WO2011095897A2

WO2011095897A2 - A method, system and device for negotiating face-to-face meetings through predicting significant places

Info

Publication number: WO2011095897A2
Application number: PCT/IB2011/000471
Authority: WO
Inventors: Tara Rosenberger Shankar; Aurélien Guillou; Chaochi Chang
Original assignee: France Telecom (Etablissement Autonome De Droit Public); Budiu, Adrian
Priority date: 2010-02-07
Filing date: 2011-02-07
Publication date: 2011-08-11
Also published as: WO2011095897A9; EP2531963A2; WO2011095897A3

Abstract

A method of initiating face-to-face meetings among a plurality of participants, each of the participants having a portable computing device including a display. The portable computing device being connected to at least one server via a network. The method may include continuously collecting information about a presence location for each of the plurality of participants that represents a location at which the participant remains for at least a predefined duration; notifying at least two of the participants of their temporal and spatial proximity that provides an opportunity for a face to face meeting; and enabling the at least two of the participants to negotiate a location and time of the face to face meeting.

Description

A METHOD, SYSTEM AND DEVICE FOR NEGOTIATING FACE-TO-FACE MEETINGS THROUGH PREDICTING SIGNIFICANT PLACES

FIELD OF THE PRESENT SYSTEM [0001] The present system relates to initiating meeting, and more specifically to automatically initiating face to face meetings based on real time data of proposed participants' presence location and predictions of the participants' transitions from significant locations, and during the participants' route traversal between locations.

BACKGROUND OF THE PRESENT SYSTEM [0002] Some say that modern technology, developed to simplify our lives, instead, does the opposite, makes individuals' lives busier by generating new tasks and apps for them to do. Even without the technology, modern lives are busy to a point that it is very difficult to find time to keep in touch, not only with friends, acquaintances, and family but even with co-workers. [0003] There are times, however, when the paths of those wanting to meet cross, creating opportunities for face to face meetings. For example, a first person may have decided to have lunch at a seldom visited eatery off the beaten path. At approximately the same time, a second person, the first person's friend, acquaintance, or contact, may leave work and go to a yoga class at a studio, which the second person visits twice a week. Serendipitously, the studio is situated in the same area the first person is passing through on the way to lunch at the above mentioned eatery providing an opportunity for a meeting.

[0004] In another example, the first person, e.g., an officer in a manufacturing company needs to have a face to face meeting with the company's field sales representatives in order to discuss important business matters. Such a meeting is usually difficult to schedule due to everyone's busy schedules. Moreover, it is important that such face to face meeting take place at such location so as not to unduly inconvenience any of the meeting participants and to assure their participation.

[0005] The actual locations of the potential meeting participants are not necessary to make arrangements for the meetings. Such locations may be predicted, for example based on the participants' expected routes. A previously filed co-owned application, namely U.S. Patent Application Serial No. 61/222,089 incorporated here as if set out in its entirety, describes arranging virtual communications based on the schedules and predicted temporal routines of the participants. That application teaches generating predictions of where users are now and where they are going next.

[0006] Accordingly, there is a need for an easy way to alert parties of opportunities, arising in real-time, to realize face to face meetings with selected persons.

SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT SYSTEM

[0007] It is an object of the present system to overcome disadvantages and/or make improvements in the prior art.

[0008] The present system tracks its users in real time and stores that information so as to anticipate and calculate their future paths and routes. Many existing systems and applications, such as, Google's Latitude, Loopt, Yahoo's FireEagle, and so on, provide real-time location tracking. Also see "Discovering Personal Paths from Sparse GPS Traces" by Changqing Zhou, Shashi Shekhar, Loren Terveen available through the Internet at Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) address //academic.research. microsoft.com/Paper/4665090.aspx and incorporated herein as if set out in its entirety. Also a GPS may be used to learn significant locations and predict movement.

[0009] The present system further proposes face to face meetings by providing the participants with a display of a map indicating one or more suitable meeting locations and meeting times. A map indicating the at least one proposed meeting location is displayed on the portable computing devices of all the expected meeting participants. The proposed meeting locations are identified on the displays by drag and drop pushpins. The participants may manipulate this pushpin on the map of the computing device to negotiate an exact meeting location and meeting time. [0010] Provided is a method of initiating face-to-face meetings among a plurality of participants, each of the participants having a portable computing device including a display, the portable computing device is connected to at least one server via a network, the method including the acts of continuously collecting information about presence location for each of the plurality of participants, the presence location is a set of coordinates at which the participant remains for at least a predefined duration; notifying at least two of the participants of their temporal and spatial proximity that provides an opportunity for a face to face meeting; and enabling the at least two of the participants to negotiate a location and time of the face to face meeting.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[001 1] The invention is explained in further detail, and by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings wherein:

[0012] FIG. 1 shows a diagram of the computer architecture of an embodiment of the present system;

[0013] FIG. 2 shows a flowchart diagram of collection of raw data of presence locations in accordance with an embodiment of the present system; [0014] FIGs. 3a, 3b, 3c are user interfaces illustrating an effect of three situations of different spatial movements of two participants in accordance with an embodiment of the present system;

