Method and apparatus for defining a behavior region for a communication device
View Patent ↗A portable phone is equipped with a position detector that detects the geographical position of the portable phone, and a telephone system may ring one or more land-based phones or portable phones according to the geographical position of the portable phone. One or more geographical regions are defined, with corresponding telephone parameters defined for each region. When a portable phone enters a defined region, exits a defined region, or changes between two defined regions, the function of one or more land-based phones or portable phones may change. The preferred embodiments thus allow changing the function of one or more other phones based on the self-detected geographical position of a portable phone. In this manner the convenience of using portable phones is greatly enhanced.
1. A method for dynamically defining a region for a portable phone that includes an internal position detector, the method comprising:
(1) placing the portable phone in a dynamic region definition mode;
(2) moving the portable phone to a first boundary point;
(3) storing the first boundary point as a boundary point for the region as detected by the internal position detector;
(4) repeating acts (2) and (3) until all desired boundary points have been entered; and
(5) computing a region by connecting the boundary points.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein act (3) is performed in response to the user selecting a store boundary point function on the portable phone.
3. The method of claim 2 wherein the store boundary point function is selected by a user pressing at least one key on the portable phone.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein act (C) is performed in response to the user selecting a compute region function on the portable phone.
5. The method of claim 4 wherein the compute region function is selected by the user pressing at least one key on the portable phone.
6. A method for deploying computing infrastructure, comprising integrating computer readable code into a computing system, wherein the code in combination with the computing system is capable of performing the method of claim 1 .
7. A tangible, computer-readable signal bearing medium bearing computer-executable instructions for performing the method of claim 1 .
8. A portable phone comprising:
an internal position detector;
a dynamic region definition mechanism that allows dynamically defining a region for the portable phone using the internal position detector by a user of the portable phone performing the following acts:
(1) placing the portable phone in a dynamic region definition mode to activate the dynamic region definition mechanism;
(2) moving the portable phone to a first boundary point;
(3) storing the first boundary point as a boundary point for the region;
(4) repeating steps (2) and (3) until all desired boundary points have been entered; and
(5) computing a region by connecting the boundary points.
9. The portable phone of claim 6 wherein act (3) is performed in response to the user selecting a store boundary point function on the portable phone.
10. The portable phone of claim 7 wherein the store boundary point function is selected by a user pressing at least one key on the portable phone.
11. The portable phone of claim 6 wherein act (C) is performed in response to the user selecting a compute region function on the portable phone.
12. The portable phone of claim 9 wherein the compute region function is selected by the user pressing at least one key on the portable phone.