Service discovery with beacons having ranked neighboring services

• US 9,432,465 B1
• Filed: 09/25/2015
• Issued: 08/30/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/25/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Bjorkengren, Ulf
• Primary Examiner(s): Aminzay, Shaima Q
• Application Number:
  US14/866,307
• Time in Patent Office: 340 Days
• Field of Search: 455/500, 455/404.2, 455/456.1, 340/10.1
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/16 Discovering, processing access restriction or access information

Abstract

Embodiments of techniques, apparatuses, systems and computer-readable media for consuming services for a user equipment (UE) apparatus are disclosed. In some embodiments, a first signal at a second signal are received respectively from a first and a second beacon apparatus, the signals indicating a service associated with the respective beacon apparatuses, and a list of neighboring services proximately disposed to the respective beacon apparatuses, a list is generated and displayed at the UE apparatus in accordance with ranking criterion of the lists and the first and second signal strengths of the first and second signals received at the UE. Other embodiments may be disclosed and/or claimed.

Claims

1. A user equipment, UE, apparatus for discovering services, comprising:

one or more processors;

receive logic to be operated by the one or more processors to respectively receive a first beacon signal and a second beacon signal from a first beacon apparatus and a second beacon apparatus, wherein the first beacon signal includes a first service being advertised by the first beacon apparatus for a first service provider, and a first plurality of neighboring services provided by a first plurality of neighboring service providers proximately located from the first service provider, ordered in accordance with a first ranking criterion, and wherein the second beacon signal includes a second service being advertised by the second beacon apparatus for a second service provider and a second plurality of neighboring services provided by a second plurality of service providers proximately located from the second service provider, ordered in accordance with a second ranking criterion; and

control logic to be operated by the one or more processors to generate and display a selectable list of services for discovery by a user of the UE apparatus, wherein the selectable list of services include the first and second services, and the first and second plurality of neighboring services ordered in accordance with the first and second ranking criterion, and respective first and second signal strengths of the first and second beacon signals.

2. The UE apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first ranking criterion is based on distances between the respective locations of the first plurality of neighboring service providers and a location of the first service provider associated with the first beacon apparatus.

3. The UE apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first and the second ranking criterion are the same.

4. The UE apparatus of claim 1, wherein the receive logic is to further receive a third beacon signal from a third beacon apparatus, wherein the third beacon signal includes a third service being advertised by the third beacon apparatus for a third service provider, and a third plurality of neighboring services provided by a third plurality of neighboring service providers proximately located from the third service provider;

ordered in accordance with a third ranking criterion.

5. The UE apparatus of claim 4, wherein the control logic is to further include with the selectable list of services the third service and the third plurality of neighboring services, further ordered in accordance with the third ranking criterion, and a third signal strength of the third beacon signal.

6. The UE apparatus of claim 1, wherein the control logic is further to cause information about a selected one of the selectable list of services to be provided to the UE apparatus.

7. The UE apparatus of claim 1, wherein the list of services for selection comprises a list of uniform resource locators, URLs.

8. A method for discovering services by a user equipment, UE, apparatus, the method comprising:

respectively receiving, by the UE apparatus, a first beacon signal and a second beacon signal from a first beacon apparatus and a second beacon apparatus, the first beacon signal including a first service being advertised by the first beacon apparatus for a first service provider, and a first plurality of neighboring services provided by a first plurality of neighboring service providers proximately located from the first service provider, ordered in accordance with a first ranking criterion, and the second beacon signal including a second service being advertised by the second beacon apparatus for a second service provider and a second plurality of neighboring services provided by a second plurality of service providers proximately located from the second service provider, ordered in accordance with a second ranking criterion;

generating and displaying, by the UE apparatus, a selectable list of services for discovering by a user of the UE apparatus, the selectable list of services including the first and second services, and the first and second plurality of neighboring services being ordered in accordance with the first and second ranking criterion, and respective first and second signal strengths of the first and second beacon signals.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the first ranking criterion is based on distances between the respective locations of the first plurality of neighboring services providers and a location of the first service provider associated with the first beacon apparatus.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the first and the second ranking criterion are the same.

11. The method of claim 8, further comprising receiving, by the UE apparatus, a third beacon signal from a third beacon apparatus, wherein the third beacon signal includes a third service being advertised by the third beacon apparatus for a third service provider, and a third plurality of neighboring services provided by a third plurality of neighboring service providers proximately located from the third service provider;

ordered in accordance with a third ranking criterion.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising including, by the UE apparatus, with the selectable list of services the third service and the third plurality of neighboring services, further ordered in accordance with the third ranking criterion, and a third signal strength of the third beacon signal.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the list of services for selecting comprises a list of uniform resource locators, URLs.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein a plurality of services in the list of services for selecting have the same URL with unique search strings appended to the URL.

15. The method of claim 8, further including receiving ranking criteria for the generated selectable list of services as input from a user of the UE apparatus, from storage on the UE apparatus, or from a computer server other than the UE apparatus.

16. The method of claim 8, wherein the first beacon signal includes a single URL.

17. The method of claim 8, wherein receiving a beacon signal further includes receiving the beacon signal using Bluetooth, Bluetooth low-energy, Wi-Fi, or cellular technology.

18. One or more computer-readable media comprising instructions that cause a computing device, in response to execution of the instructions by the computing device, to:

respectively receive, by a user equipment, UE, apparatus, a first beacon signal and a second beacon signal from a first beacon apparatus and a second beacon apparatus, the first beacon signal to include a first service advertised by the first beacon apparatus for a first service provider, and a first plurality of neighboring services provided by a first plurality of neighboring service providers proximately located from the first service provider, ordered in accordance with a first ranking criterion, and the second beacon signal including a second service advertised by the second beacon apparatus for a second service provider and a second plurality of neighboring services provided by a second plurality of service providers proximately located from the second service provider, ordered in accordance with a second ranking criterion;

generate and display, by the UE apparatus, a selectable list of services for discovering by a user of the UE apparatus, the selectable list of services including the first and second services, and the first and second plurality of neighboring services being ordered in accordance with the first and second ranking criterion, and respective first and second signal strengths of the first and second beacon signals.

19. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 18, wherein the first ranking criterion is based on distances between the respective locations of the first plurality of neighboring services providers and a location of the first service provider associated with the first beacon apparatus.

20. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 18, wherein the first and the second ranking criterion are the same.

21. The one or more computer readable media of claim 18, further comprising receive, by the UE apparatus, a third beacon signal from a third beacon apparatus, wherein the third beacon signal includes a third service advertised by the third beacon apparatus for a third service provider, and a third plurality of neighboring services provided by a third plurality of neighboring service providers proximately located from the third service provider;

ordered in accordance with a third ranking criterion.

22. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 18, further comprising to receive one or more additional ranking criteria to generate the selectable list of services as input from a user of the UE apparatus, from storage on the UE apparatus, or from a computer server other than the UE apparatus.

23. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 18, wherein the first beacon signal comprises a single URL.

24. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 18 wherein to receive a beacon signal is to receive the beacon signal using Bluetooth, Bluetooth low-energy, Wi-Fi, or cellular technology.