Patent Application
20070149222
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method, system, and node for communicating with a targeted party intended for communication.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the improvement of communication means in the last few decades, people-matching techniques have followed and have been enhanced with the help of technology. One such technique involves the use of a telephone for accessing a voice based people-matching system where men and women can enter their own profile as a spoken description, can lease into somebody else's profile description in order to select a matching person. Such systems typically use DTMF tones as an input and selection means users can employ in order to browse the system's menu.
An improvement over such a system is described in the PCT patent application publication WO 2004/003705 A2 in the name of Brady James V. (hereinafter called Brady). Brady teaches a location-based and preferences-based system and method for matching profiles and characteristics of persons, places, and things with the express preferences of mobile users, and to alert and direct such users to any places having attributes matching the users express preferences. The user has a Global Positioning System (GPS)—capable PDA that stores preferences of the user and which communicates with a server containing profiles of persons, places, or things. The comparison of the user's preferences with the various profiles allows a user only to be informed of those persons, places and or things that he is likely to be interested in. The teaching of Brady is thus limited to the selection of persons or places solely based on an electronic profile stored in an electronic device.
The PCT patent application publication WO 2002/01405 A1 in the name of Hancock John (hereinafter called Hancock) also bears a relation with the field of the present invention. Hancock teaches a people networking system that allows users to locate people with the same interests or to find people who would satisfy a current need (e.g. a Job vacancy). Such a system may make use of existing telecommunications networks such as the Internet, WAP, GPS, and other protocols to provide users' location information. Each user of the system provides a personal profile of their business, social, or private interests and the system users may log in to the system via an Internet access device or a mobile phone to search the system database for compatible matches. Any confirmed match may be sent a text message in which the sender's anonymity is preserved. Hancock's system also performs people-matching solely on the base of an electronic profile.
Many systems make use of a critical information associated with persons interested in people-matching services, i.e. of the proximity or location information associated with each user. Location information provides the advantages that people are only proposed matches which are in their proximity, thus giving the system more appeal for users and clients. Such a system is described in the US patent application publication US 2004/0006548 A1 in the name of Valadi Mahmood (hereinafter called Mahmood). Mahmood teaches a subscriber profile matching and positioning system for mobile units, wherein mobile telephones are connected to a server that contains a database having information on persons looking to meet other persons. Using the telephones, information can be input to the server regard of a person looking to meet another person. The server receives personal information, stores it in the database and compares the personal information to find other persons, the information of whom matches the received information on the first person. In the case where the telephones are mobile phones, the server can have the feature of determining the geographical locations thereof, and when the geographical distance between the two mobile telephones is small, to give a signal thereof to the mobile telephones such as activating a ring signal and establishing a telephone connection between them.
Another location-based people-matching system is disclosed in the French patent application number 0011839 which publication number is 2,814,313. This French patent application discloses a people-matching system wherein a personal profile of a user is rather stored in his own mobile device, which comprises an emitter and a receiver. When two mobile devices are in close proximity, they detect each other via short-range radio means, the two users' profiles are compared with each other, and when a match is found personal data is exchanged between the two devices so that the users of the devices can meet. However, this patent application also allows people-matching to be performed based on a personal profile stored within the mobile device.
Conclusively, although various people-matching techniques are known in the art including location-based people-matching systems, they all allow for people-matching to be performed using electronic personal profiles containing personal preferences and information related to each user, which are compared with another user's preferences and/or information for a match to be established. However, people-matching techniques exclusively based on the proximity of one user with respect to another user are impracticable with cellular systems because in the absence of personal profile comparison and matching, the number of returned matches found within a certain graphical area is simply too large, and thus unmanageable. This is why, even the above described French patent application only mentions a technique of people-matching using a combination of short-range radio and profile matching.
To date, there exist no people-matching or communications systems allowing for a communication to be established simply by “finger-pointing” a targeted person intended for communications using, for example, an electronic device.
It should be readily appreciated that in order to overcome the deficiencies and shortcomings of the existing prior art solutions, it would be advantageous to have a method and system for effective people-matching or simply for communications allowing for a communication to be established simply by “finger-pointing” a (visible or not visible) targeted person intended for communications using, for example, an electronic device or terminal having a pointing module. The present invention provides such a method, system, and user terminal.
