GB2541641A - Message communication - Google Patents

Abstract

A device configured to receive messages, the device comprising audio output circuitry configured to emit notification sounds in response to receiving a message, wherein when the device is set to a discreet mode the audio output circuitry provides either a quieter notification sound in response to the reception of a message than when the device is in a standard mode or no notification sound at all, message receiving circuitry configured to receive a message (e.g. an SMS message) comprising a header portion containing metadata, and a body portion containing message text, and processing circuitry configured to examine metadata within the header of the received message to detect whether the message comprises an urgent notification, wherein when the processing circuitry detects that a received message comprises an urgent notification, the processing circuitry overrides settings associated with the discreet mode in order to emit a louder notification sound than if a message not comprising an urgent notification were received. Thus, a user of a mobile device is alerted to the reception of a message comprising an urgent notification irrespective of the notification settings selected for the receiving device.

Description

MESSAGE COMMUNICATION

BACKGROUND

Field

This disclosure relates to the communication of messages.

Description of the Related Art:

The “background” description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description which may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, is neither expressly or impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.

In many countries, emergency or urgent warnings (such as for impending natural disasters) are communicated to the public using technology. An example of this is a ‘newsflash’ feature on a television, in which a television is switched to a certain channel or the current broadcast is interrupted so as to display a warning to the viewer. However, a problem with this is that televisions are typically located in a small number of rooms within a house and so if the owner of a television is in another room or out of the house entirely they are not made aware of the emergency or urgency. It is therefore desirable to seek an alternative means for delivering such warnings so that a larger number of people can be warned effectively.

It may also be desirable to ensure that a person is communicated with effectively in other contexts too. For example, a person may be subscribed to a home alarm system that is able to detect intruders. In the instance that an intruder is detected, the person may be alerted by the operator of the alarm system via a message sent to a mobile device. It is desirable that the person is alerted to this message, but if the person has selected settings for their mobile device that cause it to not sound an effective alert for an incoming message then they are unlikely to read the message in a timely fashion.

In recent years, the Short Message Service (SMS) has become increasingly popular amongst mobile phone users, as well as users of other compatible devices such as personal computers with an internet connection. SMS is widely used as it is a convenient alternative to phone calls, providing users with the ability to send information quickly and cheaply in such a manner that it is able to be read by the receiver at the time of their choosing rather than having to answer an incoming call immediately.

Some SMS implementations use the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) standard, but messages may also be carried on a wide range of mobile networks such as UMTS. SMS messages can either be point-to-point or point-to-many (such as SMS cell broadcast message) messages. For example, point-to-point messages may be sent from a mobile device (a so-called mobile-originated message) to a short message service centre using the so-called MAP (Mobile Application Part) protocol. The short message service centre stores the message, and forwards it to the intended recipient via a mobile-terminated message. If the recipient is not able to be reached by the short message service centre then the centre may either queue the message to be attempted to be sent at a later time. Differently, cell broadcast messages can be from point-to-area, meaning that the message will be broadcast to all mobile devices registered to the cell(s) corresponding to the target area.

It is often desirable for the sender of a message that the recipient reads the message promptly, especially when conveying important information such as in an emergency, but it is inconvenient or impractical to make an individual phone call to each such recipient. For example, with regards to SMS messages, to alleviate this problem it is possible to send an SMS message with a ‘class’. Message classes are outlined in the GSM 03.38 Specification (Digital cellular telecommunications system (Phase2+); Alphabets and language-specific information), published in July 1996, with classes 0, 1, 2 and 3 being defined using a 2 bit code.

Generally a message is sent as class 1, meaning that the message is saved upon receipt and the receiving device sends an acknowledgement to the service centre. However a message may also be sent as class 0, which is also known as a “flash” message. When a device receives such a message it is displayed immediately on the screen, and the device sends an acknowledgement to the service centre upon this reception. This message is not stored in memory without user input, and so the receiver of the message is encouraged to read the message as it is received.

However, these flash messages may still go unnoticed by the recipient if the receiving device is switched to a discreet mode for example. A discreet mode is one in which a mobile device has notification settings such that any noises made by the device are quieter (so that noises are still emitted, but with a lower volume) or the device is prevented from making any noise to serve as a notification. Further examples of this are a ‘vibrate’ mode in which all noises that would be made by a speaker (as an example of audio output circuitry) associated with the receiving device as a notification are disabled in favour of the use of a vibration of the device to alert a user, and a ‘silent’ mode in which all sounds are disabled as well as vibrations.