[0015] FIG. 4 show a flowchart diagram illustrating a sequence of acts in a system initiated face to face meeting proposal in accordance with an embodiment of the present system;

[0016] FIGs. 5a, 5b, 5c, 5d and 5e show user interfaces including a rendering of street level maps showing paths of subject participants including an indication of at least one proposed meeting location according to an embodiment of the present system;

[0017] FIG. 6 shows a flowchart diagram illustrating the sequence of acts in a subject participant initiated or scheduled face to face meeting proposal in accordance with an embodiment of the present system;

[0018] FIG. 7 shows a flow diagram illustrating the meeting creation sequence in the participant scheduled embodiment of FIG. 6 of the present system; [0019] FIG. 8 shows a flow diagram illustrating a notification manager in accordance with the present system; and

[0020] FIG. 9 shows a diagram of or more computing devices in accordance with an embodiment of the present system. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESENT SYSTEM

[0021] FIG. 1 is a diagram of the computer architecture of an embodiment of the present system. As illustrated in FIG. 1 , an embodiment of the present system 10 maybe implemented using two software components. The first component 12 executing on portable computing devices 14, such as, computers, cell phones, PDF, Black Berry devices, etc., used by the participants and the second component 16 executing on one or more servers 18. The participants may be friends, acquaintances, co-workers, etc., using network connected portable computing devices 14.

[0022] The first component 12 is provided with a user interface rendered on the portable computing devices 14 for operation in accordance with the present system including inviting the participants to face to face meetings, such as those proposed by the system and enable them to answer these invitations. As part of the invitation, the user interface may present a map which may be used by the participants to negotiate the meeting location of the face to face meeting. For example, a map may be rendered to the users including rendered pushpin(s) that may be draggable over the presented map. By the term draggable, what is intended is that the users may move a rendered pushpin such as through a drag-and-drop operation as may be readily appreciated by a person of ordinary skill in the art and as described further herein.

[0023] The rendering of the draggable pushpin symbol may include a zooming feature and as it is dragged by one of the participants, all the participants may see it's new position in real-time. Further, directions and other necessary information maybe rendered, such as displayed after the participants agree on a negotiated time and place for the face to face meeting. [0024] FIG. 2 shows a flowchart diagram of collection of raw data of presence locations in accordance with an embodiment of the present system. As illustrated in FIG. 2, during act 230, the first component 12 may continuously collect raw data of presence locations of the portable computing device 14 on which it resides through one or more of a variety of techniques, e.g., based on predefined thresholds, such as, distance, time, velocity or their combination. The presence locations are approximate areas where the individual participant's portable computing device 14 and by extension the individual participant spends an amount of time that equals or exceeds some first predefined threshold, e. g., duration of five minutes. Repeated visits, in an order of some second predefined threshold, such as more than five times, 10 times, etc., of the individual participant to the same presence location may classify that presence location as a significant location as illustrated in Table 1 , which identifies coordinates of first and second participants as presence or significant locations.

Table 1

[0025] The presence and significant locations, as well as meeting locations, which are discussed below, are coordinates, e.g., absolute coordinates on Earth's surface, at a particular time, e.g., universal time. They comprise coordinates defined by measurable values, such as, latitude and longitude, which may be determined using global positioning satellites (GPS), WIFI router, cell phone IDs, etc., as may be readily appreciated by a person of ordinary skill in the art.

[0026] In accordance with an embodiment of the present system, the collected raw presence location data may be time stamped and associated with other parameters, such as for indicating a determined locations accuracy, if available, to help with filtering. For example, in accordance with an embodiment of the present system, a locations accuracy may be expressed as a number, indicating a dilution of precision, or a number indicating the highest possible error in distance, such as within three (3) meters. In another embodiment, the accuracy of the location may be expressed as a rough indicator of the accuracy determination (e.g., +/- 4%) or a range of accuracy (e.g., within a range of 0 through 3% accurate). To prevent loss of data in the event of a loss of power, the collected raw data of presence location may be stored in a persistent temporary storage on the device 14. During act 232, the presence location data may be transported using cellular networks or other form of wireless or wired communication to the server 18, such as at certain predefined fixed or variable time intervals. For example, the raw data may be transported in real time by subscription based web service. The transported raw data may be stored in a location history database 20 using a database management system (DBMS).

CLUSTERING

[0027] The presence location data may be clustered, with the purpose of discovering presence locations where individual participants spend significant amounts of time indicating habitual or predictable behavior. The clustering module 24 may use computational algorithms, such as clustering algorithms, e.g., k-means, Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (Db-Smay), TDJ, R-TDJ, etc., known to these skilled in the art, to identify significant locations from among the presence locations. The clustering algorithms may use the historic data of the participants' presence locations to identify significant locations where the participants spend significant time or frequent often, such as visited by the participant more than 10 times and/or the participant stayed at a given location longer than 10 minutes. Another embodiment of the present system may utilize a threshold time range of 2-5 minutes, such as a location where the participant stayed longer than 5 minutes.

