Providing information to users based on context

• US 8,818,981 B2
• Filed: 10/15/2010
• Issued: 08/26/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/15/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Aftab, Omar, Jafry, Syed Mansoor, Jaffri, Taqi
• Primary Examiner(s): Leroux, Etienne
• Assistant Examiner(s): BIBBEE, JARED M
• Application Number:
  US12/905,323
• Publication Number:
  US 20120095979A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,411 Days
• Field of Search: 707/706, 707/723, 707/732
• US Class Current: 707/706
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24575 using context
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/56 Unified messaging, e.g. interactions between e-mail, instant messaging or converged IP messaging [CPM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/58 Message adaptation for wireless communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• 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 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services

Abstract

Selecting and providing context information relevant to a user at a particular time and location. Input parameters such as a location and time are selected. Context information is obtained for the selected location and time based on the input parameters. Exemplary input parameters include a user activity history, user content such as calendar appointments, social networking data, and a state of a computing device of the user (e.g., as collected by sensors of the computing device). The computing device of the user presents the obtained context information to the user at the selected location and time.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a memory area associated with a mobile computing device of a user, said memory area storing a plurality of applications; and

a processor programmed to;

receive a request for context information from at least one of the applications;

determine a location of the mobile computing device and a time value associated with the determined location;

identify one or more contacts proximate to the mobile computing device;

obtain one or more items of context information for the user based at least on the determined location, time value, and identified contacts, wherein each of the items has a weight value associated therewith, each weight value representing a degree of relevancy of each of the one or more items of context information to the user at the determined location and time value;

filter the obtained items based on the weight values to identify items more relevant to the user of said at least one of the applications compared to other items;

provide the filtered items more relevant to the user of said at least one of the applications at a time corresponding to the time value;

order the at least one of the applications, provided with the filtered items more relevant to the user of said at least one of the applications, higher over one or more other applications on the mobile computing device based at least on the determined location and the time value;

promote, based on the context information, at least one of the identified contacts over other contacts in said at least one of the applications stored in the memory area; and

provide, when providing the contacts for display, an ordered list of communication channels for each of the contacts based on a frequency of use of the communication channels.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is further programmed to change a status or mode of the mobile computing device based on the provided filtered items.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is further programmed to determine the weight values, the weight values being relative weight values determined by comparing the determined location of the mobile computing device with location information associated with the obtained items of context information.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is programmed to determine the weight values based on one or more of the following:

explicit user preferences and inferred user preferences.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is programmed to provide the filtered items by storing the filtered items in the memory area, and wherein said at least one of the applications retrieves the filtered items from the memory area.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising means for obtaining and providing the context information to the user at the time corresponding to the time value, wherein the context information is updated periodically and less relevant context information is removed.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising means for providing only the context information that is relevant to the user at the time corresponding to the time value and while the mobile computing device is in the determined location.

8. A method comprising:

identifying a location of a computing device of a user;

determining a time value associated with the identified location;

filtering context information for the user based at least on the identified location and the determined time value;

providing the filtered context information to the user of at least one application at a time corresponding to the determined time value;

ordering the at least one application, provided with the filtered context information, higher over one or more other applications on the computing device based at least on the identified location and the determined time value;

identifying one or more contacts proximate to the computing device;

promoting, based on the provided filtered context information, at least one of the identified contacts over other contacts in at least one application available on the computing device; and

providing, when displaying the contacts, an ordered list of communication channels for each of the contacts based on a frequency of use of the communication channels.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein determining the time value comprises determining one or more of the following:

a current time, a future time, and a quantity of time units.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein identifying the location of the computing device comprises identifying a location where the computing device is expected to be at a future time.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the filtered context information comprises one or more items, and wherein each of the items has a weight value associated therewith.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising filtering the context information based on the weight values to identify relevant items, and wherein providing the context information comprises providing the relevant items to the user.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein filtering the context information comprises filtering the context information based on one or more of the following:

people, places, content, and sensors associated with the computing device.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising obtaining the context information from one or more of the following:

electronic mail messages, calendar entries, contact entries, text messages, content feeds, images, documents, and songs.

15. The method of claim 8, wherein providing the filtered context information to the user comprises providing the filtered context information to the application executing on the computing device, and wherein the application presents the filtered context information to the user at the time corresponding to the determined time value, the application comprising one or more of the following:

a web browser, an applet, and a client portion of a web service.

16. The method of claim 8, further comprising obtaining the context information by searching one or more of the following:

social networks and online data stores.

17. One or more computer storage media storing computer-executable components, said components comprising:

a calendar component that when executed by at least one processor of a computing device of a user causes the at least one processor to select a time value;

a positioning system component that when executed by at least one processor of the computing device causes the at least one processor to determine a location of the computing device at a time corresponding to the time value selected by the calendar component;

a sensor component that when executed by at least one processor of the computing device causes the at least one processor to collect data from one or more sensors associated with the computing device, the sensor component identifying one or more contacts proximate to the computing device;

a search engine component that when executed by at least one processor of the computing device causes the at least one processor to obtain context information for the user based at least on the time value selected by the calendar component, the location determined by the positioning system component, and the data collected by the sensor component; and

a user interface component that when executed by at least one processor of the computing device causes the at least one processor to present the context information obtained by the search engine component to the user only at a time corresponding to the selected time value and rank higher an application, associated with the context information obtained by the search engine component, over one or more other applications executing on the computing device based at least on the determined location and the selected time value, the application ranked higher being more relevant compared to the one or more other applications at the determined location and the selected time value, wherein the user interface component provides, when presenting the identified contacts, an ordered list of communication channels for each of the identified contacts based on a frequency of use of the communication channels.

18. The computer storage media of claim 17, wherein the calendar component selects the time value based on one or more of the following:

an upcoming calendar entry and user activity history.

19. The computer storage media of claim 17, wherein the search engine component communicates with a web-based search engine to obtain the context information.

20. The computer storage media of claim 17, wherein the user interface component presents the context information to the user through the application, associated with the context information obtained by the search engine component, executing on the computing device, wherein the context information is related to the application.