US 7,243,130 B2 · Notification platform architecture

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system (10) and methodology (170, 173, 180, 400, 600, 1000) to enable a variety of information associated with one or more notification sources (26-28) to be directed to one or more notification sinks (36-38) via a notification platform architecture (10). The architecture (10) includes a context analyzer (22) for determining a user's state such as location and attentional focus, wherein the user's state is employed by a notification manager (24) to make decisions regarding what, when and how information generated by the notification sources (26-28) should be forwarded to the notification sinks (36-38), for example. These decisions can include a cost benefit analysis wherein considerations are given as to whether the benefits of notifying the user are outweighed by the costs of disrupting the user. Decision-theoretic policies (177, 180) and/or somewhat less formal heuristic policies (177) can be employed to enable the decision-making process within the notification manager (24).

Claims16

Dependent claims

A notification system, comprising:

a context analyzer to determine a context associated with an entity and to access and store information regarding context information and notification parameters;
a notification manager to convey one or more notifications to the entity based at least in part on the determined context;
at least one notification source to generate the one or more notifications;
and
at least one notification sink to receive the one or more notifications, the at least one notification sink having parameters associated with it representing:
a cost of communication of the notification sink indicating a communication cost incurred by the entity when receiving information contained within a notification conveyed to the notification sink;
and
a cost of disruption of the notification sink indicating a disruption cost incurred by the entity when receiving information contained within a notification conveyed to the notification sink.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Notification platform architecture

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Notification platform architecture

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Abstract

Claims16