Intelligent mobile information system
Contents
1. 0089 How to prevent sun burn when in the hot weather 0090 How to prepare the clothes due to the day and night temperature changes more than 30 degree C 0091 In this case the data is the information user s location and the rules is reporting the weather related information back to the information user 0092 One more example when the information user is traveling the information can has the following predefine searching criteria 0093 Search for food store when it is between 11 00AM to 1 00PM Will stop the search when the PDA is in side a food store for more than 15 00 minutes 0094 Search the kind of food other than last meal By the location and time the computer will auto matic determine the last kind of meal you ate 0095 Search for cheap gasoline price station when the gas line less than one fourth of the gas tank 0096 Search for tourist spot when entering a sight seeing area 0097 This will be all done by a predefine search criteria The information user can maintained a predefine search criteria for easy access information Hand free environ ment Jun 6 2002 0098 Method 2 User Profile Was Built Upon the Trace History 0099 The information user position history information can be used by the system to summarize the information user s activity This is how it works 0100 The database couple to the server computer is included a business name and a position coordinate of said bu2. 19 12 US 20020068585A1 United States 54 76 21 22 63 Patent Application Publication co Pub No US 2002 0068585 A1 Chan et al 43 Pub Date Jun 6 2002 INTELLIGENT MOBILE INFORMATION Publication Classification SYSTEM CH St o ten H04Q 7 20 Inventors Jawe Chan San Jose CA US 52 USC aan 455 456 455 414 Ting Mao Chang San Jose CA US Correspondence Address Jawe Chan 57 ABSTRACT 3072 Barons Court Way S CA 95132 US li US A system and method is to automatically search the required Appl No 10 011 995 local information for the information user It can use the information user s personal profile position history and Filed Dec 3 2001 query history to generate the next set of information user s required local information The information search list can Related U S Application Data also be generated based on the information user profile This local information accessing system and method will be very Non provisional of provisional application No useful if the information user is mobile and do not have 60 251 406 filed on Dec 4 2000 enough time to search the web DATABASE SENSOR GPS SENSOR 47 RETURN SEARCH RESULT PRESENT SEARCH RESULTS 48 SERVER SENDING THE CATERGORY INFORMATION TO BUILD THE USER PROFILE BASE ON THE USER PROFILE USER CAN QUERY THE DATA BASE Patent Application Publication Jun 6 2002 Sheet 1 of 6 US 2002 0
3. email by phone by voice mail or store on the internet or poping up a informa tion window once the local information user log on the internet or the website 0127 Another examples 0128 If a user went to an open house the user s cell phone with GPS function or other positioning method can record his position This house happens to be 3 bedrooms and 5 years old The system will based on this criteria search for near by house with 3 bed room and 5 to 10 years old house 0129 This process is called activity converting process And here are the steps 0130 1 The server will create a user profile based on the user s location history The user profile can contain but not limit to how long the user is in where 0131 2 The activity list will be created It can be created by the user manual input or by the server based on position history of the user from the users cell phone automatically In this case it is the buying house process 0132 3 Based on the activity list and user profile the user can get the more information about his her Jun 6 2002 future activity The information will send to the user just like the user on the internet searching for infor mation to buy a house The system will notify the user wherever and whenever there is a house match his or her criteria DESCRIPTION FIGS 1 to 10 0133 FIG 1 illustrates an example of a server computer system 10 for storing and retrieving merchandi
4. more than 50 minutes 2 times of visit per month in restaurant 20 off restaurant coupon send to the user spend more than 100 minutes 2 times of visit per month in restaurant 30 off restaurant coupon send to the user spend more than 200 minutes 3 times of ip en Esp visit per month in restaurant Fig 10 US 2002 0068585 Al INTELLIGENT MOBILE INFORMATION SYSTEM BACKGROUND FIELD OF INVENTION 0001 This invention relates to an information user profile building process And the information user s profile can be further used to get more information for the information user 0002 The user profile includes information user s geo graphic position The user s profile is then built for various purposes including the purpose of marketing survey The system will send coupon or any other information to the information user 0003 According to the information user s geographic position the system will synthesis from the information user s geographic position taken by the Global Position System or wireless position system to a user s profile This converting process also includes a privacy protection pro cess to protect the geographic position information user s privacy 0004 It is especially important for mobile information device like hand held computer or mobile phone with position detector device couple with it The information user s profile can be automatic built and local portal infor mation
5. the property server or match server do not have a copy of information user s position history The only thing can be back trace is the information user s profile which is the property information extract from the position history O111 The match server will send the coupon or hobby portal according to the information user s profile This information user s profile can be entered by information user from a web page or from this above automatic method The server system will never know or record the information user s position history The server system only records the information user s profile information The user s profile information will used for the system to send the following information to the information user including product pro Jun 6 2002 motion information news information merchandise infor mation event information people information of near by location 0112 Information user can also synthesis some of the geography location that information user input The might include information user s friend home boss home business partner s home or office This information is normally store in the PDA or Personal organizer If the information user has physically in location that the information user stored in the any location personal organizer the system will determine the information user have good relationship with that per son The system will send an alert message to the informa tion user when th