The possibility of not noticing when a flash message is received also presents a further possible problem, as only the most recent flash message that is received will be displayed; any earlier-received but still unread messages will be overwritten. The sender has no way of knowing if this is the case, and therefore would not be prompted to send the message again. As a result, the important information may not be seen by the intended recipient at any time.

SUMMARY

Respective aspects and features of the present disclosure are defined in the appended claims.

It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary, but are not restrictive, of the present technology.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS A more complete appreciation of the disclosure and many of the attendant advantages thereof will be readily obtained as the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description when considered in connection with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

Figure 1 schematically illustrates a mobile device;

Figures 2a and 2b schematically illustrate handling of received SMS messages;

Figure 3 schematically illustrates a method for handling an incoming SMS message;

Figure 4 schematically illustrates an exemplary home network;

Figure 5 schematically illustrates an SMS point-to-point data structure;

Figure 6 schematically illustrates a portion of a mobile network;

Figure 7 schematically illustrates a hardware arrangement;

Figure 8 schematically illustrates an SMS communications system.

DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

Figure 1 schematically illustrates a mobile device 100 as an example of a device configured to receive messages, comprising a keypad 110 for inputting commands to the mobile device 100, such as a mobile phone or other network-enabled device, and a display 120. The keypad comprises a set of buttons that each correspond to an input to the device, for example the numbers 0-9 and the “*’ and “#’ keys. Further buttons may also be provided to assist the user in interacting with the mobile device, such as a menu button, or indeed the keypad may be formed as part of the display 120 in a device that offers touchscreen functionality. The display 120 may comprise a number of user interface (Ul) elements in addition to content selected by a user for viewing, for example a status or notification bar 130. These Ul elements may be purely display features or they may correspond to touch screen controls, depending on the capabilities of the mobile device. This notification bar 130 is operable to display useful information to the user, such as through a battery power icon 131, a signal strength indicator 132 or a new message icon 133. The user may further be able to interact with this notification bar 130 in order to gain more information without opening a new application on the mobile device if the mobile device has touchscreen capabilities, such as dragging the notification bar 130 down to show a message preview or selecting an icon to be taken to a corresponding application.

Figures 2a and 2b schematically illustrate two methods for handling received messages, which could be SMS messages for example, dependent on the designated class of each message.

Figure 2a corresponds to a received class 1 message. In this arrangement, the message is delivered to a user’s inbox (as shown by a heading 200). The inbox contains a list of messages 210, 211, 212 that may be arranged in alphabetical order or by most recent message for example. Each message 210-212 is presented using a contact name and a preview (in some examples), allowing a user to check the sender and assess the likely subject matter of a received message without opening the message to read it. A user is able to select a message 210-212 in order to see the full message text, at which point the message will be marked as read.

Figure 2b corresponds to a received class 0 message. A Ul element 220 is generated to be shown on the display 120 which may include sender information 221 and the text of the message 222. Options 230 may be provided to the user in order to interact with the message, such as to reply to the message or dismiss the message as shown in Figure 2b. Alternatively, options could be provided such as to save the message to the internal memory or call the sender of the message.

The display method illustrated in Figure 2b may be appropriate in the context of an urgent notification (such as, for example, an emergency message) being sent, as it may be very important that a user actually reads the message. Rather than easily having the option of opening and reading the message at a later time, at which time it may be too late to react to the notification, the message is displayed on the screen automatically so that the user must acknowledge the message by interacting with the mobile device, for example by confirming that they have read the message with an input to the mobile device via a keypad or touchscreen, before being able to interact with the device any further.

However, either of the methods of Figures 2a or 2b for handling incoming messages may be at least partially ineffective in the context of an urgent notification in the case in which the user has their mobile device set to a discreet mode; this is particularly problematic when the owner of the device is asleep and therefore will be unable to see any lights on the mobile device that may indicate an unread message on the device in the absence of any notification sounds, such as message tones, ringtones or alarm sounds, being emitted.

