Patent Application
20080140667
Portable mobile communications devices such as mobile phones are becoming more sophisticated and include many new features and capabilities. Many portable mobile communications devices include a secondary near field RF transceiver such as, for instance, Bluetooth™ or the like. The near field transceiver is designed to provide device-to-device communications that are limited in range. In essence, near field RF systems are designed to eliminate the need for wires or cables between communicating devices. Examples of use include, wireless headsets, file transfers, electronic commerce, etc.
Many of the use cases involve sharing, sending, receiving or exchanging sensitive personal data. This includes personal financial account data that identify credit cards, debit cards, and perhaps even bank accounts. It would be advantageous to know when such information was sent and to whom in order to verify the integrity of certain transactions. This goal can be achieved with the creation and maintenance of a transaction log. Such a log would allow the portable mobile communications device owner to view detailed data pertaining to transactions to verify that a given transaction was indeed intended.
Disclosed is a portable mobile communications device, method, and computer program product that can create and store a transaction log of data exchanged over a near field RF communication system. A near field RF communication data transaction is performed by establishing a near field RF communication connection between the portable mobile communications device and another similarly equipped wireless device, exchanging data between the portable mobile communications device and other similarly equipped wireless device over the established near field RF communication connection, and terminating the established near field RF communication connection between the portable mobile communications device and the other similarly equipped wireless device.
A transaction log record of the just performed near field RF communication data transaction is then created and stored in a transaction log database. A transaction log record is created by obtaining data pertaining to the transaction that uniquely identifies the transaction and its context and filling a plurality of fields of the transaction log record with the relevant data obtained. The transaction log database is made accessible to the user for review and manipulation.
The plurality of fields of the transaction log record include universal transaction fields that identify the sending wireless device involved in the data exchange, the receiving wireless device involved in the data exchange, the geographic location of the near field RF communication data transaction, and the date and time of the near field RF communication data transaction.
For commercial transactions, the plurality of fields of the transaction log record also include financial data such as a financial account associated with the near field RF communication data transaction, a monetary amount associated with the near field RF communication data transaction, a field that identifies the vendor associated with the near field RF communication data transaction. A vendor is an entity that sells or otherwise provides goods or services such that a portable mobile communications device can communicate with the “vendor” electronically to purchase or otherwise obtain the goods or services.
For file transactions, the plurality of fields of the transaction log record also include file data such as a field that identifies a transaction file identifier containing data pertaining to a file name identifier, a file type identifier, a file size identifier, and a file location identifier.
The following detailed description of embodiments refers to the accompanying drawings, which illustrate specific embodiments of the invention. Other embodiments having different structures and operations do not depart from the scope of the present invention.
The portable mobile communications device 100 can utilize its near field RF communication transceiver to communicate with other similarly equipped wirelessly enabled devices including, but not limited to, a wireless smartphone 110, a wireless information access point 120, a wireless personal digital assistant (PDA) 130, a wireless enabled point-of-sale (POS) device 140 (e.g., a computerized cash register), and other mobile phones 150. The near field RF communication system becomes operable when the portable mobile communications device 100 is brought into proximity of another similarly equipped device.
In the case of Bluetooth™, upon each device discovering the other, an RF connection can be established that allows data to be exchanged between the two devices. In other near field RF communication systems, one device can simply broadcast data to any device capable of receiving and processing the data and await some type of acknowledgement from the receiving device.
In step 310, a near field RF communication connection is established between the portable mobile communications device 100 and another similarly equipped wireless device. The exact mechanisms of creating this connection are left to the devices themselves and whatever particular near field RF communication system is being utilized. In step 320, data is actually exchanged between the two devices. A data exchange can take many forms depending on the format of the data being exchanged. A typical data exchange identifies one device as a sender and the other device as a receiver. The sending device will package and send data over the near field RF communication system to the receiving device. The receiving device will typically reply with an acknowledgement of sorts indicating the status of the transaction. A device can be a sender, a receiver, or both for a given transaction. In step 330, the near field RF communication connection between the two devices is terminated upon completion of the desired transaction. The three steps just presented constitute the process of exchanging data between the portable mobile communications device 100 and another wireless device. Step 340 describes creating a transaction log record (see,
The transaction log record can also or alternatively be stored remotely on another device to provide a back-up copy of all transaction log records. This can be achieved by sending the just created transaction log record to another device using the cellular RF module to a network storage device within the network infrastructure, a local RF transceiver such as Bluetooth™, an infrared connection, or a direct cable connection.