6. to help shopping Some company go2online com airflash com geeps com vicinity com savingumoney com timesthree com cell loc com has recently tried to resolve some of the location based issues that the industrial has None of them develop a method for the information user to build the user profile by the history of the trace that was recorded from the information user s mobile device None of them transfer the history of the trace to the trace property The trace property is then used by the server system center computer to send the portal information to the information user according to information user s position The portal information may include any knowledge base information coupon information sale information event information merchandise information person information or any other type of information that the information user would like to receive 0012 Predefine search sequences to execute the pre defined search criteria or search criteria list So the infor mation user will constantly get the updated information US 2002 0068585 Al because of user location changes This updated information may be local weather local temperature local merchandise local store etc These location based company and organization Go2online com airflash com geeps com atnotion com generalmagic com geoworks com cell loc com _ timesthree com mapinfo com vindigo com lasoo com vicinity com locationforum o
7. work the PDA will then search for a location for a MOCA coffee with a better price automatically Information user can try dif ferent place for a cup of coffee from time to time Once the search schedule is set the information user will search for 0085 a Local weather information from 8 30 to 9 30AM workday when the information user is in the garage GPS can sense the location of the user and report the local weather So the weather report will also be local first 0086 b Cup of coffee information from 8 30 to 10 00AM workday when the information user is on the way to office 0087 Further more the PDA can allow the information user to set an alert system Ex When the weather is approaching record high A history temperature data for specific date within 3 degree C the PDA or cellular phone will vibrate or ringing or any other form of notification the information user to add more clothes or prepare for the weather The information user does not need to know about the weather if the weather is normal or within the condition that the information user is set saving user time Even with the information user travel from places to places the PDA with GPS will always report or search according to the local weather condition The information related to the harsh weather changes will be display in the PDA or cellular web phone This information can be 0088 How to drive in the cold weather If the weather happen to be cold
8. 0044 b Liquidation event on line or off line inter net auction information 0045 2 merchandise information 0046 a The system will be design in a way for the information user to enter a price range to search a specific merchandise item 0047 b The system will design to extract the shop ping list from the information user s data base and automatic estimate the price for the information user This will be acting like quotation system 0048 c Upon the system setting by the information user the information system can further do the transaction for the information user and the merchan dise can then send to the information user s location or his home 0049 3 event information 0050 a the event information can be movie or theater information 0051 i The information user can enter time range or and the movie he want to go to Once the criteria is enter depend on the user s current location the search result will be retrieved The results will be the nearby the information user 0052 ii The event information normally is time related information 0053 iii The event can be on sale event movie event birthday party event a party event a wed ding event sport event basket ball foot ball tennis tournament golf tournament ski event Olympic event US 2002 0068585 Al 0054 4 Person information 0055 a The person information include a person s sex character salary occupation heal
9. 068585 A1 14 DATABASE PROCESSOR PROGRAM MEMORY COMMUNICATIO DEVICE Figure 1 Patent Application Publication Jun 6 2002 Sheet 2 of 6 US 2002 0068585 A1 geet Figure 3 Patent Application Publication Jun 6 2002 Sheet 3 of 6 US 2002 0068585 A1 START SERVER RECEVING QUERY AND SEND TO DATABASE 41 SERVER RECEIVING POSITION HISTORY BY USER S AUTOMATIC LOCATION SENSOR GPS SENSOR SEARCH DATABASE 42 43 SERVER SENDING THE CATERGORY INFORMATION TO BUILD THE USER PROFILE 44 BASE ON THE USER PROFILE USER CAN QUERY THE DATA BASE Figure 4 Patent Application Publication Jun 6 2002 Sheet 4 of 6 US 2002 0068585 A1 START SERVER RECEVING RESTURANT COUPON 55 QUERY WITH HOW LONG OFTEN THE USER HAS BEEN EAT 51 LOBSTER BY USER S OUT ON WHICH AUTOMATIC RESTURANT LOCATION SENSOR GPS SENSOR EVERY SEARCH THE RED 56 LOBSTER AND OTHER RESTAURANT COUPON DATABASE FEW 5 MINUTES 52 RETURN SEARCH COUPON RESULT V 7 BASED ON WHAT RESTURANT RED LOBSTER OFFERING RIGHT NOW THE LONGER OFTEN THE USER HAS BEEN EAT OUT THE BETTER COUPON THAT THE USER IS GOING TO RECEIVED 53 LONG OFTEN THE USER IN THE RESTAURANT TO BUILD USER PROFILE USER PERMIT OR REQUEST TO RECEIVE SPECIAL COUPON FROM THE RESTURANT THAT HE USED TO GO TO THIS CASE IS RED LOBSTER RESTURANT 54 PRESENT SEAR
