Methods for and applications of learning and inferring the periods of time until people are available or unavailable for different forms of communication, collaboration, and information access

• US 7,305,437 B2
• Filed: 01/31/2005
• Issued: 12/04/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Horvitz, Eric J., Jacobs, Andrew W., Kadie, Carl M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Dalencourt; Yves
• Application Number:
  US11/047,128
• Publication Number:
  US 20050132004A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,037 Days
• Field of Search: 709/200, 709/11, 709/45, 709/46
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting

Abstract

A system and method are provided to learn and infer the time until a user will be available for communications, collaboration, or information access, given evidence about such observations as time of day, calendar, location, presence, and activity. The methods can be harnessed to coordinate communications between parties via particular modalities of interaction. The system includes a user state identifier that determines a user'"'"'s state from background knowledge, the flow of time, or one or more context information sources. A data log can be employed to store information about user state changes and observational evidence to accumulate statistics and build inferential models of the availability and unavailability of users for different kinds of communication, collaboration, and information access. A forecaster is constructed from the accumulated statistics and/or learned models to enable a determination of a user'"'"'s likely return, or, more generally, the probability distribution over a user'"'"'s likely return to particular states of availability. The forecaster can be employed to cache information for offline access, drive displays of availability and unavailability, to send messages that include availability forecasts, and to automatically perform scheduling or rescheduling of communications.

Claims

1. A communications system, comprising:

a logging component that stores user presence information over time that relates to one or more states of the user, the user presence information comprises information that relates to a period of time until the user reviews at least one of a message or an item of information;

a prediction component associated with the logging component constructed to predict an amount of time until the user reviews the at least one of the message or the item of information based upon at least one of recent or current evidence, or a combination thereof, associated with review of messages or items of information by the user; and

a component that automatically generates one or more status messages as a function of the user presence information, and communicates the one or more status messages to an entity, the one of more status messages comprises information associated with a specified period of time until the user reviews the at least one of the message or the item of information.

2. The system of claim 1, the one or more states includes at least one of an availability to communicate now via one or more forms of channels of communication, a goal, an attention, or a focus.

3. The system of claim 1, the prediction component reasons in a non-location-specific manner relating to the time until a user will likely be available for communication with one or more channels or devices.

4. The system of claim 3, the one or more channels or devices includes at least one of an e-mail, a telephone, a pager, or a desk-top computer, or a combination thereof.

5. The system of claim 1, the user presence information includes at least one of a schedule information, a location of appointments, or a GPS information, or a combination thereof, associated with the user.

6. A method to coordinate communications systems, comprising:

determining one or more user states associated with user availability;

detecting a change of the one or more user states;

storing user context information associated with the one or more user states at about the time of detecting the change of the one or more user states, the user context information includes information associated with a period of time until the user reviews at least one of a message or an item of information; and

automatically generating one or more status messages associated with the user context information, and communicating the one or more status messages to an entity, the one of more status messages comprising information that identifies a period of time until the user reviews the at least one of the message or the item of information.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising building a prediction model from the user context information.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising

utilizing the prediction model to generate forecasting information regarding at least one of a user'"'"'s likely return or current availability, or a combination thereof.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising

sharing the forecasting information with at least one of another user, system, or application, or a combination thereof.

10. The method of claim 8, the one or more user states include at least one of a presence, an attention, a focus, a goal, or a location, or a combination thereof, associated with the user.

11. The method of claim 8, further comprising

automatically generating one or more messages based upon the forecasting information.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising

utilizing the one or more messages in at least one of an e-mail system, a voice-mail system, a priorities system, a scheduling system, a maintenance system, or a tracking system, or a combination thereof.

13. A computer storage medium having computer-executable instructions for performing the method of claim 6.

14. A system for learning and inferring a user'"'"'s availability, comprising:

a presence detector that determines a user'"'"'s presence and generates presence data indicating whether the user is present and whether there is a probability of the user'"'"'s presence, the presence data comprises information that relates to a period of time until the user reviews at least one of a message or an item of information; and

a data log that stores the presence data generated by the presence detector to accumulate statistics relating to at least availability and unavailability of the user and review of messages or items of information; and

a component that automatically generates one or more status messages associated with the presence data, and communicates the one or more status messages to an entity, the one of more status messages comprises information that identifies a period of time until the user reviews the at least one of the message or the item of information.

15. The system of claim 14, further comprising:

a presence predictor constructed from the accumulated statistics to enable a determination of the user'"'"'s likely return.

16. The system of claim 15, the presence predictor generates prediction information regarding at least one of the user'"'"'s likely return or the user'"'"'s current availability, or a combination thereof.

17. The system of claim 14, further comprising an e-mail service that automatically generates one or more messages relating to at least one of the user'"'"'s likely return or the user'"'"'s current availability, or a combination thereof.

18. The system of claim 14, further comprising a priority service that automatically generates one or more messages based on an urgency threshold.