Patent Application
20100285780
The present invention is related to phone calls, and more specifically to call time monitoring and warning generation.
Currently, people travel extensively around the world for business and for pleasure. Also, nearly everyone has a phone of some kind, either wired or wireless. Today, not only do many adults carry cell phones, but it is quite common for children even in their early teens to have a cell phone with them the majority of the time. This allows people to keep in communication worldwide regardless of where they or their desired called party may be located. However, a problem arises when a person places a call to a called party in another time zone at a time that happens to be an undesirable time in the called party's time zone. For example, a person in one country and one time zone may place a call to another person, friend or family member in another time zone in another country where the call is actually received at the called party in the middle of the night while the called party is sleeping.
According to one aspect of the present invention, a telephony device includes a processor, and a memory, wherein during initiation of a call from the device to a destination party, the device determines if a current time is within a do-not-call time and provides a warning if the call is during the do-not-call time before the call is sent.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a method for call time warning generation includes detecting an initiation of a call at a device, determining if a current time is within a do-not-call time, and providing a warning if the call is during the do-not-call time before the call is sent.
According to a further aspect of the present invention, a system includes a server, a telephony device, and a network, the server and the telephony device communicating over the network, wherein during initiation of a call from the device to a destination party, the device receives an indication from the server, responsive to a request from the device, whether the call should be sent, the device providing a warning responsive to the indication being “do not call” before the call is sent.
According to a still further aspect of the present invention, a computer program product comprising a computer useable medium having computer useable program code embodied therewith, the computer useable program code comprising computer useable program code configured to detect an initiation of a call at a device, computer useable program code configured to determine if a current time is within a do-not-call time, and computer useable program code configured to provide a warning if the call is during the do-not-call time before the call is sent.
The present invention is further described in the detailed description which follows in reference to the noted plurality of drawings by way of non-limiting examples of embodiments of the present invention in which like reference numerals represent similar parts throughout the several views of the drawings and wherein:
As will be appreciated by one of skill in the art, the present invention may be embodied as a method, system, computer program product, or a combination of the foregoing. Accordingly, the present invention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may generally be referred to herein as a “system.” Furthermore, the present invention may take the form of a computer program product on a computer-usable storage medium having computer-usable program code embodied in the medium.
Any suitable computer usable or computer readable medium may be utilized. The computer usable or computer readable medium may be, for example but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, device, or propagation medium. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer readable medium would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires; a tangible medium such as a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), a compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), or other tangible optical or magnetic storage device; or transmission media such as those supporting the Internet or an intranet. Note that the computer usable or computer readable medium could even be paper or another suitable medium upon which the program is printed, as the program can be electronically captured, via, for instance, optical scanning of the paper or other medium, then compiled, interpreted, or otherwise processed in a suitable manner, if necessary, and then stored in a computer memory.
In the context of this document, a computer usable or computer readable medium may be any medium that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, platform, apparatus, or device. The computer usable medium may include a propagated data signal with the computer-usable program code embodied therewith, either in baseband or as part of a carrier wave. The computer usable program code may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to the Internet, wireline, optical fiber cable, radio frequency (RF) or other means.
Computer program code for carrying out operations of the present invention may be written in an object oriented, scripted or unscripted programming language such as Java, Perl, Smalltalk, C++ or the like. However, the computer program code for carrying out operations of the present invention may also be written in conventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similar programming languages.
The present invention is described below with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of the invention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memory that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operations to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide steps for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks. Alternatively, computer program implemented steps or acts may be combined with operator or human implemented steps or acts in order to carry out an embodiment of the invention.
Embodiments according to the present invention relate to providing a warning to a user before placing phone calls at undesirable times in the time zone of the party being called (hereinafter the “called party”). In the description below, the terms called party and destination party may be used to denote a party to which a phone call is directed. The warning may typically be a popup on a display of the user's phone or may be an audible or any other type of warning. Upon initiation of a call, it is determined in what time zone the called party is located and if this is determined to be an undesirable time in the called party's time zone, a warning message may be displayed alerting the user making the call that this may be an undesirable time to call the called party.
An application may detect the initiation of a call and identify a time zone of the called party. If the application is resident on the caller's phone, it may be part of a phonebook application of the phone or may be an independent or separate application of the phone. The application may include time zones of the called party or location information of the called party. The time zone of the called party may be identified from pre-stored information stored on the phone and associated with the called party, or may be identified based on any one or more of a country code, a city code, an area code, or a Global Positioning System (GPS) location of the called party. Once the time zone of the called party is identified, the application may then determine a time in the time zone of the called party based on a current time in the time zone of the calling party, and issue a warning to the calling party if the time in the time zone of the called party is an undesirable time.
Moreover, according to embodiments of the present invention, a location of a called party may be obtained from a server and sent to a phone of the calling party. This location information may then be used to determine a time zone of the called party. In addition, according to embodiments of the present invention, upon initiation of a call to a called party, a request may be sent from a phone (client) of the caller to a server to verify that the call is being made and at an appropriate time for the called party. The server may have access to a current location of the called party from information stored at the server, from information stored at other servers, from information stored at social networking sites, from information stored on websites, or from other sources. In addition, the called party may have indicated times that are not desirable for receiving calls and this information may have been stored or sent to one or more servers, websites or social networking sites. Therefore, a server may use this information to determine if the call is being made at a desirable time for the called party and may simply respond to the caller with an “okay to call” indication or a “do not call” indication. The caller may then act accordingly. In this scenario, the caller's phone does not receive location information of the called party and merely receives an okay to call or do not call response from a server, providing more privacy for the called party.
Moreover, according to embodiments of the present invention, users may register their do not call times with a server, a website, or a social networking site. For example, people may enter their location and/or do not call times on social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, etc. In this regard, once registered, the phones of the registered parties may report location information of the phone to the server. The server may use this information and possibly other information to determine whether it is a desirable time to call each user. The server may receive location information from a called party's phone such as GPS location or may monitor websites such as social networks to obtain location information for a called party. This is advantageous since people are constantly moving and traveling where their location is very seldom stable.
If the server does not have information for the destination party, then in block 604, the client device may receive an indication from the server that the destination party information is not available. Then, in block 605, it may be determined whether do not call times are available in a phonebook application and if not, in block 607, default do not call times may be used. If do not call times are available, then in block 606, the do not call times may be obtained from the phonebook application. In block 608, it may then be determined whether the current time is within do not call times and if not, in block 609, the call may proceed to the destination party. If the current time is within do not call times, then in block 610, a do not call warning may be generated to an initiator of the call. In this example embodiment, privacy for the destination party is enhanced since a location of the destination party is not provided from the server to the client device.
If the server does not have information on the destination party, then in block 704, the server may send an indication that the destination party information is not available. Then, in block 705, the client device performs processing to determine call approval. Therefore, a destination party privacy is enhanced since a location of the destination party is not sent from the server to the client.
The flowcharts and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate the architecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementations of systems, methods and computer program products according to various embodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in the flowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portion of code, which comprises one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function(s). It should also be noted that, in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in the blocks may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-based systems which perform the specified functions or acts, or combinations of special purpose hardware and computer instructions.
The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. As used herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises” and/or “comprising,” when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.
Although specific embodiments have been illustrated and described herein, those of ordinary skill in the art appreciate that any arrangement which is calculated to achieve the same purpose may be substituted for the specific embodiments shown and that the invention has other applications in other environments. This application is intended to cover any adaptations or variations of the present invention. The following claims are in no way intended to limit the scope of the invention to the specific embodiments described herein.