Figure 3 schematically illustrates a method for handing an incoming class 0 or class 1 SMS message, wherein metadata in the header of the message defines the class of the SMS message, which can alleviate this problem. At a step 300, a message is received by a mobile device. The mobile device detects, at a step 310, by examination of the message, for example metadata associated with the message (the process of which shall be discussed below), whether the message corresponds to an emergency warning (or other urgent notification) or a standard message. This detection is based, at least in part, upon nonmessage data associated with the message, which term refers to data associated with or forming part of the message package (or packet) but which is not itself part of the originating phone number or of the readable text which will (upon display of the message) be displayed to the user. An example of such non-message data is message header data.

If the message is detected to not be an emergency or urgent warning, then at a step 320 the mobile device handles the message as a non-an urgent notification message. In other words, the mobile device notifies the user and stores or displays the message according to the user’s selected settings; if the device is set to a discreet mode then it may be that no notification sounds will be emitted, for example.

If, however, it is detected that the message does in fact correspond to an emergency warning the method proceeds to a step 330. At the step 330, the mobile device detects whether the mobile device is in a discreet mode. If it is not in a discreet mode, the method proceeds to step 340 in which the mobile device notifies the user that a message has been received according to the settings selected by the user. Alternatively, if the mobile device is set to be in a discreet mode, the mobile device notifies the user of the reception of the message using ‘emergency settings’ in a step 350; in effect, the mobile device notification settings are overridden in order to emit a louder notification sound than would be emitted if an SMS message not comprising an urgent notification were received. These emergency settings could be pre-defined by the user, or could be a default profile associated with the handset, and are selected so as to be able to notify the owner of the device to the urgent notification. This could be in the same way as a normal message would be announced, or the settings may give a distinctive notification sound for urgent notifications such that the notification sound corresponding to the reception of an urgent notification is different to a normal message reception notification sound.

It is also envisioned that the emergency settings could be applied even when the mobile device is not in a discreet mode. For example, the user may have a discreet mode activated such that noises are reduced in volume and/or quantity, or the user may wish to have a distinctive warning sound for urgent notification announcements, potentially making the notification more effective in that the user can easily tell, from the fact that the notification sound is different to the one or ones that the user normally hears, that the message possibly warrants immediate attention. Further to this, the emergency settings could include instructions such as sounding a device’s message tones, ringtones or alarms, or lighting up the device to as to achieve maximum brightness in order to increase the chance of attracting the user’s attention. The mobile device may also be configured to vibrate in addition to emitting a notification sound in response to the reception of an SMS message comprising an urgent notification.

In other embodiments, not every step of the method of Figure 3 may be implemented. The mobile device may be operable, upon a ‘yes’ detection at the step 310, to advance directly to the step 350.

In embodiments, the notification settings used when overriding the settings associated with the discreet mode may be dependent on the remaining battery power of the device. For example, if a mobile device has only a small amount of battery power remaining it may be desirable to use a different vibration pattern to that used when a standard message is received, rather than using loud noises and lighting up the display of the mobile device. As a further example, the mobile device could not use vibration and only emit a noise, or could use any combination of lower-power alternatives to maximum volume notification sounds in conjunction with lights and vibrations. This allows the user of the device to conserve battery power, which may be required to contact others in light of the urgent notification. Determination of the appropriate response could be performed with regards to a threshold battery power (normal response if battery power is equal to or greater than x%, low-power response if below x%), for example, although other methods of determining a response based upon a given parameter could be appropriate.

Thus, a method is provided which is able to effectively alert a user of a mobile device to the reception of a message comprising an urgent notification irrespective of the notification settings selected for the receiving device. The use of audible and tactile notifications such as message tones and vibrations is able to alleviate the problem of important messages going unnoticed by a user of a mobile device because the device is set to a discreet mode.

In some embodiments, a mobile device may be connected to one or more other devices through (for example) a local network. This local network could comprise wireless or wired connections such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth® connections, or Ethernet® cables. Such an arrangement is schematically illustrated in Figure 4.

