WiFi and GSM landmarks and neighborhoods for location based services
A system for capturing and delivering location-based information and services captures wireless landmark information sent by mobile devices to build a map of locations based on the relationship between wireless landmarks that are visible to the mobile device at the same time. A wireless landmark may be a cellular telephone base site or local network (WiFi/Bluetooth) access point. The mobile device may capture a location signature using identifiers for all wireless local area networks in range as well as one or more cellular telephone transmitters. A location service resolves the location signature into a relative location that an application service may use to record incoming information or to send location-specific information such as traveler comments, reviews, or advertisements. The distance between two mobile devices may be calculated using weighted edge values, representing a number of ‘hops’ between location signatures.
1. A method of delivering location-based information to a mobile device, comprising:
collecting visible cellular telephone base site information at the mobile device;
collecting visible local wireless site information at the mobile device;
formatting the cellular telephone and local wireless information into a location signature;
sending the location signature from the mobile device to an information service; and
receiving location-based application data corresponding to the location signature.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving location-based application data comprises receiving data related to a nearby physical location.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving location-based application data comprises receiving data related to a nearby person or persons.
4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the location-based application data corresponds to a desired acquaintance.
5. The method of claim 3 , wherein the location-based application data corresponds to an undesired acquaintance.
6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
setting a preference corresponding to notifications of a nearby previously identified person or persons.
7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:
receiving a notice indicating presence of a previously identified person or persons when a corresponding preference is set;
sending a message to a second party via the information service.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving location-based application data comprises receiving an advertisement related to a nearby physical location.
9. A system supporting location-based application data delivery to a mobile device, the system comprising:
a mobile device including:
wireless hardware that collects visible wireless system identification information for at least two network types;
a processing capability that forms a location signature from the wireless system identification information for the at least two network types; a transceiver for sending a current location signature; and a user interface for delivering location-oriented information;
a location service that maps location signature information and matches the current location signature to a location; and
an application service that uses the location to deliver location-oriented information to the mobile device.
10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the location service comprises a module for calculating a logical distance between two mobile devices.
11. The system of claim 9 , wherein the location service assigns a first value to a local network-to-local network edge, assigns a second value to a local network-to-cellular network edge, and assigns a third value to a cellular network-to-cellular network edge when calculating the logical distance between two mobile devices, the second value numerically between the first and third values.
12. The system of claim 9 , wherein the application service includes a social network friend application.
13. The system of claim 9 , wherein the application service includes a location-based web log (blog).
14. The system of claim 9 , wherein the application service includes an advertising delivery service.
15. A method of operating a location service comprising: receiving location signatures generated by a plurality of mobile devices, each location signature including wireless landmark information for at least one cellular telephone site and at least one local network site;
assigning an edge value to a pair of wireless landmarks received in the same location signature;
generating a map of wireless landmarks using landmark pairs received in the same location signature and using edge values to determine logical distances between cellular telephone sites and location network sites;
receiving a first location signature from a mobile device;
returning a map location including logical distances from a plurality of wireless landmarks for use in accessing location-related information.
16. The method of claim 15 , wherein the location-related information is location-specific information about a fixed geographic feature.
17. The method of claim 15 , wherein the location-related information corresponds to nearby people.
18. The method of claim 15 , wherein the location-related information corresponds to a desired person.
19. The method of claim 15 , wherein the location-related information corresponds to an undesired person.
20. The method of claim 15 , wherein assigning an edge value to a pair of wireless landmarks received in the same location signature comprises:
assigning a value of 1 to a local network to local network edge;
assigning a value of 5 to a local network to cellular telephone site edge; and
assigning a value of 10 to a cellular telephone site to cellular telephone site edge.