Ad-hoc community context awareness for mobile device

• US 9,813,875 B2
• Filed: 03/31/2016
• Issued: 11/07/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Ceker, Hayreddin, Aydin, Bahadir I, Sevincer, Abdullah
• Primary Examiner(s): PATEL, MAHENDRA R
• Application Number:
  US15/087,038
• Publication Number:
  US 20170289769A1
• Time in Patent Office: 586 Days
• Field of Search: 455410, 455310, 4554141, 4554563, 709201, 705 51
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• 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 4/30 Services specially adapted for particular environments, situations or purposes

Abstract

Aspects of the disclosure are directed to solutions for determining context for a mobile computing device. The context represents a current user activity or environment in which the mobile device is used. The device generates a query for transmission to a remote community context service in response to a determined need to obtain community context information, such as when the device is unable to determine context with a sufficient confidence measure. Community context information is obtained from the remote community context service. The community context information is based on a remote context determination of at least one other mobile computing device determined to be similarly situated to the first computing device. The device'"'"'s current context may be updated based on the community context information.

Claims

1. A system for determining context in a first mobile computing device, the system comprising hardware including a processor and a data store containing instructions that, when executed, cause the computing hardware to implement:

a context indication manager module to store current context representing a current user activity or environment in which the first mobile computing device is used;

a decision module to generate a query for transmission to a remote community context service; and

a communicator module to obtain community context information from the remote community context service, the community context information being based on a remote context determination of a second mobile computing device determined to be similarly situated to the first mobile computing device according to community membership criteria;

wherein the context indication manager module is to update the indication of the current context based on the community context information.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the decision module is to generate the query in response to a determined need to obtain community context information.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a context detector module to determine the current context based on a plurality of inputs from data capture devices and based on context criteria, the context detector to further assess a confidence score for the current context.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the decision module is to apply confidence-based decision criteria to the confidence score in order to determine the need to obtain the community context information.

5. The system of claim 3, further comprising:

a context fusion module to combine the community context information with the determined current context to produce an updated current context indication.

6. The system of claim 3, wherein the data capture devices are sensors of the first mobile computing device, and further comprising:

an input module to obtain sensor data from the plurality of sensors and pass the sensor data to the context detector module.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the second mobile computing device similarly-situated to the first mobile computing device is part of a community comprising a plurality of mobile computing devices within a defined spatial proximity of one another.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the second mobile computing device similarly-situated to the first mobile computing device is part of a community comprising a plurality of mobile computing devices within a defined spatial proximity of one another and having similar reported context according to applied context similarity criteria.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the community context information includes context information derived from a plurality of individual context determinations by a plurality of similarly-situated mobile computing devices.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the community context information includes context information selected from among plurality of individual context determinations by the plurality of similarly-situated mobile computing devices based on respective confidence level determinations of the individual context determinations.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the community context information includes confidence scoring of the remote context determination.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the context indication manager module is to further report the indication of the current context to the remote community context service in response to a change of location of the first mobile computing device.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the context indication manager module is to further report the indication of the current context to the remote community context service in response to a change in the current indication of the current context of the first mobile computing device.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the indication of the current context is stored as a state vector.

15. A method for determining context for a first mobile computing device, the method comprising:

storing, by the first mobile computing device, current context representing a current user activity or environment in which the first mobile computing device is used;

generating, by the first mobile computing device, a query for transmission to a remote community context service;

obtaining, by the first mobile computing device, community context information from the remote community context service, the community context information being based on a remote context determination of a second mobile computing device determined to be similarly situated to the first mobile computing device according to community membership criteria; and

updating, by the first mobile computing device, the indication of the current context based on the community context information.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

determining, by the first mobile computing device, the current context based on a plurality of inputs from data capture devices and based on context criteria, and on an assessment of a confidence score for the current context.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

applying, by the first mobile computing device, confidence-based decision criteria to the confidence score in order to determine the need to obtain the community context information.

18. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

combining, by the first mobile computing device, the community context information with the determined current context to produce an updated current context indication.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

reporting, by the first mobile computing device, the indication of the current context to the remote community context service in response to a change of location of the first mobile computing device.

20. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

reporting, by the first mobile computing device, indication of the current context to the remote community context service in response to a change in the current indication of the current context of the first mobile computing device.

21. At least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium containing instructions that, when executed on computing hardware of a server, cause the server to perform operations comprising:

storing reported context received from a plurality of remote mobile computing devices;

classifying the remote mobile computing devices into a plurality of ad-hoc communities based on reported current locations of the remote mobile computing devices;

receiving a community-context request from a first mobile computing device;

classifying the first mobile computing device into a first ad-hoc community of the plurality of ad-hoc communities based on a location of the first mobile computing device;

retrieving a portion of the reported context that corresponds to a second mobile computing device classified in the first ad-hoc community; and

sending community-context information to the first mobile computing device, the community-context information being based on the portion of the reported context.

22. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 21, wherein the reported context from each of the plurality of remote mobile computing devices represents a current user activity or environment in which that mobile device is used.

23. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 21, wherein the reported context from each of the plurality of remote mobile computing devices includes a confidence score.

24. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 23, further comprising:

instructions for classifying the remote mobile computing devices into the plurality of ad-hoc communities based further on the confidence score of the reported context from each of the plurality of remote mobile computing devices.

25. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 23, further comprising:

instructions for adjusting the confidence score of the reported context from each of the remote mobile computing devices based on a duration that the remote mobile computing device has been classified in its current ad-hoc community.