The present disclosure is related to articles of clothing having embedded transponder tags, transponder tag readers, particularly mobile stations having transponder tag readers, and methods of data collection using said transponder tags and methods of storing and presenting data using markup languages.
Fashion conscious consumers like to wear a variety of clothes and not repeat their wardrobes under similar situations such as with the same people at the same places. Clothing is now available with transponder tags such as RFID™ tags which may provide convenience to shoppers in a store by enabling quick identification of items.
However, such tags of usually unused after purchase of the items and thus do not provide subsequent information to the wearer.
Thus what is needed is an apparatus and method for making use of clothing transponder tags by wearers of the clothing items regarding when the item was worn, where and with whom.
In accordance with the embodiments a wearer may use a mobile station having a transponder reader, such as an RFID™ reader, to record a clothing item's date of wear, a list of other items it was worn with, etc., and a plurality of Global Positioning System (GPS) locations where the clothing item was worn at particular times. The data may be recorded by explicit action of the wearer, and may further include recording who the wearer communicated with, and identify nearby devices belonging to members of the wearer's social network.
The information collected may be stored locally on the mobile station's memory, on a removable memory card or on a remote storage device connectable to the mobile station via a network. The stored information may be formatted for publication on the wearer's blog site as “clothescasting” information. Further, images of the clothing item may be retrieved from a manufacturer or third party database and added to the blog information along with “Where I went” and “Who I was with” information. Such images and information may be used to present and promote the clothing of various labels.
The wearer's mobile station may subsequently retrieve the stored information to assist the user in future clothing decisions by responding to voice or menu based queries such as “What did I wear the last time I was with Dave?” or “What did I wear to school last Tuesday?” or “When was the last time I wore these jeans?”
The mobile station 100 may, further in some embodiments, query a clothing database server 117 via database query/response 113 using a suitable network 115. The suitable network 115 as described herein includes any combination of suitable networks such as the mobile station 100 carrier wireless network, the Internet, Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) etc., such that, the mobile station 100 may the query/response 113 with the clothing database server 117.
The query/response 113 provides the clothing database server 117 with clothing reference information collected by the mobile station 100 transponder reader from transponder tag 105. The clothing database server 117 may in response provide further detailed information regarding the clothing item 103 such as, but not limited to, an image file for clothing item 103.
In some embodiments the wearer may use the mobile station 100 to transmit clothing information to a blog server 119. Alternatively, the mobile station 100 may provide the clothing information to a personal computer 111 via a suitable link 121 such as Bluetooth™, or any other suitable connection such as a wired serial connection. The mobile station 100 may also share clothing information with other mobile devices by using either the blog server 119 or an application that provides various user options for sharing clothing information. The wearer may then format the information as desired and transmit it via a network connection, such as Internet connection 123 to the blog server 119 or to another mobile station or group of mobile stations.
Locations of interest where clothes items worn are worn are also recorded within the <clothing:set> tag 200 information. Any or all of the following information may be recorded for a given instance and therefore a <clothing:location> tag 206 indicates the start of a single instance of location data within a <clothing:set>. Multiple <clothing:location> tags 206 may exist and may include the following information tags: a <clothing:GPS> tag 207 for storing a GPS coordinate; a <clothing:hotspot> tag 208, for indicating the nearest WiFi hotspot ID; a <clothing:cellsite> tag 209 for indicating the nearest or strongest cell site; a <clothing:country> tag 210 for country of location (e.g. from GPS lookup); a <clothing:address> tag 211 for providing a street address (e.g. from GPS or map service lookup); and a <clothing:maplink> tag 212 for storing a link to map of current address, such as a map obtained via the Internet.
The <clothing GPS> tag may be populated by the mobile station, via a GPS receiver included in the mobile station, or may be obtained by accessing a location server where the location server provides the GPS coordinates. Various ways of obtaining location information are known to one skilled in the art and therefore the <clothing GPS> tag 207 may be populated by any of the various ways such as, by a mobile station having a GPS, by a locations server, or by some combination as understood by one of ordinary skill.
Once the <clothing GPS> tag 207 is populated, other tags such as the <clothing:country> tag 210, <clothing:address> tag 211, <clothing:maplink> tag 212 may be obtained by the mobile station by performing a GPS or map service lookup.
The embodiments may also provide tags for recording people around the wearer while particular clothing sets are worn. Therefore, within the hierarchy of the <clothing:location> tag 206, is a <clothing:people> tag 213 which indicates the start of “people data.” The <clothing:people> tag 213 people data comprises a <clothing:peoplename> tag 214 per person for providing a textual name of a person (e.g. from phonebook, vcard or contact list); a <clothing:peoplepresence> tag 215 to indicate the presence status of an individual; a <clothing:mood> tag 216 for providing a mood indication of an individual; a <clothing:timestart> tag 217 for indicating a time a person arrived at location; and a <clothing:timeend> tag 218 providing a time that a person left the location.
Thus the tags as described with respect to
The information may be sent and received in a variety of ways such as, but not limited to, Push-to-X, Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds, etc. Further, in some embodiments, the information posted by the wearer may be collected by the manufacturer and stored in a server such as the clothing database server 117, and may be used for providing clothing marketing information, or other marketing information to the wearer. This information collection may be offered to the wearer as a voluntary program and provide various incentives to the user such as discounts, occasional free items, etc., for the wearers participation in the information gathering by the manufacturer, and also for the use of the manufactures items at various social occasions.
