Context-aware mobile incorporating presence of other mobiles into context

摘要

A first mobile device (for example, a cellular telephone) learns of the presence of second mobile devices (for example, other cellular telephones) that are located nearby the first mobile device. A relatively short range wireless communication mechanism (for example, Bluetooth) of the mobile devices may be used to discover other nearby devices automatically by establishing direct mobile-to-mobile communications without use of the cellular telephone functionality of the mobile devices. Regardless of how the presence of other nearby mobiles is detected, information on the presence of these nearby mobiles can be matched with other information on the users of the nearby mobiles such as user class information. The collected information is then used as an input to a context-aware functionality. The context-aware functionality applies a rule that causes the first mobile to be configured in a way that is better suited the situation and/or to who the other nearby cellular telephone users are and what they are doing.

主权项

1. A method, comprising:
learning of a presence of a second mobile communication device that is within a relatively small distance of a first mobile communication device, wherein the first mobile communication device is configured to transmit cellular telephone signals to a cellular telephone base station located at a relatively larger distance from the first mobile communication device; storing, by the first mobile communication device, first information indicative of whether the second mobile communication device is within a predefined proximity range of the first mobile communication device; storing, by the first mobile communication device, second information indicative of whether an owner of the second mobile communication device belongs to a class of users; collecting context information of the first mobile communication device; and using the first information, the second information, and the context information to determine how to change a behavior of the first mobile communication device.