Location aware mobile-device software development

• US 7,627,425 B2
• Filed: 11/26/2004
• Issued: 12/01/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/26/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Mantek, Frank, Brasche, Gotz-Philip, Salmre, Ivo W.
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran; Khoi
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kiswanto; Nicholas
• Application Number:
  US10/998,081
• Publication Number:
  US 20060116817A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,831 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 701/208
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/35 model driven
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information

Abstract

A development environment makes it easier to develop and use location aware software applications. Combining the currently separate and complex tasks of location information gathering, analysis, and display and making them integrated such that non-experts can build location services into their applications increases a developer'"'"'s capability to write rich location-aware software applications. A higher level programming model allows a programmer to use location information as a logical entity rather than just raw location data, such as latitude and longitude. A location data store and map data store may be accessed by different location aware applications on the device. Instead of each location application relying on its own data store, applications may share their location related information.

Claims

1. A system for location aware applications, comprising:

a data store that includes map information and location information, wherein the map information and location information is shared by different location aware applications on a device;

a location manager configured to receive location information from at least one location source that includes a location of an item, and in response to the location of the item relative to an area of interest, generate a location event;

a map manager that is coupled to the data store and that is configured to abstract map information and manage map operations for the different location aware applications on the device including map-rendering for displaying maps, wherein the map manager may utilize more than one map rendering engine when displaying maps for the different location aware applications;

wherein the map manager provides different map choices to the location aware applications based on criteria received from a location aware application and provides a ranking of the maps according to their order of suitability to the location aware application; and

a location aware application that is coupled to the location manager and the map manager and that is configured to execute event driven code in response to the location event, and also configured to interact with the abstracted map information;

wherein the location aware application supplies the criteria to the map manager that is used in selecting and rendering a map by the map manager.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the data store comprises a location store and a map store, wherein the location store includes information about maps and the location store includes information about areas of interest.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one location source comprises at least one of a proximate location source and a distant location source.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the at least one location source is selected from a group comprising:

a GPS receiver, a user input;

a phone system;

an RFID tag and location data pushed to or pulled by a device on a network.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein the location manager is further configured to manage location information for a plurality of items.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein generating the location event comprises generating a location event in response to at least one of the following events:

a determination that the location of the item has entered the area of interest, a determination that the location of the item has exited the area of interest, and a determination of the movement of a location source inside an area of interest.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the location aware application is further configured to provide the map manager with a suggested map resolution.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the map manager is further configured to receive a user input and convert the user input into a location on a map.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the location aware application is further configured to supply the map manager with at least one object to display on a map.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the map manager supplies a set of maps to the location aware application, and wherein the location aware application determines the map to display from the supplied set of maps based on weighted criteria.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the data store is further configured to be dynamically provisioned.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the map information includes a description of each map using an XML representation.

13. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

a map projection;

a resolution;

an indication of the map rendering engine used to display the map and an area the map includes.