Personal server

Abstract

A personal server is provided for use with a mobile device, such as a cellular telephone. The personal server provides services to the user of the mobile device and to others authorized by the user, but to no other users. The personal server may be a home PC of the user of the mobile device. The personal server may serve as a proxy server for a shared server that provides services to the mobile device. The personal server may relay messages between the mobile device and the shared server. The personal server may store, log, filter, and perform other processing on the user's personal data, such as messages transmitted by the mobile device and / or the shared server. The personal server may aggregate messages received from a plurality of shared servers. A non-personal server may perform additional services, such as configuring the personal server and temporarily storing data if the personal server becomes inaccessible.

Description

BACKGROUND [0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to network information services and, more particularly, to techniques for providing network services to mobile devices. [0003] 2. Related Art [0004] Mobile electronic devices, such as cellular telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and laptop computers, continue to proliferate as they increase in functionality and decrease in size and price. Furthermore, all kinds of mobile electronic devices are increasingly being equipped with wireless Internet access as a standard feature. As a result, mobile devices currently provide a range of features previously only available from full-featured PCs, but with the obvious advantage of increased mobility. [0005] Mobile devices typically communicate with a centralized server, such as a web server, instant messaging (IM) server, or SMS (Short Message Service) server, which performs requested services on behalf of the mobile device. Referring to FIG. 1A, for e...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

For example, the mobile device's IM client 122a may be unable to display more than a few lines of an IM conversation at a time, may be unable to store (“log”) the contents of an IM conversation, and may be unable to receive and / or display images transmitted as attachments to IMs.

Therefore, although the users of mobile devices are increasingly looking to such devices to provide the same functionality as conventional full-featured PCs, providing such functionality in mobile devices remains a challenge, both because of the resource limitations just described and because of the relatively high cost of mobile (typically wireless) bandwidth compared to the relatively low cost of (typically wired) PC bandwidth.

The establishment of such servers, however, imposes an additional cost on the server provider, which is then passed on to the customer.

Furthermore, the mobile device users may be provided with only a limited ability to configure or otherwise control the services provided by the public servers, thereby limiting their usefulness to the end users.

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