Mobile communication device maintaining lifetrails in a battery efficient manner
First Claim
1. A method of recording a history of locations visited by a mobile communication device, comprising:
- for each of a plurality of locations visited by the mobile communication device, while being located within a coverage area served by at least one signal source, wirelessly receiving a beacon signal from a plurality of signal sources having overlapping coverage areas and extracting a plurality of beacon IDs therefrom;
selecting a subset of the plurality of beacon IDs to be transmitted to a server;
upon occurrence of a predetermined event, transmitting the subset of the plurality of beacon IDs and timestamps associated therewith to the server; and
receiving from the server a location fix of each of the signal sources identified by the beacon IDs that have been obtained, said mobile communication device being located within a region surrounding the location fix equal to the coverage area,wherein the subset of the plurality of beacon IDs is selected so that each signal source identified by a beacon ID in the subset operates in accordance with a different protocol.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method is used to develop and maintain a user'"'"'s lifetrail, which is a historical record specifying the location of the user while in possession of a mobile communication device. A mobile device determines its current location by extracting a beacon ID from a signal source and transmitting it to a remotely-located server, which accesses a look-up table to find the corresponding location of the signal source represented by the beacon ID. The location may be specified in accordance with a spatial compression technique. The server transmits the signal source location back to the mobile device so that the mobile device knows that it is located within the coverage area of the signal source. Battery power is conserved by collecting the beacon IDs when it is receiving the beacon signals for some other purpose and not necessarily solely for the purpose of determining its current location. Battery power can be further conserved by deferring the resolution of the beacon IDs so that they are not necessarily associated with their corresponding location when they are received, but only at some later convenient time. In some cases resolution of the beacon IDs may be performed using social graph data received from a social network.
19 Citations
15 Claims
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1. A method of recording a history of locations visited by a mobile communication device, comprising:
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for each of a plurality of locations visited by the mobile communication device, while being located within a coverage area served by at least one signal source, wirelessly receiving a beacon signal from a plurality of signal sources having overlapping coverage areas and extracting a plurality of beacon IDs therefrom; selecting a subset of the plurality of beacon IDs to be transmitted to a server; upon occurrence of a predetermined event, transmitting the subset of the plurality of beacon IDs and timestamps associated therewith to the server; and receiving from the server a location fix of each of the signal sources identified by the beacon IDs that have been obtained, said mobile communication device being located within a region surrounding the location fix equal to the coverage area, wherein the subset of the plurality of beacon IDs is selected so that each signal source identified by a beacon ID in the subset operates in accordance with a different protocol. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A server for determining a plurality of locations visited by a mobile communication device, comprising:
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a locator component configured to receive from the mobile communication device over a communication network a plurality of IDs each identifying at least one signal source having a coverage area in which the mobile communication device is currently or was previously located and a timestamp associated with each of the plurality of IDs; a signal source reference database configured to store a plurality of signal source IDs associated with a respective location of said signal sources; a lifetrail database for storing a lifetrail record associated with the mobile communication device, said lifetrail record including a history of locations and timestamps associated therewith previously visited by the mobile communication device; and computer-implemented processing logic to compare each of the plurality of IDs received from the mobile communication device to the signal source IDs stored in the signal source reference database, and if a match is found, adding the matching location and timestamp associated therewith to the lifetrail record associated with the mobile communication device, wherein the locator component is further configured to receive the social graph data associated with a user of the mobile communication device, wherein the social graph data maps the user to other users to which the user is connected through a social network, at least one of the locations of one of said signal sources included in the signal source reference database being determined from social graph data received by the locator component, and wherein the location information determined from the social graph data is used to annotate the lifetrail record of the mobile communication device. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10)
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11. One or more computer-readable memory devices, containing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors perform a method for recording a history of locations visited by a mobile communication device comprising the steps of:
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for each of a plurality of locations visited by the mobile communication device, receiving over a communications network an ID identifying at least one signal source while being located within a coverage area served by the at least one signal source; resolving each of the IDs identifying at least one signal source to determine a location of a corresponding signal source; and creating a lifetrail record associated with the mobile communication device, said lifetrail record including a history of previous locations visited by the mobile communication device as determined from locations of signal sources identified by the IDs that have been received from the mobile communication device, wherein resolving each of the IDs includes resolving at least one of the IDs from social graph data received from a social network, wherein the social graph data maps a user to other users to which the user is connected through the social network, and wherein location information determined from the social graph data is used to annotate the lifetrail record associated with the mobile communication device. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15)
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Specification