Power management of mobile clients using location-based services

• US 9,823,724 B2
• Filed: 07/03/2014
• Issued: 11/21/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 04/16/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Vaccari, Andrea, Jia, Yuntao, Bisht, Tushar, Ge, Jun, Moreels, Pierre
• Primary Examiner(s): LEE, THOMAS C
• Assistant Examiner(s): Wang, Zhipeng
• Application Number:
  US14/323,923
• Publication Number:
  US 20150301579A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,237 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3209 Monitoring remote activity, e.g. over telephone lines or network connections
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3215 Monitoring of peripheral devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/18 File system types
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24553 of query operations
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/28 Databases characterised by their database models, e.g. relational or object models
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/387 using geographical or spatial information, e.g. location
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/51 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5866 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, manually generated location and time information
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• 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: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/30 in albums, collections or shared content, e.g. social network photos or video
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 2201/10 Recognition assisted with metadata
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/172 Classification, e.g. identification
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 : in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 : specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 : Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 : Push-based network 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 4/027 : using movement velocity, acceleration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 : Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/08 : User group management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 : Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/20 : Services signaling; Auxiliary data signalling, i.e. transmitting data via a non-traffic channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 : for social networking applications

Abstract

In one embodiment, a mobile client system may determine its location. The mobile client system may store the location in a location history in a memory of the mobile client system, where the location history comprises one or more geographic locations and one or more time stamps corresponding to each of the geographic locations. The mobile client system may detect its current status based at least in part on whether the mobile client system is stationary. The mobile client system may send the location history to a location server of an online social network based at least in part on the current status of the mobile client system and a power requirement for sending the location history to the location server.

Claims

1. A method comprising, by a mobile-client system:

determining a geographic location of the mobile-client system;

storing the geographic location in a location history in a memory of the mobile-client system, wherein the location history comprises;

one or more geographic locations; and

one or more time stamps corresponding to each of the geographic locations;

detecting a current status of the mobile-client system based at least in part on;

a current speed of the mobile-client system;

a current battery level of the mobile-client system; and

whether the mobile-client system has a current network connection to an online social network; and

sending a message comprising the location history to a location server of the online social network based at least in part on the current status of the mobile-client system and a power requirement for sending the location history to the location server, wherein the power requirement is based on;

a power cost to wake the mobile-client system; and

a determined power usage number for sending the message from the mobile-client system to the location server.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the geographic location of the mobile-client system comprises accessing one or more of a global position system (GPS) signal, a Wi-Fi signal, or a cellular radio signal.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the location history at the location server further comprises check-in activities of a user of the online social network associated with the mobile-client system.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the location history at the location server further comprises locations tagged by a user of the online social network associated with the mobile-client system.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the mobile-client system updates the location history at a predetermined time interval.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the predetermined time interval is specified by a server of the online social network.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the predetermined time interval is specified by the mobile-client system.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the location history is sent to the online social network at a predetermined time interval.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the predetermined time interval is specified by a server of the online social network.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the predetermined time interval is specified by the mobile-client system.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the predetermined time interval is based at least in part on an operating system of the mobile-client system.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the location server may request the location history from the mobile-client system in response to a request by a user of the online social network for the location of a user associated with the mobile-client system.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the current status of the mobile-client system is determined by an accelerometer of a gyroscope of the mobile-client system.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the mobile-client system is stationary if the mobile-client system determines it is moving at a walking speed.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the mobile-client system sends the location history to the location server in response to determining that the mobile-client system is no longer stationary.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the mobile-client system sends the location history to the location server through an existing connection between the mobile-client system and the location server.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the mobile-client system establishes a new connection to the location server to send the location history to the location server.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein if the mobile-client system is determined to not be stationary, then reducing a sampling duration for determining the location of the mobile-client system.

19. One or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media embodying software that is operable when executed to:

determine a geographic location of the mobile-client system;

store the geographic location in a location history in a memory of the mobile-client system, wherein the location history comprises;

one or more geographic locations; and

one or more time stamps corresponding to each of the geographic locations;

detect a current status of the mobile-client system based at least in part on;

a current speed of the mobile-client system;

a current battery level of the mobile-client system; and

whether the mobile-client system has a current network connection to an online social network; and

send a message comprising the location history to the location server of the online social network based at least in part on the current status of the mobile-client system and a power requirement for sending the location history to the location server, wherein the power requirement is based on;

a power cost to wake the mobile-client system; and

a determined power usage number for sending each message sent by the mobile-client system.

20. A system comprising:

one or more processors; and

a memory coupled to the processors comprising instructions executable by the processors, the processors operable when executing the instructions to;

determine a geographic location of the mobile-client system;

store the geographic location in a location history in a memory of the mobile-client system, wherein the location history comprises;

one or more geographic locations; and

one or more time stamps corresponding to each of the geographic locations;

detect a current status of the mobile-client system based at least in part on;

a current speed of the mobile-client system;

a current battery level of the mobile-client system; and

whether the mobile-client system has a current network connection to an online social network; and

send a message comprising the location history to the location server of the online social network based at least in part on the current status of the mobile-client system and a power requirement for sending the location history to the location server, wherein the power requirement is based on;

a power cost to wake the mobile-client system; and

a determined power usage number for sending each message sent by the mobile-client system.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein the determined power usage number is based at least in part on whether the mobile-client system has detected a current network connection to the online social network.