GB2361602A

GB2361602A - Wireless graphic messaging

Info

Publication number: GB2361602A
Application number: GB0009633A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Daniel Leung; Eno Tsin
Original assignee: HIT TECHNOLOGY Ltd
Current assignee: HIT TECHNOLOGY Ltd
Priority date: 2000-04-19
Filing date: 2000-04-19
Publication date: 2001-10-24
Also published as: GB0009633D0

Abstract

A communication link is established between two user terminals through a network server over a mobile (e.g. GSM) network. A user terminal establishes a wireless link to the server through the mobile network and requests authentication and a user service profile from a user database. A shared board resource is allocated to the user terminal, to which a is assigned a shared board identity number. The identity number is used to update a session table which records the identity of the user. There follow further exchanges at the end of which a session between the user terminals is established for transmitting scribble messages. There is further described a method for recording the speed, direction and length of each stroke in a scribble message and using them to reproduce the message. A user is enabled to establish a connexion to any specific user in a group.

Description

2361602 Method and System f or Wireless Instant Scribble Messaging This

invention relates generally to a method for instant scribble messaging over the wireless network, and more particularly to devices, systems and methods for ensuring session connection, scribble message recording, multiple access, message synchronization and extending the instant scribble messaging to the location based applications by the location resolution server and the knowledge-based Artificial Intelligent algorithm.

The handheld computer such as Palm Pilot, is becoming popular as the result of the advanced development in semiconductor and embedded controller software. With the device, most of the applications are related to the phone book, schedule, expense calculation, and memo. The handheld device usnally comes with large screen, special input such as stylus on the screen, and handy form factor.

A huge demand in email retrieval via the device explores the communication with the email server through Public Switching Telephony Network (PSTN). This leads to the modem accessory for the handheld device in the market.

As the popularity of the mobile communication services driven by the Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) in the last couple of years, the natural demand in retrieving email by their handheld device via the mobile network. This capability enables the handheld device user to get or send the email anytime and anywhere.

The ICQ in the Internet opens up another communication style - by text and shared in group. It can be applied to the groupware in office environment, which can enhance the efficiency as the meeting or conference can be easily set up without all the members scheduled to attend in the meeting venue. However, there are two limitations which limits the popularity. Firstly, the communication is in text that limits to convey the information such as graph or symbol. The last but not least, all members are seating in f ront of their desktop PC.

Making use of the handy characteristic of handheld device and wireless communication, an instant scribble messaging is invented to resolve the aforesaid limitations. In addition, the instant scribble message can be extended to another facet of information exchange in the daily life.

An object of invention is to provide a method to enable a handheld user to establish a connection to any specific user in the group without prior information of the called user such as the wireless communication network the called user uses, and the user's address or phone number. The session will be then established ready for instant scribble messaging between the two users.

An object of invention is to provide the capability to record the speed, direction and length of each stroke in a 2S scribble message. This recording function enables the message to be replicated at the other end with the exactly same order, speed and size. This will convey the auxiliary information such as the emotion of the sender.

An object of invention is to provide a method to coordinate a group of users to share the 'virtual' messaging board.

An object of invention is to provide a method to synchronize the shared board with the user's local display screen in an efficient real-time manner.

Another object of invention is to provide a knowledgebased heuristic algorithm to synchronize the electronic map at the local display with respect to the user's location; and further provides the user with the associated information such as the location of the user, the nearby restaurant and etc.

A further object of invention is to provide a method to send a scribble message over the electronic map to the recipient without transmitting the electronic map for efficient communication.

Additional objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be understood from the following description of the preferred embodiments, which description should be taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Figure 1 illustrates schematically the overall architecture for the instant scribble messaging with the location resolution server and wireless network; Figure 2A is a flow diagram of the operation from a user to establish a session between the local device and the network server; Figure 2B is a flow diagram of the operation on session establishment between two users; Figure 3 illustrates a functional flow diagram for the operation of recording function for scribble message Figure 4 is data structure of the shared board - 4 memory resource; Figure 5 is a schematic diagram of the token ring based arbitration on multiple access controlled by multiple access resolver; Figure 6 is a flow diagram of the operation for the message synchronization to the network shared message board; and Figure 7 is the operation flow on screen clear command handled by the display handler.

