KR100938518B1 - Notification platform architecture - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention provides a system (10) and methodology (170) for enabling various information related to one or more notification sources (26-28) directed to one or more notification sinks (36-38) through the notification platform structure (10). 173, 180, 400, 600, 1000). Structure 10 includes a context analyzer 22 for determining a user's status, such as location and attention, for example, a user source that must be forwarded to notification sinks 36-38. Is employed by the notification manager 24 to determine what, when and how information was generated. This decision may include a cost benefit analysis in which considerations are given as to whether the benefit notified to the user is as large as the cost of the user's decay. Decision theory means 177, 180 and / or some less formal developmental means 177 may be employed to enable the decision process within notification manager 24.

Context, notification parameters, notification sink, notification source, machine readable media

Description

Notification platform architecture {NOTIFICATION PLATFORM ARCHITECTURE}

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention generally relates to computer systems, and more particularly, to systems and methods that provide an architecture for facilitating the receipt and notification of alerts generated by various devices and applications for delivery to a user.

Today, many computer users receive information from many different sources and use many different devices and modalities to access this information. For example, a user may receive e-mail or urgent messages via a computer, calls through a pager, voice mail via a telephone such as a cellular (“cell”) or landline telephone, and new information via a computer. As the amount of information available increases and there are so many aspects to convey this information, a user may have information based on where he is, in what state of mind, and what aspects of communication the user has access to. It is difficult to receive and process.

For example, a user may be away from his computer and receive important emails. In many cases, however, a user may only be able to use cell phones or pagers. Thus, a message sent in one aspect (eg, email) is not automatically sent or forwarded in another aspect. Thus, the user may actually receive the message only after a significant time has elapsed. In some cases, a message may require a user's response or action within a predetermined time, and the message may become obsolete before the user actually receives the message. As another example, a user may work on a computer with the phone's ringtone or voicemail indicator turned off so that the user can watch the computer without interruption. However, if important voicemail is left at this time, the user has no way of knowing whether an important message has been received unless the voicemail is regularly checked for voicemail.

Unlike not responding to important messages or alerts, many messages / alarms received may not be important to the user. For example, an e-mail from a user's manager or co-worker should normally be given a higher priority than the latest sports score or review. Thus, the value of the information contained in the message or alert must be balanced against the costs associated with disrupting the user. However, cost and value are sensitive issues. This may include where the user is, the activity with which the user is currently associated, and the aspects of communication that the user has access to. In addition to managing the communication and related aspects described above, the user receives and processes various other messages and / or alerts sequentially. This may include, for example, an increasing number of services, error messages, and computerized help proposals.

To aid in a basic understanding of some aspects of the invention, a simplified summary of the invention is described below. This Summary is not an extensive overview of the invention, nor is it intended to identify key or essential elements of the invention, nor is it intended to limit the scope of the invention. Its real purpose is to present some concepts of the invention in a simplified form as a prelude to the following detailed description.

The present invention relates to a system and methodology for providing the architecture of a notification platform. According to one aspect of the invention, the architecture includes a context analyzer or component, one or more notification sources and sinks, and a notification manager. The context analyzer stores user profile information about user notification parameters, such as a user's default notification preferences, and provides user context identification and updating services. The notification source generates a notification of usage, and the notification sink provides the notification to the user. The notification manager delivers the notification generated by the source to the sink based on the information stored and determined by the context analyzer and the information provided or implied for the urgency of the notification. For example, the notification manager can access or display the user's context (eg, the user's current location and attention focus (ie, focus of attention)). This can be accomplished by considering a number of contextual information sources. Such information sources may include, for example, the user's context file, the user's online calendar, the time of day, worldwide events, organizations, systems and / or user's activities. Notification can be determined through analysis of context and urgency of information. This may include determining which sink to go to the user in making the notification, and in what manner or aspect provided by the sink.

According to another aspect of the present invention, a user, for example, has received an email but can automatically send the email to a cell phone if he or she wishes. Similarly, it can be properly determined by the notification manager so that the voice mail can be sent to the desktop computer. Thus, the notification from the notification source is processed by the notification manager that determines whether or not to notify the user. The manager determines whether to notify the user and also how to notify. This may be based on information stored in the user profile, including information such as the user's preferences and current context, to make the desired notification sync notification. The sink may include, for example, a desktop computer, cell phone, pager, and / or other device / application.

In addition, the architecture of the notification platform can be generalized to virtually any notification, including, for example, relating to the provision of a service by a software component of a desktop or mobile setting. These notices,

• alerts to services, such as to automatically provide assistance or tips to users working on software applications, and to perform automatic scheduling by checking email at the user's attention;

Alert users of upcoming appointments or contracts;

Alert you to relevant significant changes in the location, proximity, or attention state of friends and colleagues;

Issue a background query based on text collected or reviewed by the user and provide the user with such background search results.

As described above, the context analyzer determines the user's current context, such as the user's current location and attention state. The determined context can be used to determine, for example, whether to notify the user and when and how. According to another aspect of the present invention, the context includes: a direct description by the user; Direct measurement using one or more sensors; A user modifiable profile indicating a context; One or more user modifiable rules indicating context; And / or analysis by reasoning using a model such as a Bayesian or statistical model. Thus, the user can be notified using the user's context, including the user's location and attention state (or concentration).

According to another aspect of the present invention, a decision-theoretic analysis is used to notify a user of any notification received from a notification source by a notification manager, and to notify the user through any of one or more modes associated with the notification sink. Determine whether or not. This value is equal to the expected value of the information contained in the notification, which is less than the expected value of disruption resulting from the notification through the sync mode, and the user's independent learning of the information containing the notification without the notification. It is determined for the notification sink and associated mode, which is small and less than the actual cost of making the notification through the mode and sink. If the value is greater than the predetermined delivery threshold, the notification is delivered via the mode of the sink having the highest value, for example. According to another aspect of the present invention, a heuristic communication policy may be used to determine which notification received from a communication source by a communication manager to send to a user or through which mode of an associated notification sink.

Next, certain exemplary aspects of the invention are described in detail with reference to the following description and drawings. These aspects are indicative, however, of but a few of the various ways in which the exemplary principles of the invention may be employed, and the invention is intended to embrace all such aspects and their equivalents. Other advantages and novel features of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention in conjunction with the drawings.

1 is a system block diagram illustrating a notification platform in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

2 is a block diagram illustrating a context analyzer in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

3 is a block diagram illustrating a notification source and a sink in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

4 illustrates the usefulness of a notification curve in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

5 illustrates a user history interface for notification in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

6 illustrates a contextual information source in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

7 illustrates a rule based system for determining context in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

8 is a block diagram illustrating an interference based system for determining context in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

9 illustrates an interference model for determining context in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

10 illustrates a transient interference model for determining context in accordance with aspects of the present invention.                 

11 is a flow diagram illustrating a methodology for determining context in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

12 is a flow diagram illustrating a methodology for determining notification in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

13 is a flow diagram illustrating a methodology for providing decision theory analysis for a notification platform according to aspects of the present invention.

14 illustrates an exemplary display in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

15 is a flow diagram illustrating a methodology for providing a variable display in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

16 illustrates time zone values in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

17 is a flow diagram illustrating a methodology for providing flow cycling in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

18 illustrates an exemplary flow cycling display in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

19 illustrates an exemplary flow stacked display in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

20 is a detailed view illustrating an exemplary flow stacked display in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

21 is a flow diagram illustrating a methodology for providing flow stacking in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

22 illustrates an exemplary display in accordance with another aspect of the present invention.

23 is a block diagram illustrating a suitable operating environment in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

The present invention is directed to a system and methodology that enables various information related to one or more notification sources to be communicated to one or more notification sinks (eg, aspects for receiving information) through a notification platform architecture. The architecture includes a context analyzer for determining a user's status, such as location and attention, which notification manager uses the user's status to communicate what information generated by the notification source to the notification sink when and how. Determine. These determinations may include a cost benefit analysis that takes into account whether it is more beneficial to notify the user than the cost of disrupting the user. Decision theory policies and / or somewhat less formal heuristic policies may be used to make the decision process within the notification manager.

Referring to FIG. 1, system 10 shows a notification architecture in accordance with aspects of the present invention. System 10 includes context analyzer 22, notification manager 24 (also called an event broker), one or more notification sources 1 through N, 26, 27, 28 (e.g., aspects for providing information) and one; The above notification sinks 1 to M, 36, 37, 38 are included, where N and M are each an integer. These sources are also called event publishers, and sinks are also called event subscribers. There may be any number of sinks and sources. Typically, notification manager 24 makes a notification, which notifications are sent from sources 26 to 28 to sinks 36 to 38 based in part on stored parameter information accessed by context analyzer 22. Also called an alarm.                 

Context analyzer 22 stores and analyzes information about the user's variables and parameters that influence notification decisions. For example, the parameters may include contextual information, such as the user's typical location and attention or activity on the day or week, and additional parameters tailored for such parameters, such as device users tend to access other locations. can do. Such parameters may also be a function of observation made independently through one or more sensors. For example, information about the location of the user, which may be provided by the Global Positioning System (GPS) subsystem, and the type of device in use and / or the pattern of use of the device, and the particular particular type of user last accessed One or more profiles (not shown) may be selected or modified based on information about the device. In addition, as will be described in detail below, an automated display can be used to dynamically display parameters or states such as position and concentration. Profile parameters may be stored as user profiles that the user can edit. The notification architecture does not rely on a given profile or set of dynamic representations, and in real time, such as when the user has no time to receive notification except for important notifications during the next " x " time, for example, up to a predetermined time. Its status can be specified with.

The parameter may also include a default notification preference parameter for the user's preference for being disturbed by different types of notifications of different settings, which is the basis for making notification decisions and initiating changes by the notification manager 24. Can be used as. The parameters may include default parameters for how the user would like to be notified in different situations (eg, by cell phone, pager, etc.). The parameter may include this assessment as the cost of disturbance associated with being alerted by different modes of different settings. This is not only a notification parameter that indicates how the user wants to be notified at a given time, but also a context that indicates the likelihood that the user is at a different location, the possibility that different devices are available and the concentration of the user at a given time. It may include a parameter.

According to one aspect of the present invention, the information stored by the context analyzer 22 includes the context information determined by the analyzer. Context information is determined by analyzing the user's location and attention state by analyzer 22 based on one or more context information sources (not shown), as described in detail below. The context analyzer 22 can accurately determine the user's actual location, for example, via a global location search system (GPS) that forms part of the user's car or mobile phone. The analyzer uses a statistical model to determine the likelihood that a user is in a given attention state through basic assessments and / or observations collected based on information such as date type, time of day, data in the user's calendar, and observations about the user's activity. Can be determined. A given attention state may include whether the user is open to receive the notification or is busy to not receive the notification, and may take other considerations such as weekdays, weekends, holidays, and / or other events / periods into account. It may include.

Sources 26-28 generate notifications for users and / or other entities. For example, sources 26-28 may include communications such as Internet and network based communications, local desktop computer based communications, telephony communications, and may also include software services such as intelligent help, background queries, and automated scheduling. can do. A notification source is defined here to generate an event, also referred to as a notification, and to generate an alarm to alert a user or a proxy for a user about information, services and / or system or world events.

For example, e-mail generated as a notification by an e-mail notification source may be prioritized, wherein the application program or system that generates the notification may have a relative priority corresponding to the importance or urgency of the e-mail to the user. Assign rank to e-mail. The e-mail may be sent to the user without considering the relative importance. Desktop-focused notifications can include potential services that a user wants to run (eg, scheduling from a message), information that the user wants to review (eg, derived from a background query), or errors and / or other alerts generated by a desktop computer. It may include an automated dialog for the purpose of alerting the user about such things. Internet-related services may include notifications containing information subscribed by the user, such as, for example, current news headlines, stock quotes.

Other notifications may include background queries (e.g., the text the user is currently working on while the user is working can be reviewed in such a way that a background query about the text is organized and submitted to the search engine) and scheduling and / or other programs. May include scheduling tasks from. Notification sources 26-28 may be push type or pull type sources. A push type source automatically generates and transmits information without a request, such as an Internet-related service that subscribes like headline news and automatically transmits information. A pool type source is a type in which a mail server transmits information in response to a request, such as an e-mail received after being pooled. Another notification source is the following:

E-mail desktop applications such as calendar systems;

A computer system (e.g., alerting with a message that gives the user information about the alert regarding a system operation or problem);

-Internet related services, booking information, scheduling inquiries;

-Number of changes or any kind of document in the document in one or more shared folders;

-The possibility of new documents in response to ongoing inquiries about information; And / or

-Presence of people, fluctuations in location, proximity (e.g. letting me know if other collaborators or friends are within 10 miles of me on a trip), or likelihood (e.g. Information source for information about high speed links that may be nearby).