[0028] In another embodiment of the present system, a threshold time range may be dynamic based on how many time a location is visited. For example, in one embodiment of the present system, an initial threshold may be set at 10 minutes or longer before a location may be considered for clustering into a group of significant locations. However once the participant has visited a location 5 time or more, the threshold may drop to 5 minutes such that prior visits that where shorter than tern minutes may be reconsidered as long as the time visited was 5 minutes or greater.

[0029] For a participant, typical significant locations may include the participants' home, work, school, favorite stores, etc. as may be readily appreciated by a person of ordinary skill in the art.

[0030] During act 234, threshold based filtering (e.g., location accuracy, etc.) may be performed, followed during act 236 with execution of the clustering component 24. The clustering result may be a series of pairs of locations and times. During act 238, unique IDs or tags may be assigned to the discovered clusters.

[0031] The clustering module 24 may identify significant locations and the transitions between the significant and target locations. Clustering may be utilized to determine whether a certain presence location, represented by a coordinate pair (e.g., latitude, longitude) is part of a cluster and, therefore, may represent a significant location. Clustering of the presence location data assists in the identification of a significant location since GPS data has a sparse nature and because of the inherent error contained in GPS coordinate data. [0032] Due to a participant's repeated or habitual patronage of the significant locations and routes to and between significant locations, as for example determined based on historic information stored in the database 20, the server 18 may predict where and to which other presence location, the participant may go after visiting a significant location. In addition, the present system may predict which route the participant may likely take and may also predict what time the participant will take the predicted route. In accordance with the present system, a route is a path between presence and target locations that participants traverse.

PATHS and ROUTES

[0033] Out of these series of pairs of locations and times, a prediction modeling module 26 may deduce transitions from any presence location to a target location, for instance, (I1 ,t1 ) -> (I2,t2)... -> (In, tn). During act 240, these transitions may be fed into a Markov model routine the results of which are probabilities of transitions between places by a specific participant. The prediction by the module 26 of transition by a particular participant between presence and target locations starts with identification of the presence locations where the participant spends a significant amount of time termed herein a significant location. [0034] In accordance with an embodiment of the present system, routes may be predicted by retrieval of several possible routes between the presence location and predicted target destinations. Services available on the Internet, such as Google Maps, Mapquest, Microsoft's Bing Maps, etc., as well as other standalone software products may be used to render the routes on the portable computing devices. In accordance with an embodiment of the present system, algorithms may be used to determine which of the plurality of predicted routes is more likely to be taken by the particular participant. A computational algorithm may be applied to the historical raw data of the presence locations for a particular participant in the database 20, to predict that participant's route given the participant's current presence location and time.

TEMPORAL PROXIMITY

[0035] To discover the time when the participants is present or is predicted to be present on the predicted routes, the server 18, may retrieve static calendar data from enabler services 22, for example, Orange Calendar, Google Calendar, or an other available calendar application. In accordance with an embodiment of the present system, the static calendar data may determine available time slots for use in arranging meetings for multiple participants, as will be discussed below.

[0036] The enabler services 22 may further comprise the social contacts lists (e.g., one or more databases of contacts), which in accordance with an embodiment of the present system, may be one or more (e.g., such as an aggregation) of contact lists from the portable computing devices (e.g., mobile phones), social networks, e.g., Facebook.com, Linkedln.com, AOL's Instant Messenger, and/or from online services such as Orange address book, etc.

[0037] By determining significant locations, predicting paths to be taken by the participants, including information suggesting the time at which the participants are predicted to take these paths, and tracking the route of the participants in real-time, potential regions of predicted temporal and spatial proximity for a meeting location between two or more participants may be suggested. For example, in accordance with the present system, an area where two or more participants are predicted to be within the same timeframe (e.g., within 1 minute of each other, within 5 minutes of each other, within 15 minutes of each other, etc., as may be user determined) may be identified and proposed to the participants for a face to face meeting. Thus, the system 10 in accordance with the present system may anticipate/predict occasions when the paths of two or more participants may cross and/or come within a predetermined proximity of each other, and thereby determine when and where (e.g., space and time) the presence locations of selected participants are close enough to suggest a face to face meeting, including in an embodiment of the present system, a meeting location. In this way, the present system may facilitate a selection of locations and times, including in an embodiment, a suggestion of location and/or time for a face to face meeting between participants. [0038] Where paths of two participants cross when only one of the participants is in a significant location and the other is not, a meeting would likely be a surprise caused by the second participant doing something unforeseen or unexpected. When both participants are in significant locations, the system may still predict a meeting. However, in such case, the first and second participants may be well aware that they are near each other without being notified. Of course there are many other possible situations in which the first and second participants are not aware that their presence locations are routinely close to one another, e.g., on Friday nights, one friend may regularly patronize a grocery store while another friend may regularly patronize a sushi restaurant next door to the grocery store. [0039] FIGs. 3a, 3b, 3c are diagrams illustrating an effect of three situations of different spatial movements of two participants where the system 10 may predict crossing of the paths of the participants in accordance with an embodiment of the present system. These predictions are initiated by actions of the participants or identified serendipitously by the system based on relationship information, e.g., the address books previously provided by the users to their computing devices. In FIG. 3a, the first participant is moving from a significant location at point A to a predicted location at point B, whereas the second participant is predicted to move from a significant location at point C to a predicted location at point D. Both participants are expected to move within the same time frame. As will be described below, the system 10 makes the first and second participants, or alternatively further participants or observers aware of this predicted future spatial/temporal proximity of the first and second participants to each other. In accordance with an embodiment of the present system, further support may be provided to the participants in negotiating a place for a face to face meeting between the participants.

