CONFIGURING DEVICES USING CONTEXT HISTORIES

• US 20070198663A1
• Filed: 04/13/2006
• Published: 08/23/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 02/22/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Helander, Johannes
• Granted Patent: US 7,680,906 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/220
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0806 for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0856 by backing up or archiving configuration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0886 Fully automatic configuration

Abstract

A “Device Correlator,” operates to identify and configure complementary devices as a combined function of device “touching” and observations of contextual history of human interaction with the various devices in an ad-hoc network environment. New devices are brought into a local trust domain of the network via a “touch-based” process. Further, as each device is added to the trust domain, a contextual history of user interaction with each device is recorded. This recorded context history is evaluated to determine probable device associations. Inter-device associations and device behaviors for trusted devices are then automatically configured as a function of both the context history and the capabilities of the various devices. The result is an automatically configured invisible computing environment, wherein the only actions required by the user are to bring new devices into the local area of the ad-hoc network, and then designate those devices as being trusted.

Claims

1. A method for automatically configuring behaviors and interactions of a plurality of electronic components variously interconnected in a network environment, comprising:

designating one or more electronic components for entry into a local domain of a network environment;

recording context histories of user interaction with the components concurrent with the designation of the electronic components for entry into the local domain;

evaluating the recorded context histories to determine probable inter-component associations as a function of predefined component behaviors; and

automatically configuring components and inter-component interactions as a function of the evaluation of the context histories and the predefined component behaviors.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein evaluating the recorded context histories to determine probable inter-component associations performing a statistical analysis of the recorded context histories with respect to the predefined component behaviors.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the statistical analysis comprises:

forming one or more temporal clusters of user interaction with each component;

dividing the temporal clusters into a plurality of subsets corresponding to statistically matched user-component interactions; and

evaluating the subsets to identify compatible functional relationships of components represented by each subset with respect to the predefined component behaviors.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein designating electronic components for entry into the local domain comprises using a master device for touching each component to grant each component entry into the local domain.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the local domain of the network environment is a trusted domain that is restricted to trusted components, and wherein designating any electronic component for entry into the local domain automatically establishes a trust between that electronic component and the network environment.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein establishing the trust between any electronic component and the network environment comprises identifying each electronic component by a unique certificate that contains a public key of the electronic component, with the unique certificates being signed by a private key associated with the network environment.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the context histories are represented by XML scripts.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising automatically reconfiguring components and inter-component interactions as a function of re-designating one or more of the electronic components following entry of the components into the local domain of the network environment.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the context histories further includes additional context information pertinent to the operation of one or more particular components;

said additional context information being automatically retrieved from one or more external sources of context information.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising any of a visible and audible feedback for alerting the user to a component configuration status.

11. The method of claim 5 wherein the trust is maintained as a function of certificate-based authentications between various components.

12. A computer readable medium having computer executable instructions for automatically configuring electronic devices addressable via an ad-hoc network environment, said computer executable instructions comprising:

designating a plurality of electronic devices as being trusted for entry into a network environment by using a master key to identify each device as being trusted;

recording a context history of user interaction with each device concurrent with use of the master key for identifying each device;

performing a statistical analysis of the recorded context histories with respect to predefined device behaviors for automatically determining probable inter-device associations; and

automatically configuring device behaviors and inter-device interactions as a function of the evaluation of the context histories and the predefined device behaviors.

13. The computer readable medium of claim 12 wherein the statistical analysis comprises:

forming one or more temporal clusters of user interaction with each device relative to the use of the master key;

dividing the temporal clusters into a plurality of subsets corresponding to statistically matched user-device interactions; and

evaluating the subsets to identify compatible functional relationships of devices represented by each subset with respect to the predefined device behaviors.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 12 wherein the network environment is a trusted domain that is restricted to trusted devices that have been identified by the master key.

15. The computer readable medium of claim 14 wherein establishing the trust between any electronic device and the network environment further comprises identifying each electronic device by a unique certificate that contains a public key of the electronic device, with the unique certificates being signed by a private key associated with the network environment.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 12 wherein the context histories are represented by XML scripts.

17. A system for identifying and configuring correlated devices in an ad-hoc distributed network environment, comprising using one or more computing devices for:

allowing one or more identified devices to be entered into a local trust domain of a network following user identification of the devices as being trusted;

recording a contextual history of user interaction with each device as each device is allowed into to the trust domain of the network;

evaluating the recorded contextual histories to determine probable device associations;

configuring inter-device associations and device behaviors as a function of both the probable device associations and predefined capabilities of the trusted devices.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein the predefined capabilities of the identified devices are determined by any of:

direct reporting by one or more of the devices; and

retrieving device capability information for one or more of the devices from one or more databases.

19. The system of claim 17 further comprising automatically reconfiguring one or more of the inter-device associations and device behaviors as a function of re-designating one or more of the devices following entry of the devices into the trust domain of the network.

20. The system of claim 17 wherein user identification of the devices as being trusted is accomplished by using a master key device to affirmatively designate one or more of the devices as being trusted.