INFORMATION PROVIDING APPARATUS AND INFORMATION PROVIDING METHOD, WIRELESS COMMUNICATION APPARATUS AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD, COMPUTER PROGRAM, AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

• US 20120190339A1
• Filed: 08/04/2010
• Published: 07/26/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/14/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Abe, Shinichiro, Arisawa, Shigeru, Usui, Takashi, Esaka, Seiji, Sonoda, Shuhei, Takada, Masayuki, Yamasuge, Hiroyuki
• Granted Patent: US 9,313,721 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/411
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/16 Discovering, processing access restriction or access information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0258 controlling an operation mode according to history or models of usage information, e.g. activity schedule or time of day
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

To reduce power consumption for communication operation wherein a client terminal at the time of offline searches a base station or access point.

A server uses a communication information predicting algorithm to predict a location or time whereby the server becomes an offline state over a movement route of a client terminal, and a location or time whereby the server returns to an online state, and informs to the client terminal. The client terminal suspends a communication function when reaching the informed offline predicted location or time. The client terminal at the time of offline determines that the current location or time has reached an online return predicted location or time using location recognition or point-in-time recognition, and restores the communication function.

Claims

1. An information providing apparatus comprising:

a communication unit configured to connect to a client terminal to perform communication;

a contents analyzing unit configured to estimate the destination of a user who possess a client terminal;

a movement predicting unit configured to estimate the current location of said client terminal, and also to predict a movement route from said current location to said destination; and

a communication predicting unit configured to predict the communication quality of said client terminal over said predicted movement route to inform to said client terminal.

2. The information providing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a private content database configured to hold a user'"'"'s private content;

wherein said contents analyzing unit analyzes the contents of a user'"'"'s private content held in said private content database, and estimates the user'"'"'s destination based on an obtained action schedule.

3. The information providing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein a private content held in said private content database includes at least one of a schedule, an E-mail, and a memo pad created or edited by a user.

4. The information providing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein a private content held in said private content database includes a user'"'"'s action history.

5. The information providing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein said action history includes at least one of a user'"'"'s login ID, login time and date, login location, logoff time and date, logoff location, transportation system history, purchase history of various products, viewing history of broadcast programs and other contents, and operation history of various types of information equipment.

6. The information providing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said movement predicting unit estimates said current location based on sensor information obtained from said client terminal.

7. The information providing apparatus according to claim 6, wherein said sensor information includes at least one of GPS (Global Positioning System) reception radio wave information, received signal strength information of a WiFi base station (RSSI:

Receiving Signal Strength Indicator), acceleration information measured by an acceleration sensor, or other sensor information for estimating the location information of said client terminal, measured by said client terminal.

8. The information providing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said movement predicting unit predicts a movement route from the estimated current location to a destination using a learning algorithm employing a hidden Markov model.

9. The information providing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a communication information database configured to hold the communication information of a base station or access point at each spot;

wherein said communication predicting unit predicts a connection state between said client terminal and a base station or access point over said movement route based on said communication information database.

10. The information providing apparatus according to claim 9, wherein said communication information includes at least one of the transmission rate or received radio wave strength of a base station or access point at each spot.

11. The information providing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said communication predicting unit transmits, when predicting that there is an offline area where said client terminal has an inability to connect to any base station or access point over said movement route, communication prediction information including the connection disabled state of said client terminal, and a connectable condition with a base station or access point of said client terminal beforehand.

12. The information providing apparatus according to claim 11, wherein said communication prediction information includes, as information of said connection disabled state, an offline predicted location or offline predicted time with said client terminal arriving at said offline area, and includes, as information of said connectable condition, an online return predicted location or online return predicted time with said client terminal returning to an online area.

13. The information providing apparatus according to claim 11, wherein said communication unit suspends connection with a client terminal of which said connection disabled state has been predicted by said communication predicting unit until said connectable condition is satisfied.

14. The information providing apparatus according to claim 13, wherein said communication unit releases pause of connection with a client terminal to attempt connection therewith when another predetermined condition is satisfied even in the event that said connectable condition is not satisfied.

15. An information providing method comprising:

a contents analyzing step arranged to estimate the destination of a user who possess a client terminal;

a movement predicting step arranged to estimate the current location of said client terminal, and also to predict a movement route from said current location to said destination; and

a communication predicting step arranged to predict the communication quality of said client terminal over said predicted movement route to inform to said client terminal.

16. A computer program configured to execute processing over a computer for operating as a server in a wireless communication system where a server and a client terminal mutually transfer information and are mutually synchronized by wireless communication, said program causing said computer to serve as:

a communication unit configured to connect to a client terminal to perform communication;

a contents analyzing unit configured to estimate the destination of a user who possess a client terminal;

a movement predicting unit configured to estimate the current location of said client terminal, and also to predict a movement route from said current location to said destination; and

a communication predicting unit configured to predict the communication quality of said client terminal over said predicted movement route to inform to said client terminal.

17. A wireless communication apparatus comprising:

a communication unit configured to perform wireless communication with a base station or access point; and

a control unit configured to control connection operation with a server via a base station or access point, and the operation of said communication unit;

wherein said control unit controls connection operation with said server, and the operation of said communication unit based on a communication quality over the own predicted movement route.

18. A wireless communication method comprising:

a step arranged to obtain a predicted communication quality over the own movement route; and

a step arranged to control wireless communication operation with a base station or access point, and connection operation with a server via a base station or access point based on said communication quality.

19. A computer program configured to execute processing over a computer for operating as a client terminal in a wireless communication system where a server and a client terminal mutually transfer information and are mutually synchronized by wireless communication, said program causing said computer to serve as:

a communication unit configured to perform wireless communication with a base station or access point; and

a control unit configured to control connection operation with a server via a base station or access point, and the operation of said communication unit;

wherein said control unit controls connection operation with said server, and the operation of said communication unit based on a predicted communication quality over the own movement route.

20. A wireless communication system comprising:

a server configured to estimate, based on a private content of a user who possesses a client terminal, the user'"'"'s destination, to predict a movement route from the current location of said client terminal to said destination, to predict a communication quality of said client terminal over said predicted movement route, and to inform to said client terminal; and

said client terminal configured to control connection operation with said server, and said communication operation based on said predicted communication quality of said movement route;

wherein transfer of information and synchronous processing are performed between said sever and said client terminal.