[0040] In FIG. 3b the first participant is in a significant location at point A, and the second participant is predicted to transition from a significant location at point C to a significant location at point D. As described below, the present system 10 will make the participants aware of this predicted future spatial/temporal proximity to each other, and will further support them in negotiating a place for their face to face meeting.

[0041] In FIG. 3c the first participant is predicted to transition from a significant location at point A to a significant location at point B, and the second participant is predicted to transition from a significant location at point C to a significant location at point D, within the same timeframe (e.g., within 5 minutes of each other). As will be seen below, the present system 10 may make the participants aware of this predicted future spatial/temporal proximity to each other, and will support them in negotiating a place for their face to face meeting.

SYSTEM INITIATED FACE TO FACE MEETING PROPOSAL [0042] The following description is given using the above presented examples. Recalling the example in which one friend or the subject participant is having lunch at a seldom visited eatery at a time when another friend or the contact participant goes to a yoga class at a studio situated in the same area as the eatery.

[0043] FIG. 4 shows a flowchart diagram illustrating a sequence of acts in a system initiated face to face meeting proposal in accordance with an embodiment of the present system. As shown in the flowchart of FIG. 4, during act 410 the system 10 tracks a subject participant's presence location in real time. The real time data identifying the presence locations as well as significant locations and related historical information may be collected from the computing devices 14 (FIG. 1 ) and may be stored on the server 18 (FIG. 1 ) in order to predict meeting locations. In accordance with another embodiment of the present system, the real time data and related historical information may be maintained and/or analyzed on a user mobile device and be shared between mobile device for operation in accordance with this embodiment.

[0044] During act 412, a places transition algorithm may be used to process the presence location data collected for each selected participant. In accordance with an embodiment, the contact participants may be pre-selected using a configurable priority configuration for selecting the one or more contact participants from social contacts lists of the subject participants, as may be retrieved from the enabler services 22 (FIG. 1 ). Additionally, one or more criteria may be provided for sorting the contacts list, such as, identifying a participant that is identified on the contact list of a participant and that is in close temporal and spatial proximity, etc. The subject participant may be given an option within a user interface rendered on the portable device of selecting, which contact participants he or she would like to see.

[0045] During act 414 for each subject participant, all potential contact participants whose presence locations and calculated routes do not fall within temporal and spatial proximity to the presence locations of the subject participant are filtered out. [0046] Possible routes are determined by retrieving several sets of directions from online mapping services, such as Google maps, Mapquest, Microsoft's Bing Maps, etc., using the actual and predicted presence locations as the destination start and end. In accordance with an embodiment of the present system, the possible routes may be selected in an order given by the online mapping service. In accordance with a further embodiment of the present system, a default sorting may provide a sorting order wherein the possible routes are sorted in an order that the possible routes having a shorter time or distance are rendered higher up on a list of possible routes than those possible routes with a longer time or distance. The spatial and temporal proximity threshold for the present system to suggest a meeting may, in accordance with an embodiment, be set at a preset or calculated shape, such as a circle indicated by a radius around a proposed meeting place and/or a preset or calculated amount of time when the subject participants will be at a presence location or be along a predicted route. In another embodiment of the present system, the preset/calculated radius and/or a preset/calculated amount of time may define an area wherein an overlap radius and/or time exists between subject participants thereby creating an opportunity for suggesting a face to face meeting. For example, for subject participants that will be within a threshold distance from each other and within a threshold time of each other may be determined to be candidates for suggesting a face to face meeting. In another embodiment of the present system, the threshold may be a distance representing a real walking/driving distance on a street calculated from directions between a proposed meeting point and the participant's location (predicted or real time).

[0047] In accordance with a further embodiment of the present system, the spatial and/or temporal proximity threshold may be calculated and/or adjusted based on given conditions related to one or more of the subject participants, such as whether one or more of the subject participants is/are changing location at a quicker or slower rate. For example, a subject participant that is moving at a calculated rate (e.g., based on a changing GPS coordinate over time) of 3 miles per hour (e.g., a subject participant that is walking), may have a smaller distance threshold than a subject participant that is moving at a calculated rate of 30 miles per hour (e.g., a subject participant that is driving). A subject participant that is driving may be more readily willing to make a short route change to have a face to face meeting than a subject participant that is walking. However, in accordance with an embodiment of the present system, meeting places may be suggested that minimize or eliminate substantial increases in route distances for subject participants to arrive at a predicted significant location that follows a face to face meeting or proposed meeting of the subject participants (e.g., see FIGs. 5a-5d described herein). [0048] Once the system determines that the subject and contact participants will be within close proximity, during act 416 a notification is sent to the computing devices 14 of the subject participant or both, the subject and contact participants, indicating coordinates of a proposed face to face meeting location by using a draggable pushpin on the map. The proposed meeting location being in temporal and spatial proximity to the current presence locations and/or predicted routes of both the subject and contact participants.