10. 1 on sale shoes 0079 2 on sale computer items 0080 3 on sale piano 0081 Each item will have its own rule Rule for search ing on sales shoes will be associated to the user profile item number 1 Rule for searching on sale computer items will be associated to the user profile item number 2 Rule for searching on sale piano will be associated to the user profile item number 3 0082 The system will generate the search results to the information user based on the data and the rules Depends on the rules that the information user defines The search can be generated automatically and the search result can also be return automatically The geography location of search results can be within a geography area that the information user is in The system can further assist the information user to the search result location 0083 The information search system can be further inte grated with payment system or account system or a billing system or a quotation system 0084 The information user can define the following condition for his or her needs Ex If the information user US 2002 0068585 Al gets in his or her garage from 8 30 to 9 30AM the PDA will automatic search for the weather information around this city If the weather is below normal temperature the PDA will send an alert signal to the information user The information user can then change his cloth or bring an umbrella After the information user on the way to
11. 2002 0145 FIG 8 is the database user profile database build in the user s computer Example every 5 minutes the computer will received position coordinates from user s location sensor GPS sensor 0146 FIG 9 is the file converted from server s CGI program This file can be converted locally in the user s computer when the user s computer gets on line internet Or this file can be send to server and server will send back to user s computer the converted file in FIG 9 This file will be the user s trace profile This file can be deleted from the server computer to protect the user s privacy 0147 FIG 10 is condition of the coupon that will send to the user base on the user trace profile Conclusion Ramifications and Scope 0148 And the information user s profile can be further used to get more information for the information user 0149 The user profile includes information user s geo graphic position The user s profile is than built for various purposes including the purpose of marketing survey The system will send coupon or any other information to information user 0150 According to the information user s geographic position the system will synthesis from the information user s geographic position taken by the Global Position System or wireless position system to a user s profile This converting process also includes a privacy protection pro cess to protect the geographic pos
12. CH 58 RESULTS Figure 5 Patent Application Publication Jun 6 2002 Sheet 5 of 6 SERVER RECEIVING POSITION IN OOTBALL STADIUM BY USER S AUTOMATIC LOCATION SENSOR GPS SENSOR EVERY FEW 5 MINUTES OR A COMPLETE TRACE FILE SERVER SENDING THE FOOT BALL HOBBY AND HOW LONG OFTEN THE USER IN THE STADIUM TO BUILD USER PROFILE USER PERMIT OR REQUEST TO RECEIVE PEOPLE WITH THE SAME FOOT BALL HOBBY Figure 6 US 2002 0068585 A1 SERVER RECEVING PEOPLE POSITION QUERY WITH HOW LONG OFTEN THE USER HAS BEEN IN STADIUM SEARCH THE PEOPLE HOBBY DATABASE RETURN SEARCH PEOPLE RESULT BASED ON PEOPLE FOOT BALL HOBBY LEVEL THE LONGER OFTEN THE USER HAS BEEN IN FOOT BALL FIELD THE BETTER LEVEL THAT THE USER IS GOING TO RECEIVED PRESENT SEARCH RESULTS Patent Application Publication Jun 6 2002 Sheet 6 of 6 US 2002 0068585 A1 Example of Database structurc Business_catergory gt business name gt business_position_area For Red Lobster restaurant will be Restaurant gt Red Lobster gt longitude range latitude range Fig 7 Time position coordinates 19 00 longitudel latitude 19 05 longitude2 latitude2 Fig 8 visit times per month location location catagory Time spend per month 102 minutes 2 red lobster restautant 97 minutes 3 great mall mall 60 minutes frys electronics computer store 10 off restaurant coupon send to the user spend
13. ation user can spend sometime with some meaningful information 0118 3 After the information user spend some time on the returned searched results The information user can check several store location or point of interests When the information user pass through the location the system will remind the information user to drop by the point of the interests or the store to check them out 0119 Once the item being identified the system will identified the information user s regular path 0120 The information user s trace information that the Automatic Location Identifier GPS or wireless location identifier this can be deploy by the network based posi tioning technology hand set based positioning technology or their combination keeps updating contains of coordinates information and duration information This information keep in the user s computer Cell phone or PDA The coordinates can send to the server computer to get the property back to the information user s computer Cell phone or PDA These property is then combine with time to US 2002 0068585 Al form a complete property information user profile informa tion to send to the server and for used by the server The server computer will ask the information user to set up the information user account According to the account set up the system can send the product promotion information to the information user 0121 If the user want to receive product prom
14. e visited person birthday or any other personal occasion 0113 Another integration method is to get the user profile data from the cell phone data base received 0114 Lately the wireless web enabled phone can be used by the information user as a method of paying the bill instead of paying on the cashier machine in a local store So the receive database can be further used by the system The system will know when what items how much money the information user has spent This information can be used in several way 0115 1 The routine trace database and the receive database can be mixed 0116 If the information user is often buying computers the system will used the computer as a merchandise item to search around the information user s activities area The activities area for the information user is constructed from the information user s GPS trace record and the its neigh borhood the area 2 or 3 block away from trace record gt this can be define by the system or information user The system is then search the computer item or any computer promotion Counpon sale information discount information The return information will show up when the information user pass by the area This will be a method to alter the infor mation user normal caused 0117 2 The information user can review the search results This result can be store as a schedule item on information user s Microsoft outlook This way the infor m
