WO2010055503A2

WO2010055503A2 - Method and device for providing communication services to a telephone user

Info

Publication number: WO2010055503A2
Application number: PCT/IL2009/001008
Authority: WO
Inventors: Oleg Golobrodsky; Gideon Drori
Original assignee: Peterburg, Yitzhak; Peterburg, Moshe
Priority date: 2008-11-12
Filing date: 2009-10-29
Publication date: 2010-05-20
Also published as: IL195260A; WO2010055503A3; IL195260A0

Abstract

A method is provided to enable a user of a telephone device to use and process personal information stored at a remote server. The method comprises the steps of: (a) upon turning the telephone device on, transmitting an indication that the telephone device has been turned on towards the remote server; (b) generating a managing virtual client entity associated with that user which resides at the remote server, (c) providing a plurality of options to enable selecting an option for retrieving personal information; (d) upon selecting an option, generating at least one temporary virtual client entity that resides at the remote server for enabling a communication session to be held with the user; and (e) establishing a communication path that extends between the user's telephone device and a remote destination via the temporary virtual client entity, thereby allowing to carry out a communication session in accordance with the selected option.

Description

METHOD AND DEVICE FOR PROVIDING COMMUNICATION SERVICES TO

A TELEPHONE USER

Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to telecommunication systems and, in particular, to telephone devices for communicating via a remote server.

Background of the Invention

In the last decade, the field of communications and in particularly of communications by cellular phones is a very fast growing field. Along with the evolvement of the Internet, many new services and applications that once were not optional for the common cellular are now available, e.g. connecting to or accessing Internet-based information resources on the World Wide Web (WWW) , utilizing one's E-mail account to receive/send E-mails, using instant messaging (IM) services such as MSN messenger, I Seek You ("ICQ") , and the like, which are services that require intensive interacting with the respective users. In order to sustain all the above services and more, the current global trend is to manufacture more and more sophisticated devices that include high performance processors and extensive memory means. Consequently, the cost of such cellular telephone devices which typically are referred to as second and third generation systems (2G and 3G) is highly expensive, as well as the cost of maintenance of these devices. As long as the trend continues, in order to keep up with the never-ending developments of Internet based applications, one is bound to meet in the future even more complex and more expensive devices. The present invention therefore seeks to provide a novel method, system and apparatus to overcome the never ending race between the cellular manufactures and the internet developers.

Summary of the Invention

It is an object of the present invention to propose a novel method and apparatus that provide a relatively cheap alternative for today's sophisticated telephone devices, while enabling their user to enjoy similar functionality as if they were using sophisticated telephone devices.

It is another object of the present invention to provide methods and devices by which telephone users may store their personal information in various manners on one or more remote servers rather than in their telephone device and retrieve that information by using a simple and friendly interface.

It is yet another object of the invention to provide a method to enable telephone devices to use new services and new applications without imposing on their users the necessity to upgrade their devices for such a purpose.

It is still another object of the present invention to provide a novel method and device by which telephone users may utilize many real-time Internet applications.

It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method to provide the users with an archive of their communication history and an easy-to-operate search engine . It is a further object of the invention to provide a method to enable a transfer of certain core features considered native to smart-phones of today to a computational cloud, i.e. configuration achieved by servers using cloud computing techniques. Such core features are for example address book, applications and archives, content, etc.

It is still another object of the present invention to provide a method to enable establishing a communication session from a virtual client to a simple telephone device while multiple communication sessions may run at background servers belonging to a computational cloud.

Other objects of the invention will become apparent as the description of the invention proceeds.

In accordance with a first embodiment of the present invention there is provided a method for enabling a user of a telephone device to use and process personal information stored at at least one remote server, the method comprises the steps of:

(a) upon turning on the telephone device, transmitting an indication that the telephone device has been turned on towards the remote server. The indication preferably comprises information to allow the identification of the telephone device from which that indication was transmitted, e.g. the number of the telephone device .

(b) generating a managing virtual client entity that is associated with the user of the telephone device and which resides at the at least one remote server;

(c) providing the user with ^' a plurality of options

(e.g. in a menu form) enabling him/her to select at least one option for retrieving personal information and/or processing data;

(d) upon selecting at least one option from among the plurality of options, generating at least one temporary virtual client entity that resides at one or more of the at least one remote server for enabling a communication session to be held with the user, and wherein that temporary virtual client entity will exist only for the duration of that communication session;

(e) establishing a communication path that extends between the telephone device and a remote destination via the temporary virtual client entity, thereby allowing to carry out a communication session in accordance with the selected option.

