GB2515777A

GB2515777A - Communications system

Info

Publication number: GB2515777A
Application number: GB1311904.5A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Vipin Selvaraj Playikovilakam Venkitachalam
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2013-07-03
Filing date: 2013-07-03
Publication date: 2015-01-07
Also published as: GB201311904D0

Abstract

A communication system for mobile devices, comprising means for enabling a sender of a communication to indicate one of a plurality of priority levels for the communication (e.g. voice call) and, for at least one of the plurality of priority levels, means for indicating to the receiver that the communication has been accorded said priority level. Thus, for an emergency, urgent or important call a specific indication may be sent. This may be, for example, the sending of a separate SMS (or MMS or email) message. The system in effect combines a calling and messaging application into a single application on a mobile device. The SMS message generated as part of the priority voice call may have pre-defined format. A further embodiment of the invention includes a system for contacting one or more providers of emergency services, comprising means for storing, on a database of a mobile device, contact details of one or more emergency service providers and a display screen, adapted to be called up by the user, which display screen comprises at least one button dedicated to instigating a call and/or sending a message to said provider or one or more said providers.

Description

Communications System This invention relates to a communications system. In particular, it relates to a system for communicating from a mobile device, such as a mobile telephone or tablet for example. The communicating may be via voice call and/or messages such as SMS (text) messages or other types of messages. In particular, but not exclusively, the system may involve a mobile application (generally known as an happ) which may be downloaded to a mobile telephone.

Mobile devices are a convenient way of making calls and sending messages to others around the world. However, when communicating with a third party, with currently available systems and methods, a user has no way of indicating the importance or priority of a call or message, such that a receiver can tell, even without opening a message, or before listening to a voicemail, for example, the importance or priority to be given to a message. If a third party misses a call then until they have listened to a voice message, or read a text message, they cannot tell whetherthe call is an emergency one, an urgent one or a simply a routine one that can be answered later on or it is simply for information purposes, etc. There are cases when the caller disconnects the call even before the voice message is reached. Many a times even the voice messages are delivered very late. Since there is no direct visual representation of the priority of the call or message in the current system, this is very inefficient. Also, concurrent use of multiple data channels is not implemented for conveying the priority of the voice call.

The present invention arose in an attempt to provide an improved and direct communication system.

According to the present invention there is provided a communications system for mobile devices, comprising means for enabling a sender of a communication to indicate one of a plurality of priority levels and, for at least one of the plurality of priority levels, means for indicating to the receiver that the communication has been accorded said priority level.

The means for indicating priority level may be a plurality of buttons displayed to the user when instigating a call or message, each button being associated with a particular priority level such that the user presses a required button depending upon the desired priority.

The communication may be a voice call and/or a text-or image-based communication such as an SMS message, MMS or email, for example.

In some embodiments, there are four levels of priority: EMERGENCY; URGENT; IMPORTANT and CASUAL. There may of course be more than this or less than this and there may be worded differently.

In some embodiments, when a casual call or message is sent then no specific additional indication or message may be sent. For an EMERGENCY, URGENT or IMPORTANT call then a specific indication may be sent. This may be, for example, the sending of a separate SMS message when a call marked URGENT, EMERGENCY or IMPORTANT is made. Note of course that instead of an SMS message the message may be an MMS message, an email or any other type of message. The SMS message may just be sent for one (eg EMERGENCY) two or other types of priorities.

Thus, embodiments of the invention may in effect combine a calling and messaging application into a single application on a mobile device.

The invention is preferably embedded as a mobile application (APP") for use on a smart phone, such an Android'TM smart phone, an iPhone'TM smart phone, a Windows'TM phone, a BlackberrylM phone or others.

In embodiments of the invention, call dialling screens on a mobile device include one or more dedicated buttons for a user to press, indicating different priorities. The buttons may be different colours; for example; red for EMERGENCY, orange for URGENT, yellow for IMPORTANT and green for a CASUAL call and/or may be different shapes or sizes. Thus, the buttons have different properties that may include, for example, any one or more of different colours, shapes, sizes, text, sounds and/or vibration properties (eg vibration frequency, vibration type, vibration sensitivity, vibration pattern, and so on).

In a further aspect, the invention provides a system for contacting one or more providers of emergency services, comprising means for storing, on a database on a mobile device, contact details of one or more emergency service providers and a display screen (adapted to be called up by the user) which display screen comprises at least one button dedicated to instigating a call and/or sending a message to one or more provider.