15. eristics Once the character istics is determined the system can send any other infor mation to the information user to help information user to carry out the activity while the information user is in that location The can be done by automatically 0110 Following is the method to let the information user has the privacy that he wants about his positions history The information user can login to the system by his user id and password When the information user send the position coordinate from his Global Position System or wireless position system to the property server the property server will only record the IP address and the information user s position The information user s position coordinates will then be transferred to a property This property can be the information user s favorite sport favorite type of restaurant favorite type of supermarket favorite type of furniture store or favorite type of hobby This property information will then send back from the property server back to the infor mation user s PDA or cell phone The information user can send the property information to match server immediately from the PDA or cell phone or wait until the information user collect enough volume of user s property information This information user s property information will be trans ferred and become information user s profile on the match server This way information user s position history will be kept in privacy and
16. erver 0066 2 What kind of information the information user would like to retrieve or access Based on the information user s shopping behavior database or information user geography path information or personal information that the information user is entered to the system 0067 3 Information user can enter the geography search area criteria The information user can enter within what radius the information user would like to search Within one mile radius of the information user s position Or 2 miles 0068 In another application the local information search ability can be integrated with address book When you click on the address book the user can enter a search string about the neighbor The store the compare shopping event shop ping 0069 Local User Profile Building Process Location Syntheses 0070 Method 1 Predefine Search Rules and Search Criteria User profile was entered by user or default by system 0071 And said search criteria can also be a predefine search criteria The search criteria consist of any following Jun 6 2002 items time position or geography searching area searching information criteria patterns 0072 Time is provided from the computer s local timer 0073 The position or geography searching area is provided from user s manually input or wireless location identifier or Global Position System Senor The geography searching area can also be entered by the
17. f FIG 2 Global Position System receiver 37 is a positioning instrument and is used as current position coordination input device for computer system 30 in FIG 2 However in other embodiment user of computer system 30 could input the position coordination from other input device for example from a keyboard 34 if the user knows his or her current position or like to search merchandise information at other location 0140 An example of a suitable end user computer sys tem 30 is one operating in accordance with the Microsoft WINDOWS operating system Processor 11 may be any general purpose processor having a CPU RAM ROM and I O circuitry Other input devices instead of or in addition to mouse 33 and keyboard 34 could be used such as trackballs touch pads graphic tablet or joysticks The processor 11 is programmed to execute a process to help the user and take user s input 0141 FIG 4 illustrates the flow chart of the location trace was used by the system when the user doing or receiving information from the databse 0142 FIG 5 illustrates the flow chart of the location trace was used by the system for coupon purpose The return coupon result can come with each coupon location So the user can go the nearby restaurant coupon location 0143 FIG 6 illustrates the flow chart of the location trace was used by the system for people community hobby building purpose 0144 FIG 7 Example of Database structure Jun 6
18. ilar places that the information user normally go to by the syntheses US 2002 0068585 Al database The system will locate nearby supermarket com puter store shopping mall and sport club for the information user The information user will be familiar the new location right away It feels like home or may be the new location will be a lot better than home due to there is more favorite places in new location 0108 For a normal location based database there is a map information and a product or service information asso ciate with it The product or service information database normally is a store location database From there the infor mation user can enter the search criteria to search the nearby store location Normally the user location will feed back to the server computer and to form a geography search area This search area with the search criteria will return the search result back to the information user The search result normally contains the location information of the store 0109 This way when the user step into a store the system will know the duration of the information user stay in the store he system can pick up the information user position every 5 minutes Once the position history data is collected The position history data will be process and to find out what kind of the store that the information user is staying The chacteristics of the store can be determined due to the store database is built by the charact
19. information user s pointing device The pointing device can circle a geography searching area from a map on the computer s screen Once the geography area is circled the geography area will couple to the geography searching area criteria and become por tion of the geography searching area criteria 0074 The searching information criteria patterns are provided from the computer application s software or web browser or web browser The searching information criteria patterns can be price comparison patterns of the merchandise or matching with right person patterns or matching with desire event pat terns party or any show or conference 0075 For example the search results can also be auto matically activated by the PDA Personal Digital Assistant or other computer device because of time and location 0076 The information user is then enters a set of user profile database with a set of the rule for the information user to retrieve the information These rules are related to the information user s position When the information user is on the move the information user will retrieve the information user based on rule set up by the information user The user profile database can be information user s shopping behav ior model or geography tracking path information or infor mation that the information manually enter to the server computer system 0077 For example if the local information user choose to find 0078
