System and method for controlling mobile services using sensor information

• US 10,602,314 B2
• Filed: 03/14/2018
• Issued: 03/24/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 07/21/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sensoriant, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Sensoriant, Inc.
• Inventors: Naqvi, Shamim A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Le, Danh C
• Application Number:
  US15/920,774
• Publication Number:
  US 20180376323A1
• Time in Patent Office: 741 Days
• Field of Search: 455419, 455418, 4554565, 709229
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/597 Recognising the driver's state or behaviour, e.g. attention or drowsiness
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/10 Multimedia information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/58 Message adaptation for wireless communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/6091 including a wireless interface
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72463 to restrict the functionality of the device
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/02 including a Bluetooth interface
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/12 including a sensor for measuring a physical value, e.g. temperature or motion telephones including GPS signal receivers H04M2250/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/52 including functional features of a camera constructional features concerning the integration of cameras in portable phones H04M1/0264
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42382 Text-based messaging services in telephone networks such as PSTN/ISDN, e.g. User-to-User Signalling or Short Message Service for fixed networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/026 using orientation information, e.g. compass
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/027 using movement velocity, acceleration information
• 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 4/40 for vehicles, e.g. vehicle-to-pedestrians [V2P]
• 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 48/16 Discovering, processing access restriction or access information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/18 Selecting a network or a communication service
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/18 Processing of user or subscriber data, e.g. subscribed services, user preferences or user profiles; Transfer of user or subscriber data

Abstract

A system includes a database of image data associated with a vehicle; and control logic configured to cause a user device to capture one or more images and compare data associated with the one or more images with the image data to determine if a user is present in a vehicle and disable a text messaging function at least in part responsive to the determination using the image data.

Claims

1. A method for controlling access to functions available to respective ones of a plurality of user devices, comprising:

receiving service requests from the user devices;

allowing or disallowing each of the user devices to access the respective requested function based on an application of pre-defined matching rules for matching access policies of the respective user devices with a respective representation of an environment for each of the user devices, at least one of the representations being based on information obtained from one or more updates received from the respective user devices, the information including state information concerning a physical environment of the respective user devices obtained from one or more sensors associated with the respective user devices, wherein allowing or disallowing at least one of the user devices to access a requested function includes disallowing access to the requested function if the state information indicates that the user device is in a pre-defined physical environment, the state information including one or more images that are captured by an image capture device associated with the user device and wherein matching the access policies of the respective user devices with a respective representation of an environment for each of the user devices includes matching the one or captured images to stored images.

2. The method of claim 1, the captured images are images of a vehicle operating environment in which the user device is located and the stored images are images of a plurality of different vehicle operating environments.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the pre-defined physical environment is an automobile.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the requested function includes communication functionality.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the requested function includes a texting function.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the monitoring is triggered when a specified application residing on the mobile device is launched.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein disallowing access to the requested function includes disallowing access to the requested function for a limited period of time.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the state information includes an orientation of the user device.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the requested function is a texting function.

10. A server platform, comprising:

a representation database for storing environmental sensory data obtained from transmissions received from a plurality of user devices;

a user profile database for storing pre-defined matching rules for matching access policies of user devices with a respective representation of an environment for each of the user devices, at least one of the representations being based on the environmental sensory data stored in the representation database;

a network interface for receiving the environmental sensory data and requests from one or more of the user devices to access one or more functions of the user devices;

a recognition engine for allowing or disallowing the one or more of the user devices to access the respective requested functions based on a matching of the pre-defined matching rules with the respective representation of the environment for the user devices, wherein allowing or disallowing at least one of the user devices to access a requested function includes disallowing access to the requested function if the environmental sensory data indicates that the user device is in a pre-defined physical environment, the environmental sensory data including one or more images that are captured by an image capture device associated with the user device and wherein matching the pre-defined matching rules with the respective representation of the environment for the user device includes matching the one or captured images to stored images stored in the representation database.

11. The server platform of claim 10, wherein the captured images are images of a vehicle operating environment in which the user device is located and the stored images are images of a plurality of different vehicle operating environments.

12. The server platform of claim 10, wherein the pre-defined physical environment is an automobile interior.

13. The server platform of claim 10, wherein the environmental sensory data includes a speed, acceleration and/or an orientation of at least one of the user devices.

14. A method for controlling access to functions available to respective ones of a plurality of user devices, comprising:

receiving service requests from the user devices;

allowing or disallowing each of the user devices to access the respective requested function based on an application of pre-defined matching rules for matching access policies of the respective user devices with a respective representation of an environment for each of the user devices, at least one of the representations being based on information obtained from one or more updates received from the respective user devices, the information including state information concerning a physical environment of the respective user devices obtained from one or more sensors associated with the respective user devices, wherein updates are periodically received from one of the user devices after initiation of monitoring the environment of the user device using the one or more sensors associated with the user device, the monitoring generating the state information included in the update.