Figure 1 illustrates schematically the overall architecture for instant scribble messaging system 100 &:

300 and the necessary Location resolution server 400 and wireless network 200 for the system. A handheld user will make use of the session requester 110 for a connection to the network server. The communication handler 310 in the network server is invoked to handle the communication connection. If the user would like to communicate with another user in the group registered in the network server 300, the communication handler 310 will retrieve the called user communication information such as the type of wireless network and address from the user database 390.

The handler will then send a connection command over the air through the wireless network 200 (e.g. short message over the GSM network) to the called party device 100. The session acceptor 120 in the device is triggered by the connection command to invoke the session requester 110 for a connection to the network server 300. The communication handler 310 invokes the shared board handler 360 for a shared board resource dedicated to the two users. Hence, a session between the two users is established.

one of the connected users may write a scribble message at the handheld devic3. The scribble recorder 130 records the scribble message in terms of the stroke characteristics.

The user initiates the sender 140 to transmit the scribble message to the shared board at the network server via the receiver 340. The synchronizer 370 sends the differential data in the shared board to the another user via the sender 330. The receiver 140 at the another user receives the differential data and invokes the display handler 160 to update the local display with the differential data.

The multiple access resolver 320 plays the coordinator role for the access request to the shared board from the users. It is a generalized approach, which is applicable from one to multiple users.

For location based application, the user invokes the location based AI algorithm 350 to interrogate the location of the user from the location resolution server 400. The received location is used to match with the section of electronic map stored in the database 380, which encloses the location of the user. The electronic map is transferred to the shared board and, in turn, synchronized to the user local display by the synchronizer 370.

Although the design of location resolution server 400 and wireless network 200 is not the preferred embodiment of the invention, their specifications are open and these are the building blocks for future development of instant scribble messaging. For example, the Location resolution server can be based on the Global Positioning System (GPS) or the Enhanced Observed Time Difference (E-OTD) specified in the GSM recommendation. The wireless network can be public land mobile network such as GSM, cdmaOne or even TDMA. moreover, the wireless network can be any wireless network such as wireless LAN or Two-tier Bluetooth network which may be common in office environment or any indoor environment. Hence, the preferred embodiment is independent of the wireless network and location resolution server. This results in broad scope of the instant scribble messaging.

Figure. 2A is a flow diagram of the operation for user A to connect the local device 100 to the network server 300 shown in Figure 1, which comprises the following steps:

STEP F100: A user agent A 100 initiates a session request via the session requester 110. The session requester is responsible for establishing a wireless connection to the network server 300 over the wireless network 200. The operation is independent of the communication protocol, i.e. it can be applied to GSM, CDMA, TDMA, Wireless LAN, Bluetooth LAN and etc. The unique address of the user agent is included in the request for authentication.

STEP F110: The communication handler 310 is the key component in network server 300 to handle the session establishment. Once receiving the session request from the remote device, the handler queries the user database 390 by the received agent address for authentication and associated service profile.

STEP F120: Upon positive authentication, the Handler 310 invokes the shared board handler 360 for shared board resource allocated to the agent A.

STEP F122: The handler 362 retrieves one free shared board resource from the pool 364. The shared board identity number will then be sent back to the communication handler 310 to update the session table which records user ID, shared board ID, and session ID.

STEP F130: communication handler 310 sends the acknowledgement together with the session identity number and the group member list to the agent.

Figure 2B is the flow diagram of the operation for the user A to have the scribble messaging communication to user B which is one of the group members in the received list as described above.

STEP F200: User A selects one group member from the list received for communication. The session requester 110 sends the appropriate request to the communication handler 310 with the session identity number and the called party name (user B).

STEP F210: Communication handler 310 gets the communication address of the called party from the user database 390.

STEP F220: Communication handler 310 then sends the session request command over the air to the user B. In GSM/CDMA, the command will be via short message service.

STEP F230: Assuming the user B device is powered up and in the wireless network coverage. The session acceptor 120 is in the active mode which listens to the command port, say short message channel, for session request command. Upon receiving the session request command, session acceptor 120 triggers the companion session requester 110 for the session connection between user B and network server. 25 STEP F240: session requester 110 establishes the communication link to the communication handler 310. Communication handler is to update the session table of the user B id and session id. STEP F250: communication handler 310 sends the acknowledgement with session id., service profile and the caller name to the session requester 110 at user B. At the same time, an acknowledgement is also sent to the session requester 110 at user A. Then the session between user A and user B is active and ready for scribble message transmission.

