PROVIDING NOTIFICATIONS TO DEVICES BASED ON REAL-TIME CONDITIONS RELATED TO AN ON-DEMAND SERVICE

• US 20150271290A1
• Filed: 03/19/2014
• Published: 09/24/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/19/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Uber Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Uber Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Tao, Christine, Rehani, Navya, McConnell, Thomas
• Granted Patent: US 9,960,986 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1895 for short real-time information, e.g. alarms, notifications, alerts, updates
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5051 Service on demand, e.g. definition and deployment of services in real time
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5096 wherein the managed service relates to distributed or central networked applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/222 using geographical location information, e.g. messages transmitted or received in proximity of a certain spot or area
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/53 using third party service providers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 Push-based network services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences

Abstract

A system and method for providing notifications is described. The system accesses a notification database that stores a plurality of notification entries. Each notification entry includes notification text, location information, and condition information. For each of a plurality of devices, information is received that includes a current location of that device and a current status associated with that device. At least one device is determined to meet the condition information of a notification entry based on the received information. A notification corresponding to the notification entry is transmitted to the at least one device.

Claims

1. A method for providing notifications to computing devices, the method being performed by one or more processors of a computing system and comprising:

accessing, by the computing system, a notification database that stores a plurality of notification entries to identify at least a first notification entry that includes (i) text corresponding to a notification, (ii) location information associated with the notification and associated with a first geofence corresponding to a first geographic region, and (iii) condition information that is to be satisfied by a device in order for the device to receive the notification corresponding to that notification entry, the condition information including at least a geographical condition that is associated with at least a second geofence that corresponds to a second geographic region that is different than the first geographic region;

receiving, from each of a plurality of devices, information that includes a current location of that device, the current location being determined using a global positioning system (GPS) component of that device;

based on the received information, determining that at least one device satisfies the condition information of the first notification entry, including determining that the at least one device satisfies the geographical condition by being located in the second geographic region but not the first geographic region; and

transmitting, from the computing system to the at least one device, the notification corresponding to the first notification entry so that the text corresponding to the notification can be displayed on a display of the at least one device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more notification entries of the plurality of notification entries includes audio data corresponding to the notification text.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein, for each notification entry of the plurality of notification entries, the condition information also includes at least one of (i) a time condition, (ii) a status condition, or (iii) a utilization condition.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the condition information of the first notification entry also includes a first status condition, wherein receiving, from each of the plurality of devices, information includes receiving a status information associated with that device, and wherein determining that the at least one device satisfies the condition information of the first notification entry includes also determining that the at least one device is associated with a status information that satisfies the status condition.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein, for each of the plurality of devices, the current location for that device is received periodically.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a utilization information corresponding to a state of an on-demand network service with respect to the first geofence corresponding to the first geographic region; and

wherein determining that the at least one device satisfies the condition information includes determining that the utilization information satisfies a utilization condition of the first notification entry.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the notification corresponding to the first notification entry includes transmitting the location information corresponding to the first notification entry to the at least one device.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein transmitting the notification corresponding to the first notification entry to the at least one device includes enabling an application running on the at least one device to display the text corresponding to the notification with a user interface of the application.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein transmitting the notification to the at least one device includes enabling the application to display, on the user interface, a marker corresponding to the location information associated with the first notification entry on a map user interface.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing a user interface to enable a user to create one or more notification entries, the user interface including features to enable the user to input the text corresponding to the first notification entry, the location information associated with the notification, and condition information for each of the one or more notification entries.

11. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor of a computing system, causes the computing system to:

access a notification database that stores a plurality of notification entries to identify at least a first notification entry that includes (i) text corresponding to a notification, (ii) location information associated with the notification and associated with a first geofence corresponding to a first geographic region, and (iii) condition information that is to be satisfied by a device in order for the device to receive the notification corresponding to that notification entry, the condition information including at least a geographical condition that is associated with at least a second geofence that corresponds to a second geographic region that is different than the first geographic region;

receive, from each of a plurality of devices, information that includes a current location of that device, the current location being determined using a global positioning system (GPS) component of that device;

based on the received information, determine that at least one device satisfies the condition information of the first notification entry, including determining that the at least one device satisfies the geographical condition by being located in the second geographic region but not the first geographic region; and

transmit, to the at least one device, the notification corresponding to the first notification entry so that the text corresponding to the notification can be displayed on a display of the at least one device.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein one or more notification entries of the plurality of notification entries includes audio data corresponding to the notification text.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein, for each notification entry of the plurality of notification entries, the condition information also includes at least one of (i) a time condition, (ii) a status condition, or (iii) a utilization condition.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the condition information of the first notification entry also includes a first status condition, wherein receiving, from each of the plurality of devices, information includes receiving a status information associated with that device, and wherein determining that the at least one device satisfies the condition information of the first notification entry includes also determining that the at least one device is associated with a status information that satisfies the status condition.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein, for each of the plurality of devices, the current location for that device is received periodically.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the instructions cause the system to further:

determine a utilization information corresponding to a state of an on-demand network service with respect to the first geofence corresponding to the first geographic region; and

wherein the instructions cause the system to determine that the at least one device satisfies the condition information by determining that the utilization information satisfies a utilization condition of the first notification entry.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the instructions cause the system to transmit the notification corresponding to the first notification entry to the at least one device by transmitting the location information corresponding to the first notification entry to the at least one device.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the instructions cause the system to transmit the notification corresponding to the first notification entry to the at least one device by (i) enabling an application running on the at least one device to display the text corresponding to the notification with a user interface of the application, and (ii) enabling the application to display, on the user interface, a marker corresponding to the location information associated with the first notification entry on a map user interface.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the instructions cause the system to further:

provide a user interface to enable a user to create one or more notification entries, the user interface including features to enable the user to input text corresponding to the first notification entry, location information associated with the notification, and condition information for each of the one or more notification entries.

20. (canceled)

21. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor of a computing system, causes the computing system to:

determine when a notification corresponding to a notification entry is to be transmitted to devices based on a time information associated with the notification entry, the notification entry also including a geographical condition;

based on location information received from a plurality of devices, identify a first set of devices from the plurality of devices that is to receive the notification by determining that the first set of devices satisfies the geographical condition of the notification entry by not being located in a geofence that corresponds to a geographic region; and

transmit, to each of the first set of devices, the notification corresponding to the notification entry so that text corresponding to the notification can be displayed on a display of each of the first set of devices.