International Business Machines Corporation

Alan George Cole

Jonathan Paul Munson

Sastry Duri

David Alvra Wood, Iii

John S Murdock, Jr

Paul Andrew Moskowitz

Dhandapani Shanmugam

Siddique A Mohammed

Vineet Kumar Gupta

Victor S Moore

Ravishankar Rao

Han Chen

James Edward Christensen

Yael Ravin

David A Wood

Howard Sachar

Amadeus Podvratnik

Jeffrey G Elliott

Stella J Mitchell

Holger H Maier

Abhishek Patil

Robert H Riekert

Michel Bézy

Sastry S Duri

John S Murdock

Techniques for generating a composite spatial representation are presented. For example, a method includes obtaining a plurality of source spatial representations from a plurality of source applications, and forming the composite spatial representation by combining the plurality of source spatial representations. The composite spatial representation is operative to interact with at least one behavioral element that is separate from the composite spatial representation. The obtaining of the plurality of source spatial representations and the forming of the composite spatial representation are executed on a computing system comprising a processor and a memory. One or more computer program instructions for implementing the obtaining of the plurality of source spatial representations and the forming of the composite spatial representation are obtained from the memory and executed by the processor device.

Generation of composite spatial representations

It is determined whether a location of a mobile device is within a coverage region of a first information service. Communications for the first information service are redirected to a second information service when the location of the mobile device is not within a coverage region of the first information service. The second information service generally has a coverage region encompassing the location of the mobile device. Communications between the mobile device and the first information service are redirected to a new information service when properties of the new information service are determined to meet predetermined criteria set by a user of the mobile device, by an application, or both. In yet another aspect of the invention, replacement of information services can be 'aggressive' or 'non-aggressive.' Communications between the mobile device and an original information service are redirected to another information service when the original information service fails.

Dynamic service binding providing transparent switching of information services having defined coverage regions

Controlling haptic feedback in a mobile communication device is provided. Metadata associated with a set of objects within requested content is parsed to identify each object within the requested content having an associated frequency pattern included in the metadata. The requested content is displayed in a display device. A touch input is received on the display device at a location of an identified object that has an associated frequency pattern within the requested content. A frequency and a duration of a vibration generated by a variable frequency vibration device simulating a tactile texture of the identified object touched within the requested content is controlled using the associated frequency pattern of the identified object.

Providing a sense of touch in a mobile device using vibration

Methods and apparatus are provided for matching audio advertisements to items on a shopping list in a mobile device. Audio advertisements are matched to items on a shopping list by obtaining the shopping list from a mobile device of the user; applying a speech recognizer to at least one audio advertisement detected on a microphone of the mobile device; identifying one or more key words in the at least one audio advertisement; comparing the one or more identified key words to one or more items on the shopping list stored on the mobile device; and storing the information related to the at least one advertisement if the one or more identified key words match the one or more items.

Matching audio advertisements to items on a shopping list in a mobile device

Spatial rules involve locations of entities, such as wireless devices, from a mobile population. When evaluating rules in a communication network, attributes of an entity are determined, where one of the attributes comprises location of the entity. Rules are evaluated to produce one or more results, each of the rules operating on the attributes of the entity. Specified actions for the rules are performed, based on the evaluation of the rules. At least one of the specified actions comprises communicating a result to an application. The communication network may have a portion that is wireless. An attribute of the entity can include subscriber information and an entity generally corresponds to a particular subscriber in the communication network, but the entity may also correspond to multiple subscribers. An entity may be a wireless device, which can subscribe to a network. Rules can apply to particular geographical regions, to particular subscribers, to both, or to additional criteria.

