Strategically providing event notifications in light of multiple nearby devices

• US 8,347,317 B1
• Filed: 01/14/2009
• Issued: 01/01/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 01/14/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: T-Mobile Innovations LLC (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Original Assignee: Sprint Communications Company LP (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Inventors: Miller, Kristen, Balaji, Thenthiruperai Srinivasan, Kates, Jesse Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): Sough, S.
• Assistant Examiner(s): SEYE, ABDOU K
• Application Number:
  US12/353,739
• Time in Patent Office: 1,448 Days
• Field of Search: 719/318
• US Class Current: 719/318
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication

Abstract

Systems, products, and methods are disclosed for performing a method of intelligently providing notification of an occurrence of an event in an environment in which potentially multiple devices might provide notification of the event; thereby reducing the number of devices that will provide the notification if those devices are nearby each other.

Claims

1. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media having computer-useable instructions embodied thereon that, when executed, enable a given device to perform a method of intelligently providing notification of an occurrence of an event, the method comprising:

providing a data structure embodied on a computer-storage medium within the given device,

(1) wherein the data structure stores notification information related to a set of particular devices, which set includes one or more particular devices including the given device,

(2) wherein the notification information describes which of the one or more particular devices is to provide notification of the occurrence of the event, and

(3) wherein the notification information is derived based on a proximity of the one or more particular devices to each other;

receiving at the given device an indication of the occurrence of the event, wherein the given device is configured, without the data structure, to present a given notification of the event;

determining whether the given device is to provide notification of the event even though it is otherwise configured to present the given notification without the data structure, in which case the device would normally present the given notification, wherein determining whether the given device is to provide the notification comprises at least one of referencing the data structure and referencing a configuration setting that indicates whether the given notification should be suppressed, wherein referencing the data structure includes inspecting the notification information to determine whether the notification information indicates that the given device is to suppress the given notification, and wherein referencing the configuration setting includes referencing a single bit, whose value indicates whether the given notification should be suppressed;

if the given device is to provide notification of the event, then presenting the given notification; and

if the device is not to provide notification, then suppressing the given notification.

2. The media of claim 1, wherein the notification information indicates a hierarchal arrangement of the one or more particular devices that indicates an order in which each of the one or more particular devices, if within the threshold proximity, is to provide the notification, wherein the proximity might be one of a plurality of proximities.

3. The media of claim 2, wherein the proximity of the one or more particular devices is determined by a proximity-detection component.

4. The media of claim 3, wherein the proximity-detection component includes one or more of:

a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag reader;

a global positioning system (GPS) device; and

a short-range wireless communicator.

5. The media of claim 4, wherein the short-range wireless communicator includes one or more of:

a communicator adapted to communicate via a variation of the Bluetooth technology; and

a near-field-communication (NFC) device.

6. The media of claim 1, wherein the proximity is on the order of meters.

7. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media having computer-useable instructions embodied thereon for enabling a computing device to facilitate a method of leveraging one or more user devices to intelligently provide notification of an occurrence of an event, the method comprising:

receiving an indication that a first device is within a first threshold proximity of a second device, wherein the first and second devices are capable of providing a notification of an occurrence of an event;

based on the indication, determining which of the first and second devices is to present the notification if the event occurs, wherein determining which of the first and second devices is to present the notification comprises at least one of referencing a data structure and referencing a configuration setting that indicates which of the first and second devices is to present the notification, wherein referencing the data structure includes inspecting notification information to determine whether the notification information indicates which of the first and second devices is to present the notification, and wherein referencing the configuration setting indicates which of the first and second devices is to present the notification; and

communicating to the first and to the second device information that indicates which of the first and second devices is to present the notification if the event occurs, such that upon a happening of the event, each of the first and second devices provides notification consistent with the information.

8. The media of claim 7, wherein determining which of the first and second devices is to present the notification includes determining that both of the first and second devices are to present the notification.

9. The media of claim 8, further comprising receiving an indication that a third device is within a second threshold proximity of either the first or second device, and based on the second proximity, updating the information.

10. The media of claim 8, further comprising receiving an indication that the event has occurred and presenting the notification consistent with the information.

11. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media having computer-useable instructions embodied thereon for performing a method of intelligently providing notification of an occurrence of an event in an environment in which potentially multiple devices might provide notification of the event, the environment including a first device and a second device, the method comprising:

determining that the first device has moved within a threshold proximity of the second device;

incident to the determining, updating a data structure that stores notification information,

(1) wherein the data structure is stored on a computer-readable media of the first device,

(2) wherein the notification information indicates whether the first device should suppress a given notification of the event incident to an occurrence of the event,

(3) wherein the notification information includes an indicator that supersedes other notification-configuration settings of the first device, which settings would normally operate to provide the given notification independent of the proximity to the second device;

presenting on a display device of said first device an indication of a status of said data structure; and

determining whether the first device is to present the given notification by at least one of referencing the data structure and referencing a configuration setting that indicates whether the given notification should be suppressed, wherein referencing the data structure includes inspecting the notification information to determine whether the notification information indicates that the first device is to suppress the given notification, and wherein referencing the configuration setting includes referencing a single bit, whose value indicates whether the given notification should be suppressed.

12. The media of claim 11, further comprising receiving an indication that the event has occurred.

13. The media of claim 12, further comprising presenting the given notification consistent with the notification information in the data structure.

14. The media of claim 13, wherein the presenting includes suppressing the given notification if the first device is within the proximity to the second device and is ordered lower than the second device.

15. The media of claim 14, wherein the presenting further includes one or more of:

presenting the given notification if the first device is within the proximity to the second device and is not ordered lower than the second device;

presenting the given notification if the first device is beyond the proximity to the second device; and

presenting the given notification if an override configuration is present, wherein the override configuration overrides the notification information of the data structure.

16. The media of claim 11, further comprising determining that the first device has moved beyond the threshold proximity of the second device.

17. The media of claim 16 further comprising updating the data structure to indicate that the first and second devices are no longer sufficiently nearby to make a determination as to whether the given notification should be suppressed by virtue of a distance between the first and second devices.