In accordance with an embodiment of the invention, the temporary virtual client entity is operative to allow retrieval of personal information and/or of processing data associated with that user. The term "personal information" as used herein throughout the specification and claims is used to denote any data that is associated with the specific user, for example any one or more of the following should be considered as being encompassed by this term: the user's address book, data for logging to Internet based applications, shortcuts to favorite applications, history logs of use, personalized settings, preferences, user personal details and the like. Examples for processing the personal information include among others any of the following: surfing in the global web, enabling communications via an Internet based application, sending SMS or MMS, telephone calls, video calls and the like. The remote destination depends on the option selected. If for example the option selected is to call someone whose details appear in the address book, than the remote destination could be the service provider that provides telephone services to the addressee. If the selected option is to use an Internet based application like ICQ, then the remote destination could be a server where that application resides.

The term "telephone device" as used herein throughout the specification and claims should be understood to encompass both wireless telephone devices such as cellular phones, PDAs and the like and wired telephone devices, such as desktop telephones.

According to another embodiment of the invention, the method provided further comprises a step of identifying the user of the telephone device, preferably, prior to allowing that user to access any personal information stored at one or more of the at least one remote server. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the functionalities of the remote server as described herein throughout the specification and claims may be achieved by using one remote server, or by using a computational cloud where these functionalities may be distributed between a number of servers belonging to that cloud, whether the distribution is made on a permanent tasks' distribution basis or on a temporary basis, among some or all of these computational cloud's servers.

In accordance with still another embodiment of the present invention, the step of identifying the user comprises identifying one user from among a plurality of authorized users associated with a single telephone device, in order to enable that user to use and process personal information which was stored at a remote server. The plurality of users may be for example members of the same company or of the same family, so when a member wants to use the telephone device he/she would need to be identified and a temporary virtual client entity that can allow accessing his/her personal information will then be created, ready for his/her use. Preferably, the identifying step further comprises authenticating the user who uses the telephone device. In the above example each member could get a password and while identifying himself/herself, he/she would input a password prior to creating the associated temporary virtual client entity that will allow access to his/her personal information. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the present invention should not be considered as being limited in the means used for authenticating the user, and apart from a password described above, any other means such as a biometric identification, voice identification, fingerprints and the like, or any combination thereof should be considered as being encompassed by the present invention.

In accordance with another embodiment of the present invention the personal information comprises past information collected during an extended period of time. Preferably, all the personal information is stored as of the time the user has joined the service, but in the alternative the storage period could depend on the storage policy of the service provider, e.g. to store information for no more than a year. Thus, if the user wishes to know for example who called him last year on Christmas or sent him an SMS, he could simply retrieve that information, and if for example he requested information was in the form of SMS, also to retrieve their content.

By yet another embodiment of the present invention, all of the user' s personal information is stored at said remote server thereby negating the need to allocate memory for storage of personal information at the telephone device. This embodiment is especially useful in case where the device is lost/stolen or even destroyed, as such an action does not entail the loss of any of the personal information that is stored at the remote server, and the user who will not have to restore any of his/her personal information, will simply have to buy another device (which will be rather cheap since its functionalities such as major processing load and storage are removed to the remote server) and resume receiving the service.

According to still another preferred embodiment of the present invention, in the case that the at least one remote server is a computational cloud comprising a plurality of remote servers, the communication session is carried simultaneously with multiple other communication sessions associated with that telephone device, which run at background servers (i.e. servers that belong to the computational cloud) , other than the particular remote server through which that communication session is being carried.

In accordance with another aspect of the present invention there is provided a telephone device which comprises a transceiver capable of transmitting an indication towards a remote server which invokes generation of a managing virtual client entity thereat for allowing a user to retrieve and to use stored personal information and of receiving information from that at least one remote server, a display configured to allow interacting between said user and a virtual client entity residing at that at least remote sever (e.g. to display, among others, a menu comprising with a plurality of options received from the at least one remote sever) , and an interface operative to enable the user to select at least one option out of a plurality of options in order to retrieve personal information and/or to process data (e.g. personal information) and to interact with a virtual entity residing at the at least one remote server.

According to yet another embodiment of this aspect of the invention, the transceiver is capable of receiving any of the personal information associated with the user from the at least one remote server, thereby negating the need to allocate memory for storing personal information at the telephone device itself. Preferably, the user of the telephone device is capable of accessing client applications such as Java client application and the like in order to successfully communicate with remote destinations, but without being required to store these applications at the telephone device itself, nor emulations thereof. Consequently, the telephone device of the present invention would be cheaper to manufacture and more reliable (comprising less sophisticated circuitry) .