The present invention provides for methods, a mobile terminal (or device) and application server that allow an initiating mobile terminal user to “finger-point” an intended target for communication, such as for example another mobile user, using a pointing module of his mobile terminal, and as a consequence of such “finger-pointing”, to retrieve sufficient information (e.g. an indication of the identity) related to the targeted user to be able to communicate with him or her.
In one aspect, the present invention is a method for communication between a terminal and a party targeted for communication, the method comprising the steps of:
a. receiving information about a party targeted for communication from a terminal that physically points towards the party targeted for communication for acquiring the information; and
b. translating the information about the party targeted for communication into an indication of an identity of the party targeted for communication for establishing a communication between the terminal and the party targeted for communication.
In another aspect, the present invention is an application server, comprising:
a communication module receiving information about a party targeted for communication from a terminal that physically points towards the party targeted for communication for acquiring the information;
a database storing a plurality of associations between information of mobile terminals and indications of identities the mobile terminals; and
a processing module that receives from the communication module the information about the party targeted for communication and retrieves from the database an indication of an identity of the party targeted for communication for establishing a communication between the terminal and the party targeted for communication.
In yet another aspect, the present invention is a terminal comprising:
a pointing module arranged to physically point towards a party targeted for communication when the terminal is placed in a certain position, the pointing module acquiring information about the party targeted for communication; and
a communication module communicating with the party targeted for communication based on the information about the party intended for communication.
In yet another aspect, the present invention is a method for communication using a terminal, the method comprising the steps of:
a. acquiring information about a party targeted for communication using the terminal, the terminal being arranged to physically point towards the party targeted for communication to acquire the information; and
b. communicating with the party targeted for communication based on the information about the party intended for communication.
For a more detailed understanding of the invention, for further objects and advantages thereof, reference can now be made to the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
The innovative teachings of the present invention will be described with particular reference to various exemplary embodiments. However, it should be understood that this class of embodiments provides only a few examples of the many advantageous uses of the innovative teachings of the invention. In general, statements made in the specification of the present application do not necessarily limit any of the various claimed aspects of the present invention. Moreover, some statements may apply to some inventive features but not to others. In the drawings, like or similar elements are designated with identical reference numerals throughout the several views.
It should be readily appreciated that in order to overcome the deficiencies and shortcomings of the existing prior art solutions, it would be advantageous to have a method and system for effective people-matching or communications allowing for a communication to be established simply by “finger-pointing” a (visible or not visible) targeted person intended for communications using, for example, an electronic device or terminal having a pointing module. The present invention provides such a method, system, and user terminal.
The present invention provides for methods, mobile device and application server that allow an initiating mobile terminal user to “finger-point” an intended target for communication, such as for example another mobile user, who may be visible to the initiating user or alternatively, who may be part of a object such as a car or a building, using a pointing module of his mobile terminal, and as a consequence of such “finger-pointing”, to retrieve sufficient information (e.g. an indication of the identity) related to the targeted user to be able to communicate with him or her. The present invention proposes various exemplary means for achieving the “finger-pointing” of the intended target for communication.
In a first variant of the preferred embodiment of the invention, the “finger-pointing” of the party targeted for communication is achieved by obtaining the indication of the identity of the user targeted for communication in the form of a picture of the party intended for communication. For example, a first user uses a mobile terminal pointing module including a digital camera for taking a picture of another user who is in sight. Once the picture is taken, the first user may perform picture adjustment, such as for example by cropping the portrait of the other user from the original picture using a graphical application on his mobile device, and to further send the adjusted picture to an application server. The later uses the picture representing the person targeted for communication to match a mobile terminal address of the person intended for communication. When such match is found, the server either returns the address of the party intended for communication to the first user so that the first user can communicate with the intended party for communication, or alternatively directly establishes a communication between the users without sending the address of the targeted terminal to the first user, thus preserving the privacy of the party targeted for communication.
