POWER MANAGEMENT VIA COORDINATION AND SELECTIVE OPERATION OF TIMER-RELATED TASKS

• US 20120167118A1
• Filed: 12/27/2010
• Published: 06/28/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/27/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Siravara, Bharath, Karoubi, Stephane, Pingili, Sudeesh R., Regen, Martin, Brown, Ray, Mann, Justin, Xu, Li
• Granted Patent: US 8,898,487 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/318
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3206 Monitoring of events, devices or parameters that trigger a change in power modality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4418 Suspend and resume; Hibernate and awake
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/20 Services signaling; Auxiliary data signalling, i.e. transmitting data via a non-traffic channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0251 using monitoring of local events, e.g. events related to user activity
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0261 managing power supply demand, e.g. depending on battery level
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

Mobile computing device power consumption can be reduced by using expiration window timers, state-based timers and/or the coordination of keep-alive timers. Upon detecting a trigger event causing a mobile computing device to transition from a low-power state to an active state, the device can determine whether the trigger event occurs within the expiration window of a timer, and execute tasks associated with the trigger event and the timer. Tasks associated with state-based timers can be executed if the mobile computing device or a component thereof is in (or, alternatively, not in) a specified state. A mobile computing device can execute tasks associated with multiple keep-alive timers used for maintaining communication links between the device and cloud-based service providers in a single active state. A cloud-based keep-alive service can maintain mobile computing device-service provider communication links by sending one keep-alive communication to a mobile computing device in place of multiple communications.

Claims

1. A method of coordinating tasks of a mobile computing device, the method comprising:

detecting a trigger event at a time, the trigger event indicating that the mobile computing device or a mobile computing device component is to transition from a low-power state to an active state;

determining that the time is within an expiration window associated with a timer, the timer being associated with one or more tasks; and

with the mobile computing device, initiating performance of the one or more tasks associated with the timer.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the timer associated with the one or more tasks is a first timer, and wherein the trigger event is an expiration of a second timer different than the first timer.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the second timer is associated with an expiration window having a minimum expiration time and a maximum expiration time.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising receiving a request for the second timer, the request indicating the minimum expiration time and the maximum expiration time.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the trigger event is the second timer expiring at the maximum expiration time.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the timer associated with the one or more tasks is a first timer, the method further comprising:

determining that the time is within an expiration windows associated with a second timer; and

with the mobile computing device, initiating performance of one or more tasks associated with the second timer.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising, with the mobile computing device, transitioning from the low-power state to the active state.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising, upon completion of the one or more tasks, with the mobile computing device, transitioning from the active state to the low-power state.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the trigger event is associated with one or more second tasks, and wherein the one or more second tasks and the one or more tasks associated with the timer utilize a common resource of the mobile computing device.

10. A method, comprising:

initializing a timer associated with one or more tasks and a state condition, wherein the state condition depends on a device state of a mobile computing device and/or a component state of a mobile computing device component;

detecting expiration of the timer;

determining whether the state condition is satisfied, wherein the determination depends on whether the mobile computing device is in the device state and/or the mobile computing device component is in the component state; and

initiating performance of the one or more tasks associated with the timer if the state condition is satisfied.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the device state or the component state is a low-power state.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the device state or the component state is one of:

whether a backlight of at least one display of the mobile computing device is disabled;

whether a wireless communication resource of the mobile computing device is enabled; and

whether the mobile computing device is powered externally.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising receiving a request for the timer, the request indicating the device state and/or the component state.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the request further indicates conditional logic for the state condition, wherein the conditional logic indicates:

the one or more tasks associated with the timer are to be performed only if the indicated device state and/or component state is satisfied;

the one or more tasks associated with the timer are to be performed unless the indicated device state and/or component state is satisfied;

or

the one or more tasks associated with the timer are to be performed as soon as the indicated device state and/or component state is satisfied and the timer has reached an expiration window within which the timer is permitted to expire.

15. The method of claim 10 wherein the device state is a first device state, wherein the component state is a first component state of a first mobile computing device component, and wherein the state condition further depends on a second device state of the mobile computing device and/or a second component state of a second mobile computing device component.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein the timer is associated with an expiration window, the expiration window having a minimum expiration time and a maximum expiration time, the device state indicates that the mobile computing device is externally powered, and the state condition is satisfied when the mobile computing device is externally powered and the minimum expiration time is reached.

17. A networked computing system comprising a processor and memory, wherein the networked computing system implements a keep-alive service, the networked computing system being adapted to perform a method of maintaining communication between a mobile computing device and a plurality of cloud-based service providers, the method comprising:

sending a first keep-alive communication for the keep-alive service to the mobile computing device;

receiving a response to the first keep-alive communication from the mobile computing device for the keep-alive service; and

sending a plurality of second keep-alive communications for the keep-alive service to the plurality of cloud-based service providers, respectively.

18. The networked computing system of claim 17, wherein the method further comprises determining that a keep-alive timer associated with a communication link between one of the plurality of cloud-based service providers and the mobile computing device has expired or is permitted to expire, wherein the sending the first keep-alive communication is performed as a result of the determining.

19. The networked computing system of claim 18, wherein the determining comprises receiving a keep-alive message from one of the plurality of cloud-based service providers.

20. The networked computing system of claim 17, wherein at least one of the plurality of second keep-alive communications is sent to one of the plurality of cloud-based service providers that is operating or associated with an unexpired keep-alive timer.