20. is not limited to any kind of coordinates systems Can be cellular phone based position system Global Position System or any other kind of position identifier system 0032 User of the preferred embodiment of the invention has a mobile information device that is able to process information and wirelessly communication with other com puter system on the Internet The mobile information device of the preferred embodiment of the invention is accessible to a Global Position System GPS receiver that is moving together with the user 0033 The other computer system of the preferred embodiment of the invention is a computer server The computer server links to a database The information in the database is organized according to the GPS coordinates of the information 0034 In the preferred embodiment of the invention the user of mobile information device directly connects to an Internet Service Provider ISP wirelessly or to the mobile phone service company and then to an ISP through phone line After connected to ISP the mobile information device can communicate with any other computer system on Inter net Then the user requests the other computer server on Internet to search information by providing the current and history of search criteria The user could decide the number of history search criteria to be transmitting to the other computer server or automatically determine the number by user s current moving speed The computer ser
21. ition information user s privacy 0151 It is especially important for mobile information device like hand held computer or mobile phone with position detector device couple with it The information user s profile can be automatic built and local portal infor mation will then send it to the information user 0152 Thus the scope of the invention should be deter mined by the appended claims and their legal equivalents rather than by the examples given We claim 1 A method for a computing device to interact with a user the method comprising receiving position coordinates relating to said computing device processing said position coordinates to return one or more properties and building user profile relating to said one or more proper ties 2 The method of claim 1 further comprising searching process relating to a search object based on said user profile
22. ive global information problem is to categorize the information Most of the search engine on the Internet categorizes the infor mation by the information characteristics For example Yahoo Company Categorizes their database into automo bile travel computer political stock quote etc User could choose the category to do the search This approach might reduce the quantity of information return from a search However it is still too much and contains the global infor mation within that category 0011 Some of company on the Internet further catego rizes their information by the geography areas for example countries or cities With the geography area category user could search the information only in a predefined area which usually is a government district for example ZIP code area city county state and country etc One of the examples is the Sidewalk WEB site of Microsoft Company The WEB site provides a utility to locate the stores by given Boolean search criteria and an area which could be a ZIP code a city a county a state and a country After it found the stores it returns a map and shows the store location by making a mark on the returned map It has the disadvantage that the searching area is predefined user could not choose as they wish for example to cross city limit or to narrow down to a shopping mall Another disadvantage is the information is only limit to store location and without any merchandise information
23. mputer can be a cell phone a PDA or a computer The first computer will also be coupled a method to determine the first computer current position The position is either be entered by the information user or a computer hardware mechanism such as wireless position system or a Global Position System The information user s position is then send to a second computer a server computer through network Once the server computer received the information user s current position the server computer will couple the information user s current position and other criteria for further application indicated by the method below Once the method is determined the system will operate according to the method and send the results back to the information user The following paragraph will determine the method may be used or the information database that will be searched by the information user 0028 The invention based on a local information system that is included 2 folds One is information provider to provide information Another one is the information user consumes information Information provider provides infor mation to the server computer by information provider computer The information user consumes said provided information on the server computer through information user s computer US 2002 0068585 Al 0029 Local Information System Contains 0030 1 Hardware Connection and Apparatus 0031 The position system used by this invention