A plurality of dedicated buttons may be provided each one providing a dedicated means for contacting a different emergency provider.

The button, or a button designated as a main button, may be positioned at or towards the bottom right side of a screen. This is so that this button can be most easily pressed by the thumb of a user.

A plurality of buttons may have different properties, such as different colours, different wording, different shape, different sound and/or vibration properties, text and soon. They may include an icon and/or text.

In yet a further aspect the invention provides a method of communication comprising the step of a user allocating one of a plurality of selectable priority level to said comm unication and indicating to the receiver of the communication, the priority level accorded to the communication, wherein the priority level is at least one of the selectable levels.

Embodiments of the invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to a system for an AndroidlM phone. Note that the system may be equally applicable to other platforms and may be cross platform. In the drawings:

Figure 1 shows a prior art call screen;

Figure 2 shows a call screen according to an embodiment of the present;

Figure 3 shows a prior art contact screen;

Figure 4 shows a contact screen according to an embodiment of the present invention; Figure 5 shows an example of an SMS message; Figure 6 shows a call history screen according to an embodiment of the present invention; Figure 7 shows a missed call history screen; Figure 8 shows a screen relating to a single one of the calls from a call history; Figure 9 shows a prior art message composing screen; Figure 10 shows a message composing screen according to an embodiment of the present invention; Figure 11 shows a message history screen; Figure 12 shows a contact list screen according to an embodiment of the present invention; Figure 13 shows an emergency screen; Figure 14 shows an emergency contact edit screen; Figure 15 shows an emergency call alert on a receiver's device; and Figure 16 shows additional detail on the emergency call when the emergency call alert is "pulled down" the screen.

Referring to the figures, a system in the form of a mobile application (an "app") for the Android'TM platform will be described. It will be appreciated that the invention may be embodied in other ways, such as for different mobile platforms (such as iPhonelM, Windows'TM phone, Blackberry'TM phone or others) or may be embodied on a computer system or a dedicated hardware terminal, for example. "app" may conventionally be provided for several platforms so that users of Android'TM, iPhoneTM, WindowsTM and BlackberrylM phones can use the invention, for example.

The system may be embodied in several ways as will be apparent to the user.

Typically, it will use several different services of a phone and, for the Android'TM system, these may be as follows: a. Broadcast receiver APIs to get the broadcasts that are sent by the system during incoming messages and calls. This Operating System (OS) API is used by the Background Monitoring Service of the Application to monitor incoming Voice calls and SMS Messages.

b. System dialler api to make calls from all call buttons c. System SMS api to sent SMS messages. Used for sending SMS messages as well as Voice Call priority messages when the priority calls are invoked d. System camera api and gallery to pick contact images e. Executer service to handle all db operation on nonUl thread The application uses an SQLite database for storing Call logs, SMS logs and Contact details and any additional data which supports the functionality of the application viz, the priority of the calls and SMS, Last Call orSMSfrom a mobile number, Emergency Number details, etc. While installing the application and on start up of the installed app, the following items, which are saved in the system database, are synced to the mobile appTs database a. Contact list b. Call Log c. SMS log Once the details are synced, the application uses the data in the database for all of its functionalities and operations.

A contact log table holds the details of all the saved contacts and details of the contact's last call and SMS which enables the application to calculate the communication status in real time.

An SMS log table keeps all the SMS that has been sent and received by the app.

This table also stores the priority of each SMS received by or sent from the device.

A call log table holds the call logs; incoming outgoing and missed types. This table also stores the priority of each voice call received by or dialled from the device.

Also the shared preference storage of the application is used for storing emergency contact numbers viz, Police, Fire, National Emergency etc. Use of the database allows management of data independent of the system database. Additional parameters for the priority calls and last communications etc can also be managed effectively with the custom database.

The SMS message generated as part of the priority Voice Call has a pre-defined format. The first line of such message contain the priority of the call -"Emergency Call", or "Urgent Call", or "Important Call" to identify it as generated from a "Emergency" Voice Call, or "Urgent" Voice Call or "Important" Voice Call. The system time in GMT corresponding to the time when the priority call is invoked is given as the next line. The message may also contain the phone number of the person who initiated the Voice Call.

The SMS message generated as part of the priority SMS has a pre-defined format.