In a second variant of the preferred embodiment of the invention, the “finger-pointing” of the party targeted for communication is achieved by obtaining the indication of the identity of the user targeted for communication in the form of a radio identifier of the targeted mobile terminal by radio contacting that mobile terminal using a pointing module that includes a directive antenna of the first user's mobile device. A directive antenna is defined as a radio antenna that emits radio signals only in a given direction (optionally, the directive antenna may also only receive radio signals only from that direction). For example, the first user may physically point his directive antenna-enabled mobile terminal towards the party intended for communication, and may ping that party with a radio message requesting the establishment of a communication therebetween. In such circumstances it may not be necessary that the targeted user is visible to the initiating party. The mobile terminal of the targeted mobile user may answer back either with his/her full mobile terminal address or phone number, or with an anonymous radio identifier which is only known to an application server, in which case the application server may perform a translation between the anonymous radio identifier and the mobile terminal address or phone number. In both cases, the communication can be established between the first user and the user targeted for communication, either directly between the mobile devices, or using the application server, as a result of the radio-based “finger-pointing” of the targeted person for communication. It is to be noted that the term radio identifier as used herein designates any type of identifier of the targeted mobile terminal, including for example its full terminal address (to be used for example when no privacy concerns are taken into account in a given implementation when the targeted terminal returns its full address to the initiating party) or just an indication of the terminal address only known to a server.
As it can be observed, the present invention thus provides an easy and effective manner for contacting a party intended for communication who is in sight of a first user, by allowing the first user to physically point a pointing module of an electronic device, such as for example of a mobile terminal, towards the party targeted for communication, and as a result, to retrieve sufficient information about the party targeted for communication (e.g. an indication of the identity of that party), to be able to establish a communication with that party. Such a communication may be established, for example, using traditional voice communication (e.g. circuit-switched voice, Voice over IP (VoIP), via text messaging (e.g. SMS (Short Messaging Service), MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), chat, etc), or via videoconferencing. By allowing communications and people-matching to be performed by a physical “finger-pointing” of the party intended and targeted for communication, e.g. by radio or optical means as described herein, the present invention goes further and beyond the prior art techniques for people-matching, where communications were possible only based on an electronic match of two personal profiles electronically stored in a server, and where the persons were not in sight of each other.
Reference is now made to
Reference is now additionally made to
The server 414 further comprises a radio identifier database 706 that stores associations 707 between radio identifiers of users on one side, and terminal addresses of such users on the other side. Therefore, the data contained in the radio identifier database 708 allows the server 414 to be capable of also translating a given radio identifier of a user and his terminal address. It is upon receipt of registration messages as described herein before, that the server 414 may populate its radio identifier database 706 with associations 707 between the received radio identifier of a given user and his terminal address, which may be extracted from the authentication data of that user. Optionally, the database 708 may further comprise, for each such association, location information indicative of a last location registered for each terminal address. This location information may also be obtained by the server 414, for example, from a location server (not shown) or via other suitable means depending upon the implementation.
The server 414 further comprises a communication module 710, which receives and sends messages from and to user terminals, like from and to terminals 410 and 412, and a processing module 704, which based on the information contained in the database is 706 and 708 performs the processing, matching, and communication required to identify a terminal address.
Once the mobile terminals A 410 and B 412 are provided authorization for people-matching service supported by the server 414 in actions 424 and 434, at any moment they may request such a service, or alternatively, such a service may be requested without prior registration and authorization. This is may be performed in various ways.
In a first variant of the preferred embodiment of the invention described in action 440, the user of the mobile terminal A 410 may obtain the indication of the identity of the targeted party for communication in the form of a picture of that user. For this purpose, the initiating user may use a digital camera of the mobile terminal 410 for taking a picture of the user of the mobile terminal B 412, and to request the identification of the user targeted for communication based on the picture, and further the establishment of a communication therewith, in an action analogous to the one described in relation to
Reference is now additionally made to
After having taken the picture of the party intended for communication, which in the present case is the user of the mobile terminal B 412, the user of the mobile terminal A 410 may use the graphical processing module 610 to adjust and/or crop the picture taken of the other user, for example to better show the portrait and/or the face of that user, action 443. In action 444, the user of mobile terminal A 410 sends an identification request message to the server 414 that includes the address 446 of mobile terminal A 410, and the digital picture 448 of the user of mobile terminal B 412. Upon receipt of the message 444, the server 414 may optionally yet again perform authorization and/or authentication of mobile terminal A 410 using its authorization module 702, action 450, and in action 452 may use the processing module 704 to perform digital picture analysis of the received digital picture 448. As a result, the processing module 704 may identify which one of the pictures of the picture database 708 most closely corresponds to the received digital picture 448, and the may determine the terminal address or identity associated to the closest picture match. That terminal address or identity is assumed to be the one of the mobile terminal B 412.