Notification sinks 36-38 may provide notifications to users. For example, such notification sinks 36-38 may include computers such as desktop and / or laptop computers, portable computers, mobile phones, landline phones, pagers, automotive computers, as well as other systems / applications. Some sinks 36-38 may deliver notifications more abundantly than others. For example, desktop computers typically have speakers and relatively large color displays, and have more bandwidth for receiving information when connected to a local network or the Internet. Thus, through a desktop computer, notifications can be delivered to the user in a relatively rich manner. Conversely, most mobile phones have small black and white displays and receive information at a relatively low bandwidth. Thus, the information about the notifications delivered to the mobile phone is generally shorter and is adjusted according to the interface capacity of the phone. Therefore, the content of the notification may vary depending on whether it is sent to a mobile phone or a desktop computer. According to one aspect of the invention, a notification sink refers to subscribing to an event or notification, for example, through an event subscription service.

Notification manager 24 accesses the information stored and / or determined by the context analyzer to determine which of the notifications received from source 26-28 will be delivered to which sink 36-38. Notification manager 24 may also determine how to deliver notifications depending on which sinks 36-38 are selected to transmit information. For example, a decision may be made to summarize the notification prior to providing it to the selected sink 36-38.

The invention is not limited to the manner in which the manager 24 determines which notifications are delivered to which notification sinks or how the notifications are delivered. According to one aspect, one can use crystal theory analysis. For example, notification manager 24 may estimate significant uncertainty regarding variables including the user's location, attention, device availability, the time it takes for the user to access information without an alert, and the like. Notification manager 24 makes a notification decision as to whether to alert the user to a notification, and determines the nature of the summary and the appropriate device to deliver the notification. In general, notification manager 24 determines the net expected value of the notification. Consider these decisions:

Fidelity and transmission reliability of each notification sink;

The attentional cost of disturbing the user;

Novelty of information about the user;

-Time until the user reviews his information;

Potential context-dependent values of the information; And / or

-Increase and / or decrease values over time of the information contained in the notification.

Thus, an estimate of uncertainty may be generated as a predictive value, such as, for example, a cost of disturbance for a user using a particular mode of a particular device in a given attention state of the user. Notification manager 24 determines one or more of the following:

What the user is currently paying attention to (eg, based on contextual information);

Where the user is currently;

How important the information is;

What is the cost of delaying the notification;

How distracting the notification is;

What will happen to the user;

What is the fidelity loss associated with using a particular mode of a given notification sink?

Therefore, the notification manager 24 performs an analysis such as decision theory analysis on the current notification, evaluates the context-dependent variables provided by the information sink and the source, and the time until the user reviews the information. It is possible to estimate the selected uncertainty, such as the user's location and the current attention state.

The term estimation, as used herein, refers to the process of inferring or inferring the state of the system 10, environment, and / or user from a series of observations captured through events and / or data. Inference can be used, for example, to identify a specific context or action or to generate a probability distribution of states. Estimation is probabilistic. That is, the probability distribution of the state of interest is calculated based on the data and the event. Estimation may also be referred to as a technique used to construct high level events from a series of events and / or data. As a result of this estimation, whether the events are closely related or not, whether the event and data came from one or several events and data sources, a new event from a series of observed and / or stored event data Or an action is constructed.

In addition, the notification manager 24 may access or store information stored in the user profile by the context analyzer 22 in lieu of or in support of personalized decision theory analysis. For example, a user profile indicates that at any given time, the user prefers to be notified via the pager if the notification has a certain classification (eg, importance) level. This information can be used as a baseline to begin decision theory analysis and can be used as a way for notification manager 24 to determine how to notify a user.                 

According to one aspect of the invention, the notification platform architecture 10 may be comprised of layers that exist across an event or message infrastructure. However, the present invention is not limited to any particular event infrastructure. Such event and message systems and protocols may include the following:

Known hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) or HTTP extensions;

Known Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP);

Known Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI);

Known Jini; And

Any type of communication protocol, for example based on a packet switching protocol.

In addition, the architecture may be composed of layers present in the flexible distributed computing infrastructure known to those skilled in the art. Thus, the notification platform architecture may use the underlying infrastructure, for example, as a way for sources to send notifications, alerts and events, and as a way for sinks to receive notifications, alerts and events. However, the present invention is not limited to this.

With reference to FIG. 2, the context analyzer 22 of the notification architecture described above will be described in more detail. As shown in FIG. 2, the context analyzer 22 includes a user notification preference storage 52, a user context module 54 including a user context profile storage 55, and a whiteboard 57. The context analyzer 22 according to the present invention may be implemented as one or more computer programs executable by a computer's processor from a machine readable medium such as a memory.

The preference store 52 stores the notification parameters for the user as the default notification preferences for the user such as a user profile that the user can edit and modify. The preference store 52 can be regarded as storing information about a parameter that affects how the user is notified. The user context module 54 determines the current context of the user based, for example, on one or more context information sources 60 published on the whiteboard 57. The user context profile storage 55 stores context parameters for the user as default context settings for the user that the user can edit and modify. That is, the user context module 54 may be responsible for accessing information from the profile store 55 and / or updating previous information in the store 55 through live sensing via one or more context sources 60. Thereby providing the best guess or estimate for the user's current contextual information. The profile storage unit 55 may be considered to store, for example, where the user is and what the user will do.

The user context profile 55 may be a previously evaluated and / or predetermined user profile that captures information such as a deterministic or probabilistic profile. This profile can be a different kind of notification, such as typical location, activity, device availability, cost and value, as a function of observation, such as time, type of date, user's interaction with one or more devices, and the like. Types of dates may include, for example, weekdays, weekends, and holidays. The user context module 54 may actively determine or estimate aspects of the user's context or state, such as the user's current or future location and attention state. In addition, the actual state of the context may be accessed directly from the contextual information source 60 via the whiteboard 57 or may be estimated from various observations through inference methods such as Bayesian reasoning described in detail below. .

The context information source 60 provides information about the state and location of the user's attention to the context module 54 via the whiteboard 57, from which the module 54 can determine the user's current context (e.g., Current attention state and location). However, the present invention is not limited to the specific number or type of context sources 60 or the type of information estimated or accessed by the user context module 54. The context source 60 may include, for example, a plurality of desktop information, such as mouse information, windows, keyboard information, application information (e.g., what application the user is currently paying attention to), ambient sound and distribution information, text information, It can include an event. The whiteboard 57 includes a common storage area in which the context information source 60 can present the information, and a plurality of components, including the source and the context module 54, can access the information in the area. Events, also referred to as notifications or alerts, generally include information that observes one or more states of the world. Such states may include measurements of system components, user activity, and / or ambient measurements. In addition, an event may be generated through active polling of the measuring device and / or source of the event by the reception of information sent to a constant or changing event backbone.

Another type of contextual information source 60 is, for example, a user's personal information manager (PIM) information, which may generally provide scheduling information about a user's schedule. The current time, the location of the user (eg, determined via global location system (GPS) and / or user access of the mobile phone, PDA, or laptop from which the location can be determined) is one type of context source 60. Real-time mobile device usage is also one type of context source 60. For example, a mobile device, such as a mobile phone, if presently being accessed by a user, not only the direction and angle of the device (e.g., information about the device usage), but also the acceleration and speed (e.g. if the user is moving). Refer to information about this information).

Hereinafter, the notification source described above with reference to FIG. 3 will be described in more detail. Notification sources 26-28 typically generate notifications that are delivered to notification manager 24, with manager 24 delivering when notifications occur and which notifications to which notification sinks 36-38 in what order. Decide if you will.

According to one aspect of the present invention, notification sources 26-28 may have one or more of the following parameters within a standard descriptor for attributes and relationships, referred to herein as a notification source schema or source schema. Schema may be provided for the above-described source, sink, context information source. Such a schema can provide declarative information about different components and allow sources 26-28, notification manager 24, sinks 36-38, and context analyzer 22 to share semantic information with each other. have. Therefore, different schemas provide information about the characteristics, urgency, and device signaling patterns associated with the notification. That is, a schema can generally be defined as a set of classes and relationships among classes that define the structure of notifications and events, such as events or notification classes, sources, targets, events or notification semantics, ontological content information, Has information that includes observation reliability, virtually any quality of service attribute.

The parameters (not shown) for the notification source schema may include one or more of message class, association, importance, time criticality, novelty, content attribute, fidelity tradeoff, and / or source information summary information. The notification message class generated by the notification source indicates the communication type of the notification, for example e-mail, instant message, numerical update, desktop service. Notification associations generated by a notification source indicate the possibility that the information contained within the notification may be relevant for one or more specific contexts. For example, the association may be provided by a logical flag indicating whether the source relates to a given context. The novelty of the notification indicates the likelihood that the user already knows the information contained in the notification. In other words, the novelty indicates whether the information is new to the user in time (when the user knows the current information or when the user acquires the information in the future without being alerted).

Fidelity tradeoffs associated with notifications indicate a loss of information in the notification that may result, for example, in the form of allowed truncation and / or summary. This truncation and / or summarization is necessary to deliver the notification to a particular type of notification sink 36-38 that has bandwidth and / or other limitations that prevent it from receiving all of the originally generated notification. Fidelity generally refers to the degree or nature of the completeness of the original content associated with the notification. For example, long e-mail messages are truncated or summarized up to 100 characters allowed on a mobile phone, which compromises fidelity. Similarly, original messages containing text and graphs suffer from fidelity if they are sent through a device that can only send text. Also, the device may be capable of transmitting only the maximum resolution portion available from the source. Fidelity tradeoffs are described in terms of the ordering concept (e.g., prioritizing graphics first, then sound first) and / or cost functions indicating how the overall value of the content of the notification decreases with changes in fidelity. Indicates the fidelity preference of the source. For example, the fidelity tradeoff may describe how the maximum value associated with the transmission of a complete email message varies as the amount of truncation increases. For example, the content attribute may include a summary of content characteristics indicating information such as whether the core message includes text, graphics and audio components. The content itself is the actual graphics, text and / or audio that make up the message content of the notification.

The importance of a notification indicates the value of the information contained within the notification, assuming that the information is relevant to the current context. For example, importance can express the value of information about a user as a dollar value. Time criticality refers to a time dependent change in the value of the information contained in the notification. That is, how much the value of information fluctuates over time. In most but not all cases, the value of the information in the notice decreases over time. This is shown in FIG. Graph 80 shows the usefulness of the notification over time. The importance of the notification is indicated at point 84 in the graph representing the initial time, while curve 86 shows that the usefulness decreases over time.

Referring again to FIG. 3, default attribute and schema templates for different notification sources or sort types may be made available in a notification source profile stored in a user notification preference store, such as storage 52 of FIG. 2. . This default template may invalidate the value provided by the notification source or provide an attribute not obtained from the schema provided by the source. Source summary information allows you to post a general summary of the status and potential notifications of the information available from the source. For example, source summary information from a message source may include information regarding the total number of non-read messages with some priority, the status that people attempted to communicate with, and / or other summary information.

Notification sinks 36-38 can be any device or application as long as the user or other entity can know the information contained in the notification. The choice of sink used to deliver a particular notification is determined by the notification manager 24.

Notification sinks 36-38 have one or more of the following parameters provided within the schema. This parameter is a device class; Signal (alarm) mode; Fidelity / rendering capability, transmission reliability, actual cost of communication, and / or attentional cost of disruption for the relevant mode, and the like. In devices adapted to parameterize and control alerting attributes, the schema for the devices may include a description of the alerting attributes and parameters for controlling these attributes, and other attributes (e.g., transmission reliability, distribution Cost) changes according to different sets of alert attributes. The notification sink's schema provides a way for notification devices to communicate semantic information about their characteristics and functions with the notification manager 24 and / or other system components. Default attributes and schema templates of different device types may be made valid for a device profile stored in a user notification propensity store, such as store 52 of FIG. 2 described in the previous section. This default template may be designed to invalidate values provided by a device or to provide attributes if they are lost from a schema provided by such a device.

Each schema parameter is now described. The class of device refers to the type of device, such as cell phone, desktop computer, laptop computer, and the like. Classes may also be more general, such as mobile or stationary devices. Signaling mode refers to the manner in which a given device can alert a user about a notification. The device may have one or more notification modes. For example, the cell phone may simply vibrate, ring only at a certain volume, and vibrate and ring work together. In addition, for an alarm system, the desktop display can be disassembled into several discrete modes (for example, a small notification window at the top right of the display, or in contrast, a small thumb window at the top of the screen with or without audio). have. Not limited to a set of predefined styles, the device can activate a mode with alarm properties that are functions of parameters, which are part of the device definition. Continuous alarm parameters for the mode refer to control elements such as volume control when the alarm is executed on the desktop, the ring of the cell phone, and the size of the alarm window.

The transmission reliability for the mode of the notification sink 36-38 indicates the likelihood that the user will receive a communication alert regarding the notification, which is communicated to the user through the sink in this mode. Since transmission reliability depends on device validity and the context of the user, the transmission reliability of the different modes of the device may be limited depending on context attributes such as the user's location and attention. Such as unique place and unique state of attention, defined as disjunctions generated as an abstraction of this attribute (eg, for any place far from home, and any time zone before midnight after 8 am). Transmission reliability for one or more unique context states, defined by a cross product of attributes, may be specified. For example, depending on where you are, especially if you are in an area with intermittent coverage, or if you are in a place where the user does not tend to have a cell phone (eg, family vacation), The information sent will not always reach the user. The context may also affect transmission reliability due to ambient noise and / or other disturbing or disturbing factors of the context.

