Remote Caller ID Lookup for Mobile Phones
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current mobile phone devices cannot identify the name associated with an incoming call if the originating phone number is not linked to a phonebook entry, making it difficult for users to determine the caller's identity.
Innovation Solution
The mobile phone device receives the incoming call, determines the phone number, and accesses a remote site to look up the name and additional information associated with the phone number, outputting this information to the user, potentially through a menu option or automatically.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If the mobile phone device uses only local phonebook entries for caller identification, then the device complexity is reduced and operation is simpler, but the ability to identify unknown callers is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a remote server as an intermediary to store and provide caller identification information. The mobile device queries the server with phone numbers, and the server returns associated names and information. This externalizes the database functionality, allowing the device to identify unknown callers without maintaining a comprehensive local phonebook, thus resolving the contradiction between information completeness and device complexity.
2Loss of information
If the mobile phone device performs remote lookups for every incoming call, then complete caller information is obtained, but the time and energy consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-populating the device's local phonebook with frequently contacted numbers and their associated names. When a call comes in, the device first checks the local phonebook before initiating a remote lookup. This preliminary local check reduces the frequency of remote queries, thereby reducing time and energy consumption while still maintaining the ability to retrieve complete information when needed.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements a tiered approach where it performs a partial lookup (local phonebook check) first, and only performs a complete lookup (remote server query) when necessary. This partial action strategy reduces the overall time and resource expenditure by avoiding unnecessary remote communications for known contacts, while still ensuring complete information is obtained when the caller is unknown.
3Speed
If the mobile phone device stores all caller information locally, then access speed is faster, but the device memory requirements and complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the caller information storage system into two parts: a small local cache on the mobile device for frequently accessed information, and a comprehensive remote database on the server. This segmentation allows the device to maintain fast access speeds for common contacts through local storage while avoiding the need to store all possible caller information locally, thus reducing device memory requirements and complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The remote server provides a universal database service that can serve multiple devices and purposes. Instead of each device needing to store complete caller information independently, the universal remote database can be queried by any device, reducing the storage burden on individual devices while maintaining fast access through optimized server-side retrieval and local caching mechanisms.
Data Source
AI summary
According to one embodiment, a method includes: receiving an incoming phone call on a mobile phone device, determining a phone number from which the incoming phone call originated, accessing a remote site for determining a name associated with the phone number, accessing the remote site for determining additional information associated with the phone number, and outputting the name and additional information associated with phone number from which the incoming phone call originated on the mobile phone device. Other methods, systems, and computer program products for determining a name associated with an incoming phone call are also described.