The operation flow of the scribble recorder 130 is shown in Figure 3, is one of the embodiments of the invention. There is a grid of points def ined in the input screen. The PDA (or Palm Pilot) will provide an interface or function call to the application routine to get the coordinates of the scribble message written on the screen by the stylus. Therefore, each scribble message can be broken down into a set of points that fall in the trajectory of the message.

In other words, the scribble message M is represented as a set of coordinates Q,, in below.

M = ( rl,,: (Xn, Y,,) IV Xn, Y,, E S (1) where S is a set of grid points comprising the PDA screen.

This representation ensures the remote device to duplicate the message in the same order, and same size. However, the speed of each stroke of the message is not represented by this format. The additional information is important because it can convey the high order content of the message that traditional textual or graphical message cannot achieve this. To fulfill this requirement, the representation (1) is modified to include the time difference 8t between two successive points. Hence, the speed of the stroke across these two points is represented as the screen resolution is fixed. This leads to the enhanced representation (2) for the message M.

M Qn: (Xn, Yn, 8tn) I V Xn, Yn C= S, 6tn E R) (2) where R is a field of real number.

Figure 3 is a flow chart for recording the scribble message in the presentation format (2) above, which comprises the following steps: STEP F310: Get the coordinate (x., y.) of the point Pn on screen entered by user. 5 STEP F320: If no data is available, repeat STEP F310. Otherwise, go to STEP F330 below. STEP F330: Get the timestamp for the point Pn. STEP F340: Subtract the timestamp T, from the time register that stores the timestamp T,-, for the previous point P,-1. The difference 5t. is inserted to the vector Qn for indicating the coordinate and timestamp of point P, Then, shift the timestamp Tn to the time register for next iteration.

STEP F350: Append the vector Qn to the message buffer M.

Figure 4 is data structure of the shared message board. The shared message board is a churn of memory resource. Each record comprises of a scribble message in representation (2), message ID, synchronization flag for each user sharing the board. Assuming there are N users sharing the message board. Each message Mk I where k = 1, 2,.., L, is insErted in each row of the table in Figure 4. The first column is the message unique ID for reference. Each row also has a synchronization flag S,j from i = 1 to N representing the User i about its synchronization status of the message Mk. The value of the synchronization flag Ski is in (0,1). The value 0 stands for the user i local device not yet synchronized with the shared board about the message Mk. The value 1 stands for the synchronization completed for the message.

MULTIPLE ACCESS Each user sharing the board would like to send its message to the message board for share. The multiple access resolver 320 in Figure 1 is designed to coordinate the access to the board from the multiple users in a 5 chaotic or tidy manner.

In chaotic manner, there is no arbitration for each user to send the message. Then, each user is able to send a message at anytime by its local sender 140 without priori permission from multiple access resolver 320. The multiple access resolver serializes the received messages based on the first-come-first serve queuing principleand relays them to the shared board handler 360 to update the shared board.

In tidy manner, multiple access resolver 320 is to arbitrate each receiver 320 for each session based on token ring approach as shown in the Figure 5. The f low control per each session is handled by the pair receiver i 320 and sender i 140, where i = 1 to N. Each receiver is granted a token by multiple access resolver to receive a message. Once message is received, the token is returned back to multiple access resolver for other receiver. on the other hand, if no message is ready to be received, the receiver will return the token immediately.

Figure 6 is a operation flow of the synchronizer 370 how to synchronize each user with the shared message board, which comprises the following steps: 30 STEP F610: Get the record k from the shared board, where k from 1 to L STEP F620: Check the synchronization flag Ski of the message for each user i where i from 1 to N STEP F630: If the flag equals 0, synchronizer sends the corresponding message Mk to the sender i 330 for the remote user i.

STEP F640: Repeat the STEP F610 to F630 for the next 5 record k+1.

The location based AI algorithm 350 is working independently of the positioning technology deployed in the location resolution server 400. The location resolution server provides the estimate location of the associated user. As the application is to provide location-related information such as restaurant, gas station, etc., at the district level resolution. Therefore, the representation of the location has to provide sufficient information to tell the AI algorithm in terms of district and sub-district region which is defined in below.

