Systems and methods to track locations visited by mobile devices and determine neighbors of and distances among locations

1. A computing device, comprising:

at least one microprocessor; and

memory storing instructions configured to instruct the at least one microprocessor to:

store, in the computing device, coordinates of a plurality of locations on a surface of the Earth, wherein the surface of the Earth is covered by a plurality of cells;

for each respective location in the plurality of locations,

combine, by the computing device, coordinates of the respective location into an identifier of a cell among the plurality of cells, wherein the cell contains the respective location on the surface of the Earth; and

store, in the computing device, data associating the identifier of the cell and the respective location to facilitate a look up of the respective location using the identifier of the cell; and

for the respective location in the plurality of locations,

identify, by the computing device, a plurality of neighboring cells of the cell that contains the respective location on the surface of the Earth;

look up, by the computing device, a subset of locations by using the identifier of the cell and the identifiers of the neighboring cells in stored cell-location data that associates identifiers of respective cells and locations contained within the respective cells;

compute, by the computing device, distances between the respective location and locations in the subset;

generate, by the computing device, graph data linking the respective location to locations in the subset with edges representing the distances, wherein when a distance between locations is less than a threshold distance the locations are linked via an edge in the graph data;

store, in the computing device, the generated graph data linking the respective location to locations in the subset with the edges representing the distances that are each less than the threshold distance, wherein the plurality of locations are represented as nodes in the graph data;

store, in the computing device, a set of keywords in association with the respective location; and

propagate, by the computing device, the set of keywords via the edges to locations in the subset, wherein the propagating is caused by updating a profile of a given location in the subset based on a weighted average of a likelihood of a keyword in the profile of the given location and likelihoods of the keyword in respective profiles of locations identified in the generated graph data as neighboring the given location.

2. The computing device of claim 1 , wherein the coordinates of the respective location are combined to provide the identifier of the cell according to a predetermined function of the coordinates of the respective location, without using additional data stored in the computing device, and without using a floating point number computation.

3. The computing device of claim 2 , wherein the coordinates of the respective location are combined via:

generating two integers from longitude and latitude coordinates of the respective location according to a precision level; and

combining the two integers to provide the identifier of the cell.

4. The computing device of claim 1 , wherein the coordinates of the respective location are combined via:

selecting digits from the longitude and the latitude of the location in accordance with a cell resolution level; and

combining the digits selected from the longitude and the latitude of the location into an integer representing the identifier of the cell.

5. The computing device of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of neighboring cells are identified via computing identifiers of the neighboring cells from the identifier of the cell or the coordinates of the respective location; and the computing of the identifiers of the neighboring cells is based on predetermined functions of the identifier of the cell, without using additional data stored in the computing device and without a floating point number computation.

6. A method implemented in a computing device, the method comprising:

storing, in the computing device, coordinates of a plurality of locations on a surface of the Earth, wherein the surface of the Earth is covered by a plurality of cells;

for each respective location in the plurality of locations,

combining, by the computing device, coordinates of the respective location into an identifier of a cell among the plurality of cells, wherein the cell contains the respective location on the surface of the Earth; and

storing, in the computing device, data associating the identifier of the cell and the respective location to facilitate a look up of the respective location using the identifier of the cell; and

for the respective location in the plurality of locations,

identifying, by the computing device, a plurality of neighboring cells of the cell that contains the respective location on the surface of the Earth;

looking up, by the computing device, a subset of locations by using the identifier of the cell and the identifiers of the neighboring cells in stored cell-location data that associates identifiers of respective cells and locations contained within the respective cells;

computing, by the computing device, distances between the respective location and locations in the subset;

generating, by the computing device, graph data linking the respective location to locations in the subset with edges representing the distances, wherein when a distance between locations is less than a threshold distance the locations are linked via an edge in the graph data;

storing, in the computing device, the generated graph data linking the respective location to locations in the subset with the edges representing the distances that are each less than the threshold distance, wherein the plurality of locations are represented as nodes in the graph data;

storing, in the computing device, a set of keywords in association with the respective location; and

propagating, by the computing device, the set of keywords via the edges to locations in the subset, wherein the propagating is caused by updating a profile of a given location in the subset based on a weighted average of a likelihood of a keyword in the profile of the given location and likelihoods of the keyword in respective profiles of locations identified in the generated graph data as neighboring the given location.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the coordinates of the respective location are combined to provide the identifier of the cell without using additional data stored in the computing device.

8. The method of claim 6 , wherein the coordinates of the respective location are combined to provide the identifier of the cell according to a predetermined function of the coordinates of the respective location.

9. The method of claim 6 , wherein the combining of the coordinates of the respective location comprises:

generating two integers from longitude and latitude coordinates of the respective location according to a precision level; and

combining the two integers to provide the identifier of the cell.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the two integers are combined to form the identifier of the cell without using a floating point number computation.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the cell is a rectangle area in a longitude latitude representation of the surface of the Earth.

12. The method of claim 6 , wherein the combining of the coordinates of the respective location comprises:

selecting digits from the longitude and the latitude of the location in accordance with a cell resolution level; and

combining the digits selected from the longitude and the latitude of the location into an integer representing the identifier of the cell.

13. The method of claim 6 , wherein the identifying of the plurality of neighboring cells comprises computing identifiers of the neighboring cells from the identifier of the cell.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the computing of the identifiers of the neighboring cells is based on the identifier of the cell without using additional data stored in the computing device.

15. The method of claim 13 , wherein the computing of the identifiers of the neighboring cells is based on predetermined functions of the identifier of the cell.

16. The method of claim 13 , wherein the computing of the identifiers of the neighboring cells is based on the identifier of the cell without a floating point number computation.

17. The method of claim 6 , wherein the identifying of the plurality of neighboring cells comprises computing identifiers of the neighboring cells from the coordinates of the respective location.

18. The method of claim 6 , wherein the propagating is based on weights computed based on distances represented by the edges in the graph data.

19. A non-transitory computer storage medium storing instructions configured to instruct a computing device to perform a method, the method comprising:

storing, in the computing device, coordinates of a plurality of locations on a surface of the Earth, wherein the surface of the Earth is covered by a plurality of cells;

for each respective location in the plurality of locations,

combining, by the computing device, coordinates of the respective location into an identifier of a cell among the plurality of cells, wherein the cell contains the respective location on the surface of the Earth; and

storing, in the computing device, data associating the identifier of the cell and the respective location to facilitate a look up of the respective location using the identifier of the cell; and

for the respective location in the plurality of locations,

identifying, by the computing device, a plurality of neighboring cells of the cell that contains the respective location on the surface of the Earth;

looking up, by the computing device, a subset of locations by using the identifier of the cell and the identifiers of the neighboring cells in stored cell-location data that associates identifiers of respective cells and locations contained within the respective cells;

computing, by the computing device, distances between the respective location and locations in the subset;

generating, by the computing device, graph data linking the respective location to locations in the subset with edges representing the distances, wherein when a distance between locations is less than a threshold distance the locations are linked via an edge in the graph data;

storing, in the computing device, the generated graph data linking the respective location to locations in the subset with the edges representing the distances that are each less than the threshold distance, wherein the plurality of locations are represented as nodes in the graph data;

storing, in the computing device, a set of keywords in association with the respective location; and

propagating, by the computing device, the set of keywords via the edges to locations in the subset, wherein the propagating is caused by updating a profile of a given location in the subset based on a weighted average of a likelihood of a keyword in the profile of the given location and likelihoods of the keyword in respective profiles of locations identified in the generated graph data as neighboring the given location.