Preferably the operation system of the telephone device comprises a voice stack, an SMS stack and a GPRS stack. According to another preferred embodiment, the telephone device may further comprise memory means to store information relating to one or more graphical elements and wherein the transceiver is adapted to receive instructions from the managing virtual client entity residing at the at least one remote server to enable the operating system of the telephone device to access the stored one or more graphical elements and retrieved therefrom information for display at the display means. Such graphical elements may be for examples, images associated with client applications, icons, animations and the like.

According to yet another aspect of the present invention there is provided a computer program product encoding a computer program for executing on a computer system a process for receiving an indication transmitted by a user of a telephone device upon turning on the telephone device, generating a managing virtual client entity associated with the user of the telephone device, providing the user with a plurality of options to enable select at least one option for retrieving personal information and/or processing data, upon selecting at least one option from among the plurality of options, generating at least one temporary virtual client entity for enabling the establishment of a communication session with the user, and wherein that temporary virtual client entity exists only for the duration of the respective communication session, and initiating the establishment of a communication path that extends between the telephone device and a remote destination via the temporary virtual client entity, thereby allowing to carry out a communication session in accordance with the selected option.

By yet another embodiment of this aspect of the invention, the process is further adapted to identify one user from among a plurality of users associated with a single telephone device, and to allow that one user to access his/her own personal information.

In accordance with still another preferred embodiment of this aspect of the invention, the process further comprises a step of authenticating the user.

Brief description of the Drawings

FIG. 1 - presents a block diagram of a method for carrying out an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 - presents another block diagram of a method for carrying out a different embodiment of the present invention; and FIG. 3 - demonstrates a telephone device construed according to the present invention.

Detailed Description of the Invention A better understanding of the present invention will now be obtained when the following non-limiting detailed description is considered in conjunction with the following drawings.

First let us consider FIG. 1 which illustrates a block diagram of an embodiment of the method according to the present invention. The first step (110) is transmitting an indication from the telephone device towards the remote server (or towards a computational cloud comprising a plurality of remote servers) , indicating that the user wishes to receive the service provided by the present invention. The indication may simply be (or denote) the number of the telephone device and can be sent automatically whenever the device is activated or upon pressing a designated key at its keyboard. Next, the indication is received at the remote server and a managing virtual client entity is generated (120) thereat. Thereafter, the managing virtual client entity is responsible for the configuration and/or installation and/or management of the telephone device. Preferably, the telephone device maintains its connection to the managing virtual client entity for as long as the telephone device is turned on, and whenever the user turns the device on after turning it off, the connection is resumed automatically. However, there could be cases where the telephone device is turned on but the user prefers not to be connected to the managing virtual client entity, for example when the user wishes to use the telephone device only for voice calls or for sending SMSs. In such a case the user may turn off the option of receiving the service, and at the time he/she wants to re-activate the service manually, a pre-designated key at the device keyboard may be pressed, and the connection will be resumed. This option should be understood also to be encompassed by the present invention and pressing the pre-designated key should be understood as being included within the scope of the term used herein throughout the specification and claims that the managing virtual client entity exists shortly after the telephone device has been turned on.

Upon generating the managing virtual client entity and associating it with the telephone device, the user of the telephone device is provided with a menu that is displayed onto the display of the telephone device (130) . The menu presented, comprises a plurality of options to enable the user to select at least one option for retrieving personal information and/or processing data by that virtual client entity. The menu is presented in a user friendly way that will allow eventually the user to chose with whom would he like to communicate, and which medium (e.g. e-mail, SMS, ICQ, phone call etc.) should be used for that communication. Other options allow the user to select whether he/she prefers to surf in the global web or to use the personal information in different way. For the user of the telephone device, all he/she sees at the moment the telephone device activated, is the menu with the plurality of options from which an action needs to select (140), such an action could be for example communicating with someone, surfing the web, saving a contact information, editing one's own settings etc. Information relating to the selected option is then transmitted to the managing virtual client entity which initiates the generation of a temporary virtual client entity that will be responsible for complying with the option specified by the user's selection in step 140. Since the temporary virtual client entity is an ad hoc entity generated for that specific session, once the session is terminated, the temporary virtual client entity would cease to exist.