[0049] FIGs. 5a, 5b, 5c and 5d show user interfaces (Uls) including a rendering of street level maps that may be rendered on a user device (e.g., a mobile user device) showing paths of subject participants including an indication of at least one proposed meeting location according to an embodiment of the present system. Specifically, FIG. 5a shows a path of a subject participant including presence locations A, B, and C. The path of the contact participant is predicted to be a transition from a significant location D to the presence location E. The system further specifies that the contact participant will be in a spatial proximity within the same time frame as the subject participant (e.g., within 5 minutes of each other). The circled region F represents temporal and spatial proximity, encompassing a current real-time location of the subject participants. [0050] As discussed above, the participants' portable computing devices in an embodiment send presence location information to the server 18. In response to some predetermined event, such as a prediction that the subject participants will be in spatial and temporal proximity, a user interface may be rendered on the subject participants computing device showing an opportunity for a face to face meeting. Should one or more of the subject participants respond within the rendered user interface with an affirmative response to the suggested face to face meeting, a suggested route may be provided to each of the subject participants as discussed further herein.

[0051] In another embodiment of the present system, a subject participant may make an inquiry within a user interface of the present system for a face to face meeting with any subject participant or a desired subset of subject participants (e.g., siblings, family, coworkers, friends, etc.) that is identified on one or more contact lists of the subject participant. In response, the server 18 may access the contact lists on the enabler services 22, stored within the portable device of the subject participant and/or otherwise accessible to the server 18 and make predictions on paths to be taken by each of the contacts, determining if the contact participant may be in spatial and temporal proximity, e.g., within ¼ mile of each other within the next 10 minutes. In this way, both spatial and temporal proximity is being considered in accordance with this embodiment o the present system. The system may further inquire, through the user interface, if the subject participant wants a face to face meeting with a specific contact participant, alternatively the subject participant may request the specific contact participant for a face to face meeting. In either event, in a case wherein the subject participant selects to have a face to face meeting, the system 10 will initiate a rendering on the contact participant's portable computing device, soliciting the contact participant to accept or refuse a face to face meeting with the subject participant. In a case wherein the contact participant accepts the face to face meeting, as illustrated in FIG. 5b, the system 10 may render on each of the subject participants and the contact participants mobile device, a map with a pushpin Z, or other icon or symbol that may be selected and/or may be predefined to represent a meeting location (e.g., a suggested meeting location), that is within a region of temporal and spatial proximity for both the subject and contact participants.

[0052] Returning to FIG. 4, during act 418, the subject and contact participants may negotiate, in real time, the actual location for their face to face meeting by one or more of the subject and contact participants dragging the pushpin on the rendered map. In accordance with an embodiment, when one of the subject and contact participant changes a location of a rendered pushpin, the rendered pushpin on the computing devices 14 on the other one of the subject and one or more contact participants, also changes to reflect the changed location. Alternatively, one or more of the subject and contact participants may choose to reject a face to face meeting.

[0053] As illustrated in FIGs. 5c and 5d, in accordance with an embodiment of the present system, when one participant drags the pushpin on the rendered map, the change may be visually reflected in real-time on the other participants computing device display. In FIG. 5c one participant is dragging the pushpin icon Z to an alternative location different from that proposed by the system 10. As the icon is dragged, local public places could be highlighted, with descriptions of the offerings of that place, e. g., Starbucks in Kendall Square. As shown in FIG. 5d, the contact participant may respond by dragging the pushpin to a third different proposed place where they prefer for the meeting to take place.

[0054] Once agreed upon, a detailed description of a final negotiated location may be rendered on the map in addition to the rendering of the draggable icon (e.g., pushpin) to indicate the final negotiated location. In accordance with an embodiment of the present system, the detailed description may be rendered directly on the displayed map or may be rendered in a box or window visually linked to the meeting icon Z, within the rendered user interface (e.g., the detailed description may be rendered within a balloon). [0055] Returning to FIG. 4, once the system during act 420 determines that the participants have finally agreed on the face to face meeting location and time, detailed directions on how to reach the meeting location may be provided to the participants during act 422. SCHEDULED MEETING EMBODIMENT EXAMPLE

[0056] FIG. 6 shows a flowchart diagram illustrating a sequence of acts in a subject participant initiated or scheduled face to face meeting proposal in accordance with an embodiment of the present system. In an illustrative embodiment of the present system, a subject participant, such as an officer of a manufacturing company, may request to have a face to face meeting with one or more contact participants, such as the company's field sales representatives.

[0057] During act 610 the subject participant requests or schedules a meeting by selecting a contact participant desired for inclusion in the meeting and an expiration time and date for the system to stop looking for meeting opportunities. [0058] During act 612 the subject participant selects the contact participant from the contact lists 22 such as shown in FIG. 1 and as discussed herein. During act 614, an application in accordance with the present system, may build a list of available timeslots by taking into consideration static calendar data and tracking the real time presence location of all the selected contact participants, and making predictions when they are in significant locations.

