Method and system for a personal network

• US 9,705,736 B2
• Filed: 03/04/2015
• Issued: 07/11/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 03/14/2014
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Andrew Wang, Borwyn Anne Wang, Ray Wang
• Original Assignee: Borwyn Anne Wang
• Inventors: Wang, Borwyn Anne, Wang, Andrew, Wang, Ray
• Primary Examiner(s): Levitan, Dmitry H
• Application Number:
  US14/638,843
• Publication Number:
  US 20150263886A1
• Time in Patent Office: 860 Days
• Field of Search: 370254, 370310, 370400, 370422, 370465
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2809 indicating that an appliance service is present in a home automation network monitoring functionality H04L43/0817; discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services, H04L67/51
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4633 Interconnection of networks using encapsulation techniques, e.g. tunneling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/2841 Wireless
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/08 Configuration management of networks or network elements address allocation H04L61/50
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/28 Restricting access to network management systems or functions, e.g. using authorisation function to access network configuration
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/34 Signalling channels for network management communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0272 Virtual private networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/16 Implementing security features at a particular protocol layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/162 at the data link layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/164 at the network layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/168 above the transport layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/02 Protecting privacy or anonymity, e.g. protecting personally identifiable information [PII]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/03 Protecting confidentiality, e.g. by encryption
• 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: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

A method and system for a personal network. The method and system includes plural mobile location-aware client network devices with minimal CPU processing power and memory with a thin client application that uses secure tunneling/threads to send data to/from a home server network device and/or other server network devices on a personal network. The client devices can be voice activated. The home server network device and/or other server network devices do computational services requested by the plural mobile client network devices on demand and/or pre-programmed services. The secure tunneling/threads are also used across cloud and non-cloud communications network to/from other network devices and/or other mobile client network devices via the home network servers or other server network devices.

Claims

1. A personal network system, comprising in combination:

a communications network;

one or more mobile location-aware network devices each with one or more processors and a thin client personal network application in a non-transitory computer readable medium, including a network address, a device type, a unique device identifier, a display type, a current geographic location, power level information including power levels of receive and transmit signals of the one or more mobile location-aware network devices, voice activation information and signal strength information including cell tower signals, global positioning system (GPS) signals and Radio Frequency (RF) signals;

one or more server network devices each with one or more processors and an intelligent server personal network application in a non-transitory computer readable medium connected to the communications network,

the intelligent server personal network application including an intelligent application for managing a personal network topology, for managing the voice activation information, for maintaining a current state for the one or more mobile location-aware network devices comprising;

on-line, off-line, connected, asleep, awake, monitoring, not monitoring, display on, display off, location-aware-on or location aware-off, and maintaining a current geographic location for the one or more mobile location-aware network devices, for receiving, storing and sending electronic information for the one or more mobile location-aware network devices via the communications network, the electronic information including computational services information, the voice activation information and authentication information, authorization information, and security information for the one or more mobile location-aware devices; and

one or more secure communications channels connecting the one or more mobile location-aware network devices and the one or more server network devices over the communications network, the one or more communications channels comprising tunneled communications channels and threaded communication channels.

2. The personal network system of claim 1 wherein selected ones of the mobile location-aware network devices each has a unique identification for registering to a home or remote server when forming a personal network, wherein the thin client personal network application and the intelligent server application manage the state of the one or more mobile location-aware network devices registration over a life cycle of a personal network.

3. The personal network system of claim 1 wherein the communications network includes a wired communications, a wireless communications network.

4. The personal network system of claim 1 wherein the communications network includes a cloud communications network and the intelligent server personal network application on the server network devices stores electronic information received from the one or more thin client personal network applications on the mobile location-aware network devices in a plurality of cloud storage objects, wherein the plurality of cloud storage objects include a plurality of cloud storage objects stored with REpresentational State Transfer (REST) protocol, Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), or Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP).

5. The personal network system of claim 1 wherein the one or more mobile location-aware network devices include, voice-activated devices, a display, desk top computers, laptop computers, tablet computers, mobile phones, three-dimensional (3D) printer, robots, smart phones, Internet phones, Internet appliances, personal digital/data assistants (PDA), digital cameras, portable game consoles, game consoles, cable television (CATV), satellite television (SATV) and Internet television set-top boxes, digital televisions including high definition television (HDTV), three-dimensional (3DTV) televisions, health monitoring devices, fitness devices, wearable devices, disposable devices, treadmills, exercise bicycles, remote controls and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

6. The personal network system of claim 1 wherein the one or more mobile location-aware network devices include an integrated circuit (IC) comprising a System-on-Chip (SoC) including a processor, a non-transitory computer readable memory, a wireless connection component, a voice coder/decoder (CODEC) component, a location component, a speaker component, a microphone component, the SoC connectable to a display component.

7. The personal network system of claim 6 wherein one or more mobile location-aware network devices with the SoC include wearable mobile location-aware network devices.

8. The personal network system of claim 1 wherein the one or more mobile location-network devices are voice activated.

9. The personal network system of claim 1 wherein the thin client personal network application sends a network address, a device type, a unique device identifier, a display type, a current geographic location and a first set of electronic information including power level information including power levels of receive and transmit signals of the one or more mobile location-aware network devices, voice activation information and signal strength information including cell tower signals, global positioning system (GPS) signals and timing signals, from a mobile location-aware network device via the communications network to the intelligent server personal network application on the server network device and the thin client personal network application receives a second set of electronic information including computational services information, the voice activation information and authentication information, authorization information, and security information back from the intelligent server personal network application on the server network device.

