METHOD, SYSTEM AND CONTROLLER FOR SHARING DATA

• US 20120194465A1
• Filed: 10/07/2010
• Published: 08/02/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/08/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Someones Group Intellectual Property Holdings Pty Limited
• Original Assignee: Someones Group Intellectual Property Holdings Pty Limited
• Inventors: Gronow, Brett James, Deverell, Keith David, Pak, Jonathan David, Bates, Christopher Glendon, Wolf, David Peter
• Granted Patent: US 8,661,352 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/173
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/011 Arrangements for interaction with the human body, e.g. for user immersion in virtual reality blind teaching G09B21/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Abstract

A method is provided for a user of a communications device sharing data items with one or more of a plurality of data recipients, comprising the steps of: selecting one or more data items to share (1201); displaying symbols in a two-dimensional geometrical space on a display (1204), at least some of which represent individuals or groups of the data recipients; selecting one or more of the symbols as destinations for the data item(s) (1202); and sharing the data item(s) with the destination (s) (1203).

Claims

1. A method for a user of a communications device sharing a data item with one or more of a plurality of data recipients, being other persons or groups of people accessing other communications devices in direct wireless communication with the user, the method comprising the steps of:

selecting one or more data items to share;

displaying symbols in a two-dimensional geometrical space on a display, each symbol comprising a representation of an individual or group of the data recipients, one or more of the symbols being positioned so as to reflect a physical or notional location relative to the user of the individual or croup represented by said symbol;

selecting one or more of the symbols as a destination for the one or more data items; and

sharing the data item with the destination.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein at least one of the symbols represents a data recipient that is a virtual or actual storage location that can be accessed by another person via another communications device.

4. The method as claimed in claim 3, wherein the virtual or actual storage location is selected from the group consisting of a virtual gallery, a library, a parcel and a post box.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the step of sharing comprises notifying an intended recipient that access is granted to the data item.

6. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the step of sharing comprises a transfer to a data memory of an intended recipient of at least a readable version of the data item.

7. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the display is a touch sensitive screen and the step of selecting one or more of the symbols comprises touching each of the symbols.

8. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the display is a touch sensitive screen and the step of selecting comprises the user touching a centre part of the screen representing themself with a finger and flicking or sliding the finger towards or to the symbol.

9. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the step of displaying symbols in a two dimensional space comprises positioning one or more of the symbols in the space so as to reflect a physical or notional two dimensional spatial location of the data recipient represented by the symbol.

10. The method as claimed in claim 9, wherein the communications device comprises sensors enabling computation of a physical spatial orientation of the device, and the step of displaying comprises moving the positions of the symbols on the display as the physical spatial orientation changes so as to maintain a correspondence of the two dimensional spatial location with physical space.

11. The method as claimed in claim 10, wherein the step of selecting one or more of the symbols comprises holding the device in a spatial orientation so that any selected symbol appears in an autoselect position on the display.

12. The method as claimed in claim 10, further comprising the step of displaying images associated with the symbols as if hanging in 3-dimensional physical space if the user moves the physical spatial orientation of the device away from a generally horizontal plane, so that display appears to be a window into the 3-dimensional physical space around the user.

13. The method as claimed in claim 12, wherein the device has a camera on a back face thereof and further comprising the step of displaying the images associated with the symbols on a background of a second image on the camera so as to provide an augmented reality effect.

14. The method as claimed in claim 9, wherein the location is a physical location and is represented as a position on a map.

18. Computer program code which when executed by a computing device causes the computing device to implement the method of claim 1.

19. A computer readable medium comprising the program code of claim 18.

20. A data signal comprising the computer program code of claim 18.

2. (canceled)

15. A system to enable a user to share data items with one or more of a plurality of data recipients, being other persons or groups of people accessing other communications devices in direct wireless communication with the user, the system comprising

a communications device having a user interface including a display;

a data item selector for selecting one or more data items to share;

a symbol display controller for displaying symbols in a two-dimensional geometrical space on the display, each symbol comprising a representation of an individual or group within the data recipients, one or more of the symbols being positioned so as to reflect a physical or notional location relative to the user of the individual or group represented by said symbol;

a destination selector selecting one or more of the symbols as destinations for the one or more data items; and

a data sharer for sharing the one or more data items with the destinations.

17. The system as claimed in claim 15, wherein at least one data item selector, symbol display controller, destination selector and data sharer is implemented at least in part, by a processor executing code stored in a memory.

16. (canceled)