In Figure 4, a mobile device 100 is connected to a router 400 by a wireless link 401. The router is also connected to a number of other devices through wireless links 401 or wired links 402 to a network such as a WLAN or a LAN or any other appropriate network. These devices could include, but are not limited to, televisions 410, laptop computers 420, personal computers 430, and audio playback systems 440. It may be appropriate, upon reception of an urgent notification, to communicate with one or more of the devices in the local network (connected to the mobile device via the router) to cause the one or more other devices to respond to the message; the response being the utilisation of the one or more other devices in the network to assist in gaining a person’s attention. This could be (for example) in the form of changing a television to a different channel or causing it to play an audio warning, or requesting that a computer navigate to a specified webpage providing details of the emergency.

The recipient device can detect whether a message contains an urgent notification in a number of ways. Previously proposed arrangements have proposed recognising an incoming call as being from an emergency number based upon distinctive digits in the incoming caller’s phone number. This approach may be undesirable for a number of reasons, for example it requires region-dependent variation of settings (as each region may have different phone numbers corresponding to the emergency services) and may require updates over time in order to keep up-to-date with any changes to the phone numbers of emergency services.

In embodiments of the present arrangement, modification of the SMS message header, for example to indicate an urgent message, is implemented. This modification can be made in a number of places in the header, two of which will be discussed below by way of examples, such that a data field in the header defines an importance of the SMS message. Figure 5 schematically illustrates an example of a particular message transmitted using the SMS protocol, with larger sized areas representing areas that occupy a larger number of bits - although it should be noted that the areas are not to scale. This exemplary message is comprised of two distinct areas, the body of the message 510 which contains the information that the sender wishes the recipient to receive, and the header 500 which comprises everything else in the message. An exception to this is when the user data 531 contains the optional user data header (UDH) 530, in which case the user data 531 comprises both header data and the information to be sent to the recipient.

With reference to Figure 5, the SCA 520 is the Service Centre Address, which contains the telephone number of the service centre. The PDU-type 521 comprises a number of bits used to indicate information about the message as defined in the standard GSM 03.40 or 3GPP TS 23.040, such as whether status reports are requested and if the user data field 531 contains a header. This field, and the OA/MR, DA field, vary depending on whether the message an SMS-DELIVER (mobile-terminated) message or an SMS-SUBMIT (mobile-originated) message; the fields change once the message has reached the service centre. For example the mobile originated message has the MR (Message Reference) 523 and DA (Destination Address) 524 fields in the header, but these are replaced by the OA (Originator Address) 522 in the mobile terminated message header. The PID (Protocol Identifier) 525 portion of the header is used to indicate how the short message service centre should process the message. The DCS (Data Coding Scheme) 526 is used to indicate information about the format of the user data 531, and is discussed in more detail below. The VP (Validity Period) 527 is used to define how long a message should be stored in the short message service centre before expiring if it fails to be delivered; this changes to the SCTS (Service Centre Time Stamp) 528 in the mobile terminated message, which indicates the time at which the short message service centre received the message. The UDL (User Data Length) 529 indicates the length of the user data field 531, and the user data field 531 carries the information that the sender wishes to communicate to the recipient.

The Data Coding Scheme (DCS) 526 is a data field in the header 500 of SMS messages. The DCS 526 carries information about how the message should be processed upon reception, such as message class information (for example, class 0, class 1 and so on, as discussed above) and/or which character set should be used to present the message text. There are a number of reserved fields in the DCS 526 that could be utilised to carry information defining whether the message relates to an urgent notification, or indeed there is a reserved bit (bit 3, default set to 0) in the data coding/message class field that could be used as a binary flag to indicate whether or not the message contains an urgent notification; in the case that the message does relate to an emergency, this bit could be changed to read Ί’ instead. (Clearly, this is an example and the other polarity of this type of flag could be used instead).

The DCS 526 is already used to communicate the class of a message using a two-bit field giving a range of classes from 0-3, as discussed above. In some embodiments, the urgent notification is designated as a class 0 message to prompt automatic display. This is advantageous in that the user is immediately able to see the content of the message when they look at their mobile device, and the message can still be received even when there is insufficient internal memory available to store the message in the recipient’s inbox. It could be advantageous to enable the first instance of such a message to be automatically saved despite being a class 0 message, for example if the urgent notification message contains information about getting to safety. The saving of the class 0 message to the recipient’s inbox could be implemented using the information provided to the receiving device that indicates that the message relates to an urgent notification.