24. nication device with a small computer system embedded The earlier mobile phone has limited capability to process information other than voice message The earlier pager also is only able to receive the caller s phone number However the newer mobile phone and pager has much powerful processing unit and larger display to process and display extra information beyond voice message or phone number Some of the new mobile device has the capability of voice recognition web enabled and larger display Jun 6 2002 0008 A mobile information device is mobile equipment that has both information processing and communication capabilities Both mobile information processor and mobile communication device is mobile information device and eventually has both great processing and great communica tion capabilities and becomes little or no difference in the near future 0009 Internet is a revolution technology and contains the richest source of information Through the Internet user can access information on the world at the click of a mouse button User can access information related to a company on the other side of earth at their home Companies are pro moting their product information and services or making direct sale on Internet Internet is so powerful and conve nient to store or retrieve information Internet naturally becomes the best source of information for mobile informa tion device 0010 The prior art used to deal with the explos
25. oting information according to the end user s location property or property behavior 0122 The system can setup a geographic range for the information user Once the information user is step into to the zone the cell phone will dial up and get the information product promoting information etc to the information user to alter the information user route and increasing the foot traffic for the information promoter The information user s cell phone or PDA can also accumulate the connection time that was consumed by this information access purpose 0123 This is the information user that it can be used for the rest of the data 0124 In the prior art WO 00 49530 mobile information service is dedicated focus on the location of interested in When the location user approach the desire location selected by the information user the system will send the information back to the information user In present invention the system will know the information user desired location in term of coordinates or positions The system will know the information user is in a restaurant or cash dispenser or any point of interests The system will send the product promo tion information about other location with same type or service 0125 Local Information Retrieving System based on user profile 0126 Once the local user profile is built the system can send the information to the local user based on the user profile The information can be send by
26. r prod US 2002 0068585 Al uct sales event record is a position field The position field is a position coordination of the merchandise The position coordination is comprised of latitude and longitude of Glo bal Position System coordination It could also contain altitude of Global Position System coordination when it is necessary The database 14 could also be arranged in an object oriented manner for attribute searching 0138 FIG 3 illustrates an example of an end user com puter system 30 for retrieving merchandise information in accordance with the invention Computer system 30 com prises a processor 31 program memory 32 a mouse 33 and keyboard 34 for user input a display 35 a modem 36 Global Position System receiver 37 and Internet Service Provider ISP 38 In the embodiment of FIG 2 system 30 is an end user computer system and processor 11 is in data communication with an Internet Service Provider 38 first and then the Internet Service Provider transmits the data to the computer system in FIG 1 via the Internet However in other embodiments the invention could be implemented with a processor having a modem call directly to the computer systems in FIG 1 and establish the data commu nication link via the modems Or the invention could be implemented such that the end user computer system in FIG 2 and server computer system in FIG 1 is in a local network LAN or a wide area network WAN 0139 In the embodiment o
27. rg provides the information user a steady search or provide the information user unconditional received the information from them These companies some of them are broadcasting the adver tisement These priors art basically are using the merchant as a center Within that center range the merchant broad casting the advertisement or coupon or any product and services promoting material The user is set up in a way to search and get the advertisement or coupon or any other information 0013 None of them develop a method for the user to access the information based on the user s position pattern or position and shopping pattern 0014 Another prior art that worth to mention is Global Position System GPS receiver The Global Position Sys tem receiver receives the signals from several satellites and then determines its current position The Global Position System receiver usually build in a small computer The computer has a display that could display a simplified map and show the current position on the map The map is either pre stored in the computer or could be down load from a remote site through a wireless connection The computer uses the current position coordination to search a build in database for local information for example closest gas stations hospitals or restaurants The build in database is stored in a memory device of the computer for example flash memory or CD ROM It has the disadvantages that info
28. rmation might be out date and the searching area may not be selectable 0015 Some of the prior art such as the stock quote broadcasting through the web phone pager Or some of the prior art such as airline ticket availability broadcasting through the web phone email and pager These types of the information searches are general a notification or event that notify the user 0016 A preliminary novelty search of classes 707 1 701 213 701 200 in U S patents uncovered U S Pat Nos 586 799 5 839 088 5 802 492 However none of the prior art shows that the search was triggered because of the user is triggered by user s location And the search was also based on the shopping behavior or geography path of the user s location 0017 And the information search can be against infor mation consumer specified searching criteria and searching area and report the search results including information position through a communication link such as Internet Therefore said information position is further used by routing or navigation application to provide information consumer driving guidance 0018 Advantages 0019 Accordingly besides the objects and advantages of the system and method for searching local information describes in my above patent several objects and advan tages of the present invention are Jun 6 2002 0020 a To provide the information to the infor mation user according to the information user posi