The actual cost of communication means the actual cost of communicating information to the user included in the notification delivered to the sink. For example, this cost may include the cost associated with cell phone transmission. The cost of disruption includes, in a particular context, the cost of attention associated with the alert employed by the special mode of the device. Attention cost is typically sensitive to a particular focus of the user's attention. Fidelity / presentation capabilities are textual description, graphics, and audio / tactile capabilities of the device, and are also given a mode. For example, the text limit of a cell phone may be 100 characters per any single message, and the phone may lack graphical capabilities.

Referring to FIG. 5, interface 90 illustrates a context specification selectable by the user, which may be used by context analyzer 22 to determine the user's current situation. Determination of the user context and / or user changeable profile by direct description by the user will be described. The user's context may include the user's current location as well as the user's attention-that is, whether the user can receive a notification alert currently being received. However, the present invention is not so limited.

A direct description of the context by the user allows the user to indicate if the user can be alerted and where the user wants to receive it. A default profile (not shown) can be employed to indicate a default attention state and default location from which a user can receive alerts. The default profile can be changed as desired by the user.

Referring to FIG. 5, the interface 90 describes how the direct details of the context are realized in accordance with aspects of the present invention. For example, the window 91 has an attention center 92 and a location 94. In the concentrator 92, the user can, for example, determine whether the user can always receive an alert, whether the user cannot receive any alert at all, and a critical level greater than the threshold selected by the user. One or more check boxes 96 can be checked that indicate whether only alerts with which to receive can be received. Other possible choices may be provided. As shown in Fig. 5, the threshold may be converted into dollars, but this is merely an example, and the present invention is not limited thereto. The user can increase the threshold by directly entering a new value, or increase or decrease the threshold through the arrow 100.

In place selection 94, a user may check one or more check boxes 102 to indicate where he wants to be alerted. For example, a user may be alerted to the desktop, by e-mail, to a laptop, to a cell phone, to his car, to a pager, to a personal digital assistant device, or the like. . However, these are only examples and the present invention is not limited thereto.

Predetermined defaults can be set in check box 96 in section 92 and check box 102 in box 98 and section 94 so that window 91 can be considered a default user profile. The profile can be changed by the user in that the user can override the default selection with the desired choice. Other types of profiles can also be used in accordance with the present invention.

Referring now to FIG. 6, direct measurement, eg, determining a user context using one or more sensors, is described according to the present invention. The user's situation may include the user's attention, as well as his current location. However, the present invention is not so limited. Direct measurement of the situation indicates that a sensor can be employed to detect if the user can currently receive an alert and to detect where the user is currently. According to one aspect of the invention, inferential analysis associated with direct measurement may be utilized to determine the user situation, which is described in later sections.

Referring to FIG. 6, a system 110 is shown in which a direct measurement of a user situation can be achieved. The system 110 may be connected to and communicate with the situation analyzer 112 and the situation analyzer 112, for example, the sensors 114-120, that is, the cell phone 114, the video camera 115, the microphone 116, A keyboard 117, a PDA 118, a car 119, and a GPS 120. The sensors 114-120 shown in FIG. 6 are for illustration only and do not limit or restrict the present invention. The term sensor, as used herein, is a general and generic term used by the situation analyzer 112 to determine what the user is currently focusing attention on and / or where the user's current location is. Means any device or method used.

For example, if the user has a cell phone 114, this may indicate that the user can receive an alert with the cell phone 114. However, if you are currently on a call to cell phone 114, this indicates that the user is paying his attention elsewhere (ie, the current phone cell), indicating that the user should not be disturbed by the notification alert. The video camera 115 may, for example, suggest that the user is in his office (i.e. the user's place) and that other people are in his office, i.e., so that there is a meeting with them, Can be placed in the user's office to detect whether the concentration of the user should not be disturbed. Similarly, the microphone 116 also does not indicate that the user is talking to another person, so that the user is not disturbed, and that the user is typing in the keyboard (eg, sound propagates from it) so that the user is not disturbed at this time. It may be placed in the user's office to detect if it is. Keyboard 117 may also be employed to detect if the user is currently typing, for example if the user is typing very quickly, which condition is that the user is focused on computer related activities and should not be interrupted for the time being. (And may indicate that the user is in his office).

When the PDA device 118 is connected to a user, this may indicate that the user can be alerted at the device 118-that is, where the notification is delivered can be anywhere the device 118 is located. Can be. Device 118 may be used to determine if the user is currently paying attention. The car 119 may be used to determine if the user is currently in the car—ie, whether the car is currently being driven by the user. In addition, the speed of the car can be considered, for example, to determine if the user is focused. If the speed is faster than the predetermined predetermined speed, for example, it may be determined that the user is concentrating on driving and should not be disturbed by the notification alert. GPS device 120 may also be employed to identify the user's current location as is known in the art.

In the following section of this specification, the determination of the user situation according to the user changeable rule is described. The user's situation may include the user's attention as well as his current location. However, the present invention is not limited to this. Determining the situation via rules indicates that a hierarchical if-then rule set can be employed to determine the user's location and / or attention.

Referring to FIG. 7, a rule set 130 with a typical hierarchical ranking is shown. Rule set 130 includes, for example, rules 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, and 138. Other rules can be configured similarly. As shown in FIG. 7, rules 133 and 134 are children of rule 132, rules 134 are children of rule 133, and rules 138 are children of rule 137. The rules are ranked in such a way that rule 132 is tested first, rule 133 is tested if correct, and rule 134 is tested if rule 133 is correct. If rule 133 is wrong, rule 135 is tested. If rule 132 is wrong, rule 136 is tested; if it is wrong, rule 137 is tested, and if it is correct, rule 138 is tested. Preferably, the rules are user createable and / or changeable. Rules of otherwise-type may also be included in rule set 130 (eg, otherwise rules may apply if the if-then rules are wrong).

Thus, a set of rules can be determined by the user such that the user's context is determined. For example, a set of rules with respect to location can cause the first rule to test whether the current date is week. In such a case, the second rule, which depends on the first rule, tests whether the current time is between 9 am and 5 pm. In such a case, the second rule indicates that the user is in his office, otherwise the user is at home. If the first rule is false, that is, the current date is found to be a weekend rather than a weekday, another rule may inform the user that he is at home. Note that this example is not meant to be a limiting or limiting example of the invention itself, and that one or more other rules may be similarly constructed.

In the discussion below, the determination of the user context by inferential analysis, such as using statistics and / or Bayesian models, is described. Note that context determination through speculative analysis relies in some respects on other decisions, such as direct measurements by sensors as described above. Inferential analysis as used herein refers to creating an output variable, that is, the current context of the user, using the inference process for multiple input variables. The analysis may involve the use of statistical models and / or Bayesian models in one aspect.

Referring to FIG. 8, shown is a diagram of a system 140 that performs inference analysis by the inference engine 142 to determine a user's context 144 in accordance with an aspect of the present invention. Engine 142 is in one aspect a computer program executed by a processor of a computer from a computer readable medium such as a memory. User context 144 may be considered to be an output variable of engine 142.

The engine 142 may process one or more input variables to make context decisions. These input variables may include, for example, the calendar 152 as well as the current time and date appearing on the clock 150 as accessible from the user's scheduling or personal information manager (PIM) computer program and / or on the user's PDA device. The foregoing description may include one or more sensors 148, such as the sensors described in connection with a direct measurement method for context determination. In addition to those described in FIG. 8, other input variables may also be considered. 8 do not imply any limitation or limitation to the invention itself.

Referring now to FIGS. 9 and 10, an exemplary inference model is shown, such as provided by statistics and / or Bayesian models that may be executed by the inference engine described above in accordance with the present invention. In general, computer systems may be somewhat uncertain about the details of the user state. Thus, a probability model can be established that can make inferences about the user's attention or other conditions under uncertainty. The Bayesian model can infer the probability distribution of the user's attention. This state of attention may be configured as a series of circular contexts or more abstract representations of a series of other classes of recognition challenges being addressed by the user. Alternatively, a model may be constructed that makes inferences about the continuous measurement of attention, and / or a model that directly infers the probability distribution over the cost of interruption for various kinds of notifications.

A Bayesian network can be used that can infer the probability of an alternate activity context or state based on a series of observations about the user's activity and location. As an example, FIG. 9 shows a Bayesian network 154 for inferring the user's attention during a single period of time. The state of the variable focus 156 represents a desktop or non-desktop context. Exemplary attention contexts considered in this model include, for example, situational awareness, identification, non-specific background tasks, focused content creation or review, light content creation or review, document viewing, office meetings, office meetings outside, presentation listening, personal time, Includes family time, personal attention, everyday conversations, and travel. The Bayesian network 154 indicates that the user's current attention and location are affected by the user's schedule assignment 158, the time of day 160, and the proximity of the deadline 162. The probability distribution for the user's attention is also influenced by, for example, an overview of the state of the ambient acoustic signal 164 being monitored in the user's office. Segments of ambient acoustic signal 164 over time provide clues / inputs for the presence of activity and conversation. The status and configuration of the software application and the progress stream of user activity generated by the user interacting with the computer also provide a source of evidence for the user's attention.

As depicted in the network 154, existing software applications at the top level concentration 166 in the operating system or other environment affect the user's attention and the nature of the work, and the applications in the user's attention state and concentration Together affect computer centric activities. Such activities include a stream of user activity consisting of a sequence of mouse and keyboard actions and a higher level pattern of application usage over a wider time domain. These patterns include email centric and word processor centric and are interleaved with reference to the prototype class of activities involving way multiple applications.

10 illustrates a Bayesian model 168 of user attention between context variables over various time periods. A series of Markov time dependencies are described by model 168, where the past state of the context variables is taken into account in determining the current user state. In real time, this Bayesian model 168 takes into account a stream of observations on room acoustics and user activity as reported by an event sensing system (not shown) and information provided by an online calendar, for example, and the probability of the user's attention. Continue to provide inference results for the distribution.

11, 12, 13, 15, 17 and 21 illustrate a method for providing portions of a notification architecture, such as a context analyzer, notification manager and user interface in accordance with the present invention. Although the method is shown and described as a series of acts for simplicity of explanation, the order of acts may occur, in accordance with the present invention, from some of the acts shown and described herein may occur in a different order and / or concurrently with other actions. It should be understood that it is not limited by. For example, those skilled in the art will appreciate that a method may instead be represented as a series of states or events related to each other, such as in a state diagram. Moreover, not all illustrated acts may be required to implement a methodology in accordance with the present invention.

The method may in some ways be implemented as a computer. The computer-implemented method is preferably at least partly implemented as one or more programs running on a computer, ie, programs executed from a computer readable medium such as a memory by a processing system of the computer. The program is preferably storeable on a machine readable medium such as a floppy disk or CD-ROM for distribution and installation and execution on another computer. The program or programs may be a computer system or part of a computer, as described in connection with FIG. 23 below.

Referring to FIG. 11, a flowchart 170 illustrates determining a user's context in accordance with the present invention. The process determines the location of the user at 171 and the concentration of the user at 172. This operation may be accomplished by one or more of the methods described above. For example, a profile can be used, the user can specify its context, a direct measurement of the context can be used, a set of rules can be followed, and inference analysis such as through a Bayesian or statistical model. Can be done. It should be appreciated that other analysis may also be used to determine the user's context. For example, there may be an integrated video camera source that indicates whether someone is in front of the computer and whether he is looking at the computer. However, it should be appreciated that the system can operate with but without a camera. For all sources, the system can work with virtually any input source that does not require any particular source for inference about context. Moreover, in another aspect, it may be an integrated accelerometer, microphone, and proximity detector on a small PDA that provides a sense of the user's position and attention.

12, a flowchart 173 illustrates a decision process of a notification manager in accordance with an aspect of the present invention. At 174, one or more notification sources generate a notification, which notification is received by the notification manager. At 175, the context analyzer generates / determines context information about the user, and at 176 is received by the notification manager. That is, according to one aspect of the present invention, as described above, the context analyzer at 175 accesses a user context information profile indicative of the user's current state of interest and location, and / or the user's current attention from one or more context information sources. Access real-time information about status and location.                 

At 177, the notification manager determines which notifications to move to which notification sinks based in part on the context information received from the context analyzer. The notification manager also makes a decision based on the information about the notification parameters of the user stored in the context analyzer. That is, according to one aspect, at 177, the manager performs a decision theory analysis of whether to alert the user given notification and how to notify the user. As discussed below, decision theory and / or heuristic analysis, decisions, and policies may be used at 177. Notification parameters about the user can be used to personalize the analysis by filling in missing values or by overwriting the parameters provided in the source or sink overview. Notification preferences may also provide a policy (eg heuristic) that is used instead of decision theory analysis. Based on this determination, the notification manager sends a synchro notification at 178.