[0059] During act 616, after predicting that one or more of the identified participants are in a potential region of temporal and spatial proximity, such as all the identified participants, the present system will dynamically build a map pinpointing the predicted location of all the participants on the map. The system will further calculate a location such the closest location for all the participants. In accordance with the present system, the location may be rendered on the map represented by a draggable pushpin. Invitation notices including the map may then be sent to all the participants and displayed on their computing devices 14 (FIG. 1 ).

[0060] During act 618, it may be determined if all the participants have agreed to participate at a particular time slot. If any of the required contact participants have declined the invitation, during act 620 a new time slot may be proposed and if the proposed meeting location is different than previously proposed, a new location of the pushpin may be rendered on the participants' computing devices 14.

[0061] Furthermore, an application interface may be provided on the participants' computing devices, for them to negotiate the proposed locations and times with each other and accept. In accordance with an embodiment of the present system, the negotiation may be achieved by using a draggable pushpin (see FIGs. 5c and 5d) and/or a slider representing the time of the day (see, FIG. 5e) on the display of the computing devices, to choose a specific place and time to meet.

[0062] FIG. 5e shows a user interface 540 including a rendering of a street level map showing paths of subject participants including a slider 550 representing a time of the day on the display of the computing devices, to choose a specific place and time to meet. The slider 550 may be utilized to adjust a suggested time to meet including a range of possible times. In accordance with the present system, one or more of the users may manipulate the slider 550 to narrow or broaden a range of meeting times. In accordance with an embodiment of the present system, a position on the slider 550 may be selected (e.g., using a touch screen Ul) to indicate a predicted location 560 for a user and a time corresponding to the selected position on the slider 550 to assist in selecting a meeting time/place. For example, a participant may be suggested a meeting time range of within 20 minutes for a suggested meeting yet the participant may know from other information that he is only available for a time range of 10 minutes since he has an errand to run after than. In another embodiment of the present system, a participants schedule may be utilized to adjust the suggested time range for a meeting such as when a participant has an appointment scheduled in a calendar application/database available for scrutiny by the present system, such as a calendar application local to the portable computing device 14 (e.g., see, FIGs. 1 and 9) and/or a calendar application/database that is available on the server 18 or other connected server/database, such as available through a cloud connected network as appreciated by a person of ordinary skill in the art.

[0063] During act 622, once it is determined that all the participants have agreed on the meeting location and time, detailed directions on how to reach the meeting location may be provided. [0064] FIG. 7 shows a flow diagram illustrating the meeting creation sequence in the participant scheduled embodiment of FIG. 6 of the present system. Using the example, to set up a meeting with the company's sales representatives or contact participants, during act 710 the subject participant may log in to the server 18 (FIG. 1 ), select from the social contacts list 22 several contact participants to attend the meeting and specify an expiration date for the prospective meeting, e.g., within one week from now. In accordance with a further embodiment of the present system, the user may select a desired time period (e.g., in three days, plus or minus one day) for the meeting.

[0065] In either event, during act 712, a calendar manager 700 may retrieve the static calendar data for each selected contact participant, merge the retrieved calendars and render the available time slots aggregated across all of their calendars. In this way, the subject participants are enabled to select a timeslot.

[0066] During act 714, a list of meeting opportunities for each of the selected timeslots is created. This list is provided to a notification manager 750. FIG. 8 illustrates processing performed by the notification manager in detecting and predicting transitions (e.g., routes) of participants between presence locations. As already described, using the user interface provided on the computing device 14, the subject participant may create a meeting by entering the contact participants' names, the subject of the meeting, expected meeting length, and its lifespan. The system responds by generating a number of timeslots, i.e., timeslots (1 , 2, n), and submits them to the calendar manager to determine the timeslots during which all entered contact participants are present. For thus determined timeslots, a location manager 810 provides a notification of a timeslot for a face to face meeting, a map displaying information about the proposed meeting and the meeting's location, subject, duration, and time as for example rendered on a mobile device of participants.

[0067] Returning to FIG. 7, during act 716 one time slot is selected and if current time is greater or equal to the onset time of the timeslot, it is determined during act 718 if the timeslot is to be activated. The determination is performed periodically, for example, every minute. Once activation of the timeslot is determined, during act 722 an invitation to a meeting is sent and during act 724 a response from the participants is accepted.

[0068] Upon acceptance, as discussed above, a map with a proposed meeting place closest to the predicted presence locations of the contact participants and optionally their predicted locations during the timeslot is rendered on the computing devices 14 (FIG. 1 ).

[0069] Alternatively, the subject participant may specify the "serendipitous" setting and allow the system to track their positions dynamically and propose a meeting place and the timeslot when their locations and predicted places/transitions are within some critical spatial and temporal proximity to each other. In accordance with the present system, the participants may receive an invitation in real time inviting them to the face to face meeting. If the invitation is rejected, another invitation may be sent during and/or suggesting a next timeslot until all the timeslots expire or are rejected. [0070] As described above, the contact participants receive the notifications, maps, and the proposed meeting details, and after accepting a meeting timeslot, may negotiate a meeting place. If the timeslot is not accepted, the predictions of the presence locations of the contact participants may be recalculated for the next available timeslot. Further, where more than one presence location is predicted for the same contact participant, all predicted presence locations may be displayed. [0071] FIG. 9 shows a device 900 that may correspond to one or more of the device 14 and/or the server 18 of FIG. 1. The device 990 includes a processor 910 operationally coupled to a memory 920, a rendering device 930, such as one or more of a display, speaker, etc., a user input device 970 and a network 980. The memory 920 may be any type of device for storing application data, such as a face to face meeting application in accordance with the present system, as well as other data. The application data and other data are received by the processor 910 for configuring the processor 910 to perform operation acts in accordance with the present system. The processor 910 so configured becomes a special purpose machine particularly suited for performing in accordance with the present system.