The first line of such messages contain the priority of the Message -"Emergency Message", or "Urgent Message", or "Important Message" to specify the priority of the message as "Emergency", or "Urgent" or "Important". The first line is appended automatically by the application in the invention to the original message content when the appropriate button is selected before sending the message from the mobile application.

Background monitoring service makes use of the broadcast receiver API provided by the Operating System for catching any incoming SMS and Voice calls. It has the following responsibility.

a. The service could watch and intercept all the incoming Voice Calls and SMS messages before they are actually registered in the system.

b. The service stores the details of the Voice Calls and SMS messages in the application database. The details stored in the application database include voice caller's or SMS sender's information, time of arrival of voice call and SMS messages,the content of the SMS message and priority of the voice call and SMS message.

c. The service could scan the contents of the SMS and identify the priority of the Voice Call (if the SMS was originally generated as part of the voice call) and also the priority of the SMS message.

While scanning the SMS, if the SMS message has the first line as "Emergency Message", or "Urgent Message", or "Important Message", that message will be identified as SMS Message with priority "Emergency" , or "Urgent" or "Important" generated from the application when the appropriate priority button for the message is selected by the sender. This priority will be stored in the application database -SMS log table, against the messages received along with the senders information and date-time stamp. The details of the last SMS -the date-time stamp and the priority of the SMS are stored against contact in the contact list table. This information along with the last call from the contact is used later for dynamically calculating the communication status of the contact.

While scanning the SMS, if the SMS message has the first line as "Emergency Call" or "Urgent Call" or "Important Call" that message will be identified as the message generated from an "Emergency" Voice Call, "Urgent" Voice Call or "Important" Voice Call, respectively.

lithe message SMS belongs to priority Voice Calls, the corresponding call is identified and the priority is marked against the call in the call log table in the application data base as "Emergency", "Urgent" or "Important" which otherwise would be "Casual" by default. This is the priority displayed on the call log on the application. This information is available only for the application.

In some embodiments, for an incoming call, ifan SMS with priority call message in a pre-defined format arrives within a period of 3 minutes before or after the call (currently the time is set as 3 minutes. This time duration may be set differently for the voice call messages arriving before or after the arrival of the call), from the same number, that call entry will be marked as EMERGENCY or URGENT or IMPORTANT call in the call log table in the application database. The details of the last voice call-the priority and date-time stamp are stored against contact in the contact list table. This information in the contact list table along with the last SMS from the same contact is used later for dynamically calculating the communication status of the contact.

If the SMS arrives beyond 3 minutes (currently the time is set as 3 minutes. This time duration may be set differently for the voice call messages arriving before or after the arrival of the call) , a new call log is created in the database to show that there was a "missed priority incoming call" -priority being taken from the content of the SMS message and it is shown as a missed call in the call log. This entry may not be available for the default call log screen as the information now is directly coming from the application database of the invention.

Once the priority call messages are processed and priority recorded against the call log as detailed above, they application may keep the priority carrier SMS message or even delete it before it is registered in the device to avoid flooding of the message log with priority call messages.

lithe application is not available on the receiving mobile device, the SMS will be available on the SMS log which conveys the priority of the call. This would be helpful even if the call is missed or not arrived.

The outgoing Voice calls and SMS are managed by the application via the Helper Classes provided by the Operating System.

As soon as a Voice call is enabled from the application, the details of this are written into the application database in the call log table. This information includes call initiation time, priority of the call, the called number and the name associated with it (if it is already stored in the system). If the Voice call is of priority "Emergency', or "Casual1' or "Important", then an SMS message with the right format and content will be generated from the application and the priority will be written to the application database.

As soon as an SMS message is enabled from the application, the details of this will be written into the application database. This information includes SMS initiated time, priority of the message, the receiver's number and the name associated with it (if it is already stored in the system) and the content of the message.

From "Emergency Screen", when any of the Emergency button is pressed, the number is picked up from the Shared Preference Area of the application and the Emergency1 call is initiated. The details of the call is stored in the application database in the call log table. Call initiated time, priority of the call (always Emergency here), the called number and associated name will be stored in the database. SMS message with the right format and content will also be generated from the application.

Figure 1 shows a typical prior art keypad screen of a call application on an AndroidlM mobile phone, of the touchscreen type. It includes an alphanumeric dial area 1 including a number of buttons and a (generally green) call button 2 for a user to press after he has entered the number. It of course includes more functionality but this will not be described for clarity. Thus, only one type of call is possible (which will henceforth be known as a "CASUAL" call). Instead of specifically dialling a number a contact may be dialled directly by entering their name or the first few letters thereof, as is well known.