So far, various features of the present invention applicable to the user have been described. However, the present invention is not limited thereto. In other words, the present invention is applicable to virtually all kinds of entities, including users. Types of such entities include, for example, agents, processes, computer programs, threads, services, servers, computers, machines, companies, organizations, and / or businesses. For example, an agent may be a software agent that may be defined as a computer program that performs a background task for a user and reports to the user when this task will be performed or when a predetermined scheduled event will occur. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, other types of entities may be included within the scope of the present invention. For example, a context analyzer according to another aspect of the invention may be generalized as an element applicable to virtually any type of entity. As another example, the notification sink may generate notifications, alerts, and events about entities other than the user. Similarly, notification sinks can receive notifications, alerts, and events about entities other than users.

Referring now to FIG. 13, flowchart 180 describes a decision theory determination as may be performed by a notification manager in accordance with an aspect of the present invention. At 182 one or more notifications are received. The notification provides information that can be sent to the user through one mode of the associated notification sink. Decision theory analysis is performed on the notification received at 182 via multiple modes of multiple sinks at 184. The analysis preferably derives the pure value of sending a notification through the mode associated with the sink. The analysis can be done using a probability model such as a Bayesian network.

According to one aspect of the invention, determining the total value of conveying notification according to the modes of the sinks at 184 includes performing 186, 188, 190, 192 of FIG. 13. At 186, an expected value of the information included in the notification to the user is determined. This is the value of the resulting information to the user when the user is notified. At 188, an expected cost of disruption for delivering a notification to a user is determined. This is the cost of disturbing the user to deliver the notification. For example, a user may be busy with a meeting, so interrupting the user with notifications costs the user. At 190, the expected value for the user to independently learn the information contained in the notification is determined without actually receiving the notification. This value can be less than the value determined at 186 because the user can learn the information independently later than the time at which the user will be informed. At 188, the actual cost of communicating the notification to the user is determined. For example, when sending a message through a pager, a communication fee is charged from the user's pager company to the user, and such calls are charged by the company on each call.

The total value of delivering a notification to the user through the mode of the sink is determined at 184, which is the expected cost of the disturbance determined at 188 from the expected value of the information determined at 186, the expected value at which the user independently learns the information at 190, and Determined by subtracting the actual communication cost at 192. At 194, it is determined whether the total value for substantially any mode of substantially any sink is greater than a predetermined forwarding threshold. For example, if the total value is measured in dollars, the predetermined delivery threshold may be zero. If the total value of the notification is greater than the threshold for the sink's mode, proceed to 196 for such notification, where such notification is delivered to the user through the sink's mode with the highest total value for the notification. If not, for notifications having a total value that is substantially greater than the threshold for substantially any mode of any sink, the user is not currently informed of the information contained in those notifications, and for such notification 198 Proceed to post-processing, which may proceed from 196 to this post-processing as well.

The invention is not limited to the manner in which post-processing proceeds at 198. According to one aspect of the invention, assuming 196 has been performed, the notification delivered to the user at 196 may be deleted. In another aspect, such a notification is deleted upon receipt of confirmation that the user has actually received the notification from the notification sink to which the notification was delivered. Such a notification may also be deleted after transmission if it is determined that the notification sink to which the notification is delivered has a transmission reliability for the mode of the used sink that is greater than the threshold. Also note that the process of FIG. 13 may be repeated at predetermined intervals and / or when a new notification is received. For example, since the total value of the notification determined at 184 is time dependent, any notification that may now have a total value less than the delivery threshold may have a total value later than the threshold so that it can be delivered. Other situations can also be set. Thus, the process shown in FIG. 13 illustrates how a decision-theoretic analysis may be performed to determine whether a notification should be delivered to a user through the mode of the sink, which analysis may be repeated as desired. .

The process shown in FIG. 13 has been described with respect to the performance of decision-theoretic analysis for notifications for multiple modes of multiple notification sinks. However, the present invention is not limited thereto. For example, there may be implicitly only one such mode for any sink or all sinks. In this way, analysis of the notification is performed on the sinks without explicitly considering the mode. Moreover, as described above, the determination of the total value of the notification regarding the mode of sink may be performed as described in the following section of the detailed description.

According to one particular aspect of the invention, the decision-theory notification set forth in the previous part of the description may be performed as described in the following part. Of course, the present invention is not limited thereto. For example, iterative "greedy" decision-theoretic analysis can be employed. During this analysis, the current context and associated expected values for sending alerts are taken into account. A less near, less approximate, more precise decision-theoretic analysis that makes estimates about the future, taking into account future time ranges, contexts, and associated expected values, may be applied to dynamic Bayesian networks, or You can use models like the dynamic Bayesian network and the like, called Hidden Markov models (HMM's). Such a technique can be used to make notification decisions based on less myopic analysis that forecasts the context of a future state. In the art, it is known to generalize myopic analyzes to richer, less myopic analyzes. For the notification platform, these less greedy analyzes employ additional computation. The notification manager in one aspect is configured to be able to shift to a less myopic model based on consideration of calculations now available or future available, for monitoring the status of available calculation sources. That is, the present invention is not limited to the greedy solution described above. Ideal time for notification and less proximity, less greedy optimization of the device may take into account the scope of the device's associated availability and future context by predicting device availability and the likelihood of these contexts.

The expected value of notification N at time t can be considered as the current value of the notification. The information value of the notification is considered context sensitive and sensitive to the user's knowledge. The context includes contextual information such as the user's location and attention state, the user's purpose, and the context (eg, the user has just opened an e-mail). The initial value of notification N in context C may be expressed as the value of the notification in the context (eg, in dollars) when the notification is first generated by the source, reduced by the probability that the user is not already familiar with the information. Value). The probability that the user is not familiar with the information is called the novelty of the information. This probability is evidence E, such as the type of information and the manner in which the information is distributed (e.g., news stories are made known through other channels so the evidence can include the score and age of the news stories).

When the value of the information when it is known to be 0 in advance is considered, the value of the notification is as follows.

The concept of context specificity can be introduced by subjecting context C and evaluating the value based on the context.

At some new time t, the value for sending the notification may change depending on the time dependency of that value.                 

The function of the value can be represented by a time dependent function that takes as an independent variable the time difference or delay between the time at which the alert was sent or received by the notification manager and the current time, where the delay is represented by t − t ₀ . More complex functions are linear, such as a function that represents a 'shelf life' that refers to the period after which an alert is sent or received, as the value does not change until the information begins to change (e.g. attenuation). Combinations of exponential and sigmoidal functions. Another function may include the concept that it becomes more useful if the alert is delayed for a predetermined time.

According to one aspect of the invention, the context may also change and may vary when a new time is contemplated. Thus, Equation 3 can be rewritten for C (t) and the context can always be specified as the current context. Under uncertainties in the context, other potential contexts are summed.

This is the value of the user who has received the entire contents of the notification at a given time t in context C.

The expected value when communicating information in mode M of the device may be reduced by the loss of fidelity with respect to whether the information was sent to the user when signaled in mode M in context C. For convenience, fidelity of transmission is limited to 0 to 1, where 0 corresponds to when no content is transmitted and 1 corresponds to when all content is transmitted. According to another aspect of the present invention, loss by missing one or more components from the initial content, and various ways of summarizing and deleting the content—e.g., Cutting by a certain percentage of the entire text of the email message, or of limited sized cellular A more detailed utility model may be considered, which defines additional details about the alternative way of summarizing into smaller, compressed messages for display on the display of the phone. In the general case, the fidelity associated with transmitting information in mode M of the device is context dependent and can be difficult to listen to, for example, the voice portion of the audio content in a noisy environment.

Consideration is also given to the probability that the information will be sent to the user. In the general case, this too depends on the context. Typically, this dependency can be specified explicitly because it is more pronounced than the context dependency of fidelity. The transmission of information as the probability that the user has received the information may be represented by p (received | M, C, E, e), where e is the response of the user's response to the notification, such as pause, mouse movement, conversation, or the like. Indicates additional evidence.

Next, the expected value of the communication of the notification can be determined as follows.                 

The expected value of the communication in equation (5) was written in view of the expected value of the notification information. this is

Is the same as In one aspect, the expected value of the communication obtained in equations (5) and (6) may be employed as the expected value of information for the user as described above. Alternatively, the expected value of the information may be an expected value that does not consider fidelity and other parameters, ie ExpValInfo (Ni). However, the present invention is not limited to this.

Next, the cost of the information is considered. The cost associated with interruption depends on the context (mostly the user's attention context) and the mode of transmission. In one aspect, the expected cost of the user's disturbance for each context may be measured in dollar values corresponding to what the user is willing to pay to avoid the disturbance associated with the transmission of information over mode M. Also, in the general case, this also depends on the details of the content being transmitted. However, according to one aspect, different costs are specifically considered under uncertainty of context. The expected cost of the disturbance for mode M is

The value that the user signals with notification in the current mode M is the difference between the cost and the value of the information. The dollar value of the actual communication is also taken into account, for example, the cost of bit transmission per fee charged by the service. This may be a function of the notification content and the selected mode. This may also be referred to as (real) communication cost Comcost (N, M).

Next, if the notification is not actively signaled to the user, the (total) value is 0, but information is stored from a storage such as an email storage, or a storage of potential notifications held until reviewable for general purposes. It may be contemplated that the user may later receive the information, such as when reviewing or actively searching. This is referred to above as the expected value of a user who independently learns information without notification, and is called the expected value ExpValSeek of the search for information in the notification. This value may be determined by considering the time until the user reviews the information contained in the notification. Typically, this time depends on the context, for example, the time until the user retrieves information from such storage may depend on location, date, current attention. The novelty of the information is subject to change and is considered to be a function of the amount of time the notification has been pending. Briefly, fidelity is considered complete when a user searches for information, but in the general case the user may be searching for information through a device that provides lower fidelity. In addition, when the user is in an alert state that actively seeks information, the cost of disturbances associated with searching for information can be assumed to be nearly zero.

Therefore, the following equation is established.

It should be noted that there are several approaches to implementing and determining Equation 8 regarding determining latency between the notification time and the time to search. In one aspect, t is distributed in a Poisson distribution, and the search time can be assumed to be the average time from the analysis time until the user reviews the notification store (no memory). The waiting time can be determined as the difference between that time and the notification time. In addition, a Bayesian network or other probabilistic model can be used to infer the probability distribution over different mean times, to review e-mail, or more general notification storage. In addition, as described above, a Bayesian network or other probabilistic model may be employed to determine the probability distribution based on the user's attention and location.

Thus, the NetExpValCom (the net expected value of the communication) of the notification for communicating notification N in mode M is:                 

This has been mentioned as the total value in the above paragraph.

To make a decision, a notification is considered to enter NetExpValCom for virtually every mode M of virtually every device. The device is considered to have a maximum positive NetExpValCom (ie, this term assumes a certain transfer threshold of $ 0, as expressed in the paragraph above). If NetExpValCom is positive for one or more devices (eg, a notification sink), the device with the highest value is selected and signals that device to the user. If the value is negative for virtually all modes of virtually every device, the notification can be delayed and journaled for later review. However, in one aspect, the value to be notified is subsequently reconsidered by updating variables that change over time. This includes variables such as the current time, the expected time until the user reviews his or her email or, more generally, his or her notification storage, and the novelty of the current context and information. Such reconsideration may be performed with the following processing portion described in the paragraph above.

It should be noted that this iterative theory about now versus later is a form of speculative decision analysis carried out in certain aspects of the present invention. This is a greedy decision making-strategy. However, less enthusiastic measures can be formulated that rely on a more complex prediction model that takes into account the value and cost of active notifications in the future. For example, a probabilistic model may be employed to predict the future attention state of the user, and such predictions may be used in less enthusiastic reasoning.

In addition, even after signaling a single time, in some aspects, the notification may be discarded (ie, deleted) immediately. For example, even if it was once done, it typically cannot be guaranteed that a notification has been reached for the user. However, for example, in a desktop scenario, where a user displays "yes, I got this" to the system, or automatically monitors the access of a notification in some other way, Such a guarantee is possible if the user has an appropriate process, such as a system for hovering the cursor through the notification, and an understanding shared between the user. One example of the latter monitors whether a user is examining a message on his or her cell phone. Such monitoring record may be an acknowledgment of receiving a notification, as described in the paragraph above.

Sink modes are considered to have the context-sensitive transmission reliability transrel (M, C) of the mode in that context. That is, for mode and for context, transmission reliability provides the probability that a user observes a notification based on its rendering. As described above, sometimes, for example, when a notification with a transrel of 1.0 is received, such as in a notification or interaction with a mouseover of a notification, the probability that the user will observe the notification is 1.0. At other times, it may depend on transmission reliability for mode and context.

The likelihood of the user receiving information p (receive) for each notification is updated after each transmission. H ^A (N _i ) is the altering history of a particular notification pending in a typical internal in-box. The alternate history represents a series of notifications attempted, where

A (N _i , M) is a replacement for notification N _i and mode M. Given a notification history, the current notification novelty, p (invisible notification H ^A , E, e) can be determined. Including these factors properly can reduce the expected time to see notifications.

More specifically, first, the updated ExpValCom and ExpValSeek are as follows.

Next, NetExpValCom is determined in a similar manner as before, but with these new ExpValCom and ExpValSeekInfo values. therefore,

Also, notice the novelty p (invisible notice | H ^A, E, e) is, generally updated. According to one aspect of the present invention, for example, as now described above, this takes into account attempts of the Bernoulli trial or the like, after a new trial (rendering of notifications, or delivery of notifications) has been carried out in the alternative. Can be determined.