Then, in action 454, the server 414 uses its communication module 710 to return the determined address of the mobile terminal B 412 to the terminal A 410, so that the later can contact the terminal B 412. The server 414 sends to the terminal A 410 an identification reply message 454 comprising the determined terminal address 456 of the terminal B 412. Then, terminal A 410 can initiate a communication with the mobile terminal B 412 using the received address of the mobile terminal B 412, wherein such communication may be established in various manners, such as for example using SMS chat, or MMS messaging, or a voice-based communication.
Action 454 is not the only manner in which a communication can be established between terminals A 410 and B 412 using the determined address of terminal B 413. Action 460 presents an alternate manner: once the terminal address 456 of the mobile terminal B 412 is determined by the server 414, the later does not return the determined terminal address to the terminal A 410 but rather itself initiates a communication between the terminals A 410 and B 412. This variant has the advantage of keeping the terminal address of the mobile terminal B 412 unknown to the terminal A 410. For this purpose, it is the server 414 that initiates the communication by using its communication module 710 to send communication requests 462 and 464 to the terminals 410 and 412, so that the communication between terminals A 410 and B 412 is established in action 466 (in the case of a voice or chat session). Again, such a communication can be established using various means such as for example via messaging such as SMS, MMS, or chat, or even using voice based communications. For example, Session Initiating Protocol (SIP) can be used for the signaling 462 and 464 in order to open a SIP-based session that supports communications between the involved parties.
With the first variant of the preferred embodiment of the invention, it thus becomes possible for a first party to take a picture of a second party targeted for communication and which is in close proximity to the first party, to further request the identification of the second party (that may be kept unknown to the first party) and to allow for a communication to be established between the first and the second party.
In a second variant of the preferred embodiment of the invention described in action 470, it is proposed yet another manner of identifying a party targeted for communication. According to this variant, in order to obtain the indication of the identity of the party targeted for communication, terminal A 410 sends a targeted radio request message 472 for a radio identifier of the mobile terminal B 412 of the user targeted for communication, wherein the message may also comprise an identifier 474 of the mobile terminal A 410, and a picture 475 of the user of the terminal A 410. Such an action is also shown in relation to
As a result, the user of mobile terminal B 412 is displayed a contact request on his mobile terminal 412, and using, for example, a keypad of the terminal the user accepts the contact request, action 476, by seeing the picture 475 of the requestor user and considering whether or not a communication with that person should be accepted. Consequently, the mobile terminal B 412 returns to mobile terminal A 410 a request return message 478 comprising a radio identifier 480 of the mobile terminal B 412 that is an indication of the identity of terminal B 412 that may not reveal the terminal address of that terminal to terminal A 410. Furthermore, the message 472 may also comprise a picture 481 of the targeted party B. The transmission of the message 478 may be achieved using various transmissions, such as SMS, MMS, short range radio transmission means such as Bluetooth and the likes. In action 482, the mobile terminal A 410 may select to establish a communication with the mobile terminal B 412. Such an action may be especially useful in situations where when physically pointing the mobile terminal A 410 towards a party intended for communication, the radio lobe 304 generated by the directive antenna encompasses not only the intended target for communication, which in the present case is mobile terminal B 412, but also other mobile terminals which respond back to the terminal A 410. Therefore, a selection 482 may be performed by user A that allows the user to select the desired party intended for communication from multiple parties, using for example the picture 481.
In action 484, the user of mobile terminal A 410 sends an identification request message to the server 414 that may also include the address 446 of mobile terminal A 410, along with the radio identifier 480 of the mobile terminal B 412. Upon receipt of the message 484, the server 414 may optionally yet again perform authorization or authentication of mobile terminal A 410 using its authorization module 702, action 485, and in action 487 may use its processing module 704 to identify the terminal address of the mobile terminal B 412 based on the radio identifier 480. For this purpose, the processing module 704 of the server 414 identifies in its radio identifier database 706 the radio identifier that most closely corresponds or that matches the radio identifier 480, and then retrieves the terminal address associated to the determined closest match, which is assumed to be the terminal address of the mobile terminal B 412. Then, in action 486, the server 414 uses its communication module 710 to return the determined address of the mobile terminal B 412 to terminal A 410, so that the later can contact the terminal B 412. The server 414 sends to the terminal A 410 an identification reply message 488 comprising the determined terminal address 456 of the terminal B 412. Then, terminal A 410 can initiate a communication 490 with the mobile terminal B 412 using the received address of the mobile terminal B 412, wherein such communication can be established in various manners, such as for example using SMS, chat, or MMS messaging, or voice-based communications, in a manner that is known in the art. Alternatively, in action 492, once the terminal address 456 of the mobile terminal B 412 is determined by the server 414, the later refrains from returning the determined terminal address to the terminal A 410 but rather itself initiates a communication between the terminals A 410 and B 412. This variant has the advantage that it keeps the terminal address of the mobile terminal B 412 unknown to the terminal A 410. For this purpose, it is the server 414 that uses its communication module 710 to initiates the communication by sending communication requests 494 and 496 to terminals A 410 and B 412, so that a communication therebetween is established in action 498. For example, the server 414 may send SIP Invite messages to both parties for inviting them to join a communication session. Again, such a communication may be established in various ways such as for example via messaging such as SMS, MMS, or chat, or even using voice-based communications. As mentioned, for example, SIP signaling can be used for the signaling 494 and 496 in order to open a SIP-based session that supports communications between the involved parties.