After the contact is called up or the numbered entered then the call button may be pressed.

Figure 2 shows a keypad screen according to an embodiment of the present invention. This again includes a keypad part 3 and a CASUAL call button 4.

In the embodiment shown in Figure 2, the call dialling screen also has three additional calling buttons. These are EMERGENCY call button 5, an URGENT call button 6 and an IMPORTANT call button 7. These include appropriate wording and are also most preferably of different colours. The EMERGENCY call button will generally be red, the EMERGENCY button perhaps orange and the IMPORTANT button perhaps yellow. The CASUAL button is green as before. The EMERGENCY call button also includes a warning icon (exclamation mark) to further indicate to a user that this is for use in emergencies.

Note that in addition to different colours, the buttons may have different shapes, sizes, etc and can, where a phone is capable or is configured to be adapted so that the phone emits noises or generates vibration patterns when buttons are pressed, be configured to be associated with different sounds or different vibration patterns or other properties, further to distinguish them. The screen also has a plurality of buttons 8 to 12 at the bottom part of the screen linking to screens such as favourites, recent call history, contact (linking to a contact database on the phone), the keypad (ie the present screen) and a dedicated emergency screen, as will be described further below. :ti

Figure 3 shows a typical prior art contact screen, as used in current phones. This gives details of the contact, their mobile number and message number, any customised or unique ringtones or images associated with that contact, and so on. A "Casual" call can be initiated by clicking on the Call Mobile' area. Message could be initiated by clicking on Send Message' area.

Figure 4 shows a contact screen according to an embodiment of the present invention which includes, similar to Figure 2, a series of dedicated buttons for making a direct call from the contact screen. These include, in addition to the CASUAL call button 4, an EMERGENCY call button 5, an URGENT call button 6 and an IMPORTANT call button 7 of different colours.

When the user sends a call that they wish to be a CASUAL call, they simply press the green CASUAL call button and a conventional phone call is made. lithe receiver does not receive the call, ie their phone is off, out of range or they choose not to receive the call, they will simply receive an indication that a call was made and the caller may be allowed to leave a voice message, leading to a standard voice message notification. On the other hand, if the sender wishes to make an EMERGENCY, URGENT or IMPORTANT call, the corresponding call button is pressed. A call is initiated by the application and an SMS message in the pre-defined format, containing the priority of the call, is also automatically sent to the receiver. Thus, even if the receiver does not receive the voice call they will receive an SMS message. The pre-formatted SMS contains the priority of the call Emergency Call' or Urgent Call' or Important Call' based on the priority call button selected and the time of the call. All the outbound voice call and the corresponding SMS message information is stored in the application database at the same time when they are initiated. An example of wording of such a message is shown in Figure 5. This represents an SMS message generated from pressing an Emergency' call button and shows the wording of the message "Emergency Call Time 07 Feb 2013 08:25:46 GMT +00:00" and may also indicate (although not shown in the figure) the number the SMS (and high priority call) was received from.

FigureS is a message which may be received if the EMERGENCY button is pressed.

If the URGENT button is pressed instead then the wording may be changed to indicate "URGENT CALL" and similarly the message "IMPORTANT CALL" may be received if the message was important.

If the receiver of the call has the application in the invention installed on the mobile device, there would be the Background Monitoring Service' running, which intercepts the Voice call and the SMS message send along with it. The priority of the message is read and if the message is received within 3 minutes (as currently set) the priority of the message is marked against the Voice call in the call log table of the application database. Once the processing is over, the message may be deleted in order to avoid message flooding on the mobile device. This message may also be kept. If the message arrives later than 3 minutes after the call, in exceptional cases, then a new call log is created in the application database which will then be visible on the call log of the application. In this way, all the SMS messages carrying call priority will be associated with a call in the call log.

Note that the SMS message will be sent to all mobile devices and some of which may not have an equivalent mobile application ("app") installed on their device. If the application is not available on the receiving mobile device, the SMS will be available on the SMS log which conveys the priority of the call. This would be helpful even if the call is missed or not arrived.

Furthermore, instead of an SMS message, any other type of message may be sent such as an MMS (mobile media service) message, an email or other types of messages.

