determining the role for the first device includes determining whether the first device is accelerated prior to the physical interaction.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising using the network address in a virtual network layer that resides on top of an existing network infrastructure.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising using the network address in an application layer.

12. A computer-readable medium containing program instructions for establishing communication with a device, the program instructions, when executed by a processor, for:

detecting, at a first device, a physical interaction involving the first device and a second device;

requesting assignment of a network address usable for establishing communication between the first device and the second device, wherein the network address is based on information associated with the detected physical interaction; and

automatically transferring content between the first device and the second device using the network address based on information associated with the detected physical interaction.

13. A network-enabled device comprising:

a communication transceiver configured to communicate with other network-enabled devices over a network;

a motion detection module configured to detect and measure a physical interaction with another network-enabled device and produce a corresponding physical interaction signal;

the communication transceiver configured to transmit a request for assignment of a network address usable for establishing communication between the first device and the second device, wherein the network address is based on information associated with the detected physical interaction; and

the communication transceiver further configured to automatically transfer content between the first device and the second device using the network address based on information associated with the detected physical interaction.

14. The network-enabled device of claim 13 further comprising an address generator configured to generate the network address based on the characteristics of the physical interaction signal.

15. The network-enabled device of claim 14 wherein the address generator is configured to generate the network address representative of a signature based on time between taps.

16. The network-enabled device of claim 14 wherein the network enabled device is configured to determine a role for the network-enabled device, wherein the roles include a responder that sends a message directed to the generated network address and an initiator that provides for assigning the network address to the network-enabled device for receiving a message directed to the network address.

17. The network-enabled device of claim 13 further comprising a valid tap detector configured to determine when the network-enabled device is subject to a valid physical interaction.

18. The network-enabled device of claim 17 wherein the valid tap detector is configured to determine from time between impacts and amplitudes of the impacts whether a valid tap sequence has occurred.

19. The network-enabled device of claim 13 wherein the physical interaction comprises motion and the physical interaction signal corresponds to a tap sequence.

20. The network-enabled device of claim 13 wherein the motion detector is configured to detect characteristics of a tapping sequence, wherein the tapping sequence characteristics include timing information and acceleration information.