Refining location estimates and reverse Geocoding based on a user profile

• US 20150363449A1
• Filed: 03/16/2015
• Published: 12/17/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 05/08/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Lambert, Christopher, Seth, Rohan, Chu, Mike
• Granted Patent: US 9,953,047 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3682 output of POI information on a road map G01C21/3614, G01C21/3685 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/021 Calibration, monitoring or correction G01S5/0252 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0244 Accuracy or reliability of position solution or of measurements contributing thereto
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2228 Indexing structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/23 Updating
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/955 using information identifiers, e.g. uniform resource locators [URL]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/18 Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals

Abstract

The present invention pertains to enhancement or refinement of estimated locations based upon user-specific information. Upon user authorization, geographical information is extracted from a number of user-related sources, including the web browser history, search history, maps history, address book, e-mail archives and calendar entries. Such information is used to build a spatial index of specific physical locations for a geocoded result set. From this, heat maps identifying particular locations from the user-related sources are created for different periods of time. The heat maps may be used to refine an initial location estimate of the user. This may be done by determining whether one or more positions in a given heat map provide a more accurate position of the user than the initial estimate. If so, a best position is selected. This can be used to provide enhanced driving directions to the user.

Claims

1. A method for refining a user'"'"'s location, the method comprising:

receiving, by one or more processors, location signals comprising geographical information associated with the user;

associating, by the one or more processors, the location signals with geographical tags, temporal information, and confidence scores within an index;

receiving, by the one or more processors, a current estimated location of the user at a current time;

determining, by the one or more processors, based on the confidence score associated with the geographical tags, whether one or more of the geographical tags provides a more accurate location than the estimated current location at the current time; and

in response to determining that one or more of the geographical tags provides a more accurate location than the estimated current location, selecting the geographical tags with the highest confidence score, over the estimated current location, as a refined position of the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the location signals are received from one or more databases, wherein the databases include at least one of the user'"'"'s calendar entry data, an email archive data, address book data, maps history data, search history data, and web browsing history data.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the confidence scores are adjusted based on the database from which the location signal is received.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the geographical tags maintained in the index correspond to latitude and longitude coordinates of physical addresses.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more processors are operable to present the refined position on a display device.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the refined position of the user is selected based upon a timeliness ranking representing how often the estimated current location appears in the index at a given point in time.

7. A method for refining physical location information for a place of interest, comprising:

analyzing at least one electronic database containing information about one or more activities associated with a person that interacts with one or more devices, to determine whether the at least one electronic database includes geographical information for the one or more activities;

extracting a result set from the at least one electronic database, the result set including the geographical information;

performing geopoint extraction on the result set to obtain specific physical locations for each item of geographical information in the result set;

constructing, by a processor, a spatial index containing the specific physical locations, geographical tags, and time information for one or more of the specific physical locations;

ranking, by the processor, results in the spatial index to indicate a confidence in the specific physical locations;

estimating, by the processor, a current location of the person;

determining, by the processor, whether one or more of the specific physical locations provides a more accurate location than the estimated current location; and

in response to determining that one or more of the specific physical locations provides a more accurate location than the estimated current location, selecting the specific physical location with the highest confidence as a refined position of the user.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the confidence is determined by accuracy of the geopoint extraction.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the time information indicates at least one of a time an event occurred and a time that selected information about the event expired.

10. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

creating at least one heat map based upon the time information, the at least one heat map containing selected ones of the specific physical locations based upon the time information, wherein different heat maps display different ones of the selected specific physical locations based upon the ranked results in the spatial index; and

presenting at least one of the heat maps on a display device.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the specific physical locations maintained in the spatial index correspond to latitude and longitude coordinates of physical addresses.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein each heat map presents the selected ones of the specific physical locations displays as ranked points of interest based upon the time information.

13. The method of claim 7, wherein searching the at least one electronic database further includes searching for geographical data contained in web pages and search histories.

14. A processing system for refining a user'"'"'s location, comprising:

at least one processor;

a geolocation module associated with the at least one processor; and

memory for storing data, the memory operatively coupled to the at least one processor;

wherein the geolocation module is configured to;

receive location signals comprising geographical information associated with a user;

associate, the location signals with geographical tags, temporal information, and confidence scores within an index;

receive, a current estimated location of the user at a current time;

determine, based on the confidence score associated with the geographical tags, whether one or more of the geographical tags provides a more accurate location than the estimated current location at the current time; and

in response to determining that one or more of the geographical tags provide a more accurate location than the estimated current location, selecting the geographical tags with the highest confidence score, over the estimated current location, as a refined position of the user.

15. The processing system of claim 14, wherein the location signals are received from one or more databases, wherein the databases include at least one of the user'"'"'s calendar entry data, an email archive data, address book data, maps history data, search history data, and web browsing history data.

16. The processing system of claim 15, wherein the confidence scores are adjusted based on the database from which the location signal is received.

17. The processing system of claim 14 wherein the geographical tags maintained in the index correspond to latitude and longitude coordinates of physical addresses.

18. The processing system of claim 14, wherein the at least one processor are operable to present the refined position on a display device.

19. The processing system of claim 14, wherein the confidence is determined by accuracy of the source of the location signals.

20. The processing system of claim 14, wherein the refined position of the user is selected based upon a timeliness ranking representing how often the estimated current location appears in the index at a given point in time.