Perhaps a photograph or short video may be sent. Generally, the message will be sent to the same number which was called but alternatively or in addition, a message be sent to a different number or to a number of different receivers. The message receiving number or numbers may be set in a contacts screen and stored on a contact database. Thus, for an EMERGENCY message a plurality of SMS messages may be sent simultaneously when a particular contact is called, perhaps to parents of a student or to several friends, thus providing more chance that a quick response can be made.

Figure 6 shows a typical recent call log for such a user. Each recently received (or missed) call is listed on this but this differs from conventional systems in that, as part of the log of each call, one of the icons 14 to 20 is displayed and this icon differs according to the priority level set to that call. Thus, call 14 from Vipin has a yellow coloured icon and was therefore considered to be an IMPORTANT call. Call number 15 has an orange coloured icon and is therefore considered to be URGENT call. Call number 16 has a red icon with an Emergency! sign 21 and was therefore an EMERGENCY call. Calls 17 and 18 were also EMERGENCY calls. Calls 19 and 20 (receiver earlier in this case), green icons, were sent as CASUAL calls. The priority of these Voice calls, along with the other contact and voice call details, are directly fetched from the application data base. These details in the application database were previously set by the Background Monitoring Service' when the incoming voice call and the corresponding SMS messages were intercepted and processed.

The receiver therefore has an easy-to-understand colour-coded list of calls, indicating the priority accorded to each call.

Figure] shows a missed call screen and this again includes a number of icons 21 to 28, each associated with particular calls, which are also colour coded. Call 21 is colour coded orange and is therefore an URGENT call, calls 22 to 24 are red and therefore are EMERGENCY calls, call 25 is also an orange URGENT call and calls 26 to 28 are green CASUAL calls. The receiver, by looking at his call list (Figure 6) or his missed call list (Figure 7), can therefore easily identify the different priority of different calls. The priority of these Voice calls, along with the other contact and voice call details, are directly fetched from the application data base. These details in the application database were previously set by the Background Monitoring Service' when the incoming voice call and the corresponding SMS messages were processed.

If a user, touches any one of the call log record on a screen such as that of Figure 7, a detailed screen shown in FigureS is displayed containing further details of the call. In this case, an EMERGENCY call was missed and the screen shows the wording "missed call" 29 and an indication that the call was considered an EMERGENCY call 30. This wording will be shown against a red background typically. If the call was an URGENT one it might be shown against an orange background, if the call was an IMPORTANT one it might be shown against a yellow background and if the call was an CASUAL one it might be shown against a green background. The screen 8 also indicates the mobile number 31 from which the call was made and the contact name 32 if that is known and stored by the user.

The screen also includes a message button 33 which links to the message system so that the receiver who missed the call made, from their screen, can easily send a message to the originator of the EMERGENCY or other call. It also includes a share button 34 for sharing details of this contact to other people via SMS or email. The screen also includes call buttons to initiate Emergency' call, Urgent' call, Important' call and Casual' call back to the caller similar to the priority call buttons in Figure 2 and Figure 4. The functionalities of the call buttons are exactly similar to the ones on screens on Figure 2 and Figure 4.

Figure 9 shows a conventional message composing screen for an Android'TM phone.

This includes a keypad part 35, address box 36 and a text box 37 in conventional manner.

It also includes a SEND button 38 and an ATTACHMENT button 39 for attaching images, videos and so on. Various other buttons are included in addition. Thus, this does not allow for any priority to be accorded to the message.

Figure 10 shows a message composing screen in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention which is presented when the Message' button from the screens in Figure 4 and Figure 8 are clicked. This can be used to compose SMS or MMS messages, for example and includes, in addition to the conventional part shown in Figure 9, message priority buttons 40,41 and 42. 40 is an EMERGENCY button which is coloured red, 41 is an URGENT button coloured orange and 42 is an IMPORTANT button coloured yellow. Before sending the message, if any of the priority buttons selected, a new line in the pre-defined format showing the priority of the message is prefixed as the first line of the message. The first line pre-fixed text would be Emergency Message' if the Emergency' button is selected, Urgent Message' if the Urgent' button is selected, or Important Message' if the Important' button is selected. In some embodiment, a priority can be first selected by selecting one these buttons and then the sent button pressed or, alternatively, if one of the priority buttons is pressed this can itself act as the send button and thus the send button 43 is only used if a CASUAL message is to be sent. Wording 44 indicating the nature of the priority buttons may also be displayed to any user. The information of the message -the date-time, message priority, and the message content are stored in the application data base in the message log table and the date-time stamp of the latest message and priority will be stored against the contact in the contact list table. Thus, if an SMS message is sent and when the details of the message is shown in the log, it is directly fetched from the application database and an appropriate message priority icon will be shown against the record.