The record about to be described as referring to
The first four fields illustrated in the transaction log record 400 of
This can be valuable if a dispute arises as to a commercial transaction that is said to have occurred in a location that the portable mobile communications device 100 could not possibly have been in due to the basestation identifier associated with the transaction. While a basestation identifier has nothing to do with the actual transaction, since the near field RF module handles that, it can still provide valuable contextual data about the transaction.
The remaining fields in the transaction log record 400 are more closely associated with the content of the data transaction. For instance, it is becoming more common to use near field RF equipped devices in financial transactions to purchase goods or services from commercial enterprises. In such transactions, the portable mobile communications device 100 is provisioned with financial data such as, for instance, credit card account data, bank account debit card data, and/or specific vendor credit data. During a near field RF commercial transaction, the portable mobile communications device 100 is used to ‘pay’ for goods or services by sending specific financial data to a POS device (see,
The transaction log record 400 will memorialize aspects of commercial transactions as a way to provide the user a back-up copy of transactions if ever a dispute arises. To that end there is a field for an account identifier 450 that identifies to which financial account the transaction was posted, an amount field 460 that indicates the amount of money was involved in the transaction, and a vendor identification data field 470 that provides as much information about the vendor as can be obtained including, but not limited to, vendor (store) name, store number, store address, sales associate responsible for the transaction, etc.
Another type of near field RF transaction may involve sending and/or receiving data files to/from another wireless device. This type of transaction encompasses exchanging media content files such as, but not limited to, audio files (MP3 or the like), video files (JPEG, MPEG, or the like), text files (e.g., Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc . . . ), personal files such as contact data from a phonebook database, or the like. For these types of near field RF transactions, the transaction log record 400 will include a transaction file identifier field 480 that identifies things like a file name, a file type, a file size, the local address from which the file was obtained, etc.
In step 510, the portable mobile communications device user can access the transaction log database via the user interface of the portable mobile communications device 100 and the near field RF communication transaction log application 230. In step 520, a list of the currently saved transaction log records 400 is displayed on the portable mobile communications device display. The default view of the displayed transaction log records 400 is presented according to the date/time stamp field of each transaction log record meaning that the transaction log records 400 on list are displayed from the most recent to the oldest.
In step 530, the list of transaction log records can be manipulated. Two types of transaction log record manipulation are described. In step 540, the user can ‘sort’ the transaction log records according to a field or parameter other than the default (date/time stamp). This allows the list to be reconfigured based on, for instance, vendor name, file name, file type, transaction amount, etc.
Perhaps the user is not sure that a particular transaction that occurred with a particular vendor has been accurately recorded by the vendor in a recently received statement. The user can access the transaction log database and sort the list according to the vendor name in an attempt to match the transaction log record on the portable mobile communications device 100 with the transaction recorded on the statement.
Or, the user can sort the list according to a file name to determine which devices were sent a particular file and when. There are numerous practical sorting scenarios that can be contemplated by a user and performed by the intelligence associated with the present invention.
In step 550, the user is provided the ability to selectively delete individual or grouped transaction records. A purging function can be incorporated into the near field RF communication transaction log application 230 that will purge transaction records that are of a certain age. This feature can be overridden by the user entirely or selectively by setting a parameter for a particular transaction record to be undeletable until otherwise specified.
Those skilled in the art may devise other transaction manipulation scenarios that are not specifically enumerated herein but which fit within the framework provided by the disclosure of the present invention.
As will be appreciated by one of skill in the art, the present invention may be embodied as a method, system, or computer program product. 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 all generally be referred to herein as a “circuit,” “module” or “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 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 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), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a transmission media such as those supporting the Internet or an intranet, or a magnetic storage device. 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, apparatus, or device.
Computer program code for carrying out operations of the present invention may be written in an object oriented programming language such as Java, 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 program code may execute entirely on the user's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider).
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 operational steps 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.
Any prompts associated with the present invention may be presented and responded to via a graphical user interface (GUI) presented on the display of the portable mobile communications device or the like.
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 block 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.