Given an alternate history,

H ₄ (N _i ) :( A ₁ (N _i , M, C (t ₁ )), A ₂ (N _i , M, C (t ₂ )), A ₃ (N _i , M, C (t ₃₎ )), ... A _n (N _i , M, C (t _n ))}

Notification novelty,                 

It should also be noted that notifications may be chunked when considering a notification set comprising a concurrent notification set, i.e., for transmission, notifications may be grouped together through a given model of a given notification sink.

Thus, the sum of the value and the cost of the notification is taken into account, where one penalty of disruption is taken into account.

In this section, various extensions to the aspects of the invention described in the previous paragraphs appear. Initially, decision theory policies may be compiled and / or accessed in simpler manner with simpler rules and policies. It can use a regular method of compiling such theoretical decision analysis into policy. In addition, as described in more detail below, there are various policies, such as, for example, heuristics that perform more crude cost-benefit analysis.                 

Decision-theoretic policies can also be used for "pulling information." That is, if the user is requesting information from the system, including when the user is in a mobile situation and while using the desktop, the burden of zero distractions is taken into account, and the information is passed on to the user. It may then be related to the most valuable notification. Such information may be ordered by next order value or grouped by category for identification. For example, the next "n" value notification may be examined, so the instructions are related to causing the notifications to flow out in sequence or waiting for a request for "next notification" in the order of expected utilities.

Alternatively, the instructions may be related in terms of source category based on the order of the sources, for example, containing notifications by the best anticipated utility. Relaying notifications may continue within the source category until the expected threshold is reached before moving to the source containing the notification with the highest value of the next highest order, and then processing is repeated. Alternatively, the information may be relayed to a predefined source sequence (eg, first followed by voice mail message, followed by immediate message, e-mail, followed by financial notification), and then for that category. Notifications from each source sorted by the in-category predictive utility may be relayed until the threshold of the predictive utility is reached and processing proceeds.

Expected information values can be used to align high-level summaries of the current situation. For example, there may be a text-to-speech outline of pending notifications by inference through sources when communicating the current notification situation via cell phones. In addition, predictive value determination can be used to achieve catching. This estimate determination can also be used to make the speech recognition system sound better by inferring that the user is most interested in the highest estimate item, for example, to enhance mobile phone calls and desktop settings.

In addition, another extension of the present invention described above is that it may be adapted to adopt expected value settings in the source categories. This summary may appear in a continuing overview for relaying an overview of the notification status for each source. For example, the email overview could be the most urgent message from Andy, the following example, "Unread Message 32; Urgency 9;" Today Afternoon Meeting. "

Heuristic communication decisions and policies that may be performed by the notification manager are described in accordance with the present invention. For example, a coarse cost-benefit analysis may be used that bypasses a more formal decision theory analysis. Such means and associated notification components and interfaces can be observed as a schematic or heuristic version of the decision theory technique. In this approach, notifications can be leveled as high, medium, or low urgency by source or by user specific notification profile (eg, message attributes and / or message classification). A list of statuses can be created for situations where the user is in a state where the user can receive notifications, and when performing a more comprehensive monitoring of the context to understand the situation, in which case the user can receive the notifications with minimal disruption. There will be. This state is called a "likely free" state.

This list contains one or more of the following states (and other states):

User exists and typing just stopped for x seconds

The user has just saved a file and has stopped for x seconds

User just sent an email and stopped for x seconds

The user just closed the application

The user has switched from one application to another

In addition, the maximum execution delay time can be set for the degree of urgency. Internally, for example, you can set up an example table like this:

Maximum execution delay (high ranking): 2 minutes

Maximum execution delay (normal ranking): 7 minutes

Maximum execution delay (low priority): 15 minutes

This ranking may be set by the system developer for default operation that may or may not be modified by the user or by the user.

The user can also list exceptions or emergencies, for example upon receipt of an immediate pass-through.

The following is an exemplary algorithm for one aspect of the present invention.

When a notification is received, its lifetime is set to zero, its priority is noted, and the exception list is checked.                 

A notification is sent to the user if a free state is observed by monitoring the user's activity prior to the maximum delay for that urgency.

If the maximum free state corresponds to a notification, the notification is delayed.

In general, most notifications will generally be delivered before the maximum delay time. However, users will generally be more entertaining as notifications will be generated while the user is free than they will only own a notification that has been delivered when notifications are received. Thus, the likelihood of reaching a free state increases with time. Since the likelihood of a free state increases over time, lower priority messages will tend to occur with higher likelihood while these free states are likely, and the likelihood of being disturbed is determined by the priority of the message. It will grow as you increase.

This approach can be generalized as follows. According to one aspect, the display of the notification may be enabled to include a plurality of queued or pooled notifications, so as to deliver one notification to the user that includes grouped notification chunks. Such chunking may represent a notification chunk, for example, in a list determined by maximum priority, maximum lifetime, or maximum priority by group. For example, if the lycra-free status is not shown and the maximum delay reaches the high priority notification, and the maximum delay time due to the high priority notification is reached, the lower priority notification being held during the grouping notification is reached. Information about will be included. This is believed to be because lower priority notifications may not reach their maximum delay at this point.

In addition, instead of several categories for priority, for example, urgency 0-100 can be enabled in a continuous range, with the maximum delay being a variety of linear and nonlinear functions (e.g. maximum delay with increasing rank). May be a function of the priority of the notification, including an exponential decay of. E.g,

Maximum delay (priority) = e ^{-k (priority)} × 15 minutes

or

Maximum Delay (Priority) = e ^{-k (Priority)} × Maximum Delay (Priority 0)

The possibility for free time can be learned within the next rank x minutes for the user. This can be achieved by knowing the frequency of the lycra free state and the expected time to the next lycra free state. The estimated time to the next Lycra-free state can be determined from the user's activity, and the maximum delay for notification priority is automatically set so that the user can specify the likelihood of interrupting the user in the priority class instead of the maximum delay. Done. That is, the user can specify the target "permissibility" of the disturbance to the priority classification, and the system can set a maximum delay time for the classification. That is, the user (or alternatively, by default, the system developer) may, for example, be allowed to be interrupted with a probability of 0.5 for high priority notifications and a probability of 0.25 for priority messages, Will not allow a 0.05 probability of being controversial with low priority notifications. "

Hereinafter, an overview of a user interface in accordance with an aspect of the present invention is illustrated. An example of such an interface is depicted in FIG. 14, where a predetermined area 302 (eg, in desktop screen 300), which is the display portion of a computer (eg, laptop computer, desktop computer, etc. display). , Provided for display of the output and / or interaction with the user. As illustrated in FIG. 14, certain areas 302 are in the upper right side of the screen, but will be appreciated that other areas of the screen may be employed (eg, bottom left and right). For example, in the stream-stacking aspect of the present invention described below in the detailed description, the region 302 may be a column on the right side of the screen. The screen 300 preferably employs a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to allow the user to control the movement of the cursor 304 on the screen. Cursor 304 as illustrated in FIG. 14 is an arrow pointer, although other cursors may be used.

The predetermined area 302 can be used in conjunction with the display of information in conjunction with various aspects of the present invention. As used herein, information may refer to one piece of information and / or a plurality of pieces of information. According to one aspect of the present invention, the information includes notification alerts, also referred to as alerts or notifications, as described above. Accordingly, various aspects of the present invention relate to the display of such information within a predetermined area 302 of a desktop screen 300 as described below. In one aspect, desktop screen 300 may be employed by a user for work in a main task, eg, a word processing document, a spreadsheet job, or other application.

However, the information displayed in the area 302 may not be related to the main task. As an example, the displayed information may be information that is not required by the user, for example, the information may alert the user by email, and the user may be given a predetermined classification threshold (eg, information classified according to importance). While requesting an email to be delivered to them via the user, the user may not require that the email be displayed in area 302 (also referred to as "not required").

Screen 300 may be part of a display that may provide general rendering, including content formatted according to, for example, Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) format. In addition, the plurality of information sources may transmit a “rich” interface including buttons, links, animations, audio, etc. (eg, for source branding), such that the information is within the scope of the forcing and the user interface described herein. Are delivered within the scope of the Style Code or higher level Design Code. However, the present invention is not so limited.

In the following description, the pulsed aspect of the present invention, the stream-cycling aspect of the present invention, and the stream lamination aspect of the present invention are described. These are, for example, specific aspects depending on what information can be displayed in a given area 302 of deskrop screen 300. The following sections describe examples of at least one of these aspects, but the invention is not limited to these examples. In addition, these may be a combination of a pulsed mode, a stream cycled mode, and a stream stacked mode, in which case the user may switch modes. For example, the system may include a display, a processing system, and a machine readable medium that stores a computer program executed by the system to cause an entry to enter one of the modes.

In one aspect, unlike the case where a user makes a switch between modes, as described above, the notification manager may, for example, perform a switch decision. In one aspect, the user or notification manager may make decisions about switchable features in certain modes, such as pulsed, stream-cycling, and / or stream stacked modes. The presence or absence of audio heralds may in one aspect be a decision delegated to a user and / or a notification manager.

Referring now to FIG. 15, a flowchart 400 of a method for a pulsed aspect according to the present invention is illustrated. At 401, information is received. As described, the information may be unsolicited information that is not related to the user's main task. The information may include, for example, a notification alert that is greater than a threshold as defined by a predetermined threshold and has an assigned classification such as an important value associated with it. The measurement of importance is not limited by the present invention, nor is it limited by the threshold.

At 402, the information disappears into certain areas of the display. In one aspect, the information displays information in a predetermined region and increases the alpha value of the information (eg, intensity value associated with display pixels) as displayed in the predetermined region for the first predetermined level at a predetermined rate. To make it disappear. The first predetermined level may be based on the importance of the information as defined as the important value. For example, the level may be proportional to the importance of the information. Increasing the alpha value of the information increases the opacity of the display of the information in the predetermined area. Thus, increasing the alpha value for a level based on the importance of the information means that more important information is displayed with greater opacity, i.e. less transparency than less important information. However, in one aspect, the predetermined level is less than 100%, ie, less than 100% opacity. In addition, the audio herald informing the user that the information disappears to a predetermined region may be reproduced at 402. The audio herald can be any sound or sound, in which case an important value of information can be associated with several aspects of the sound (e.g., high or low volume by importance, and some sound by importance). .

In step 404, there is a time length delay based on the importance of the information. For example, the length of time may be proportional to the importance of the information. Thus, the delay is preferably the length of time for which information will be displayed to the user. Thus, information of higher importance may be displayed longer than information of lesser importance. In one aspect, during the delayed length of time, steps 406, 408, 410 and 412 of process 400 are performed, although not limited thereto.

In step 406, a first predetermined user gesture relating to fading information to a predetermined area of the display is detected. For example, the first gesture may be a movement of a cursor (such as a user causing such movement through the use of a pointing device such as a mouse) with respect to a predetermined area of the display, although the present invention is not limited thereto. Other gestures detected may include specific speech or voice by the user. In response to the first gesture, at step 408, a first action is performed. In one aspect, the action includes increasing the alpha value of the information displayed in the predetermined area to a second predetermined level, such as 100% greater than the first predetermined level. Therefore, the first gesture can make the information more obscure. In another aspect, more detailed information (such as related to an alarm) is displayed in a predetermined area of the display at 408 in response to the first gesture.

In step 410, a second user gesture relating to fading information to a predetermined area of the display is detected. For example, this second gesture may be a cursor movement to an area of the display such that the cursor is no longer relative to a certain area of the display (using a pointing device such as mouse or keyboard movement causes the user to make this movement). box). Another gesture detected is a specific speech of the voice by the user. In response to the second gesture, at step 412, a second action is performed. This action includes reducing the alpha value of the information displayed in the predetermined area back from the second predetermined level that was already applied in step 408 to the first predetermined level. According to another aspect of the present invention, more detailed information that was displayed in certain areas of the display at 408 is replaced by information that has already faded there at 402.

In step 414, when the delay in step 404 passes, the information fades out from the predetermined area of the display. For example, in one aspect this involves reducing the alpha value of the information displayed in the given area at a predetermined rate and no longer displaying that information in the given area. The process shown in step 400 can be repeated as indicated at 416. That is, new information may be received at 401, which has new importance, and the new information fades to a predetermined area of the display at 402. Note that in one aspect, the fading in and fading out of information to a given area stays there, as can be appreciated, whatever is already displayed in the given area. That is, information faded into a given area is displayed on top of everything already there-the level at which the alpha value of the faded in information is increased thus determines how clear or unclear the faded in information is, Determine if much information can be observed by the user. Information (although not completely propagated in space) can be partially observed.