At the receiving end, the priority of the SMS message is intercepted by the Background Monitoring Service' and the priority of the message is read from the first line of the message. If it reads "Emergency message" for example, then this identifies that the priority of the message is set as Emergency', or if it reads "Urgent Message" the priority of the message is set as Urgent', or if it reads "Important Message" the priority of the message is set as Important', or if there is none of the priority message then the priority is set as Casual'. The derived information of the priority along with the message details -content, date-time, sender information etc. will be stored in the SMS log table of the application database. Thus when the details of the incoming message are shown on the log, the information is fetched from the application database.

Figure 11 shows a message history screen for a user having an appropriate mobile application and this shows icons 44 to 49 alongside each message each icon indicating the priority level. Thus, icon 44 is yellow indicating an IMPORTANT message and the text also indicate "Important message". Message 45 is an URGENT message with orange icon and the text also indicate "Urgent Message". Message 46 is an EMERGENCY message with red icon and the text also indicate "Emergency Message". Messages 47 to 49 are CASUAL message with green icons having no priority indicator in the first line. By default all SMS messages are CASUAL messages.

Note that all recent communications (including calls and messages) are available on the same screen on Figure 11.

Figure 12 shows a contact screen that may form part of a mobile application. This includes three main columns. A first column 50 is of contact names, a second column 51 shows a contact status which is an indication of the period that has elapsed since the last communication between the parties and is described further below and a further column 52 shows details of the last call (in a first sub-column 52a) and last message (in a second sub-column 52b). The latest communication includes colour coded icons indicating the priority.

The status column includes colour coded icons indicative of when the last communication (of any type) with each contact was made. The colour may vary with time and for instance may be a first colour (say green) if the last communication was within the last week and a second colour (say yellow) if the communication was within the last months but beyond the last week. A third colour (say orange) if the communication within the last quarter but beyond a month and a further colour (say red) if the last communication was more than a quarter (three months ago) or there has been no communication at all with that contact. In this case, an icon 53 for the contact George illustrates that the last communication was within a month as it is a yellow whereas the icon 54 for Vipin Selvaraj is red and indicates that the last communication was more than three months ago or there has been no communication.

From the contacts screen in Figure 12, if any contact is selected then the contact detail screen in Figure 4 will be presented, from where all types of priority Voice calls and SMS messages could be initiated.

Figure 13 shows an emergency contacts screen which can be brought up by tapping on the EMERGENCY button 55. Emergency button 55 is presented in red colour with yellow circle around it to highlight the importance of the screen -all other menu items will be grey in colour when not selected. Figure 14 shows an editing screen where this emergency contacts screen may be populated. These numbers are stored in the Shared Preference Area' of the application. Separate contact details may be entered for fire, police, ambulance and for a national emergency. Alternatively, more or less services may be included in this as appropriate, such as the coastguard where this is applicable.

Each of these is associated with a particular icon; 56 for fire, 57 for police, 58 for ambulance and 59 for a general national emergency number. Each of these may be populated in the population screen of Figure 14. A further button 60, representing a personal emergency contact, is also shown and this may include a friend or family member to be contacted in the event of an emergency. The national emergency number may be 999 in the UK or 911 in the USA, for example. Other numbers may be numbers which are used for direct contact with the police, fire and so on. Note that the most important one of these, the national emergency button, is most preferably positioned at the bottom right hand part of the screen bearing the icon since this is the part that may be most easily contacted by a thumb of the user in the emergency. They may be of course be moved around the screen by the user in some embodiments. The icons are preferably of different colours and in the example given, fire is red, police is blue, ambulance is green and national emergency is yellow, whereas the personal emergency contact 60 is orange and may also be provided with suitable wording Gland icon 62 representative of the service to be contacted. The buttons may also be associated with different sounds and/or vibrations of different properties as described above. Once all these numbers are stored then in general only three "clicks" will be required to dial any emergency number starting from opening the calling and messaging application. Thus, (1) the application is opened, (2) the emergency button 55 (in the bottom row) is touched and then (3) the relevant emergency button is pressed; instigating a call direct. Also since the numbers are stored already, issues with dialling wrong number in panic are avoided. Buttons are also made as big as possible to avoid mistakes.

