US 7,457,879 B2
Notification platform architecture
Eric J. Horvitz, Kirkland, Wash. (US); David O. Hovel, Bellevue, Wash. (US); Andrew W. Jacobs, Seattle, Wash. (US); and Carl M. Kadie, Bellevue, Wash. (US)
Assigned to Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash. (US)
Filed on Apr. 19, 2007, as Appl. No. 11/737,247.
Application 11/737247 is a division of application No. 10/220419, filed on Aug. 30, 2002, granted, now 7,243,130.
Prior Publication US 2007/0288932 A1, Dec. 13, 2007
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. G06F 15/16 (2006.01); G06F 17/00 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 709—227  [709/206; 706/46] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A notification system embodied on a computer-readable storage medium, comprising:
a context analyzer configured to store information regarding notification parameters, the context analyzer comprising:
a user notification parameters store configured to store default notification preferences for a user, and
a user context module configured to determine a current context of the user based on at least one context source, the current context includes at least an inference of a current attentional focus of the user;
at least one notification source configured to generate notifications intended for the user;
at least one notification sink configured to provide the notifications to the user; and
a notification manager configured to convey the notifications generated by the at least one notification source to the at least one notification sink based on the information stored in the context analyzer by performing a decision-theoretic analysis, wherein the notification parameters represent at least:
an importance of a current notification generated by the notification source indicating value of information contained in the current notification to the user;
a time criticality of the current notification generated by the notification source indicating time-dependent decay of the value of the information contained in the current notification to the user;
a relevance of the current notification indicating a likelihood of the relevance of information contained in the current notification to the user;
a novelty of the current notification indicating a likelihood that the user already knows the information; and
a fidelity of the current notification indicating a loss of value to the user of the information upon truncation of the information.