POWER EFFICIENT APPLICATION NOTIFICATION SYSTEM

• US 20130219332A1
• Filed: 02/16/2012
• Published: 08/22/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 02/16/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Woley, Kevin Michael, Anand, Gaurav S., Kuchta, Nathan J., Skarbovsky, Evgeny, Lee, Won Hee, Srinivasan, Chandramouli N.
• Granted Patent: US 9,448,680 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/808
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3209 Monitoring remote activity, e.g. over telephone lines or network connections
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3228 Monitoring task completion, e.g. by use of idle timers, stop commands or wait commands
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/329 by task scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3296 by lowering the supply or operating voltage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/545 Gui
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/016 Input arrangements with force or tactile feedback as computer generated output to the user
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/048 Interaction techniques based on graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/167 Audio in a user interface, e.g. using voice commands for navigating, audio feedback
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/452 Remote windowing, e.g. X-Window System, desktop virtualisation protocols for virtual reality H04L67/131
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72403 with means for local support of applications that increase the functionality
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72427 for supporting games or graphical animations
• 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

Applications on a computing device provide notifications associated with the application to a notification system. A notification includes an identification of content to be presented for the notification and an indication of when the content is to be presented. The notification system presents the notification content at the appropriate time regardless of whether the application is executing and without resuming execution of the application if the application is not running. Various power efficiency techniques are also used to determine which notifications are presented and when a user interface is updated to reflect those notifications in order to avoid updating the user interface to reflect notifications that would not be observable (e.g., due to a power mode of the computing device).

Claims

1. A method implemented in a computing device, the method comprising:

receiving, at the computing device, both metadata for a notification associated with an application and content for the notification; and

updating, at the computing device at a time based at least in part on an indication included in the metadata of when to present the content, a user interface (UI) to present the content for the notification without executing or resuming execution of the application.

2. A method as recited in claim 1, the time being further based at least in part on whether the notification would be observable at the computing device.

3. A method as recited in claim 2, wherein the notification would not be observable at the computing device if the computing device is in one of one or more low power modes.

4. A method as recited in claim 2, the computing device including a display device, and wherein the notification would not be observable at the computing device if the display device is powered off.

5. A method as recited in claim 2, the application comprising one of multiple applications, the method further comprising:

maintaining multiple notifications for each of the multiple applications;

in response to transitioning to settings of the computing device in which the notification would be observable at the computing device determining, for each of one or more of the multiple applications, at least one of the multiple notifications for the application to present; and

updating the UI to present the content, for each of the one or more of the multiple applications, of the at least one of the multiple notifications.

6. A method as recited in claim 5, the determining comprising identifying, for each of the one or more of the multiple applications, the most recent notification for the application having a lifetime indicating the notification can still be presented.

7. A method as recited in claim 5, further comprising dropping, without updating the UI to present, any of the multiple notifications that would be replaced by another of the multiple notifications prior to transitioning to settings of the computing device in which the notification would be observable at the computing device.

8. A method as recited in claim 1, the notification comprising a pop-up or temporary notification.

9. A method as recited in claim 1, the notification comprising a representation of the application.

10. A method as recited in claim 9, the computing device including a display device, the time being further based at least in part on whether the notification would be observable at the computing device, and wherein the notification would not be observable at the computing device if a lock screen is displayed on the display device and a representation of the application is not displayed on the lock screen.

11. A method as recited in claim 1, the receiving content for the notification comprising receiving the content for the notification from the application.

12. A method as recited in claim 1, the receiving content for the notification comprising:

receiving, from the application, an identifier of a location from which the content for the notification can be obtained; and

obtaining, from the location, the content for the notification.

13. A method as recited in claim 12, the time being further based at least in part on whether the notification would be observable at the computing device, and wherein the notification would not be observable at the computing device if the computing device is not connected to a network via which the location can be accessed.

14. A method as recited in claim 1, the notification comprising a scheduled notification, and metadata for the scheduled notification indicating a date and a time when the notification is to be presented, and a lifetime after which the notification is to no longer be presented.

15. A method as recited in claim 1, the notification comprising a periodic notification, and metadata for the periodic notification indicating a frequency with which an identified location is to be accessed by the notification system to obtain content for the periodic notification.

16. One or more computer-readable storage media having stored thereon an application including multiple instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing device, cause the one or more processors to:

provide, to a notification system of the computing device, an identification of content for a notification associated with the application allowing presentation of the content by the notification system regardless of whether execution of the application is terminated or suspended at a time of presentation of the content for the notification; and

provide, to the notification system, metadata for the notification indicating when the content for the notification is to be presented.

17. One or more computer-readable storage media as recited in claim 16, the metadata for the notification indicating a date and a time when the notification is to be presented, and a lifetime after which the notification is to no longer be presented.

18. One or more computer-readable storage media as recited in claim 16, the identification of the content identifying a location to be accessed by the notification system to obtain the content for the notification, and the metadata for the notification indicating a frequency with which the location is to be accessed by the notification system to obtain the content for the notification.

19. One or more computer-readable storage media as recited in claim 16, wherein the multiple instructions causing the one or more processors to provide the identification of content for the notification and provide the metadata for the notification comprise instructions causing the one or more processors to invoke an application programming interface (API) method exposed by the notification system.

20. A computing device comprising:

a display device;

an application interface to receive, at the computing device from an application on the computing device, a notification associated with the application, the notification including both metadata for the notification and content for the notification, the notification being received via an application programming interface (API) method exposed by the application interface being invoked; and

a user interface (UI) update module to update, at a time based at least in part on both an indication included in the metadata for the notification indicating when to display the content for the notification and whether the notification would be displayed by the computing device, a UI displayed on the display device to display the content for the notification without executing or resuming execution of the application.