Sensing systems
A system learns to automatically identify, and detect, contextual conditions that may serve as action triggers to help please a user (or avoid annoying a user). Among other features, a simple sensor arrangement is detailed which, in addition to producing a customary stream of high bandwidth sensor data, provides an output of low bandwidth data. This low-bandwidth data serves to identify a particular reference pattern with which the high-bandwidth sensor data is found to correspond. Such a sensor can employ reference patterns discovered through pseudo-random trials. A great number of other advantageous features and arrangements are also detailed.
1. A method for extending the battery life of a phone that includes the acts:
while the phone is in a sleep state, sensing a physical phenomenon with a sensing element, yielding sensed information;
while the phone is still in said sleep state, lossily compressing the sensed information, yielding compressed data; and
waking a processor from the sleep state based on said compressed data;
wherein said act of lossily compressing includes performing multiplications between a vector of sensed data, and plural rows of matrix coefficients.
2. The method of claim 1 in which the rows of matrix coefficients each represents a pattern, and the compressing further includes determining which of said rows of matrix coefficients represents a pattern most similar to a pattern in said sensed information.
3. The method of claim 2 in which:
the sensed information comprises a temporal sequence of sensed data values;
the plural rows of matrix coefficients have an order; and
the compressed data comprises an integer datum indicating an ordinal position, within said order, of a row of matrix coefficients that represents a pattern most similar to said temporal sequence of sensed data values.
4. A method for extending the battery life of a phone that includes the acts:
lossily compressing sensed data gathered by the phone, yielding lossily-compressed sensed data;
caching the lossily-compressed sensed data in a phone memory;
dividing the cached data into pieces; and
transmitting different pieces of the cached data to a remote processor using a signaling channel, when the phone is caused to make a wireless transmission for reasons other than to transmit cached data.
5. The method of claim 4 that includes adding new lossily-compressed sensed data to said phone memory during each of 10 consecutive minutes, while the phone is conveyed by a user but is in a sleep state, and not transmitting any of such added data to the remote processor during said 10 consecutive minutes, but rather transmitting certain of said added data at a later time.
6. The method of claim 4 that includes adding new lossily-compressed sensed data to said phone memory during each of 100 consecutive minutes, while the phone is conveyed by a user but is in a sleep state, and not transmitting any of such added data to the remote processor during said 100 consecutive minutes, but rather transmitting certain of said added data at a later time.
7. The method of claim 4 in which said signaling channel is an SMS signaling channel.
8. A mobile device including a battery, a processor and a sensing element, the processor being configured to extend a life of the battery by performing acts including:
while the device is in a sleep state, sensing a physical phenomenon with the sensing element, yielding sensed information;
while the device is still in said sleep state, lossily compressing the sensed information, yielding compressed data; and
waking a processor from the sleep state based on said compressed data;
wherein the processor is configured to lossily compress the sensed information by performing multiplications between a vector of sensed data, and plural rows of matrix coefficients.
9. The device of claim 8 in which the rows of matrix coefficients each represents a pattern, and the processor is configured to determine which of said rows of matrix coefficients represents a pattern most similar to a pattern in said sensed information.
10. The device of claim 9 in which:
the sensed information comprises a temporal sequence of sensed data values;
the plural rows of matrix coefficients have an order; and
the compressed data comprises an integer datum indicating an ordinal position, within said order, of a row of matrix coefficients that represents a pattern most similar to said temporal sequence of sensed data values.
11. The device of claim 8 in which the sensing element and the processor are on a common silicon substrate.
12. A mobile device including a battery, a memory, a wireless transmitter, a processor and a sensor, the processor being configured to extend a life of the battery by performing acts including:
lossily compressing sensed data gathered by the sensor, yielding lossily-compressed sensed data;
caching the lossily-compressed sensed data in the memory;
dividing the cached data into pieces; and
transmitting different pieces of the cached data with the wireless transmitter to a remote processor using a signaling channel, when the device is caused to make a wireless transmission for reasons other than to transmit cached data.
13. The device of claim 12 in which the processor is configured to add new lossily-compressed sensed data to the memory during each of 10 consecutive minutes, while the device is conveyed by a user but is in a sleep state, and not transmitting any of such added data to the remote processor during said 10 consecutive minutes, but rather transmitting certain of said added data at a later time.
14. The device of claim 12 in which the processor is configured to add new lossily-compressed sensed data to the memory during each of 100 consecutive minutes, while the device is conveyed by a user but is in a sleep state, and not transmitting any of such added data to the remote processor during said 100 consecutive minutes, but rather transmitting certain of said added data at a later time.
15. The device of claim 12 in which said signaling channel is an SMS signaling channel.