P (i) = (Location of user i: Ai and Yil (3) Note that Ai and Yj are the district ID and sub-district ID respectively where the user i locates.

The knowledge base 380 comprises of the electronic map and location based information such as restaurant, boutique, gas station, and etc. The district ID Ai and sub-district ID Zi are the important indexes to the knowledge base. The position of each entity such as restaurant is also specified as the coordinate relative to the district and sub-district. In addition, there are many attributes such as age, budget, gender, festival, reason to go/buy, and others added for the information query condition.

The electronic map of the country or city such as Hong Kong is divided into a number of districts. Each district will then be sub-divided into nine regions. The AI algorithm uses the district ID Ai and sub-district ID Y_j to 5 retrieve the concerned electronic map and download to the remote device for the user i. In additional to the map, the associated location information is downloaded to the user.

Upon retrieving the concerned electronic map, the Location based AI Algorithm 350 is to relay the map to the shared board 364 via shared board handler 360. The representation of the map is in bitmap without the motion vector as in the scribble message because the information is static.

The shared board 364 requires to have another table to contain those information which is in nature different from the scribble message. To save memory, the table stores the map indexes such as district ID and subdistrict ID; whereas, the bitmap of the map is stored in the knowledge base 380. Also, the table contains the synchronization flag S of the map for each user. Besides, one additional column - display mode D, is required. The mode is to inform the display handler 160 at the remote device to display the information in either background

2S (D=O) or foreground (D=1). Regarding the map synchronization, the same procedure as the scribble message is applied.

Display handler 160 is the display engine resident in the user PDA device. It contains two pages of the display, one is background and the other is foreground. The received scribble messages will be stored in the foreground memory page according to the display mode D not equal to 0. The display handler 160 displays the overlapped foreground and 3S background pages at the screen The background (non- overwrite mode) page cannot be cleared by the user; whereas the foreground (overwrite mode) page can.

Figure 7 shows the operation flow of the display handler 5 160 to handle the clear command so that the background page is preserved at the screen.

STEP F710: User selects a section of the screen and requests to clear it. The display handler 160 is triggered to handle the clear command.

STEP F720: display handler blanks the selected region STEP F730: display handler refreshes the screen with the background page.

Combining functionality of the message/MAP synchronization, scribble recorder and display handler, the user is allowed to scribble the message over the MAP and the distant user's device displays the same message scribbling over the MAP.

Claims

1. A method for establishing a communication between user terminals through a network server over a wireless network, comprisinq: establishing a wireless connection between said user terminal and said network server over said wireless network; querying a user database in said server by the received user terminal address for authentication and associated service profile; allocating a shared board resource to the said user terminal; retrieving one free shared board resource; assigning a shared board identity number to the user terminal; using the shared board identity number assigned to said user terminal to update a session table which records user id.

2. A method for establishing a communication between a calling user terminal and at least one called user terminal through a network server over a wireless network, comprising:

transmitting a request with session identity number and the at least one called user terminal name from the calling user terminal to the network server; obtaining the communication address of the called user terminal from a user database; sending a session request command via said wireless network to said called user terminal; triggering the session connection between the called user terminal and the network server; establishing a communication link between said calling user terminal and said network server; updating the session table of the called user terminal's id and session id. sending an acknowledgement with session id., service profile and the calling user terminal's id to the called user terminal and sending an acknowledgement to said calling user terminal for activating a session between said calling user terminal and said called user terminal for scribble message transmission.

3. In a communication system comprising a plurality of user terminals and a wireless network, a method for recording at a first user terminal scribble message entered by a user and representing said scribble message on at least one second user terminal, comprising:

determining the coordinate (xn, yj of the nth point entered by said user on the screen of said f irst user terminal; determining the timestamp T,, for the nth point; subtracting the timestamp T,, from the time register which stores the timestamp T.-, for the previous (n-l)th point entered by said user so as to obtain a time difference 8t. Tn- Tn-1; inserting the difference 8t, to a vector Q,, for indicating the coordinate and timestamp of the nth point; 25 shifting the timestamp T, to the time register for next iteration; appending the vector Q., to the scribble message represented by the coordinates of the set of points entered by said user; 30 transmitting the message appended with said vector Qn to said at least one second user terminal over a communication network.

4. A method for establishing a communication, substantially as herein described with reference to the accompanying drawings.