Alternatively, the message could be sent as class 1, for example, with the information informing the receiving device about the message relating to an emergency used to alter the way this message is handled - such as displaying the message on the screen immediately despite the class 1 status. This may be desirable so that the user of a receiving device automatically has the message stored, and therefore avoids any potential problems arising from the fact that class 0 messages are overwritten by any subsequent class 0 messages without necessarily a record being kept of the message content.

In some embodiments, a new class is defined. A class 4 message, for example, could be used to correspond to a message containing an urgent notification that is both saved (if possible) and displayed immediately as well as causing a more noticeable response to the message in terms of notifying the device owner. This would require the extension of the message class parameter to a three-bit field instead of a two-bit field in order to represent the new class.

Alternatively, the User Data Header (UDH) 530 could be modified in order to communicate the presence of an urgent notification to a mobile device. The UDH 530 is not always present at the start of a message, but it is defined in the GSM standard and so it is compatible with a large number of devices using SMS. The UDH 530 typically contains information about how the corresponding message should be processed; for example, it contains information about the text formatting and font colours as well as small images and simple sounds. There are a number of reserved fields in this header that could be used to provide a flag to indicate that a message contains information relating to an emergency.

The UDH 530 also supports the transmission of sounds through the Enhanced Messaging Service (EMS), an add-on to the SMS functionality. Using EMS, or by extending the described embodiments to the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), audio could be sent to the device as part of the urgent notification message. The mobile device could be configured to automatically play media received as part of an urgent notification; thus a warning tailored to the specific emergency could be provided to alert a person without requiring them to read the message. This could be used as a standalone warning comprising just the audio, or it could be used as a way to attract the attention of the owner of the device so as to encourage them to read the message that was transmitted with the audio.

In some embodiments, the header also contains information about the severity of the emergency (or a degree of urgency). The sender of a message could use a scale, for example 1-5 in which 1 represents a relatively minor and/or distant emergency (or a message which is urgent but not very urgent) and 5 represents a major and/or very close (temporally or geographically) emergency (or a very urgent message), to define a value for the emergency about which people are notified and encode this value in the header. This encoding could use an extra pair of bits to represent the value. Alternatively, the two-bit field used in DCS to designate the class could be extended to three bits - this allows the values 0-3 to be used as the usual class designations with the values 4-7 being used to indicate an urgent notification where 4 indicates a minor emergency and 7 indicates a major emergency. A mobile device receiving the message could therefore have a graded response, the response to each of the grades of which could either be set manually by a user or comprise a set of responses designed by the manufacturer. In other words, the response of the mobile device receiving the SMS message may be dependent on the importance of the message as defined by the header. For example, a level 1 emergency / urgency may simply vibrate the mobile device even when in a discreet mode so as to discreetly attract the attention of the owner of a mobile device without causing a significant disturbance. A level 3 emergency / urgency could cause the screen to light up and relatively quiet alert noises to be made in addition to a vibration, and a level 5 emergency could cause every light on the mobile device to be lit up to a maximum value and an alarm (dedicated to emergency notification, or simply the alarm associated with the clock on the device) to be set off in conjunction with maximum volume message tones and vibrations.

These grades are of course exemplary, and any gradient of responses could be implemented - such as having the same (possibly minor or even silent, depending on the preference of the user) response for levels 1-3 before significantly increasing the magnitude of the response for each of levels 4 and 5. This therefore provides a relationship between the scale of the emergency / urgency and the importance of the message being read, with a response to receiving the message that is proportional to (or at least related to or dependent upon) this importance.

In some example arrangements, for a message detected as urgent or emergency, a louder notification sound is emitted than if a message not comprising an urgent notification were received. A vibration can be used in addition.

Details of the incoming message could be compared against a user profile associated with the device to determine whether or not to override notification settings in response to the reception of a message. For example, the sender of the message could be identified (as at least a part of those details) using information from the header of the message and this could be used to determine whether the user of the device would desire to be informed of the urgent notification being received from the sender by comparing the sender’s details against a list (associated with a user’s profile) of senders who are authorised to send such messages to the user. As a default setting, senders such as the mobile network or emergency services could be authorised to send messages that may override the notification settings of the device to ensure that information relating to emergencies will be likely to be noticed when received.

