AUTOMATICALLY IDENTIFYING LOCATION INFORMATION IN TEXT DATA

• US 20090156229A1
• Filed: 09/17/2008
• Published: 06/18/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/13/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Garmin Limited
• Original Assignee: Garmin Limited
• Inventors: Hein, Daniel D., Bishop, Nathan J., Yonker, Jason B.
• Granted Patent: US 8,331,958 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/456.100
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/20 Instruments for performing navigational calculations G01C21/24, G01C21/26 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/12 Messaging; Mailboxes; Announcements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management

Abstract

Techniques are described for automatically identifying/recognizing location information in received data and then providing navigational-related functions associated with the location information. In one or more implementations, automatically identifying location information may be performed using a locale context. More particularly, the locale context may serve as a basis for determining how text data is parsed and which expressions are used to parse text in order to recognize the location information.

Claims

1. A location-aware device comprising:

a processor;

memory; and

one or more modules stored in the memory and executable on the processor to;

determine a locale context;

based at least in part on the locale context, automatically identify location information in content received from one or more sources; and

provide one or more navigational-related functions using the identified location information.

2. A location-aware device as recited in claim 1, wherein the determined locale context includes at least one of the following:

a current location or other status of the location-aware device determined by a positioning module associated with the processor;

content in the text data or data other than the text data;

a setting or status of one or both of the location-aware device or a remote device communicatively linked to the location-aware device through a communication module associated with the processor;

or

a default locale context setting on the location-aware device or a remote device communicatively linked to the location-aware device through the communication module.

3. A location-aware device as recited in claim 1 configured as one or both of a cellular phone and/or a voice over internet protocol (VOIP) phone.

4. A location-aware device as recited in claim 1, wherein the content is received using a communication module associated with the processor, the content including one or more of:

an e-mail message;

an email message attachment;

an instant message (IM);

or

a web page.

5. A location-aware device as recited in claim 1, wherein the content comprises unformatted text.

6. A location-aware device as recited in claim 1, wherein the location information comprises address information.

7. A location-aware device as recited in claim 1, wherein the one more modules are further executable on the processor to perform one or more of:

transform at least a portion of the content comprising non-text data to text data;

tokenize the location information into one or more location tokens associated with a location;

or

geo-code the location information into one or more coordinates designating the location.

8. A location-aware device as recited in claim 7, wherein one or more of to transform, automatically identify, tokenize or geo-code is performed at least in part by a server device communicatively linked to the location-aware device.

9. A location-aware device as recited in claim 1, wherein the navigational-related functions comprise one or more of:

displaying at least a portion of the location information;

saving a location associated with the location information as a point of interest;

presenting the location in the context of map data;

or

providing navigational instructions for routing to the location.

10. A method comprising:

determining a locale context;

automatically identifying address information in text data at least in part by parsing the text data in a manner suitable to the locale context;

processing the address information to provide one or more coordinates for a location; and

providing, on a location-aware device, a navigational-related function for the location based at least in part on the address information.

11. A method as recited in claim 10, wherein the text data includes unformatted text.

12. A method as recited in claim 10 wherein processing is performed at least in part by parsing the text data with one or more expressions in a manner suitable to the locale context.

13. A method as recited by claim 10, wherein determining is based on one or more of the following:

a current location or other status of the location-aware device;

content in the text data or data other than the text data;

a setting or status of one or both of the location-aware device or a remote device communicatively linked to the location-aware device;

or

a default locale context setting on the location-aware device or a remote device communicatively linked to the location-aware device.

14. A method as recited in claim 10, wherein all or part of automatically identifying is performed on a remote device communicatively linked to the location-aware device.

15. A method as recited in claim 10, wherein all or part of processing is performed on a remote device communicatively linked to the location-aware device.

16. A method as recited in claim 10, wherein processing comprises geo-coding the address information into one or more coordinates designating the location.

17. A method as recited in claim 10, wherein the navigational-related function comprises at least one of:

displaying at least a portion of the address information;

saving the location as a point of interest;

presenting the location in the context of map data;

or

providing navigational instructions for routing to the location.

18. A portable location-aware communication device comprising:

a processor;

memory; and

one or more modules stored in the memory and executable on the processor to;

determine a locale context;

based at least in part on the locale context, automatically identify location information in content received from one or more sources;

geo-code the location information to provide coordinates for a location; and

based at least in part on the coordinates, provide one or more navigational-related functions.

19. A portable location-aware communication device as recited in claim 18 configured as one or both of cellular phone and/or voice over internet protocol (VOIP) phone.

20. A portable location-aware communication device as recited in claim 18, wherein the location information comprises an address.

21. A portable location-aware communication device as recited in claim 18, wherein the content comprises unformatted text.

22. A portable location-aware communication device as recited in claim 18, wherein the content is received via one or both of a cellular network or an internet protocol (IP)—

based network.

23. A portable location-aware communication device as recited in claim 18, wherein the one or more modules are further executable on the processor to tokenize location information into one or more tokens prior to the geo-coding.

24. A portable location-aware communication device as recited in claim 23, wherein one or both of to geo-code or tokenize is performed in a manner suitable to the locale context.

25. A portable location-aware communication device as recited in claim 18, wherein the one or more navigational-related functions comprise at least one of:

saving the location as a point of interest;

presenting the location in the context of map data;

or

providing navigational instructions for routing to the location.