Evaluation of spatial rules over a mobile population

The invention provides an approach for automatic and dynamic mapping of zone boundaries for position-determination systems. The system of the present invention utilizes beacons ('position determining devices') to identify the boundaries and limits of device area coverage ('zone') for tracking objects with a position-determination system. Beacons, used both to identify zone boundaries and to tag assets to be tracked, are distributed within the zone. The beacon locations are then detected and displayed in the visualization application. Three or more beacons may be linked together, either manually or automatically, to establish a detection zone. Using beacons to establish detection zone boundaries eliminates guesswork and its associated errors, and produces a zone boundary that is actually valid. In an improvement over present systems, greater accuracy is assured using zone-defining beacons, because if a beacon is unintentionally placed in an area unavailable to the position-determination system, that beacon will not appear in the visualization application display, and thus will not be available to create an incorrect zone representation.

Dynamic boundary mapping using position-determination systems

It is determined whether a location of a mobile device is within a coverage region of a first information service. Communications for the first information service are redirected to a second information service when the location of the mobile device is not within a coverage region of the first information service. The second information service generally has a coverage region encompassing the location of the mobile device. Communications between a mobile device and a first information service are redirected to another information service when properties of the new information service are determined to meet predetermined criteria set by a user of the mobile device, by an application, or both. In yet another aspect of the invention, Replacement of information services can be 'aggressive' or 'non-aggressive.' Communications between a mobile device and an original information service are redirected to another information service when the original information service fails.

Techniques are presented for identifying mobile devices within a coverage region of a wireless station. Positions for mobile devices, if any, within the coverage region are determined. It is then determined whether the positions are within one or more defined areas, called 'notification areas' herein. Additionally, selected mobile devices within notification areas are sent messages. The selected mobile devices are selected via certain criteria, including, for instance, campaign specifications and subscriber information. A message can be sent to a mobile device if the subscriber corresponding to the mobile device has indicated an acceptance of a category of notifications for the message and for the publisher who is publishing the notifications. The category could be traffic conditions and the publisher could be a Department of Transportation having responsibility for a particular freeway. These are two examples of multiple criteria for selecting mobile devices to which messages could be sent.

High-rate proximity detection with the ability to provide notification

A method for determining attributes of entities within a physical space. More specifically, the location of the entities in the physical space are determined using this invention. A reader automatically moves throughout the space and takes measurements of the attributes of corresponding entities when it detects the presence of these entities in the physical space. The attributes of the entities could be the location, temperature and so forth. The reader could be an RF detection device for reading signals from the tags attached to the entities.

Method and system for autonomous correlation of sensed environmental attributes with entities

The present invention provides methods and apparatus to distinguish and/or separate an object from a background. The methods use backgrounds of known and/or advantageous texture. In an embodiment, a measure of image texture, namely the spatial frequency is used to distinguish and/or separate an object from its background. The use of image texture overcomes limitations of chroma keying used as a processing technique in photography for object-background separation. This is useful in the separation of image pixels belonging to the object of interest from image pixels belonging to the background.

Segmentation of an object from a background in digital photography

This invention provides methods, apparatus, system, and article of manufacture which solve the problem of mismatch between the keywords employed by a user in making a query and those assigned by the manual or automatic classification system stored in the system's keyword index. The system records the initial keyword(s) input by the user and holds them until the user is either satisfied or gives up. If in a query session the user is satisfied with the object(s) retrieved from the repository, the system associates the initial keywords(s) with the retrieved object(s). This facilitates the object's retrieval by the same user or subsequent users who input the same keywords. The keyword index is modified directly when, for example, a single service or application controls the interaction between user and repository, end to end.

Modifying a key-word listing based on user response

A text editor is connected to a speech recognizing unit for editing preferably spoken input text using a display speech. For each text word (including digits), and each punctuation mark that can be recognized and is contained in a dictionary, a token is stored for holding information on character count, capitalization, left and right concatenation of the respective item, and for providing fields for context conditions. For each segment or entity recognized spoken text, a respective character string and associated token is transferred to storage in the editor to allow automatic formatting and correct displaying or printing of the text, including spaces and capitalization where required. Tokens are updated during editing to reflect modifications such as in the beginning of a sentence or in concatenation. Switching to spelling mode is provided for entering single spelled characters in case where a word cannot be recognized or where spelling is desired.

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Katonah, NY, United States of America

Alan George Cole