Figure 6 schematically illustrates a portion of a mobile network, with each cell 600 being represented by a hexagon for clarity. It is possible to estimate a location of the mobile device using information about which cell a mobile device is operating in, although other methods such as triangulation could be used in place of this. It is therefore possible to provide a localised urgent notification to devices that are most likely to be affected by the emergency. It is also an advantage to be able to send geographically-relevant information to devices in each cell, such as different areas of safety to retreat to in the case of an emergency.

For example, with reference to Figure 5, if a major emergency were to occur in a geographical region covered by cell F that would have an effect on the other cells that diminished with distance it would be possible for a message to be sent to any cells that were deemed to be impacted by the emergency to a degree that exceeded a certain threshold, the threshold being defined in terms of risk to lives for example. Devices found in cell F would be certain to receive urgent notifications in such a situation. Devices located in cells C, E and G would be likely candidates to receive urgent notifications, but may not receive messages if the emergency is highly localised to cell F. Devices in cells A, B and D would be much less likely to be sent a message due to being further away and therefore less likely to be impacted by the emergency. This enables only a geographically relevant portion of the network to be informed of the emergency, reducing the network load as well as not proving to be inconvenient by interrupting device owners that will not be affected by the emergency.

Alternatively, in an embodiment which uses a graded emergency warning system, mobile devices can be sent a message with an emergency level that corresponds to their proximity to the emergency. For example, those devices in cell G could be issued with a level 5 warning, devices in cells D, E and H a level 3 warning and devices in cells A-C, F and I a level 1 warning. This has the advantage of providing more relevant information to devices, as it would be undesirable to send a high level emergency warning to an entire area in the case of a localised emergency that is likely to have a small impact on other locations.

As well as providing geographically relevant notifications, it can be advantageous to ensure that an urgent notification has been read by a mobile device user and that the user is therefore informed of the emergency. An arrangement to address this could be implemented by modifying SMS status reports. SMS status reports are used to communicate the delivery status of an SMS message. This takes the form of a return message comprising two numbers, one designating the identity of the message being acknowledged and the other being a status code. The status code may take a value between 0 and 255, with 0 indicating a successful delivery of a message and the other numbers corresponding to either reserved fields or a particular reason for the failure to deliver. Using this system, after a successful delivery it would be possible to send a second status report with a predefined code (using any of the reserved fields) upon the unlocking of the mobile device or some acknowledgement of receipt of the message.

If this acknowledgement is not received, the network could be operable to resend the urgent notification to the mobile device until either the emergency has passed or an acknowledgement is later received. This further increases the chances of the owner of a mobile device being made aware of the an urgent notification message, as well as ensuring that users who may have temporarily lost network signal or switched off their mobile devices will not miss out on the message.

This could also be used in conjunction with, or separately to, an arrangement in which the urgent notification is able to cause the mobile device to repeat the notification used to signify the arrival of the message so as to announce its presence on a regular basis to the user. For example, every 3 minutes an unread urgent notification could restart the notification process. This could be used with a system in which the message is re-sent every 10 minutes to ensure delivery, thus providing a number of chances for the mobile device to gain the user’s attention.

The description up to this point has referred to a mobile device, but the proposed embodiments are equally applicable to a variety of devices such as mobile phones and personal computers which are able to utilise the SMS or other message protocol.

Figure 7 schematically illustrates a hardware arrangement operable to receive such a message. The device comprises a processor 700 (as an example of processing circuitry) configured to examine metadata within the header of a received message, message (such as RF) sending/receiving circuitry 710 configured to receive a message, the message comprising a header portion (containing metadata) and a body portion (containing message text), a display 720, audio output circuitry 730 configured to emit notification sounds in response to the device receiving a message, Wi-Fi connectivity circuitry 740, a memory 750 and a power supply 760..