29. roduct sales event and business directory information database 14 to provide a user with product promotion information e coupon coupon or product sales event within a given area by the user s path history In the example of this description database 14 is a centralized database system and stores the data about prod uct promotion information e coupon coupon or product sales event and business directory information in the world wide area However in other embodiments database 14 might be implemented as a distributed database system which stores the information in several computer systems and might locate in different areas Each of distributed databases might store data about merchandise information in a local area such as a particular state or country 0137 Database 14 of the embodiment is implemented in a relational database manner Each of product promotion information e coupon coupon or product sales event and business directory information is organized as a record in the database to describe a merchandise having a filed for each product promotion information e coupon coupon or prod uct sales event and business directory information record to describe the merchandise for searching of records of prod uct promotion information e coupon coupon or product sales event and business directory information describing that product promotion information Another field in each of product promotion information e coupon coupon o
30. se data in accordance with the invention Computer system 10 com prises a processor 11 program memory 12 a communica tion device 13 and a merchandise database 14 The com munication device 14 might be a modem or a high speed leased line router In the embodiment of FIG 1 system 10 is an information server and processor 11 is in data com munication with the various end user computer systems via the Internet However in other embodiments the invention could be implemented with a processor having multiple modems to receive calls directly from enduser computer systems and establish the data communication via the modems and public phone line 0134 In FIG 2 it shows end user computers communi cate with server computer in variety ways End user com puter system 21 connects to server computer system 22 via modem 23 and modem 24 through phone line 25 Another example is that end user computer system 26 also connected to server computer system 22 through Internet 27 End user computer system 28 connects to server computer system 22 through radio frequency link 29 0135 An example of a suitable computer system 10 is one operating in accordance with the Sun MicroSystems Solaris operating system Processor 11 may be any general purpose processor having a CPU RAM ROM and I O circuitry 0136 To explain further one aspect of the invention is the use of computer system 10 to access product promotion information e coupon coupon or p
31. ser spends on each position can also be recorded If every time the information user spends more than 30 minutes the system marks the place as a favorite spot These coordinates of the favorite spots and the time when that information user was in the favorite spot can be sent back to the system The system is then determined the information user is in a Red Lobster And the Red Lobster is a restaurant Busi ness catergory business name These property convert process can be real time or can be a batch mode process 0107 So this name of location and the type of location information property is then taken by the system Latter on the system will send the related information product promotion information or any other news information to the information user Ex If the location happen to be a sport club the system will send sport related news coupon or any other information to the information user The method is called location syntheses This way the information flow will be totally automatic learn by the system for the benefit of the information user In this case the information user can build up a syntheses database about the home activity This syntheses database is a profile about what kind of places the information user will go to If the syntheses database is a supermarket computer store shopping mall sport club When the information user travel to other places the infor mation user can ask the system to locate the sim
32. siness name The business name was categorized in a directory structure like a yellow page For example Red Lobster is categorized as a restaurant and under the restau rant category If the Red Lobster has multiple of branches the Red Lobster restaurant will be associated multiple posi tion coordinates depend on where the branch is located 0101 In the prior art the information user will search for the name of the business and information system will then return the coordinate of the searched business name In the present invention the information user will get the business name and the directory category structure of the business name from the position coordinate of the information user The position coordinate of the information user is trans ferred from the GPS or wireless position system that coupled to the information user s PDA or cell phone or any other computer that the information user is carried 0102 Example of Database structure 0103 Business catergory gt business name gt business position area 0104 For Red Lobster restaurant will be 0105 Restaurant gt Red range latitude range Lobster gt longitude 0106 Following is the system in action example Every day the information user can go to a lot of places Position coordinates will be recorded by the cell phone or PDA through the GPS system couple to the PDA or cell phone The time when and the duration that the information u
