GEOGRAPHIC REMINDERS

• US 20100295676A1
• Filed: 05/20/2009
• Published: 11/25/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/20/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Khachaturov, Vassilii, Novik, Lev, Khosravy, Moe
• Granted Patent: US 8,537,003 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/540
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/24 Reminder alarms, e.g. anti-loss alarms

Abstract

Described is a technology by which a mobile device outputs an alert for a reminder based upon a current location of the mobile device with respect to an entity (person, place or thing) associated with the reminder. The reminders may be maintained and provided by a service. Each reminder includes a reference to target-related information. When the device moves to within a threshold proximity of the target, and other criteria (e.g., time of day) is satisfied, an alert is output by the device. A user may gesture with a device towards an entity to set a reminder associated with that entity, or to get any reminder associated with that entity. A device may also get reminders by scanning or image processing, e.g., by reading a barcode associated with a product to get any reminders associated with that product.

Claims

1. In a computing environment, a method comprising, receiving a reminder at a mobile device from a remote source that maintains a plurality of reminders, evaluating one or more criteria associated with the reminder, including target-related information, against current state data that includes current location-related data, to determine whether to output an alert corresponding to that reminder, and if so, outputting the alert.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the target-related information corresponds to a place having specified hours of operation, wherein the current state data includes current time, and wherein evaluating the criteria comprises comparing the specified hours of operation against the current time to determine whether to output the alert.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the target-related information corresponds to a category, and wherein evaluating the criteria comprises determining whether the current location-related data indicates a threshold proximity to any entity that corresponds to that category.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the target-related information corresponds to an entity that is discernable by detecting a gesture, and wherein evaluating the criteria comprises determining that the current location-related data is within a threshold proximity of that entity.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the target-related information corresponds to an entity that is discernable by a scanning or image processing operation, and wherein evaluating the criteria comprises determining that the current location-related data is within a threshold proximity of that entity.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein evaluating the criteria comprises determining whether a constraint is able to be satisfied based upon the current state data.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising, providing the reminder to the remote source.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising, generating the reminder by detecting a pointing gesture made with the mobile device.

9. In a computing environment, a system comprising, a service that maintains reminders for users, the service including logic that selects a set of one or more selected reminders for a particular user based upon data for that particular user including location information and user preference data, the service downloading the set of one or more selected reminders to a device associated with that particular user.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the data for the particular user comprises current location data and other context information received from the device, and wherein the service further uses the context information to select the set of one or more selected reminders.

11. The system of claim 9 wherein the logic determines a plurality of geographic tiles from the location information, and selects the set of one or more selected reminders based upon whether each reminder corresponds to a location within one of the geographic tiles.

12. The system of claim 9 wherein the service maintains the reminders as reminder objects, each reminder object including a reference to a target object that represents an entity comprising a person, place or thing.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein at least one of the reminder objects includes time information that indicates when the reminder is active.

14. The system of claim 12 wherein at least one of the reminder objects includes output content that is used by the device to output an alert when the reminder triggers the alert.

15. The system of claim 9 wherein the device comprises a handheld mobile device, a device mounted to a vehicle, or a device mounted to an airplane.

16. In a computing environment, a method comprising, receiving a reminder at a location aware mobile device, the reminder received from a reminder service, and outputting an alert when one or more criteria associated with the reminder is satisfied based on current state data associated with the mobile device, including that the mobile device is at a location that satisfies a location-related criterion associated with the reminder.

17. The method of claim 16 further comprising, associating a person, place or thing with the reminder by detecting a gesture directed towards the person, place or thing, generating the reminder, and providing the reminder to the reminder service.

18. The method of claim 16 further comprising determining the location of a person, place or thing by detecting a gesture directed towards the person, place or thing that indicates that the mobile device is at a location that satisfies the location-related criterion associated with the reminder.

19. The method of claim 16 wherein the one or more criteria associated with the reminder includes a space-time constraint that prevents outputting of the alert if the mobile device cannot satisfy the location-related criterion associated with the reminder by a certain time, given traveling conditions with respect to a current location and current time of the mobile device.

20. The method of claim 16 wherein the reminder is associated with a product, and further comprising outputting an alert for that reminder upon identifying that product via a scanning, gesturing or image processing operation.