This arrangement allows the retrieval of personal information and/or of processing data associated with that user that has been stored at the database. Let us assume that the personal information comprises the user' s telephone address book, shortcuts to favorite applications, history of use, personalized settings, preferences and the user' s personal details including but not limited to details which would allow the user to access certain Internet applications, to which the user had registered, etc. After creating the temporary virtual client entity, the latter is also adapted to initiate (150) the establishment a communication path that would extend between the user' s telephone device and a remote destination. Typically, the remote destination depends on the option selected so in case that the selected option of the user is to link to a remote destination such as an Internet based application. Whenever the user ends the session with the remote destination, the communication path ceases to exist and the user returns to the menu with the various options to select an option (step 160) . Of course, if the user is not interested in proceeding with another session at that point in time, he/she may choose the option of exiting. Preferably, when the link between the telephone device and the remote server is disconnected (step 170) , the temporary virtual client entity also ceases to exist (step 180) , but the managing virtual client entity will still remain active.

The method described in this example may further optionally include an identifying step (125) that is executed after generating the managing virtual client entity in step 120. Preferably, prior to sending the indication for the first time, the user has registered as a user who is qualified to receive the service according to the present invention, and once registered - his/her personal information, identification details, etc. are stored in a database managed by the service provider. The identification step can be in a form of identifying the number used by the user for connecting to the service provider, by comparing the received indication to an indication stored in the database, or by any other method that is known in the art per se. The invention is not restricted to a certain identification process and using smart searches based upon previous location of the telephone device may also be applicable. Once the user has been identified, the managing virtual client entity becomes aware of the access permissions to which the user is allowed.

FIG .2 presents another block diagram illustrating another embodiment of the present invention. By the example given in this figure a method is demonstrated for enabling the use of a telephone device as previously described, by any one of a plurality of users who are associated with the very same telephone device. In such a case, where the telephone device is likely to be used by a number of users, part of the registering process preferably includes the provisioning to the service provider of a list that comprises all possible users that will be allowed to use the telephone device. Similarly to the embodiment depicted in FIG .1, the first step (210) is transmitting an indication towards the remote server that the telephone device has been turned on. The transmitted indication is then received at the remote server, and a managing virtual managing entity is generated at the remote server (step 220) . However, as this telephone device is known by the service provider to be associated with a plurality of users, there is a prior identification phase which begins by transmitting from the remote server to the telephone device a list with the registered users (222) . The one user currently using the telephone device identifies himself from among the list of users (224), and enters his password for an authentication process (226) . At the end of the identifying phase (220) , the remote server receives an identification of the one user who is currently using the telephone device. Following the identification of the current user of the telephone device, a temporary virtual client entity is created (230) which is associated with the current user and is operative to allow retrieval of personal information and/or of processing data associated with that user. Following the creation of the temporary virtual client entity, the current user of the telephone device is provided with a menu that comprises a plurality of options enabling the user to select a requested action, as explained in the example of FIG. 1 (240) . If the user chooses to retrieve personal information and/or to process data the following steps are similar to the steps described in connection within FIG. 1, i.e., he/she will need to select (250) an action which he/she wants to perform, and according to selection of the user, the temporary virtual client entity would initiate the establishment of the communication path (260) between the telephone device and the remote destination. In case that the user decides to terminate the session and another user from among the registered user wishes to use the same telephone device, the user returns to the options menu (step 250) which is managed by the managing virtual client entity and selects the option of another user. The list of users will then be re-displayed (step 222) the identification steps (224 and 226) will be carried out once again for the other user. Once the other user has been identified, another temporary virtual client entity is created but without tearing down the communication path between the telephone device and the managing virtual client entity that was created (270) and the other user communicates via that other temporary virtual client entity as described in connection with the proceeding session held by the first user via the first temporary virtual client entity.

