Harvesting labels for significant locations and updating a location fingerprint database using harvested labels

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10070261-B2
Application number	US-201615285387-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 4, 2016
Priority date	Oct 4, 2016
Publication date	Sep 4, 2018
Grant date	Sep 4, 2018

Abstract

This disclosure describes embodiments for harvesting and serving labels for locations. In an embodiment, a method comprises: receiving, by one or more server computers, location data including wireless access point data and location labels associated with significant locations, the location data being harvested from a plurality of devices operating at a plurality of geographic locations; and updating, by the one or more server computers, a plurality of fingerprints representing the plurality of geographic locations, the updating including associating at least one of the received location labels with at least one of the plurality of fingerprints.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
receiving, by one or more server computers, location data including wireless access point data and location labels, the location data being harvested from a plurality of devices operating at a plurality of geographic locations, each location label indicating an association with a respective significant location as determined by a respective device and comprising a description of the significant location as determined by the respective device; and
updating, by the one or more server computers, a plurality of fingerprints representing the plurality of geographic locations, the updating including associating at least one of the received location labels with at least one of the plurality of fingerprints.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the location data further includes motion classification data classifying a movement detected by a respective device as a particular user activity type from among a plurality of user activity types, and the updating further comprises associating at least one of the received location labels with at least one the plurality of fingerprints using the motion classification data.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the location data further includes commercial transaction data associated with a particular significant location, and the updating further comprises associating the at least one received location label with the at least one fingerprint using the commercial transaction data.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the wireless access point data includes received signal strength values calculated from wireless radio frequency signals transmitted by one or more wireless access points at the significant locations.

5. A system comprising:
one or more processors;
memory coupled to the one or more processors and operable for storing instructions, which, when executed by the one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
receiving location data including wireless access point data and location labels, the location data being harvested from a plurality of devices operating at a plurality of geographic locations, each location label indicating an association with a respective significant location as determined by a respective device and comprising a description of the significant location as determined by the respective device; and
updating a plurality or fingerprints representing the plurality of geographic locations, the updating including associating at least one of the received location labels with at least one of the plurality of fingerprints.

6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the location data further includes motion classification data classifying a movement detected by a respective device as a particular user activity type from among a plurality of user activity types, and the updating further comprises associating at least one of the received location labels with at least one the plurality of fingerprints using the motion classification data.

7. The system of claim 5 , wherein the location data further includes commercial transaction data associated with a particular significant location, and the updating further comprises associating the at least one received location label with the at least one fingerprint using the commercial transaction data.

8. The system of claim 5 , wherein the wireless access point data includes received signal strength values calculated from wireless radio frequency signals transmitted by one or more wireless access points at the significant locations.

9. The method of claim 2 , wherein the plurality of user activity types comprises walking, running, driving, or hiking.

10. The method of claim 3 , wherein the commercial transaction data indicates that a commercial transaction occur at the particular significant location.

Assignees

• Apple Inc

Inventors

• Dal Santo Michael P
• Rhee Stephen J
• Huang Ronald K
• Holt Nicholas M

Classifications

• H04W64/006

  with additional information processing, e.g. for direction or speed determination · CPC title

• H04L67/02

  based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP] · CPC title

• H04W24/10

  Scheduling measurement reports {; Arrangements for measurement reports} · CPC title

• H04W4/025 Primary

  using location based information parameters · CPC title

• H04L67/20

  Electricity · mapped topic