The process shown in FIG. 15 is referred to as a pulsed aspect because information is " pulsed " in the alpha determined for the length of time determined in relation to the classification of alerts or notifications (importance, etc.). This is shown by reference in accordance with one aspect of the present invention in FIG. 16, where a diagram 500 of such a pulse 502 is shown. The pulse 502 is a height 506 representing an alpha value level at which information displayed in a predetermined area is increased, a length 504 representing a length of time that information is displayed in a predetermined area at this alpha value level, and at this alpha value level. A first slope 508 is indicative of the rate at which the information fades, and a second slope 510 is indicative of the rate at which the information fades from this level. In one aspect, the height 506 and the length 504 are based on the importance of the information being pulsed (eg, in one aspect, the height is proportional to the importance value, etc.). In one aspect, the invention is not limited thereto, but the slope 508 and / or the slope 510 are constant; Moreover, the slopes 508 and 510 may be similar to each other.

In one aspect of the present invention, there are tabs, buttons, and / or other items on the display that select the item to allow the user to display the next notification. For example, clicking the button indicates that the user wants the next notification, which indicates that the user wants the next notification even if the notification itself does not reach an importance value or threshold for the display. For example, such notifications will not have greater importance than the threshold for independent displays.

Returning to FIG. 17, a flowchart shows a methodology 600 of the stream-cycling aspect according to the present invention. At step 601, different numbers of information packets (information related to the notification or alert from the notification source) have a determined associated delay time. The delay time for an information packet is the length of time this information will be displayed in a given area of the display. In one aspect, the length of time is based on the importance of the information, which is assigned an importance value to each information packet. For example, the display time is proportional to the importance, but the present invention is not limited thereto. Moreover, as described above, the information may be information that is not requested, regardless of the user's primary task. The information may include a notification alert.

In step 602, in one aspect (ie, step 602 is optional), the periodicity for each information packet is determined. The periodicity for an information packet is the number of times information will be displayed in a given area of the display for a given time period. For example, periodicity may be indicated based on a classification (s) and according to a given protocol (proportionality associated with the classification). In one aspect, the periodicity is based on the importance of the information; For example, this will be proportional to the importance value. Thus, more important information will be displayed more frequently than less important information for a given time period. In an aspect of the present invention where step 602 is not performed, each information packet will have a period of about 1—that is, each information may be indicated once for a given time period.

In step 604, for a given time period, each information packet is displayed in a predetermined area of the display a number of times approximately equal to its periodicity for a length of time approximately equal to its display time. Thus, the first information packet may be displayed until substantially all of the information is displayed during this given time period, and then the second information packet or the like may be displayed. In one aspect, each piece of information is faded in and then faded out into a predetermined region, as described above (e.g., raising the alpha value, delaying and then decreasing the alpha value) with a delay approximately equal to the display time. . According to this aspect of the invention, the first predetermined level at which the alpha value of the information packet is increased may be based on the importance of the information as described above. That is, the alpha value is ultimately set to the first predetermined level for a time length approximately equal to the display time. In one aspect, an audio herald that alerts each piece of information displayed to the user may also be played, or alternatively, certain thresholds and the like may be played for information that exceeds the threshold. The audio herald may be a predetermined sound or the sound described above. In one aspect, during the given time period (though the invention is not particularly limited thereto), the steps 606, 608, 610 and 612 of the process 600 are performed, although the invention itself is not limited thereto.

In step 606, a first predetermined user gesture associated with a current information packet to be displayed in a predetermined area of the display is detected. For example, the first gesture may be a movement of the cursor relative to a predetermined area of the display (such as a user causes such movement using a pointing device such as a mouse). Other gestures that are detected and / or processed may include specific speech or voice by the user. In response to the first gesture, at 608, a first action is performed. In one aspect, the action includes "holding" current information displayed in a predetermined area, wherein substantially no other information is displayed in the predetermined area until a second gesture is detected in step 610. .

That is, the display time of the currently displayed information is temporarily increased for a length of time equal to the length of time while the current information is retained in the predetermined area until the second gesture is detected in step 610, and a given time period Increases. In another aspect, the first operation performed at step 608 includes increasing the alpha value of the current information displayed in the predetermined area to a second predetermined level that is greater than the first predetermined level, eg, 100%. In such an aspect, the first act causes the current information to be displayed more opaquely. In another aspect, more detailed information (eg, related to an alert) is displayed in a predetermined area of the display in step 608 in response to the first act.

In step 610, a second predetermined user action related to the current information displayed in the predetermined area is detected. For example, this second action may be that the cursor is moved to the display area so that the cursor is no longer in a certain area of the display (ie, by the user who caused such movement due to the use of a pointing device such as a mouse). ). Another action is the specific voice of the user being recognized. In response to the second act, at step 612, a second operation is performed. In one aspect, the second act includes "releasing" current information that is "held" in a given display area such that the next information is displayed continuously in order in the given area. The operation includes reducing the alpha value of the information displayed in the predetermined area from the second predetermined level which is once increased or set in step 608 back to the first predetermined area. In another aspect, more detailed information displayed in a given area of the display in step 608 is replaced with information previously displayed in step 602.

At step 614, the information is updated when the provided time period at which substantially all the information displayed at step 604 is displayed ends. For example, step 614 includes adding new information and erasing the old information. The erasing of the information is, for example, the order of the lowest information, information already displayed by a predetermined number, or the like. Similarly, the new information to be added includes about the importance exceeding a predetermined threshold with respect to the importance of the information. The process 600 of FIG. 17 is repeated as indicated at 616. Therefore, a new display time for each information packet each time it is updated is determined.

The invention described in connection with the process 600 of FIG. 17 is referred to as stream cycling since the information is "streamed"-the first piece of information is displayed in a given area and then for a given period of time in the second piece order. It is done. This is illustrated with reference to FIG. 18, where a diagram 700 of a stream-cycling wheel 702 according to aspects of the present invention is shown. The wheel 702 has a number of slots 704-708 ranging from 1 to N, which is an integer. For example, slot 704 corresponds to a portion of the information displayed for a given time period. Each slot has a time delay depending on how long a portion of the information has been displayed for a given time period. For example, slot 706 has a time delay represented by the length of arc 710, where a slot with a long arc has a large corresponding time delay. Each piece of information is allocated to a plurality of slots almost identical to the periodicity of the information. Therefore, information having a periodicity of 1 is allocated to one slot. Both the number of slots and a given time period are dynamic, and when information is updated, the number of slots increases or decreases substantially equal to the sum of the periodicity of all information, while substantially all of the information is displayed while The given time period can be made approximately equal to the sum of the examples of the above information.

The wheel 702 rotates as indicated by arrow 712, such that a viewing arrow 714 pointing to the wheel 702 indicates another slot of the wheel 702 for a given time period. The slot 704 pointed to by the arrow 714 contains the information to be currently displayed in a given area of the display. Therefore, as the wheel 702 rotates for a given period of time, another slot is indicated by the arrow 714 so that other information is displayed within a given area. The rotational speed of the wheel 702 is such that the wheel 702 can perform one full revolution for a given time period. 18 is a conceptual diagram of the stream-cycling properties of the present invention, and such wheels need not be provided in practice to provide this property of the present invention.

According to one aspect of the invention, a portion of the information that can be stream-cycled is a summary page, which is information including the high level summary of the most critical notification in the current cycle, and more generally a large amount of information. The information is indeed extracted from a larger notification store. The selection of notifications specifically referenced within this summary by the user results in the display of immediate notifications. In one aspect, there is one or more summary pages, where associated information chunked (e.g., summary pages for almost all communications (e.g. instant messages, emails, incoming phone calls), And / or a cluster of information sets, including a summary of almost all automated services. Moreover, according to another aspect of the present invention, the user can stop cycling information and / or train other information in order to be able to click and stop quickly through the cycle if the user wants to stop. There may be a clear set of controls to make it work. In one aspect, the information provided by stream cycling can be displayed on a separate display.

In the following description, the stream-stacking aspect of the present invention is described. 19 illustrates a display 800 according to aspects such as stream stacking. Display 800 may include a main information window 802, a journal window 804, and many, which will be displayed almost entirely within a predetermined area (eg, its screen) of display 800. The source summary window 806 of the. As previously described, there are a number of information sources, such as notification sources. Individual information sources generate information, such as unsolicited information, which may include information that is not relevant to the user's primary task, as described above, and display that information in the corresponding source summary window 806. As already described, the information can include a notification alert.

The portion of each information is not limited to the present invention, but may be arranged according to an importance value. For example, information with greater importance than a threshold, such as a predetermined threshold, is displayed in the main notification window 802 in a stream cycling manner. For example, stream cycling may be in accordance with the stream cycling aspects of the present invention as described above, where each information is padded in to the notification window 802 for a length of time, followed by padding. Is out. However, the present invention itself is not limited thereto. Displaying information in a stream cycling manner is also referred to herein as information display streaming. As displayed in the main notification window 802, in one aspect, the information can be a more detailed version than that displayed in one of the source summary windows 806.

In addition, in one aspect of the invention, the information streamed in the display in the main notification window 802 is journaled in the journal window 804 in accordance with certain criteria. For example, when a particular portion of the information is displayed within the main notification window 802, a one-line summary of the information, here collectively referred to as journal entry, may be added to the journal window 804, which journal window 804 may be such a summary. Display list of. The list of windows 804 is scrolled by the user in one aspect and the user can examine almost all of the information already displayed in the main notification window 802.

According to one aspect of the invention, certain criteria for limiting information journaled to and / or added to journal window 804 are information that has been reviewed by the user and not instructed by the user. For example, a user may perform some user gesture, such as moving the cursor over the main notification window 802, also called hovering, to indicate that the information currently being displayed within the main notification window 802 has been reviewed by the user. Can be directed. Certain criteria for journaling may be controlled by the user. In general, a journal may be employed to capture all the history of attempts to relay information to the user. Journal entries may include information about the source of information, high level titles and / or summaries, and / or actions that may be performed on notifications or alerts.

The operation may be performed in response to a predetermined user gesture related to information displayed in the main notification window 802, the source summary window 806, and / or journaled in the journal window 804. For example, certain user gestures may cause the cursor to move relative to the main notification window 802, source summary window 806, or to write the journal in the journal window 804, and select the information displayed there. Can be. The user may click to select a suitable input device button, but the invention is not so limited. However, operations performed in response to the present gesture are not limited to the present invention. However, in one aspect, it may include the display of further information, such as more detailed information, related to the information about the associated gesture.

An example of this is shown in FIG. 20. In the display 900, although not particularly limited to the present invention, as shown in FIG. 20, the user moves the cursor 904 as a pointer to the source summary window 904 of the source summary window 806, and selects information. Is displayed in the source summary window 904. Since the user is the source for performing the associated gesture, the source of information for the window 904 is called a user-request source. In response to the gesture, an action is performed in particular on the display of the window 906, which may include more detailed information about the information displayed in the source summary window 904. The example of FIG. 20 is limited to the user performing a gesture related to the information displayed in one source summary window 806, but is not limited to the present invention, the gesture being the information or journal displayed in the main notification window 802. As long as it is written in window 804, it may be related to journal writing.

As can be appreciated, the stream-stacking aspects of the present invention are capable of various extensions, as described with respect to FIGS. 19 and 20. For example, it may be a “simple mode” toggle displayed in one or more of the respective windows 802, 804, and 806. In addition, the number of source summary windows 806 may be increased or decreased by the user. The source summary window 806 is collapsed such that the information displayed in one aspect is an icon representing the information source for the window 806, such that the user-talking cursor hovering over the particular window 806 by the corresponding source. The generated information can be displayed.

Referring to FIG. 21, a flow diagram illustrates a method 1000 of the stream-stacking aspect of the present invention. Method 1000 is a combined aspect of stream stacking as described in conjunction with FIGS. 19 and 20.

In step 1002, information from many sources is displayed. Information from each source is displayed in the corresponding source summary window. The information may be unsolicited information that is not related to the user's main task. In step 1004, information with significant values above the threshold, such as a predetermined threshold, is displayed-streamed in the main notification window. The information displayed in the main notification window may, in one aspect, be more detailed than that displayed in the source summary window corresponding to the source of the information. In step 1006, the information streamed in the main notification window is written to the journal window by a journal input added according to a predetermined standard.

As described, a user may be able to specify a given user-gesture substantially in relation to any information entered into any source summary window, main notification window, and / or written into a journal window. By performing the operation according to the information, the operation can be performed by the user. Thus, in step 1008, the user gesture is detected as specific information displayed in one of the source summary window, the main notification window, and / or entered the journal in the journal window. In response, at step 1010 an operation related to this information is performed. For example, a more detailed version of the information can be displayed in one aspect of the invention.

Various aspects of the present invention as described in this paragraph may be "streamed" both in the main notification window, as stacked in both the source summary window and the journal window. Thus, a user may know important information by referring to the main notification window, and may examine historical information displayed in the main notification window by referring to the corresponding journal input for this information in the journal window. In addition, the user may know the current information generated by a given source, such as a notification source, by referencing the source summary window for that information. The information in the source summary window can be displayed regardless of its importance, while more important information is generally displayed in the main notification window and written in the journal window.

Further, in one aspect of the invention, high levels of overview information are associated with each source. For example, an e-mail related source is ten unread messages with a given priority, and displays information about the overall state of the information from the source such that the high priority message is from a particular user associated with a particular subject. A click or aerial stop on the source enables the display of a wide user interface to the source application, the most recent notification, and the like. In another aspect of the invention, it is streamed or cycled within each source display, such as an independent version of the stream-cycling aspect of the invention described in the previous paragraph. In addition, in another aspect of the invention where a large main notification window is included, the details of the source information can be displayed such that this information is concentrated with a click or selection of a particular source. Subsequent selection of the notification may display more detailed details of this information and / or a wider user interface to this source.