[0072] The operation acts may include controlling the rendering device 930 to render one or more user interfaces, such as a graphical user interface (GUI) in accordance with the present system. The user input 970 may include a keyboard, mouse, trackball or other devices, including touch sensitive displays, which may be stand alone or be a part of a system, such as part of a personal computer, personal digital assistant, mobile phone, converged device, tablet computer or other rendering device for communicating with the processor 910 via any type of link, such as a wired or wireless link. The user input device 970 is operable for interacting with the processor 910 including interaction within a paradigm of a Ul such as a GUI and/or other elements of the present system, such as provided by user interaction with a computer mouse, etc., as may be readily appreciated by a person of ordinary skill in the art.

In accordance with an embodiment of the present system, the rendering device 930 may operate as a touch sensitive display for communicating with the processor 910 and thereby, the rendering device 930 may also operate as a user input device. In this way, a user may interact with the processor 910 including interaction within a paradigm of a Ul, such as to support inviting a participant to participate in a face to face meeting, etc. Clearly the user device 990, the processor 910, memory 920, rendering device 930 and/or user input device 970 may all or partly be portions of a computer system or other device, and/or be embedded in a portable device, such as a mobile station (MS), mobile telephone, personal computer (PC), personal digital assistant (PDA), tablet computer, converged device such as a smart telephone, etc.

The system and method described herein address problems in prior art systems. In accordance with an embodiment of the present system, the user device 990, corresponding user interfaces and other portions of the system 900 are provided for supporting a face to face meeting.

The methods of the present system are particularly suited to be carried out by a computer software program, such program containing modules corresponding to one or more of the acts described and/or envisioned by the present system. Such program may of course be embodied in a computer-readable medium, such as an integrated chip, a peripheral device or memory, such as the memory 920 or other memory coupled to the processor 910.

The computer-readable medium and/or memory 920 may be any recordable medium (e.g., RAM, ROM, removable memory, CD-ROM, hard drives, DVD, floppy disks or memory cards) or may be a transmission medium utilizing one or more of radio frequency (RF) coupling, Bluetooth coupling, infrared coupling etc. Any medium known or developed that may store and/or transmit information suitable for use with a computer system may be used as the computer-readable medium and/or memory 920. For example, the memory may correspond to memories available through a cloud computing network.

Additional memories may also be used. In accordance with the present system, one or more memories may configure the processor 910 to implement the methods, operational acts, and functions disclosed herein. The operation acts may include controlling the rendering device 930 to render elements in a form of a Ul and/or controlling the rendering device 930 to render other information in accordance with the present system. The memories may be implemented as electrical, magnetic or optical memory, or any combination of these or other types of storage devices. The program and/or program portions contained in the memory 920 configure the processor 910 to implement the methods, operational acts, and functions disclosed herein.

Moreover, the term "memory" should be construed broadly enough to encompass any information able to be read from or written to an address in an addressable space accessible by the processor 910. With this definition, information accessible through a network, cloud network, etc., may still be considered within the memory 920, for instance, because the processor 910 may retrieve the information from the network for operation in accordance with the present system. For example, the memory may correspond to memories available through a cloud computing network.

The network 980 should be understood to include further network connections to other user devices, systems (e.g., servers), etc., such as the social network contact list 22 shown in FIG. 1. While not shown for purposes of simplifying the following description, it is readily appreciated that the network 980 may include an operable interconnection between processors, memories (e.g., databases), displays and user inputs similar as shown for the user device 990, as well as networked servers, such as provided in FIG. 1. Accordingly, while the description contained herein focuses on details of interaction within components of the user device 990 and other user devices and servers, it should be understood to similarly apply to interactions of other devices operably coupled to the network 980.

The processor 910 is capable of providing control signals and/or performing operations in response to input signals from the user input device 970 and executing instructions stored in the memory 920. The processor 910 may be an application- specific or general-use integrated circuit(s). Further, the processor 910 may be a dedicated processor for performing in accordance with the present system or may be a general-purpose processor wherein only one of many functions operates for performing in accordance with the present system. The processor 910 may operate utilizing a program portion, multiple program segments, or may be a hardware device utilizing a dedicated or multi-purpose integrated circuit.

Finally, the above discussion is intended to be merely illustrative of the present system and should not be construed as limiting the appended claims to any particular embodiment or group of embodiments. A further embodiment of the present system may provide a Ul that operates as a browser extension, such as a browser plug-in, that may add selection items (e.g., radio buttons), modify selection items, and/or modify operation of the browser (e.g., enable intercepting of an encrypted communication prior to rendering and/or sending the confidential communication) as described herein. In addition, wile a radio button selection item is illustratively discussed for invitation to confidential communications etc., other Ul action elements may be similarly utilized, such as corresponding menu items, etc.