The processor 700 is operable to receive messages via the message sending/receiving circuitry 710 and perform processing to detect the message type and implement the appropriate response to this; in other words, the processor is configured to examine metadata within the header of a received message to detect whether the message comprises an urgent notification. The processor 700 is then operable to update the display 720, for example to show the message contents, and cause the audio output circuitry 730 to emit notification sounds in order to gain a person’s attention. When the device comprising this hardware arrangement is set to a discreet mode, the audio output circuitry provides a quieter notification sound (or no notification sound) in response to the reception of a message than when the device is in a standard mode. If the device is set to a discreet mode and the processor detects that a received message comprises an urgent notification, the processor overrides settings associated with the discreet mode in order to emit a louder notification sound than if a message not comprising an urgent notification were received. As discussed above, the Wi-Fi connectivity circuitry 740 could also be utilised to communicate with other networked devices through a wireless router, to cause the other devices to also respond by alerting a user to an emergency or an urgent receivable message, as an example of the features described with reference to Figure 4. Many devices now provide a standby mode in which power consumption may be reduced. In such a standby mode, functions of the device may be limited - for example, displays may be switched off and processors may only run at the lowest clock speed available. In an active standby mode, a mobile device may still check for messages to be received but only announce their reception when a user engages the device in such a way as to end the active standby mode.

Alternatively, a mobile device could be in a deep standby mode and occasionally leave this mode in order to check for received messages. In either implementation, it is conceived that receiving a message comprising an urgent notification could interrupt the standby mode in order to provide a timely notification to the user of the received message.

Figure 8 schematically illustrates a communications system comprising a message sending device 800, which will be discussed below, and a message receiving device 810 according to Figure 7 and any of the embodiments described above.

The message sending device 800 comprises an information reception unit 820 which is configured to receive information relating to an emergency and any other information that may be used in sending out an appropriate warning message. This can include geographical data, such as the location of the emergency and data identifying which mobile devices are present in each nearby cell, and data about the emergency itself such as a severity or nature of the emergency.

This information is used by the message processing unit 830 and the metadata processing unit 840 to produce a message that contains information about the emergency. The message processing unit 830 may have appropriate text input either manually via a user input or it may be automatically generated in response to receiving an urgent notification. The metadata processing unit 840 is configured to generate a header associated with the message text that defines the message as one that contains an urgent notification, and may also provide information about the importance of the message as described above; in other words, the metadata processing unit 840 is configured to indicate, in the header of the message, whether the message contains an urgent notification. The metadata processing unit is also configured to define a message class for the message, for example, along with any other parameters that must be set such as a validity period for the message.

The recipient determination unit 850 is configured to generate a list of recipients of a message containing the urgent notification. This could be done on a cell-by-cell basis, by detecting which mobile devices are present in a cell and then sending a message to all of the devices in that cell, or it could be done on the basis of message importance in which all mobile devices detected to be in cells that should receive the message with an equal importance value are listed. Other methods of generating lists of message recipients could also be used, and the generation may be dependent on the geographical data, emergency data or any other data.

The message sending device also comprises a message transmitting unit which is operable to send the generated message to the receiving devices via a mobile network 870.

In so far as embodiments of the disclosure have been described as being implemented, at least in part, by software-controlled data processing apparatus, it will be appreciated that a non-transitory machine-readable medium carrying such software, such as an optical disk, a magnetic disk, semiconductor memory or the like, is also considered to represent an embodiment of the present disclosure.

It will be apparent that numerous modifications and variations of the present disclosure are possible in light of the above teachings. It is therefore to be understood that within the scope of the appended claims, the technology may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described herein.