10. The personal network system of claim 1 wherein a thin client personal network application unique device identifier includes a unique Uniform Resource Locator (URL), Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), Uniform Resource Name (URN), an International Mobile Equipment Identifier (IMEI), a mobile device number, or a Medium Access Control (MAC) address and wherein the thin client personal network application network address includes an Internet Protocol (IP) address.

11. The personal network system of claim 1 wherein selected ones of the server network devices are located in a personal home location and other server network devices are located in a location other than the personal home location and selected ones of the mobile location-aware network devices are located in the personal home location and other selected ones of the mobile location-aware network devices are moving or located in a location other than on the personal home location.

12. The personal network system of claim 1 wherein the one or more secure communications channels comprising tunneled communications channels include Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) channels, Point-To-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) channels, Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) channels, Layer 2 Forwarding Protocol (L2F) channels or IP Security (IPsec) channels.

13. The personal network system of claim 1 wherein the one or more secure communications channels comprising secure threaded communications channels include sub-carrier, sub-frequency band, time-slot, logical, or channel hopped, secure threaded channels.

14. The personal network system of claim 1 wherein the personal network topology includes a physical personal network topology and a logical personal network topology for only known and trusted mobile location-aware network devices and wherein the personal network topology includes point-to-point, star, ring or circular, mesh, tree, hybrid, or daisy chain, physical or logical topologies.

15. The personal network system of claim 1 wherein the one or more location-aware network devices include network-based, application-based, Subscriber Identification Module (SIM)-based, Hybrid based, Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) based or Global Positioning System (GPS)-based, location awareness.

16. The personal network system of claim 1 wherein the mobile location-aware network device includes a Radio Frequency IDentifier (RFID) network device or a mesh network device.

17. The personal network system of claim 1 wherein the one or more mobile location-aware network devices include a wireless interface for wireless near field communications (NFC), machine-to-machine (M2M) communications or Bluetooth communications.

18. A method for communications on a personal network system, comprising:

sending a request message from a thin client personal network application on a mobile location-aware network device with one or more processors to an intelligent server personal network application on a home server network device with one or more processors via a personal communications network, wherein the request message includes a network address, a device type, a unique device identifier, a display type, a current geographic location and a first set of electronic information including voice activation information, power level information including power levels of receive and transmit signals of the mobile location-aware network device and signal strength information including cell tower signals, global positioning system (GPS) signals and Radio Frequency (RF) signals for the mobile location-aware network device;

creating from the intelligent server personal network application on the home server network device a communications tunnel via the personal communications network to thin client personal network application on the mobile location-aware network device;

sending from the intelligent server personal network application on the home server network device to the thin client personal network application on the mobile location-aware network device a response message via the created communications tunnel on the personal communications network, wherein the response message includes computational services information, the voice activation information and authentication information, authorization information, and security information; and

processing on the intelligent server personal network application on the home server network device one or more data messages received from the thin client personal network application on the mobile location-aware network device via created communications tunnel on the personal communications network.

19. A method for communications on a personal network system, comprising:

sending a voice activated request message from a thin client personal network application on a mobile location-aware network device with one or more processors to an intelligent server personal network application on a home server network device with one or more processors via a personal communications network, wherein the voice activated request message includes a network address, a device type, a unique device identifier, a display type, a current geographic location and a first set of electronic information including voice activation signal information, power level information including power levels of receive and transmit signals of the mobile location-aware network device and signal strength information including cell tower signals, global positioning system (GPS) signals and Radio Frequency (RF) signals for the mobile location-aware network device;

creating from the intelligent server personal network application on the home server network device a communications tunnel or a secure communications thread via the personal communications network to thin client personal network application on the mobile location-aware network device;

sending from the intelligent server personal network application on the home server network device to the thin client personal network application on the mobile location-aware network device a response message via the created communications tunnel or the created secure communications thread on the personal communications network, wherein the response message includes computational services information, the voice information and authentication, authorization, and security information; and

processing on the intelligent server personal network application on the home server network device one or more data messages received from the thin client personal network application on the mobile location-aware network device via created communications tunnel or the created secure communications thread on the personal communications network.

20. A method for communications on a personal network system, comprising:

receiving a device registration message from a thin client personal network application on a mobile location-aware network device with one or more processors on an intelligent server personal network application on a home server network device with one or more processors via a personal communications network,

wherein the device registration message includes at least a device type and network address, a unique device identifier, a display type, a current geographic location and a first set of electronic information including power level information including power levels of receive and transmit signals of the mobile location-aware network device, voice activation information and signal strength information including cell tower signals, global positioning system (GPS) signals and Radio Frequency (RF) signals for the mobile location-aware network device;

authenticating the mobile location-aware network device from intelligent server personal network application on the home server network device;

creating a communications tunnel from the intelligent server personal network application on the home server network device to the thin client personal network application on the authenticated mobile location-aware network device via the personal communications network;

sending one or more response messages from the intelligent server personal network application on the home server network device to the thin client personal network application on the authenticated mobile location-aware network device via the created communications tunnel on the personal communications network,

wherein the one or more response messages include one or more personal network services available to the authenticated mobile location-aware network device based on the received device type for the authenticated mobile location-aware network device and computational services information, the voice activation information, authentication information, authorization information, and security information;

receiving on the intelligent server personal network application on the home server network device one or more data messages received from the thin client personal network application on the authenticated mobile location-aware network device via created communications tunnel on the personal communications network,

wherein the one or more data messages include a request for one or more of the available services on the personal network; and

creating from intelligent server personal network application on the home server network device an entry in a physical or logical network topology on the personal network for the authenticated mobile location-aware network device based on the one or more services requested by the authenticated mobile location-aware network device.