IBM filed for patent to help you avoid an angry mob

IBM

IBM latest patent is about to take map navigations to another level. We are all familiar with Live Traffic update, but what about if there is a riot on your route. IBM new patent is looking help you avoid this group of angry people. The patent title is: Human Emotion Metrics for Navigation Plans and Maps and was published by the USPTO on 26 July 2012.

Patent Backgroound:
Navigation systems have become prolific in use by private citizens, corporations, government agencies, and military units, in their vehicles, their cellular telephones, and even while walking. Many “stand alone” navigation systems are self-contained in that they contain a battery, a display (often touch-sensitive), an annunciator/speaker, an antenna for receiving a position indication signal, and a processor with firmware for calculating a position, creating a display such as a map with icons, and determining a route with related parameters (length, time in route, estimated time of arrival, etc.).

Some navigation systems are “built-in” to equipment, such as into the dash of a car or truck, or into the instrument panel of an airplane, boat or ship. These units do not often have a separate battery from those of the vehicle in which they are integrated.

Still other navigation systems are specialized, having specific tables of data to assist in specialty navigation, such as systems for use during games or “rounds” of golf which are enhanced to include additional topological data regarding various golf courses, and hunting navigation systems which are enhanced to include specific information useful for hunters such as sunrise-sunset tables, elevation tables, and the like.

And, some navigation systems are parts of other systems, such as a navigation system which is realized by installing an application program onto a location-enabled cellular telephone, the navigation system thereby encompassing the location-determining hardware, display and processor of the telephone, with the application program providing the specialized map generating and route analysis functionality.

Use of such navigation systems saves countless work hours and fuel consumption by providing more efficient driving times, allows emergency responders to save lives by arriving on the scene of an accident or crime faster, and even enhances personal relationships by reducing stress caused during periods of being lost while driving or walking.

The Invention:
An enhanced navigation system is provided that allows navigation route and destination planning according to user-specified criteria for the emotion state of persons along the route, at the destination, or both. The enhancement is accomplished by receiving a set of human emotion metrics corresponding to one or more parts of a navigation plan; determining if the human emotion metrics meet one or more user-specified criteria; responsive to not meeting the criteria, determining an alternate navigation plan until the user-specified criteria are met; and responsive to the criteria being met, presenting the navigation plan to the user for laying into a navigation system, and optionally during execution of the navigation plan updating the received human emotion metrics; repeating the determination against the user-specified criteria; and repeating the steps of determining an alternate navigation plan and presentation to a user responsive to the updated human emotion metrics not meeting the user-specified criteria

Some of the real world uses of the patent according to IBM include:
For example, imagine you are in a strange city and you are leaving your hotel on foot. You want to walk to a restaurant which is nearby, and you want the restaurant to contain a majority of `happy` people. Further, you want to take a route which will avoid any areas in which there are `angry` people, such as protesters or people stuck in traffic. While a present day navigation system may provide a list of close restaurants, and may provide several walking route options from which to select, present day navigation devices do not provide any historical or real-time consideration of any factors such as avoiding people with specific emotion states.

To obtain this type of information using a present day navigation device, you may have to consult with your hotel concierge, who may recommend avoiding walking through the city center or through a major park or plaza because of an ongoing protest at the current time. And, the concierge may recommend one particular restaurant based on the concierge’s knowledge of the proposed restaurants. However, if there is no such concierge available, or if his or her knowledge is incomplete or incorrect, the user of the navigation system may not be able to achieve their goal and may find themselves on at a non-preferred route or destination.

For the purposes of the present disclosure, we will refer to the emotional states of one or more persons along a segment of travel or at a destination as “human emotion metrics”, which may include any emotion-related indicator about these persons, such as happy, sad, neutral, angry, frustrated, pleased, content, joyful, sorrowful, fearful, and hateful, for example. Additionally, there is both an aggregate aspect and a temporal aspect to the new process. The aggregate aspect involves determining the aggregate value of the emotion states (according to human emotion metrics) of people along the proposed route(s) or at the proposed destination(s) at a particular time, such as an aggregate value to determine if all people happy now at a destination (e.g. is everyone happy a this club right now?), or an aggregate value to determine if all people were happy at a destination at a past date, day or time (e.g. did everyone enjoy themselves last night at this club?).

Source: USPTO

Posted by | Posted at July 26, 2012 20:08 | Tags: , , , , ,
Storm is a technology enthusiast, who resides in the UK. He enjoys reading and writing about technology.

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