Calendaring Location-Based Events and Associated Travel

Abstract

A user interface for an electronic calendar represents different locations or different users or different user calendars in different portions of the display. Calendar entries can be associated with one or more locations, one or more users, and with one or more user calendars. The different locations may reside in different time zones and a timeline for each time zone is displayed. The position of the calendar entry provides a visual identifier of the timeline with which the event is associated. Travel time to and from events in the calendar are calculated for calendared events and shown adjacent to the beginning and end of the event. A user's future location at a point in time is inferred from patterns in the user's locations and by analyzing the user's calendared events and correspondence in order to calculate travel time to calendared events.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61 / 142,875, filed Jan. 6, 2009, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12 / 512,854, filed Jul. 30, 2009, entitled “Data-Oriented User Interface for Mobile Device,” and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12 / 512,752, filed Jul. 30, 2009, entitled “Social Network Model for Semantic Processing” which are incorporated by reference in their entirety.BACKGROUND[0002]1. Field of the Invention[0003]The present invention relates to electronic calendars.[0004]2. Description of the Related Art[0005]Users commonly maintain electronic calendars in order to track scheduled appointments, organize meetings, provide reminders to attend planned events, and for the convenience of sharing their availability with others through allowing others to view the electronic calendar. Although electronic calendar...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0009]Embodiments of the invention provide methods, systems, and computer program products for an electronic calendar that recognizes events on the calendar occur at locations and accounts for travel between the locations for the calendared events. In one embodiment, a user interface for the electronic calendar represents different locations in different portions of the display. Calendar entries, such as a conference call or a plane flight, can be associated with one or more location, such as the locations of all conference call participants or the departure and arrival cities for the flight. In one particular embodiment, the different locations reside in different time zones and a timeline for each time zone is displayed. The position of the calendar entries provides a visual identifier to the user of the timeline with which the event is associated.

Problems solved by technology

Although electronic calendars are convenient for helping users avoid being double-booked for activities occurring at the same time, conventional electronic calendars do not adequately account for implicit conflicts created by the locations of various meetings.

For example, scheduling two adjacent meetings or events that occur in different places may not allow enough time to travel between the events.

First, users may choose not to show travel times between events on their calendar.

Drawbacks of this approach include the risk of forgetting about or wrongly estimating the travel time required to arrive at an event and leaving too late.

Drawbacks of this approach include the risk that the user may incorrectly estimate the travel time, and / or forget the actual start time of the meeting.

This approach also hinders the user's ability to invite others to the meeting, since the meeting period reflects the user's own travel times and the travel times may vary for others travelling from different locations.

This approach is cumbersome for those who travel frequently as any meeting that requires travel becomes a requirement to create three calendar entries that each must be moved if the meeting is rescheduled.

This approach also still suffers from the drawback mentioned above regarding the risk that the user may incorrectly estimate the travel time.

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