Service provisioning through a smart personal gateway device

• US 9,503,835 B2
• Filed: 06/11/2014
• Issued: 11/22/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/13/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Fleck, Rod G., Westerinen, William J., Badyal, Rajeev, Barnes, Philip L., Vishwanathan, Vijayanand
• Primary Examiner(s): Wu, Jianye
• Application Number:
  US14/302,323
• Publication Number:
  US 20140369275A1
• Time in Patent Office: 895 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/50 Service provisioning or reconfiguring
• 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 72/04 Wireless resource allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/005 Discovery of network devices, e.g. terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/10 Small scale networks; Flat hierarchical networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/16 Gateway arrangements

Abstract

Embodiments include a smart personal gateway device (SPGD) that augments the capabilities of smart personal devices (SPDs) connected in a personal area network (PAN). The SPGD implements services for the SPDs using computing resources of the SPGD. In some embodiments, the SPGD provides carrier-grade voice services to SPDs lacking hardware to support such services (e.g., SPDs supporting Wi-Fi only).

Claims

1. A system for augmenting capabilities of smart personal devices (SPDs), said system comprising:

a smart personal gateway device (SPGD) having computing resources associated therewith, the computing resources including at least an SPGD memory area and an SPGD processor, the SPGD memory area storing a catalog of services offered by a plurality of smart personal devices (SPDs) within a personal area network (PAN) to the SPGD, the SPGD processor programmed to;

detect the SPDs are within a physical range of the PAN to directly communicate with the SPGD;

provide the catalog of services from the SPGD to the SPDs within the physical range of the PAN;

receive a request from at least one of the SPDs within the physical range of the PAN and in direct communication with the SPGD for a service provided to the catalog by another SPD within the physical range of the PAN and in direct communication with the SPGD; and

perform the requested service of said another SPD for said requesting at least one of the SPDs using the computing resources of the SPGD.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the catalog of services includes at least one of:

communication services, authentication services, or location services.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the communication services comprise at least one of:

cellular voice services, cellular data services, or short messaging system (SMS) services provided from the at least one of the SPDs through the SPGD over the PAN.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the catalog of services includes at least one of:

storage services, inertial motion services, or user interface services.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the storage services include at least one of:

media library storage, file system storage, calendar storage, or address book storage.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the catalog of services includes at least one of:

audio capture, video capture, image capture, visual display, audio rendering, video rendering, or image rendering.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the SPDs include at least one of:

a slab device, a watch, or glasses.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the slab device comprises at least one of a mobile telephone, a tablet, or a laptop.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one SPD lacks cellular voice services, wherein the computing resources of the SPGD further include a cellular modem and a communication stack, and wherein the at least one SPD makes a telephone call via the SPGD.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the SPGD further includes a near field communication (NFC) radio and coil, the SPGD processor being further programmed to perform financial transactions on behalf of the plurality of SPDs.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the SPGD further includes a projector, instead of a screen, for displaying data to a user associated with the PAN.

12. A method comprising:

detecting a smart personal gateway device (SPGD) is within a physical distance of a personal area network (PAN) to directly communicate with a first smart personal device (SPD), the first SPD comprising a mobile computing device;

accessing, by the first SPD directly from the SPGD, a catalog of services provided to the SPGD from one or more other SPDs within the physical distance of the PAN to the SPGD;

selecting, by the first SPD, at least one of the services from the catalog accessible over the PAN through the SPGD, the selected at least one of the services being provided to the SPGD from a second SPD within the physical distance of the PAN to directly communicate with the SPGD; and

providing, from the first SPD to the SPGD over the PAN, data relating to the selected at least one of the services, wherein the SPGD performs, using the provided data, the selected at least one of the services on behalf of the first SPD using computing resources associated with the SPGD.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising receiving, from the SPGD, data related to performance of the at least one of the services using the provided data.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the received data represents data received by the SPGD from a wide area network (WAN), wherein the first SPD receives the data related to performance of the at least one of the services from the SPGD while the first SPD and the SPGD are within the physical range of the PAN.

15. The method of claim 12, further comprising registering, by the second SPD, one or more services with the SPGD.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein selecting the at least of the services comprises subscribing to the one or more services.

17. Computer storage memory embodying computer-executable components, said components comprising:

a discovery component associated with a smart personal gateway device (SPGD) that when executed causes at least one processor to detect one or more smart personal devices (SPDs) within a physical range, relative to the SPGD, of a personal area network (PAN);

a catalog component that when executed causes the at least one processor to provide identification of a set of services of the SPDs within the physical range of the PAN detected by the discovery component;

a communications interface component that when executed causes the at least one processor to receive a request from one of the SPDs within the physical range of the PAN for at least one of the services, the received request including data relating to the requested service; and

a provisioning component that when executed causes the at least one processor to perform, by the SPGD on behalf of the SPD using computing resources associated with the SPGD, the requested service using the received data from said one of the SPDs.

18. The computer storage memory of claim 17, wherein the discovery component further searches for at least one additional SPD within a predefined range of the SPGD and detects the additional SPD in response to the searching, and further comprising a security component for authenticating the detected, additional SPD, the catalog component further providing identification of the set of services to the authenticated, additional SPD.

19. The computer storage memory of claim 17, wherein the provisioning component performs the requested service to act as an endpoint for wide area network services and to act as a server to the SPD for the wide area network services.

20. The computer storage memory of claim 17, wherein the SPGD further:

caches electronic mail messages received from an electronic mail service;

identifies one or more of the SPDs subscribed to the electronic mail service; and

notifies the identified SPDs of the cached electronic mail messages.