FIG .3 demonstrates an example of a telephone device according to the present invention. The telephone device (300) comprises a transceiver (310) that is capable of transmitting a request towards a remote server to allow its user to use stored personal information, and to receive data from that remote server. The telephone device further comprises a display (320) to display for the telephone device user a menu with of the various options available as received by the transceiver from the remote sever, and an interface (330) to enable the user to select at least one option out of the plurality of options provided. The operating system of the telephone device (not shown in this Fig.) preferably comprises stacks such as a voice stack, a GPRS stack and an SMS stack. The GPRS stack is operative to allow the establishment of a connection between the telephone device and the remote server, whereas the voice and SMS stacks may also be included in order to allow a simple way of operating the telephone device. For example, when the user travels abroad and does not wish to be permanently connected to a server that is located in a different country. In such a case, the user may simply activate the telephone device in a configuration that would allow him/her to transmit/receive voice calls and/or SMS messages. The transceiver (330) comprised in the telephone device is operative to receive any of the personal information associated with the user that is transmitted thereto from the remote server, thereby eliminating the need to allocate memory for storage of personal information at the telephone device. By moving the major processing tasks and the storage requirements from the telephone device itself to the remote server, and allowing the user still to access all information and applications through the remote server as if everything is stored and processed at the telephone device itself, a large number of expensive components are no longer required in each telephone device, the device itself can become a rather simple device, and whenever an upgrade is required (e.g. from one generation to the next generation) it is simply made at the remote server and can be used thereafter without any further adjacent by the user of such a telephone device. In addition, the operating system of the telephone device may be provided with one or more adds-on, preferably of certain graphical elements, such as animations, etc., but not the client applications themselves. The advantage of having such adds-on is to reduce the load on the link extending between the telephone device and the remote server, so these elements may be stored at a memory of the telephone device itself as the capacity required for storing such a graphical representation is about 5K whereas the memory required to store for example a Java client application is 128K. If indeed a library of graphical elements is stored at the telephone device, then in response to the selection made by the user the virtual client entity will instruct the telephone's operating system from the remote server, which image must be pulled from the memory and presented at the telephone's display. In addition, if the process required that icon(s) be presented at the display means such icons may also be pulled from the telephone's graphical library (if stored) or be transmitted to the telephone device from the remote server, as the case may be. In the alternative, the graphical elements may be provided by the service provider when upon a suitable request that would be initiated by the virtual client entity.

Claims

1. A method for enabling a user of a telephone device to use and process personal information stored at at least one remote server, said method comprises the steps of:

(a) upon turning on the telephone device, transmitting an indication that said telephone device has been turned on towards said at least one remote server; (b) generating a managing virtual client entity associated with said user of the telephone device which resides at said at least one remote server;

(c) providing said user with a plurality of options to enable selecting at least one option for retrieving personal information and/or processing data;

(d) upon selecting at least one option from among said plurality of options, generating at least one temporary virtual client entity that resides at one or more of said at least one remote server for enabling a communication session to be held with said user, and wherein said temporary virtual client entity exists for the duration of said communication session; and

(e) establishing a communication path that extends between said telephone device and a remote destination via said temporary virtual client entity, thereby allowing to carry out a communication session in accordance with the selected option.

2. A method according to claim 1, further comprising a step of identifying the user of said telephone device, prior to allowing said user to access any personal information stored at said remote server.

3. A method according to claim 2, wherein said step of identifying the user comprises identifying one user from among a plurality of authorized users associated with said telephone device.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein all of the user' s personal information is stored at said remote server thereby negating the need to allocate memory for storage of personal information at said telephone device.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein said personal information comprises past information collected over an extended period of time.

β. A method according to claim 1, wherein said at least one remote server is a computational cloud comprising a plurality of remote servers and wherein said communication session is carried simultaneously with multiple other communication sessions that run at servers belonging to said computational cloud which are other than said remote server through which said communication session is being carried.

7. A telephone device comprising an operating system, a transceiver capable of transmitting an indication towards at least one remote server which invokes generation of a managing virtual client entity thereat for allowing a user of said telephone device to retrieve and to use stored personal information and of receiving information from said at least one remote server, a display configured to allow interacting between said user and a virtual client entity residing at one or more of said at least one remote sever, and an interface operative to enable said user to select at least one option out of a plurality of options in order to retrieve personal information and/or to process data and to interact with a virtual entity residing at one or more of said at least one remote server.

8. A telephone device according to claim 7, wherein said transceiver is capable of receiving any of said personal information associated with said user from said at least one remote server, thereby negating the need to allocate memory for storage of personal information at said telephone device.

9. A telephone device according to claim 7, wherein said operating system comprises a voice stack, an SMS stack and a GPRS stack.

10. A telephone device according to claim 7, further comprising memory means operative to enable storing of information relating to one or more graphical elements.

11. A computer program product encoding a computer program for executing on a computer system a process for receiving an indication transmitted by a user of a telephone device upon turning on the telephone device, generating a managing virtual client entity associated with said user of the telephone device, providing the user with a plurality of options to enable selecting at least one option for retrieving personal information and/or processing data, upon selecting at least one option from among the plurality of options, generating at least one temporary virtual client entity for enabling the establishment of a communication session with the user, and wherein that temporary virtual client entity exists only for the duration of the respective communication session, and initiating the establishment of a communication path that extends between the telephone device and a remote destination via the temporary virtual client entity, thereby allowing to carry out a communication session in accordance with the selected option.

12. A computer program product according to claim 11, wherein said process is further adapted to identify one user from among a plurality of users associated with a single telephone device, and to allow said one user to access his/her own personal information.