Reference is now made jointly to
In actions 442 or 472 the initiating terminal A 410 is physically pointed towards the party targeted for communication and, if the radio contacting is used, the radio identifier 480, previously described, is returned to the terminal A 410. Optionally, the targeted terminal B 412 may also be configured to return its own location information 479 to terminal A 410 using the message 478 shown in
In action 504, the authentication and authorization module 702 of the server 414′ may yet again authorize and/or authenticate the terminal A 410. Upon positive result, further in action 508 the server 414′ may determine the position of terminal A 410 or B 412, in case the location information of the request 502 contained merely a location request and no actual location indication. Such action may also comprise contacting another location server (not shown) using for example the communications module 710. Then, the processing module 704 of the server 414′ determines the address of terminal B 412 based on the picture 448 or the radio identifier 480, by parsing only those records of the appropriate database (i.e. of the picture database 709 i the request 502 contained the picture 448 of the user of terminal B 412, or the radio identifier database 707 if the request 502 contained the radio identifier 480 of terminal B 412) that match the location information. As a result of action 510, the address of terminal B 412 is obtained, and in action 512 a communication can be established between terminal A 410 and terminal B 412, for example as described hereinbefore in relation to
Therefore, with the present invention it becomes possible to establish contact and communicate with a targeted person in sight of another person, by physically pointing a device towards the targeted person, and as a result, obtain sufficient information about a terminal of the targeted person to be able to establish a communication therewith. Such information may include, for example, a digital picture taken by pointing a camera-enabled mobile terminal towards the targeted person, or a radio identifier of the mobile terminal of the targeted person obtained with the use of a directive antenna of a mobile terminal pointed towards the targeted person.
Based upon the foregoing, it should now be apparent to those of ordinary skills in the art that the present invention provides an advantageous solution, which goes further and beyond the existing prior art solutions, and thus offers simple yet effective people-matching and automatic communication establishment techniques. Although the system and method of the present invention have been described in particular reference to certain exemplary means for pointing towards a party targeted for communications (e.g. the pointing using a camera-enabled device and the directive antenna-enabled device), it should be realized upon reference hereto that the innovative teachings contained herein are not necessarily limited thereto and may be also implemented advantageously using other types of pointing and communication means. Furthermore, the invention may also be further used with any type of information obtained from the targeted party in order to decide to establish a communication with that party, such as for example the party's age, sex, membership to certain interest and/or focus groups, personal preferences such as movies, sports, activities, theater, charity and the like. Such information may be exchanged during the initial contact between the initiating party and the targeted party, and may serve in the selection and decision (e.g. call accept) for a communication to be established between the parties. Finally, although the exemplary preferred embodiment of the invention described hereinabove was portrayed with reference to a people-matching service, it is to be understood that the invention can also be used for other purposes, such as for example for establishing communications with targeted parties in emergency situations, for establishing communications with targeted audiences for commercial advertisement purposes, or for sending news to such a targeted audience. In such embodiments, the targeting can be advantageously made using the radio contacting of the targeted group. It is believed that the operation and construction of the present invention will be apparent from the foregoing description. While the method, system, and user terminal shown and described have been characterized as being preferred, it will be readily apparent that various changes and modifications could be made therein without departing from the scope of the invention as defined by the claims set forth herein below.
Although several preferred embodiments of the method and system of the present invention have been illustrated in the accompanying Drawings and described in the foregoing Detailed Description, it will be understood that the invention is not limited to the embodiments disclosed, but is capable of numerous rearrangements, modifications and substitutions without departing from the spirit of the invention as set forth and defined by the following claims.