Respective embodiments are defined by the following numbered clauses: 1. A device configured to receive messages, the device comprising: audio output circuitry configured to emit notification sounds in response to receiving a message, wherein when the device is set to a discreet mode the audio output circuitry provides either a quieter notification sound in response to the reception of a message than when the device is in a standard mode or no notification sound at all; message receiving circuitry configured to receive a message comprising a header portion containing metadata and a body portion containing message text; and processing circuitry configured to examine metadata within the header of the received message to detect whether the message comprises an urgent notification, wherein when the processing circuitry detects that a received message comprises an urgent notification, the processing circuitry overrides settings associated with the discreet mode in order to emit a louder notification sound than if a message not comprising an urgent notification were received. 2. A device according to clause 1, wherein the device is configured to vibrate in addition to emitting a notification sound in response to the reception of a message comprising an urgent notification. 3. A device according to clause 1 or clause 2, wherein the notification sound comprises any of the device’s message tones, ringtones or alarm sounds. 4. A device according to any of the previous clauses, wherein metadata in the header defines the message as being a class 0 SMS message. 5. A device according to any of the previous clauses, wherein the header contains a data field that defines an importance of the message. 6. A device according to clause 5, wherein the response of the device that receives the message is dependent on the importance of the message as defined by the header. 7. A device according any of the previous clauses, wherein the device that receives the message communicates with one or more other devices in a network to cause the one or more other devices to respond to the message. 8. A device according to clause 1, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to compare details of the incoming message against a user profile associated with the device to determine whether or not to override notification settings. 9. A device according to clause 8, wherein the details include information identifying the sender of the message. 10. A device according to clause 1, wherein notification settings used when overriding the settings associated with the discreet mode are dependent on the remaining battery power of the device. 11. A method for responding to an message received by a device, the method comprising: receiving an message comprising a header portion containing metadata and a body portion containing message text; examining metadata within the header of the received message to detect whether the message comprises an urgent notification; and overriding, if the device is set to a discreet mode, any settings associated with the discreet mode if it is detected that the received message comprises an urgent notification in order to emit a louder notification sound than if a message not comprising an urgent notification were received. 12. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium which stores computer software which, when executed by a computer, causes a computer to perform the method of clause 11. 13. A message comprising: a body portion containing message text; and a header portion containing metadata, including a data field indicating that the message comprises an urgent notification a device that is in a discreet mode is operable to override the settings associated with the discreet mode in order to emit a louder notification sound than if a message not comprising an urgent notification were received. 14. A communications system comprising: a message sending device configured to indicate, in the header of a message, whether the message contains an urgent notification; and a device according to any of clauses 1 to 10, configured to receive the message.

Claims (14)

1. A device configured to receive messages, the device comprising: audio output circuitry configured to emit notification sounds in response to receiving a message, wherein when the device is set to a discreet mode the audio output circuitry provides either a quieter notification sound in response to the reception of a message than when the device is in a standard mode or no notification sound at all; message receiving circuitry configured to receive a message comprising a header portion containing metadata and a body portion containing message text; and processing circuitry configured to examine metadata within the header of the received message to detect whether the message comprises an urgent notification, wherein when the processing circuitry detects that a received message comprises an urgent notification, the processing circuitry overrides settings associated with the discreet mode in order to emit a louder notification sound than if a message not comprising an urgent notification were received.

2. A device according to claim 1, wherein the device is configured to vibrate in addition to emitting a notification sound in response to the reception of a message comprising an urgent notification.

3. A device according to claim 1, wherein the notification sound comprises any of the device’s message tones, ringtones or alarm sounds.

4. A device according to claim 1, wherein metadata in the header defines the message as being a class 0 SMS message.

5. A device according to claim 1, wherein the header contains a data field that defines an importance of the message.

6. A device according to claim 5, wherein the response of the device is dependent on the importance of the receivable message as defined by the header.

7. A device according to claim 1, wherein the device communicates with one or more other devices in a network to cause the one or more other devices to respond to the receivable message.

8. A device according to claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to compare details of the incoming message against a user profile associated with the device to determine whether or not to override notification settings.

9. A device according to claim 8, wherein the details include information identifying the sender of the message.

10. A device according to claim 1, wherein notification settings used when overriding the settings associated with the discreet mode are dependent on the remaining battery power of the device.

11. A method for responding to a message received by a device, the method comprising: receiving a message comprising a header portion containing metadata and a body portion containing message text; examining metadata within the header of the received message to detect whether the message comprises an urgent notification; and overriding any settings associated with the discreet mode if it is detected that the received message comprises an urgent notification in order to emit a louder notification sound than if a message not comprising an urgent notification were received.

12. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium which stores computer software which, when executed by a computer, causes a computer to perform the method of claim 11.

13. A message comprising: a body portion containing message text; and a header portion containing metadata, including a data field indicating that the message comprises an urgent notification a device that is in a discreet mode is operable to override the settings associated with the discreet mode in order to emit a louder notification sound than if a message not comprising an urgent notification were received.

14. A communications system comprising: a message sending device configured to indicate, in the header of a message, whether the message contains an urgent notification; and a device according to claim 1, configured to receive the message.