Thus, while the present system has been described with reference to exemplary embodiments, including user interfaces, it should also be appreciated that numerous modifications and alternative embodiments may be devised by those having ordinary skill in the art without departing from the broader and intended spirit and scope of the present system as set forth in the claims that follow. Further, while exemplary user interfaces are provided to facilitate an understanding of the present system, other user interfaces may be provided and/or elements of one user interface may be combined with another of the user interfaces in accordance with further embodiments of the present system.

The section headings included herein are intended to facilitate a review but are not intended to limit the scope of the present system. Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative manner and are not intended to limit the scope of the appended claims.

In interpreting the appended claims, it should be understood that:

a) the word "comprising" does not exclude the presence of other elements or acts than those listed in a given claim; b) the word "a" or "an" preceding an element does not exclude the presence of a plurality of such elements;

c) any reference signs in the claims do not limit their scope;

d) several "means" may be represented by the same item or hardware or software implemented structure or function;

e) any of the disclosed elements may be comprised of hardware portions (e.g. , including discrete and integrated electronic circuitry), software portions (e.g. , computer programming), and any combination thereof;

f) hardware portions may be comprised of one or both of analog and digital portions;

g) any of the disclosed devices, portions thereof, acts, etc. , may be combined together or separated into further portions, acts, etc. , unless specifically stated otherwise;

h) no specific sequence of acts or acts is intended to be required including an order of acts or acts indicated within a flow diagram; and

i) the term "plurality of an element includes two or more of the claimed element, and does not imply any particular range of number of elements; that is, a plurality of elements may be as few as two elements, and may include an immeasurable number of elements.

Claims

Claims What is claimed is:

1. A method of initiating face-to-face meetings among a plurality of participants, each of the participants having a portable computing device including a display, the portable computing device is connected to at least one server via a network, the method comprising acts of:

collecting information about a presence location for each of the plurality of participants, the presence location being a set of coordinates at which any one of the plurality of participants remains for at least a predefined duration;

notifying at least two of the participants of the plurality of participants of a corresponding temporal and spatial proximity that provides an opportunity for a face to face meeting between the at least two of the participants of the plurality of participants; and

enabling the at least two of the participants of the plurality of participants to negotiate a location and time of the face to face meeting.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the network is the Internet and the manner of connection of the portable computing devices is selected from at least one of wireless and wired.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the portable computing devices are selected from at least one of cell phones, PDAs, and computers.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising an act of identifying significant locations for each of the plurality of participants, the significant location being a presence location that is re-visited by the same participant a predefined number of times.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising an act of determining routes taken by the participants between their corresponding significant locations.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising an act of recommending a face to face meeting between a subject participant and at least one contact participant to one or more of the subject and contact participants when the temporal and spatial proximity is determined between the routes to be taken by the subject and contact participants.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising an act of a subject participant requesting a recommendation for a face to face meeting with at least one contact participant.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the act of requesting the recommendation comprises an act of the subject participant providing contact participants names, the subject of the face to face meeting, expected length of the face to face meeting, and the lifespan of the recommendation.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the act of requesting the recommendation further comprises providing timeslots during which the face to face meeting is to be recommended.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising an act of recommending a face to face meeting of the subject participant and the requested contact participants to the subject and contact participants when availability of all contact participants and temporal and spatial proximity during at least one timeslot is determined.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the act of enabling further comprises acts of: rendering a map on the display of the computing device of each of the participants; and

providing an icon for indicating a proposed meeting location on the map.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the participants are enabled to move the icon on the map to locations of their choice to negotiate the location and time of the face to face meeting.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the participants see movements of the icon by other participants in real time.

14. A system to facilitate face-to-face meetings among a plurality of participants, the system comprising:

a portable computing device associated with each of a plurality of participants, the portable computing device including a display and a user input device;

at least one server connected to the portable computing device via a network; a processor configured to:

collect information about a presence location for each of the plurality of participants, the presence location being a set of coordinates at which the participant remains for at least a predefined duration;

notify at least two of the participants of a corresponding temporal and spatial proximity that provides an opportunity for a face to face meeting between the at least two of the participants; and enable the at least two of the participants to negotiate a location and time of the face to face meeting utilizing the display and the user input device.

15. A portable computing device to facilitate face-to-face meetings among a plurality of participants, the portable computing device comprising:

a display;

a user input device; and

a processor configured to:

collect information about a presence location for a first one of the plurality of participants, the presence location being a set of coordinates at which the one of the plurality of participants remains for at least a predefined duration;

provide notification to at least one second one of the plurality of participants of a corresponding temporal and spatial proximity that provides an opportunity for a face to face meeting between the first one of the plurality of participants and the at least one second one of the plurality of participants; and

enable the first one of the plurality of participants and the at least one second one of the plurality of participants to negotiate a location and time of the face to face meeting utilizing the display and the user input device of the first one of the plurality of participants.