In the previous paragraph, another mode has been described in which information can be presented to a user, including a pulsing mode, a stream-cycling mode, and a stream stacking mode. In this paragraph, further description is made regarding how the user can interact with the presented information through each mode. Although various user gestures and sound notices have been presented in the previous paragraphs, this paragraph describes in more detail how user interactions can be achieved.

For example, user gestures are described to convey hope for additional information and to answer questions about potential links and services. According to one aspect, the user's rotation of the cursor over the source in stream stack mode may be a signal to the system to provide more detailed information about the summary that may appear in the pop-up window, as previously described. Thus, in this aspect, the user's rotation of the cursor over the window can be used as an implicit request from the user for the display of more details about the notification content. For example, if there is a weather report, cursor rotation is a way for the user to request more details about the weather, such as humidity, 5 days weather.

Other gestures may also be detected in accordance with the present invention. For example, the act of placing the cursor over the streamed information and selecting the information by clicking a button of a pointing device, such as a mouse, may be used in other ways. For example, depending on the selection of URL addresses provided in the display, the information specified by these addresses can be accessed, for example. Clicking within a non-specific area of the information display that asks a question (eg, "Do you want to schedule a schedule?") Is considered as "yes" to confirm the user's intention to receive the service and is the default not selected. Case may be regarded as "no".

In addition, presenting evidence regarding the behavior and timing of communicating with the application, the notification manager, and / or the user's perception of the notification is described. For example, a user gesture may be provided that uses an input device such as a keyboard or mouse within a predetermined time after the notification to convey “tell me more about this notification” by the user. "What was it?" According to the initial notification delivered to the user by the user to the system; "Show me again"; Or, to convey “tell me more about this,” a user gesture may be used, such as shaking a pointing device, such as a mouse, or moving the cursor to a predetermined corner of the display. For example, if the notification was a voice notification, this user gesture (such as within the corner of the display) would be interpreted as asking the user "What was it?" And displaying the information in the notification window according to the pulse mode as described above. Do it.                 

Also in human-computer interaction, other gestures may be used to instruct the notification manager that the user has seen the notification, or more specifically to collect information relayed to the notification manager. For example, the user may act to rotate the cursor on the notification within a few frames after the notification is displayed as a way to instruct the notification system that the user has seen this notification. Thus, the system can decide not to retry relaying this notification to the user. More complex interactions can provide such an indication, such as the user selecting a link shown in the window.

User interaction with a notification journal, such as the journal described above, is described below. That is, as described above, notification summaries may be stored in a notification journal in the stream stack mode of the present invention. Notification summaries are organized by time, notification source, message class, and the like, allowing the user to revisit or review previously missed notifications. Thus, as the journal entry is selected, the user can re-display the notification.

According to another aspect of the present invention, voice is used instead of or as an improvement of the display of information. For example, a voice announcement can be used to inform the indication of a notification that exceeds a threshold (predetermined threshold, etc.) and can also be used to request the user's attention to the notification. In addition, different voices may be associated for different types of notifications. For example, a schedule related notification may have a different voice for this mail related notification.

In addition, although the use of text and / or text and graphics in displaying information has been described in this application, the present invention is not limited to text and / or text and graphics. For example, in one aspect, the information may be graphically displayed while different shapes and colors are used to indicate the priority and characteristics of the information. As another example, the closer the displayed object is to the center of the display, the greater the importance, and different color regions represent different sources of information. In other words, the present invention is not limited to specific notification of high-level graphic and / or text metaphors associated with information.

An example of an alternative information display aspect of the present invention is shown in the illustrative diagram in FIG. According to this aspect of the invention, information may be displayed within a predetermined area 302 of the desktop screen 300 shown, for example, in FIG. Also, in one aspect, the user can switch in different modes, including scope mode. For example, the system includes a machine readable medium storing a computer program executable by a processor to enter into any of modes such as a display, processing system, and scope mode. In addition, in addition to the user switching among the above modes, in one aspect, the notification manager may make a decision to switch mode, for example, as described above.

In the example scope interface described in FIG. 23, different shapes and colors are used to indicate the priority and characteristics of the information. For example, there may be a circular display object 1100 (eg, a wheel) divided into one or more parts at the corners of the screen. Other shapes may be used. Each part can be a different color and represent different forms or sources of information. For example, objects within individual parts of the display object 1100 such as circles, rectangles, arrows, and lines may indicate notifications, priorities, and / or events from the source of each part's information and / or from the type of information of each part. have. The closer the objects are to the center of the display object 1100, the greater the importance-that is, the notification, message, and / or other type of information to which the importance value is assigned. Thus, the concentric circles in the wheel can distinguish different priority levels as one sun. By rotating the cursor on an object, text information about the object is displayed. For example, by rotating the cursor on a portion of the display object 1100 (but not on an object in the display object), the text information may be indicative of the type of information or the source of information for the portion of the display object 1100. The textual information can be displayed, for example, as a tool tip.

In order to provide a context for the various aspects of the present invention, FIGS. 23 and the following description provide a brief and general description of a suitable computer environment in which the various aspects of the present invention are implemented. Although the invention has been described above in the general context of computer-executable instructions of a computer program operated on a computer and / or computers, those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention may also be implemented in combination with other program modules. will be. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, components, data structures, etc. that implement particular task data types and / or execute particular tasks. In addition, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the method of the present invention is not only a personal computer, a pocket computing device, a microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics product, etc., but also a single-processor or multiprocessor computer system, a minicomputer, a mainframe computer. It can be replaced with other computer system structures, including. The illustrated aspects of the invention can also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a computer network. However, not all aspects of the invention, but in some aspects can be run on a standalone computer. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.

Referring to FIG. 23, an exemplary system for implementing various aspects of the present invention includes a processing unit 1221, a system memory 1222, and various system components including the system memory in the processing unit 1221. And a system bus 1223 for coupling. Processing unit 1221 may be one of several commercially available processors. It will be appreciated that dual microprocessors and other multi-processor architectures may also be employed as the processing unit 1221.

The system bus can be any of several types of bus structures, including a memory bus or memory controller, a bus of peripheral devices, and a local bus using one of a variety of commercially available bus structures. The system memory may include read only memory (ROM) 1224 and random access memory (RAM) 1225. A basic input / output system (BIOS) is stored in ROM 1224, including basic routines to help transfer information between elements in computer 1220, such as during startup.

The computer 1220 reads from or reads from the hard disk drive 1227, the magnetic disk drive 1228, etc., and the CD-ROM disk 1231 for writing to or reading from the removable disk 1229. An optical disk drive 1230, etc., for writing to the CD-ROM disk 1231 or for reading from or writing to another optical medium may be further included. The hard disk drive 1227, the magnetic disk drive 1228, and the optical disk drive 1230 are each connected by a system bus by a hard disk drive interface 1232, a magnetic disk drive interface 1233, and an optical drive interface 1234. (1223). The drive and other related computer-readable media provide nonvolatile storage of data, data structures, computer-executable instructions, and the like, for the computer 1220. Although the description of the computer-readable media refers to hard disks, removable magnetic disks, and CDs, those skilled in the art will recognize that other types of media readable by magnetic cassettes, flash memory cards, digital video disks, Bernoulli cartridges, and the like may be used. In the operating environment to be practiced, it may also be used, and any medium may also include computer-readable instructions for carrying out the methods of the present invention.

The plurality of program modules may be stored in the drive and RAM 1225, including operating system 1235, one or more application programs 1236, other program modules 1237, and program data 1238. Operating system 1235 in the illustrated computer may be substituted for any suitable operating system.

A user may enter commands and information into the computer 1220 through a keyboard 1240, such as a mouse 1242, and a pointing device. Other input devices (not shown) may include a microphone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, or the like. These and other input devices can often be connected to the processing unit 1221 via a serial port interface 1246 coupled to the system bus, but by other interfaces such as parallel ports, game ports or a common serial bus (USB). May be connected. The monitor 1247 or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus 1223 via an interface such as a video adapter 1248. In addition to the monitor, the computer may typically include other accessory output devices (not shown), such as speakers and printers.

Computer 1220 may be operated in a networked environment using logical connections with one or more remote computers, such as remote computer 1249. Although only memory storage device 1250 is illustrated in FIG. 23, remote computer 1249 may be a workstation, server computer, router, peer device, or other common network node, and many or as described with respect to computer 1220. All devices can be included. The logical connection shown in FIG. 23 may include a local area network (LAN) 1251 and a wide area network (WAN) 1252. Such networking environments are commonplace in offices, enterprise computer networks, intranets, and the Internet.

When employed in a LAN networking environment, the computer 1220 may be connected to the local network 1251 via a network interface or adapter 1253. When used in a WAN networking environment, the computer 1220 may generally include a modem 1254 and / or be connected to a communication server on a LAN and / or to a wide area network 1252 such as the Internet. May have other means of establishing communication across. The modem 1254, which may be internal or external, may be connected to the system bus 1223 via the serial port interface 1246. In a networked environment, program modules depicted in connection with the computer 1220 or portions thereof may be stored in a remote memory storage device. It will be apparent that the network connections shown are practical and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers may be employed.

In accordance with the practice of those skilled in computer programming techniques, the invention is described with reference to symbolic representations and actions of operations performed by a computer, such as computer 1220, unless otherwise indicated. Such actions and operations are sometimes referred to as computer-running. The operations represented by the above actions and symbols may cause data bits to cause a reduction or resulting conversion of electrical signal representations, and memory systems (system memory 1222, hard drive 1227, floppy disk 1229, and CD-ROM ( 1231) changes or otherwise changes the type of operation of the computer system, as well as other signal processing, including the processing unit 1221 of the electrical signal representing the retention of data bits at the memory location. The memory location in which these data bits are maintained is a physical location having specific electrical, magnetic, or optical properties corresponding to the data bits.

What has been described above has been various aspects of the present invention. Of course, it is not possible to describe every conceivable component combination or methodology for the purpose of illustrating the invention, but one of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that many other combinations and substitutions of the invention are possible. . Accordingly, the present invention is intended to embrace all such alterations, modifications and variations that fall within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.

The present invention is industrially available in the computer, computer software, and information technology fields.

Claims (92)