In some embodiments, any call to any of these emergency numbers may be accompanied by an SMS message which may comprise, as its first line, wording such as "Emergency call". In the UK, it is possible to send an SMS to the 999 number if the originating telephone number has already been registered. It can be useful to send an SMS in addition to a call so that if the call has to be cut off very early or for any reason is not received, an SMS can still be received so that the emergency services operator can call back if necessary. All the information of the voice call and SMS initiated are stored in the application database. In the call log all the calls from the Emergency screen are marked as Emergency' call with names showing the call button selected, National Emergency', or Police' or Fire' or Ambulance' or Personal Contact' Note that the buttons are particularly big in the emergency screen. This should preferably be as large as possible so that they can be found easily in an emergency where there may be low light, or smoke, for example. Furthermore, pictures of different types, colour coding of the background and the writing are given on all buttons so that they are easily identifiable for people from different nations across the globe.

Figure 15 show a "home" screen on a mobile phone using the AndroidTM operating system that includes an EMERGENCY call alert shown as a banner at the top of the screen.

This indicates to the user when first looking at his phone that a emergency call was received, although the person tried to make an EMERGENCY call. In the AndroidTM system, one may "pull down" an alert such as alert 70 to obtain further details thereof and Figure 16 shows this alert after it has been "pulled down". It specifically indicates 71 that an EMERGENCY call was received from Vipin at 10:48 AM.

The term phone' as used herein encompasses any device capable of transmitting and/or receiving communications such as voice calls or messages.

Claims

Claims 1. A communication system for mobile devices, comprising means for enabling a sender of a communication to indicate one of a plurality of priority levels for the communication and, for at least one of the plurality of priority levels, means for indicating to the receiver that the communication has been accorded said priority level.
2. A system as claimed in Claim 1, wherein the means for indicating priority level comprises a plurality of buttons displayed to the user when instigating a communication, each button being associated with a particular priority level such that the user can press a required button depending upon the desired priority.
3. A system as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein there are four levels of priority.
4. A system as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein when the communication is a voice call then the means for indicating to the receiver that the communication has been accorded said priority level comprises means for additionally transmitting a pre-formatted text-or image-based communication.
S. A system as claimed in Claim 4, wherein the text-or image-based communication is an SMS message.
6. A system as claimed in Claim 4 or Claim 5, wherein if a message is also sent this enables reading the priority of the voice call or text-based message from the message content and associating the priority to the voice call or text-based message received and also wording and priority icons to be displayed to the receiver, on the screen of a receiver's device, indicating the priority of the communication.
7. A system for receiving communication from a third party which has been accorded a priority level, for use with a system as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the receiving system comprises means for storing and displaying details of each communication from a sender together with an indication of the priority accorded to that communication.
8. A system as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein a display includes a plurality of buttons or icons indicating different priorities to be accorded to, or already accorded to, the buttons being accorded different colours relating to different priority levels.
9. A method of communication from a mobile device as claimed in any preceding claim, comprising the step of a user allocating one of a plurality of selectable priority level to said communication and the step of indicating, to the receiver of the communication, the priority level accorded to the communication, wherein the priority level is at least one of the selectable levels.
10. A method as claimed in Claim 9, wherein the means for indicating the priority comprises a plurality of buttons having different visual and/or audio qualities, wherein pressing of one of the buttons by a user causes said communication to be accorded a priority level associated with said button.
11. A method as claimed in Claim 9 or Claim 10, wherein, for at least some of the priority levels, if the communication is a voice call, a text-or image-based communication is also sent which also indicates the priority level, for one or more of the selectable priority levels.
12. A system for contacting one or more providers of emergency services, comprising means for storing, on a database of a mobile device, contact details of one or more emergency service providers and a display screen, adapted to be called up by the user, which display screen comprises at least one button dedicated to instigating a call and/or sending a message to said provider or one or more of said providers.
13. A system as claimed in Claim 12, wherein the system comprises a plurality of buttons related to different service providers.
14. A mobile application for a mobile device adapted to function as a system, or to use the method, of any preceding claim.
15. Apparatus substantially as hereinbefore described with reference, and as illustrated by, the accompanying drawings.
16. A method of communicating, which method is substantially as herein before described with reference to the accompanying drawings.