33. th informa tion blood type information 0056 b The person information can be used for dating service to match 2 or more person Once it match the matched person can have a date 0057 c The person information can be used to find a job This will be like a head hunter service The job specific information matched to the information user s criteria the information user can used them to find a matched job 0058 d If a person have a stoke the system can search for nearby doctor Upon retrieved the nearby doctor the information user can call the doctor and ask for help This way the person got the stoke can be taken care under a profession before the emer gency crew come by 0059 5 news or finances information 0060 0061 b Local finance news information a Local Stock market information 0062 c Local news information 0063 Again the data information was provided by infor mation provider the information user enter the information user data to the system The user is then set up the rule to retrieve the information provider s information The infor mation user data can be information user s personal data include hobby occupation salary shopping behavior data base information user geography path information or any other information related to the information user 0064 The information user can set up the rule about 0065 1 How often can the information user retrieve the information from the s
34. ther proposed a prediction method to estimate the next informa tion search turn around time With the prediction user could determine the buffer time to allow other real time application to share the communication channel With the technique Jun 6 2002 user could continuously do information search and prevent occupying the communication channel from executing other time critical task 0038 Another prediction method of the preferred embodiment of the invention is to utilize dynamic informa tion such as moving speed and direction to determine the future searching geographic area and better query that reduce the redundant search results from previous queries 0039 The search results of the preferred embodiment of the present invention could be transmit back to the user in the order of the relative distance from the GPS coordinate of each search result to user s GPS coordinate Since that user could receive the closer and approaching information first and then far information 0040 2 Information Mention in this Invention 0041 The information that information provider provides include the following information The searching criteria mentioned in this pattern can also be the information criteria to search the following information 0042 1 product and service promotion information 0043 a This includes coupon shopping mall on sale information the manufacturer rebate informa tion compare price information
35. tion 0021 b To provide the mobile information to the mobile information user according to the mobile information user s position history 0022 c To conclude the mobile information user s position history property To send the information to the mobile information according to information user s position history property 0023 d To send the advertise information to the targeted customer by information user s position history information 0024 e To provide mobile information user to formulate a predefine rules The searches results will be output to the mobile information user by said predefine rules Said predefine rules may be consist of time geographic area search pattern as elements of the predefined rules 0025 i To provide mobile information system to learn from the mobile information user behavior 1 and to search the information for the information user automatically The information included infor mation about product and service promotion infor mation event information time related informa tion and personnel information SUMMARY OF INVENTION 0026 A fast and convenient local information search system and method is provided for mobile information device user who is able to search and efficiently retrieve the information corresponding to user s current location from Internet 0027 Normally the information user can get on the network by information user s first computer The first co
36. ver searches the database according to the current search criteria and further filters out the search results that match with the history search criteria that are already transmitted back to the mobile device The computer server will not record user s searching criteria history Another method to transmit the current search criteria and history search criteria is to reorganize them into a new query with less information quantity but the same effect 0035 In another preferred embodiment of the invention the computer server records the user s search criteria history The user only transmits the current search criteria The approach could further reduce the quantity of query infor mation transmit to the computer server by increasing the working load of the computer server and manage a user profile for their history queries 0036 The search criteria are consisting of GPS coordi nate search radius and information search criteria or any combination thereof The GPS coordinate and the search radius define a search area The information that matches the current information search criteria and locates within the current search area is a current candidate The computer server further qualifies the current candidates by removing the candidates that were the candidates of previous search criteria The final search result is much smaller and can be send back to the mobile device efficiently 0037 The preferred embodiment of the invention fur
37. will then send it to the information user 0005 This invention is also an extent ion of the patent application Ser No US09 253931 and PCT US00 03349 The information that the system is accessing includes infor mation about information provider product and service promotion information merchandise information event information weather information news information and information about people personnel information BACKGROUND DESCRIPTION OF PRIOR ART 0006 The mobile information processor such as note book computer handheld computer in vehicle computer electronic organizer and personal data assistant PDA itself is a computer system and is able to process informa tion Each kind of mobile information processors has dif ferent capabilities and features for different purpose Because of the mobile nature user is not able to store large amount of information on the mobile information processor User needs to connect to other system to access other information Because of the mobile nature the user will choose wireless connection to access the information on other system The wireless connection capability on mobile information processor becomes important Many mobile information processors have either an embedded wireless communication peripheral or an expansion slot for add on wireless communication card 0007 Mobile communication device like mobile phone or pager or Personal Digital Assistant PDA is a commu
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