Method and apparatus for providing contextual services

摘要

Provided are systems and methods for contextually providing services via a portable computer at a selected location. According to some embodiments, the systems and methods include processes for determining location-specific information about the selected location, determining status information about a user of the portable computer interface, and displaying an available service to the user on a display screen of the portable computer, the available service being selected based on the location-specific information and the status information, configuring a portable computer for transient use by a plurality of guests at a selected location.

主权项

1. A computer implemented method to configure a plurality of portable computers at a selected location for a plurality of transient users, the method comprising:
determining, by a computer system, location-specific information about the selected location, the location specific information including a location of each portable computer of the plurality of portable computers at the selected location; determining, by a computer system, status information about a first transient user and a second transient user of at least one portable computer of the plurality of portable computers, wherein the first transient user and the second transient user are visitors at the selected location and the status information includes visitor information of the first transient user and the second transient user; grouping, by a computer system, the plurality of portable computers into a hierarchy comprising a plurality of layers based on the location of each portable computer of the plurality of portable computers at the selected location, wherein the hierarchy defines a cascading configuration profile of respective configurations through the plurality of layers whereby subsequent layers override configuration settings from at least one preceding layer; assigning, by a computer system, at least one configuration profile to each portable computer of the plurality of portable computers based on analyzing membership of each portable computer to one or more layers within the plurality of layers of the hierarchy and configuration settings for each of the one or more layers; receiving, by a computer system, an update to the at least one configuration profile associated with the one or more layers of the hierarchy; updating, by a computer system, the at least one configuration profile on each of the portable computers assigned to the one or more layers of the hierarchy; identifying, by a computer system, a relationship between the first transient user and the second transient user based on the status information; and displaying, by an interface of the at least one portable computer, digital content consistent with the at least one configuration profile assigned to the at least one portable computer, wherein the digital content includes an available service presented to the first transient user selected based on user activity of the second transient user on the at least one portable computer.