The clothescasting information is in most embodiments, used by an application residing on the mobile station 100 to provide the wearer with information used to select wardrobes for various occasions. The clothescasting information may also be shared with other mobile stations for the purpose of matching, or not matching, wardrobes for certain times, events, etc., and may also be recorded as a clothing history which may be accessed later when an article of clothing is transferred. For example, the mobile station may use a contact list or address book list, which may be associated with, and/or used by, other applications such as email, Instant Messaging, Push-to-Talk/Push-to-X, etc., as a source for selecting other users to send and receive clothescating information to and from, respectively. Turning to
Mobile station 100 comprises user interfaces 301, at least one processor 303, and a memory 305. Memory 305 has storage sufficient for the mobile station operating system 307, applications 309 and general file storage 311. Mobile station 100 user interfaces 301, may be a combination of user interfaces including but not limited to a keypad, touch screen, voice activated command input, and gyroscopic cursor controls.
Mobile station 100 has a graphical display 313, which may also have a dedicated processor and/or memory, drivers etc. which are not shown in
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In that case, mobile station 100 may have the known transponder tag information stored in a file storage 311 the mobile station 100 memory 305. The clothescasting application 310 of the mobile station 100 may have a timing setting, which in some embodiments may be a user settable preference, such that the mobile station 100 will perform an transponder interrogation automatically at set time intervals using transponder interrogator 319. The mobile station transponder interrogator 319 may use a singulation protocol so as to check each of the tagged items without encountering problems with conflicting tag responses.
Alternatively, the mobile station 100 may attempt to generally interrogate the tags and use a tree walking protocol to determine either the number of tags present or to determine the information from each item for comparison to the previously stored information.
The clothescasting information will be displayed on a display of mobile station 100, for example by menu 400, and will show an entry for each item scanned for example, “item 1—blouse” 411, “item 2—slacks” 413 and “item 3—shoes,” etc. where the item number and textual descriptions correspond to the populated <clothing:set> tag 200 which includes a <clothing:itemname> tag 202 for each item as was discussed above with respect to
The mobile station 100 may display the menu 400, which may be a user interface applet provided by clothing information database server 117 over network connections 113 through wireless network 115. The menu 400 as discussed will provide wardrobe entries for scanned information in which the entries are selectable using a cursor 417. A selected entry may call a different menu, the item information menu 500.
The menu 500 may provide a display of the scanned clothing information and may also display information downloaded from the clothing database server 117. The cursor 517 may also be used to select specific information segments and allow entry of additional information by the user, or editing of existing entrires. For example the menu 500 may provide a “date last worn,” “place” and “people” information field in which the fields correspond to populated clothing information tags as described and shown in
It is to be understood that the menus illustrated by
The tag information may be specific to the items, or it may be generic information that is associated with the items by the user, by entering the appropriate association information into memory using clothescasting application menus 400 and 500. It is to be understood that each individual tag information should in some way be unique, such that each tag can uniquely identify the item to which it is associated.
In block 703, the mobile station interrogates the transponder tags and receives the tag information and in block 705. The mobile station may compares the information with previously stored information in 707. If all items scanned are previously listed in memory, a timer may be set for periodic updates as in 715.
If one or more of the items is not detected, the mobile station will create a new item entry 709 and may interrogate various servers such as a clothing information database server 117, or location servers for additional information in 711 and add the information to the clothescasting database in 713. The mobile station may then continue with periodic updates for the new items as in 715. The user may add or edit information as was previously discussed. Also, as previously discussed the mobile station may provide periodic updates to the clothing information database server 117 either by an explicit user action or by an optional application setting such that updates are automatically provided to the server 117 as shown in 717. The database updates are clothing history record updates related to individual articles of clothing.
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It is to be understood that the bit fields illustrated by
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Mobile station 920, also having the clothescasting application 310, may display a menu 950 which allows selecting friends from a friends list 951, which may be a pull down menu as shown in
Further, the mobile station 920 clothescasting application 310 may make a comparison of the mobile station 920 user's clothing, via the scanned clothing information, with any selected friend clothing information, and display the comparison results to the mobile station 920 user. The mobile station 920 user may then determine if they will match, or not match, the mobile station 100 user's clothing for a specific event, time, place, etc. The clothescasting information to and from friends mobile stations may be sent and requested using Push-to-x capabilities of the mobiles phones. For example, the mobile station 100 may select a friend or group of friends from a contact list and use a Push-to-X button to select the friend or group of friends for sending the clothescasting information. Push-to-X may also be used to obtain the clothescasting information of one or more friends in a similar manner. For example, the mobile station 100 user may select a friend or group of friends and use a Push-to-X button to request clothescasting information. Alternatively or additionally, the information may be sent and received using Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds.
In an additional embodiment, the mobile station 100 may update the clothing information database server 117, or a blog server such as blog server 119 in
The clothescasting application 310 may act in conjunction with Instant Messaging applications and/or Push-to-X applications, where the clothescasting application 310 provides presence information and updates clothescasting information based on friends being “present” during specific times. The updates may in some embodiments be provided by using a Push-to-X capability in which the mobile station user may “Push-to-Update” the clothescasting information to a friend or group of friends as discussed above.
The clothing information database server 117 as described with respect to the various embodiments may be periodically updated by the mobile station clothescasting application 310 to form a clothing history database for specific article of clothing. The history may be used in conjunction with future transferring or sale of the article of clothing. For example, if the United States President's wife, the First Lady were an application user, the dress she wore to the President's inauguration may be recorded along with the various information as described herein, and stored in the clothing information database server 117 or to a blog server such as blog server 119. The clothing history information may then be used for various purposes such as, but not limited to, future museum displays, auctions, etc. and may be transferred along with the article of clothing.
It is to be understood that other services and business models are conceivable using the various embodiments and that while specific embodiments have been disclosed herein, such embodiments are not a limitation on other similar embodiments that may be conceived that would remain in accordance with the present invention.
While the preferred embodiments of the invention have been illustrated and described, it is to be understood that the invention is not so limited. Numerous modifications, changes, variations, substitutions and equivalents will occur to those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims.