| 摘要 |
Methods and applications (apps) for capturing, storing, retrieving and presenting social traces, which are records of previous visits of friends and contacts of a user to specific locations. Both physical (geographical) and virtual (network) locations are supported. A user at a location may indicate that he or she would like to learn more about the location from a friend or acquaintance listed in the contact list of his or her personal computing device who has previously visited the location. At the user's request, a query is sent out to persons in the contact list, who are prompted to respond if the location appears in a log of their visited locations. A person who responds affirmatively will be automatically connected in a communication session with the inquiring user. Personal privacy is assured, because location and visitation records are kept under control of each user, and no information is sent out without explicit approval by the user. |
| 主权项 |
1. A method for leaving social traces by personal computing devices, the method comprising:
storing in a data storage, by a first personal computing device, a plurality of stored locations, wherein each stored location is stored upon being a current location of the first personal computing device; receiving, in the first personal computing device, a query from a second personal computing device of a second user, the query identifying at least the second user and a queried location; responsively to the receiving the query: recognizing, by the first personal computing device, the queried location as being the same as one of the plurality of stored locations; responsively to the recognizing: presenting to the first user, by the first personal computing device, a suggestion to communicate with the second user regarding the queried location; and responsively to receiving a user approval of the suggestion: initiating, by the first personal computing device, a communication session between the first personal computing device and the second personal computing device. |