A context analyzer for determining a context associated with the entity; A notification manager for sending one or more notifications to the entity based at least in part on the determined context; At least one notification source for generating the one or more notifications; And At least one notification sink for receiving the one or more notifications Including, The at least one notification sink is Communication cost of the notification sink, the communication cost indicative of a communication cost incurred by the entity when receiving information in a notification sent to the notification sink; And Disruption cost of the notification sink, wherein the interruption cost is indicative of the interruption cost incurred by the entity when receiving information in a notification sent to the notification sink And parameters associated with said at least one notification sink. delete The method of claim 1, The entity comprises at least one of a user, an agent, a process, a server, a computer, a machine, a company, an organization, a business, a computer program, a service, and a thread. The method of claim 1, And wherein said one or more notifications generated by said at least one notification source are notifications directed to said entity. The method of claim 1, The notification received by the at least one sink is provided to the entity by the at least one sink. The method of claim 1, And the context analyzer includes a notification parameter store for storing a default notification preference for the entity as a profile. The method of claim 1, And the context analyzer determines the current context of the user based on at least one context source. The method of claim 7, wherein The at least one context source is one or more of the user's visual information, the user's desktop information, the user's personal information manager (PIM) information, the current time and date, the user's mobile device usage, and the user's location Notification system comprising a. The method of claim 7, wherein Wherein the context analyzer determines the current context based on at least one context source by using one or more of statistical models, profiles, direct access of user location and activity, and real-time user history of user status. system. The method of claim 1, The notification generated by the at least one notification source may be email, instant messaging, system message, automated assistant, output from a persistent, query to progress to one or more search facilities or services, in a shared file system. Number of documents available or updates to content, updates to organizational information, information available in connection with specific content, documents or topics, Internet-related information and news services, personal availability, location, approximation, queries, scheduling, companies And at least one of an approximation and a location of the organization. The method of claim 1, The at least one notification source is A rating of the current notification generated by the notification source indicative of the value of the information in the current notification; And Time criticality of the current notification generated by the notification source indicating a decrease over time of the value of the information in the current notification And one or more parameters associated with the at least one notification source representing at least one of the following. The method of claim 1, The at least one notification source is A message class of the current notification generated by the notification source indicating a communication type of a current notification; An association of the current notification, indicating the associability of the information in the current notification; The novelty of the current notification indicating the likelihood that the entity has known the information in advance; And Fidelity of the current notification indicating loss of value for the entity of the information when the information is disconnected And a parameter associated with said at least one notification source indicative of at least one of. The method of claim 1, And the at least one notification source comprises at least one of a pull type notification source and a push type notification source. The method of claim 1, And the at least one notification sink comprises one or more of a desktop computer, a PDA, a cell phone, a pager, and an automated computerized device. The method of claim 1, The at least one notification sink, A device class of the notification sink indicating the device type of the notification sink; And Transmission reliability of the notification sink indicating the likelihood that an entity will receive information in a notification sent to the notification sink Notification parameters indicative of at least one of the at least one notification sink. The method of claim 1, The notification manager performs a decision theory analysis of a notification from the at least one notification source based on the information stored by the context analyzer to determine which of the notifications from at least one notification source should be sent to the at least one notification sink. And determine the notification system. The method of claim 1, The notification manager performs a heuristic analysis of the notification from the at least one notification source based on the information stored by the context analysis to transmit any of the notifications from the at least one notification source to the at least one notification sink. Notification system, characterized in that it determines what should be. A context analyzer comprising a user context parameter store for storing information about notification parameters, a user notification parameter store for storing default notification preferences for a user, and a user context module for determining the current context of the user based on at least one context source; At least one notification source for generating a notification that targets the user; At least one notification sink for providing the notification to the user; And A notification manager for sending a notification generated by the at least one notification source to the at least one notification sink based on the information stored in the context analyzer by performing a decision theory analysis Notification system comprising a. The method of claim 18, The importance of the current notification generated by the notification source indicative of the value of the information in the current notification for the user; A time threshold of the current notification generated by the notification source indicating a decrease over time of the information value in the current notification for the user; An association of the current notification indicating a likelihood of the information in the current notification for the user; The novelty of the current notification indicating the likelihood that the user already knows the information; And Fidelity of the current notification indicating a loss of value to the user of the information when the information is disconnected At least one of the notification parameters. The method of claim 18, The at least one notification sink provides the notification to the user, A device class of the notification sink indicating a type of device; Transmission reliability of the notification sink indicating the likelihood that the user will receive information in a notification sent to the notification sink; A communication cost of the notification sink indicative of a communication cost incurred by the user when receiving information in a notification sent to the notification sink; And Interruption cost of the notification sink, which represents an interruption cost incurred by the user when receiving information in a notification sent to the notification sink. And a parameter indicative of at least one of the following. Generating one or more notifications; Generating context information associated with the user; Calculating a communication cost of a notification sink, the communication cost indicating a communication cost incurred by the user when receiving information in a notification sent to the notification sink; Calculating an interruption cost of the notification sink, the interruption cost indicating an interruption cost incurred by the user when receiving information in a notification sent to the notification sink; Determining which of the one or more notifications to send based at least in part on the context information, the calculated communication cost, the calculated disturbance cost, or a combination thereof Notification providing method comprising a. Means for generating one or more notifications that target the user; Means for generating context information regarding the notification parameters of the user; Means for processing the contextual information; Means for determining which of the one or more notifications to send to one or more notification sinks based on the context information; And Means for sending the one or more notifications to the one or more notification sinks, The at least one notification sink is Communication cost of the notification sink, the communication cost indicative of a communication cost incurred by the user when receiving information contained in a notification sent to the notification sink; And Disruption cost of the notification sink, wherein the interruption cost represents an interruption cost incurred by the user when receiving information contained in a notification sent to the notification sink And parameters associated with said at least one notification sink. A machine readable medium, the machine readable medium comprising instructions stored in the machine readable medium, the instructions being executed by a processor of a notification manager to execute a method in the context of a notification system. To perform-having, The method is Receiving one or more notifications, addressed to the user, generated by the one or more notification sources; Receiving context information from a context analyzer; Determining which of the notifications to send to one or more notification sinks based at least in part on the contextual information; And Sending the one or more notifications to the one or more notification sinks, The at least one notification sink is Communication cost of the notification sink, the communication cost indicative of a communication cost incurred by the user when receiving information contained in a notification sent to the notification sink; And Disruption cost of the notification sink, wherein the interruption cost represents an interruption cost incurred by the user when receiving information contained in a notification sent to the notification sink And parameters associated with the at least one notification sink. A method for use with a platform that sends notifications from one or more notification sources to one or more notification sinks for a user, Determining a current attentional focus of the user; And Determining a current location of the user, Determining the focus of the user's current attention is Measuring the focus through at least one sensor; Receiving a direct specification of the focus by the user; Using at least one of the rules specifying the focus and a first user profile; And Estimating the focus using at least one of a Bayesian model and a statistical model, Determining the current location of the user Measuring the position with one or more sensors; Receiving a direct history of the location by the user; Using at least one of the rules specifying the focus and a second user profile; And Estimating the location using at least one of a Bayesian model and a statistical model. The method of claim 24, Outputting a current context of the user including the focus of the current attention of the user and the current location of the user. delete delete The method of claim 24, Using a Global Positioning System (GPS) coupled with the one or more sensors. delete delete delete The method of claim 24, Wherein the first user profile comprises a default profile changeable by the user. delete The method of claim 24, And wherein the second user profile comprises a default profile changeable by the user. delete delete delete delete As a machine-readable medium, Determining a current context of the user, wherein determining the current context of the user comprises directly measuring a current attentional cost of the user's current attention through one or more sensors, Receiving a direct description; Using at least one of the user profile and rules specifying the context, and determining the current context of the user through at least one of estimating the context. Machine-readable medium for storing possible instructions. Performing decision theory analysis associated with one or more notifications through one or more notification sinks; And Sending the one or more notifications to the one or more notification sinks based on the decision theory analysis made, Performing the decision theory analysis on the one or more notifications Performing the decision theory analysis on one or more modes of the one or more notification sinks. Computer implemented method comprising a. delete Performing decision theory analysis associated with one or more notifications through one or more notification sinks; And Sending the one or more notifications to the one or more notification sinks based on the decision theory analysis made, And performing the decision theory analysis on the one or more notifications through the one or more notification sinks yields a value for the one or more notifications on the one or more notification sinks. The method of claim 42, wherein The sending of the one or more notifications to the one or more notification sinks may include sending the one or more notifications with the value of any one or more notification sinks greater than a predetermined transmission threshold to the one or more notification sinks with the highest value. Transmitting the method. Performing decision theory analysis associated with one or more notifications through one or more notification sinks; And Sending the one or more notifications to the one or more notification sinks based on the decision theory analysis made, Performing the decision theory analysis on the one or more notifications may include performing the decision theory analysis on one or more modes associated with the one or more notification sinks, thereby determining the one or more notification sinks. Obtaining a value. The method of claim 44, The sending of the one or more notifications to the one or more notification sinks may include a value for any mode of any one or more notification sinks that is greater than a predetermined transmission threshold through the mode of the notification sink in which the notification has the highest value. Transmitting said one or more notifications having said information. The method of claim 40, And performing the decision theory analysis comprises using a probability model. 47. The method of claim 46 wherein Using the probabilistic model comprises using a Bayesian network. The method of claim 40, Deleting the notification sent. The method of claim 40, Deleting the one or more notifications sent to the one or more notification sinks upon receiving an acknowledgment from the one or more notification sinks. The method of claim 40, And deleting the one or more notifications sent to the one or more notification sinks in response to determining the one or more notification sinks having a transmission reliability greater than a predetermined threshold. The method of claim 40, Performing the decision theory analysis comprises determining an expected value of information in the one or more notifications. The method of claim 51, And performing the decision theory analysis further comprises determining an expected cost of disruption of the one or more notifications with respect to the one or more notification sinks. The method of claim 52, wherein Determining an expected cost of the disturbance for the one or more notifications for the one or more notification sinks includes determining an expected cost of the disturbance of the one or more notifications with respect to the one or more modes associated with the one or more notification sinks. It further comprises a method. The method of claim 53, Performing the decision theory analysis Determining, by the user, an expected value for acquiring the information in the one or more notifications without the one or more notifications being delivered to the user. The method of claim 54, And performing the decision theory analysis further comprises determining an actual cost of sending the one or more notifications to the one or more notification sinks. The method of claim 55, Determining the actual cost of sending the notification to the one or more notification sinks includes determining the actual cost of sending the one or more notifications for the mode associated with the one or more notification sinks. Way. The method of claim 56, wherein Receiving the one or more notifications from one or more notification sources. Determining an expected value of the information in the notification; Determining an expected anticipation cost for sending the notification to one or more notification sinks; And Determining a value for the one or more notification sinks that is equal to an expected value of information contained in the notification and is less than an expected cost of interruption; A machine readable medium having stored computer executable instructions for executing a method comprising: And send the notification to the one or more notification sinks having the highest value, wherein the value for the one or more notification sinks is greater than a predetermined transmission threshold to send the notification to the one or more notification sinks. . A component for determining a context associated with the entity; And Notification manager for sending one or more notifications to the entity based at least in part on the determined context and values associated with the information in the one or more notifications and the cost of interference. Notification system comprising a. The method of claim 59, The value associated with this information is

Represented by Wherein N is notification, p is probability, novel is information novelty of any given evidence E, value is value function, C is context, t is time. The method of claim 60, The value associated with this information is

System characterized in that the expected value expressed in. 62. The method of claim 61, The expected value is

Represented by Where M is the device mode, p (received | M _k , C _j , E, e) represents the transmission of the information at the probability that the user has received the information, and e is additional evidence of the user responding to the notification. And fidelity is related to transmission loss. The method of claim 60, Expected Interference Costs for Mode M

More, Wherein CostDisrupt is a value signaling a notification to a user via mode M taking into account the value and the cost of the information in the notification. The method of claim 63, wherein

Further includes an expected value for obtaining information expressed in t _seek is the time associated with the user seeking the information in the notification. 65. The method of claim 64,

Further comprising a next expected value for providing a notification expressed as Where ComCost relates to the actual cost associated with the communication notification. A computer implemented method of providing a display, Displaying information having an assigned classification value that is greater than a classification threshold associated with the display area; Performing a delay by a length of time based on the classification value of the information; And Fading the information from the area of the display, Displaying the information in the area of the display comprises: Increasing the alpha value of the information to a predetermined level based on the classification value of the information. 67. The method of claim 66, Wherein said information includes unsolicited information unrelated to the user's main task. delete 67. The method of claim 66, Fading the information from the area of the display Reducing the alpha value from the predetermined level. The method of claim 69, wherein Reproducing an audio message for alerting a user of the information displayed in the area of the display. The method of claim 70, Adjusting the audio message to one or more states according to the classification value of the information. The method of claim 71, wherein The adjustment Changing the volume of the audio message; And Varying the frequency of the audio message Computer-implemented method comprising at least one of the following. The method of claim 70, Playing the audio message within a length of time in response to a first user gesture related to the display of the information to the area of the display; Increasing the alpha value of the information to a second predetermined level that is greater than the predetermined level; Waiting for a second user gesture related to the information display to the area of the display; And Decreasing the alpha value of the information to the predetermined level Computer implemented method comprising a. 67. A computer readable medium having stored instructions for carrying out the method of claim 66. Determining display time for unsolicited information, each of which is unrelated to the user's main task, wherein the unsolicited information has an associated classification and is not requested to be displayed by the user; And Displaying unsolicited information each for a length of time due to said classification of said information. Computer implemented method comprising a. 76. The method of claim 75, Determining a periodicity of the information based on the importance of the information, And displaying the plurality of respective pieces of unsolicited information further comprises displaying the information in accordance with the periodicity of the information. Receiving information with an assigned classification value that is greater than a threshold associated with a particular notification sink; Fading the information into a display predetermined area based on the classification value; And Receiving new information and fading the new information into the predetermined area of the display, Fading information into the predetermined area of the display Adjusting an alpha value associated with the information to a predetermined level, And said predetermined level is based on said classification value. 78. The method of claim 77 wherein Delaying by a length of time based on the classification value; And Fading the information from the predetermined area of the display Method further comprising a. delete delete delete 78. The method of claim 77 wherein And audibly alerting the user of the information faded to the predetermined area of the display. A plurality of sources for generating unsolicited information, the unsolicited information being information not requested to be displayed by the user; A source summary window for at least one of the sources for displaying the unsolicited information; Importance value associated with the unsolicited information; And A display for streaming the unsolicited information into a main notification window Computer implemented system comprising a. 84. The method of claim 83, And a journal window for displaying the unsolicited information for each source. 85. The method of claim 84, The unsolicited information in the at least one source is streamed to a window that is not visible to the user. As a computerized system, display; Processing subsystem; And A computer program executed by the processing subsystem for causing the computerized system to operate in one of a pulsing mode, a stream-cycling mode, and a stream-stacking mode based on an assignment value determined according to the classification of received information. Machine-readable media Including And the information is streamed to a main notification window associated with the display. 87. The method of claim 86, At least one user and system switch among said modes. A computer readable medium for storing a display object displayed on a display. The display object An object having one or more shapes associated with information priorities; And One or more colors associated with the one or more shapes that provide a priority indication of the information Computer readable medium comprising a. 89. The method of claim 88, Wherein the shape of the display object further comprises at least one wheel, circle, rectangle, triangle, arrow and line in relation to the information priority. 91. The method of claim 89 wherein And wherein the shape of the display object comprises concentric circles. 91. The method of claim 90, And the concentric circles of the display object provide a priority indication. 92. The method of claim 91 wherein And wherein the shape of the display object is within the concentric circle and is sized and displayed according to at least one of the priority of the information and the type of information.

Images