Storing and recalling information to augment human memories

A method in a computer for assisting a user in recalling a previous state, the computer having a plurality of stored state fragments each describing a previous time and having an associated topic related to the described previous time, each state fragment including information recorded at the previous time for that state fragment by at least one computer input sensor and descriptive information about the recorded information, the method comprising:

• receiving from the user an indication of a topic related to a previous time, the indication received by a State Recall Module of the computer;
• determining whether one of the stored state fragments has an associated topic matching the indicated topic, the determining performed by the State Recall Module;
• and
• when one of the stored state fragments is determined to have a matching associated topic, assisting the user to recall information about the previous time described by the determined one state fragment by, under control of the State Recall Module,
• presenting to the user the recorded information of the one state fragment;
• and
• presenting to the user the descriptive information of the one state fragment.

A method in a computer for assisting a user in recalling a past state, the computer having a plurality of stored state fragments each describing a previous time, each state fragment having information recorded at the previous time for that state fragment by at least one computer input sensor and having an associated topic related to the recorded information, the method comprising:

• monitoring the user to collect a group of information about a current state of the user;
• monitoring an environment of the user to collect a group of information about a current state of the environment;
• and
• without user intervention,
• determining based on the collected groups of information a topic of interest to the user, the determining performed by an executing User Modeling Module;
• and
• assisting the user in recalling a past state having information related to the determined topic by, under control of an executing State Recall Module,
• identifying a stored state fragment with an associated topic that matches the determined topic;
• and
• presenting to the user the recorded information of the identified state fragment.

A method in a computer for assisting a user in recalling a previous state, the computer having a plurality of stored groups of information each describing a previous state and each having a recall tag, each group of information having information recorded from an environment external to the user by at least one computer input device and having information recorded from the user by at least one computer input device, the method comprising:

• receiving an indication of a recall tag for use in retrieval of a stored group of information, the indication received by an executing State Recall Module;
• determining whether one of the stored groups of information has a recall tag matching the indicated recall tag, the determining performed under control of the State Recall Module;
• and
• when one of the stored groups of information is determined to have a matching recall tag, assisting the user in recalling the previous state described by the one group of information by, under control of the State Recall Module,
• presenting to the user the recorded environment information from the one group of information;
• and
• presenting to the user the recorded user information from the one group of information.

A computer-readable medium whose contents cause a computer to provide information to a user about an environment of the user at a previous time, the computer having a plurality of stored groups of information each describing an environment of the user at a previous time and each having an associated recall tag, each group of information having descriptive information about the environment and having information recorded from the environment at the previous time by at least one computer input device, by performing a method comprising:

• receiving an indication of a recall tag related to a previous time, the indication received by a State Recall Module of the computer;
• determining whether one of the stored groups of information has an associated recall tag matching the indicated recall tag, the determining performed under control of the State Recall Module;
• and
• when one of the stored groups of information is determined to have a matching recall tag, providing information to the user about the environment at the previous time described by the determined one group of information by, under control of the State Recall Module,
• presenting to the user the recorded information from the determined one group of information;
• and
• presenting to the user the descriptive information from the determined one group of information.