In a typical day many people come into contact with a massive number of electronically controlled devices. Such devices range from automobiles and appliances, to home and office equipment and to telephones and televisions to name but a few. Many of these devices are required to move from time to time. Many of these devices are even portable. These devices provide a vast and diverse assortment of services for the people coming into contact with them. However, they suffer from a common problem related to user input and output (I/O).
User I/O refers to components and processes used to communicate user-supplied data to an electronic device and to annunciate data from an electronic device so the data may be perceived by a user. Although electronic devices provide a vast and diverse assortment of services, they tend to have redundant I/O. In other words, many such devices have displays, speakers and the like at which data may be annunciated and have buttons, switches, keypads and other controls at which user-supplied data may be communicated to the devices. In order to keep costs low and size small, user I/O capabilities often suffer. As a result, many electronic devices encountered in everyday life and particularly many portable devices, are cumbersome and tedious to use because communicating data from a user to the devices is difficult and because provisions are unavailable for clearly annunciating data for a user's benefit.
In theory, this user I/O problem could be ameliorated by better integrating electronic devices to ease data communications therebetween. For example, a portable telephone could receive a facsimile (fax), but typically has no capability to print the fax and typically has no capability to communicate with a printer which may be able to print the fax. Likewise, a pager may receive a call-back phone number, but typical pagers have no capability to transfer the call-back number to a telephone from which the call-back can be made. User involvement is required to address these and many other data transfer issues. While many conventional data communication or computer network architectures are known, the conventional architectures are unsuitable for the task of integrating a plurality of electronic devices which collectively provide a vast and diverse assortment of services.
Conventional computer networks require excessively complicated setup or activation procedures. Such setup and activation procedures make the jobs of forming a connection to a new network node and making changes in connectibility permission cumbersome at best. Setup and activation procedures are instituted, at least in part, to maintain control of security and to define network addresses. Typically, a system administration level of security clearance is required before access is granted to network tables that define the network addresses. Thus, in conventional networks, many network users lack sufficient security clearance to activate and obtain addresses of network nodes with which they may wish to connect on their own.
Once setup is performed, either directly by a user or by a system administrator, connections are formed when an initiating node presents the network with the address of a network node to which a connection is desired. The setup or activation requirements of conventional networks force nodes to know or obtain a priori knowledge of node addresses with which they wish to connect prior to making the connection. Excessive user attention is involved in making the connection through setup procedures and during the instant of connection to obtain addresses. This level of user involvement leads to an impractical network implementation between the everyday electronic devices with which people come into contact.
Further, conventional computer networks tend to be infrastructure intensive. The infrastructure includes wiring, servers, base stations, hubs and other devices which are dedicated to network use but have no substantial non-network use to the computers they interconnect. The use of extensive network components is undesirable for a network implementation between everyday electronic devices because an immense expense would be involved to support such an infrastructure and because it impedes portability and movability of nodes.
The use of wiring to interconnect network nodes is a particularly offensive impediment to the use of conventional networks because wiring between diverse nodes is not suitable when some of the nodes are portable. Wireless communication links could theoretically solve the wiring problem, and conventional wireless data communication networks are known. However, the conventional wireless networks do little more than replace wire lines with wireless communication links. An excessive amount of infrastructure and excessive user involvement in setup procedures are still required.
There is a lot of information that one typically carries with their person. These data are encoded onto physical artifacts that are then tucked inside a wallet or a purse or simply carried in a pocket. In order for the artifact to be useful one must physically carry it around anticipating its use. Eventually, the wallet or purse gets bulky while carrying everything that you might anticipate using over the course of a week or a month. When an artifact is being used it must be physically removed from the wallet, and then returned upon completion of the transaction, if appropriate. The process of repeatedly removing and then replacing an artifact from the wallet both causes wear on the artifact and also subjects it to loss and theft. By digitizing all three categories of artifacts and by being able to selectively move the artifacts over a wireless link these problems are solved.
Individuals routinely carry three categories of things in their wallet:
1) financial instruments that can be used to obtain goods or services, PA1 2) items used as physical or logical "pass keys", and PA1 3) lists of data.
The first category, "financial instruments", usually includes paper cash and coins, credit cards, debit cards, cash cards, gift certificates, and discount coupons.
The second category contains artifacts that give you physical or logical access to some privilege. Cards containing personal information such as a social security number, health insurance number, and car insurance identification are often found in an individual's wallet for this purpose. Such contents may also include video club memberships, frequent eater cards such as those given out by restaurants, frequent flyer cards associated with the airline industry, warehouse store membership cards, telephone company calling cards, public library cards, and so on. Legal identification such as a drivers license or passport also fall into this category. Tickets such as those purchased for the theatre, football game or lottery reside in this category. This category may also harbor physical pass keys such as a door key or magnetic pass keys encoded onto a credit card format like those given out by a hotel.
The third category of artifact that people typically carry with them in a wallet are simply lists of data. Such lists may include medical emergency information such as medications, blood type, previous surgeries, name of doctor, next of kin, and so on. Telephone numbers, shopping lists, maps, your spouse's clothing sizes and color preferences, your children's birthdays, and calendar & schedule information are also included in this category. Pictures of your family can be treated as belonging to this category. Purchase receipts and other records of transactions fall into this category.
Note that these three categories of data are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Take for example the number on one's telephone calling card. This could easily fall into all three categories. First, it is a financial instrument because it allows access to toll services. Second, it is a logical pass key to a telephone's toll services. And third, it is a data item because ultimately it is just a number. This example implies that the data that an individual carries with them needs to be structured, in other words, meta-data are needed in order to enhance the information's use.
Current devices have yet another problem with respect to a subclass of the third type of data, "lists of data". Quite often there exists data purely about an individual that the individual cannot have access to; in some cases the individual can read the data but cannot change it, and in other cases the individual cannot even read the data. Two examples of this sort of data are credit histories and medical histories. In both cases the data refers to a specific individual, yet that individual cannot have write access to that data. This is for good reason, because while the data is about the individual, the individual is not the caretaker of that data. This type of data is called "restricted data" in the following discussions. Currently, if an individual wants to share such data with a third party, e.g., they are establishing a new physician or they are applying for a loan, they must refer the third party back to the caretaker of the data. Several personal transaction scenarios require a mechanism that allows the individual to carry such information with them and share it without the need for a caretaker.
Currently, the closest technology that accommodates the previously discussed needs is a SmartCard. A SmartCard is a credit-card sized database that is able to store and exchange information. Yet, the SmartCard is inadequate in the following ways: 1) A SmartCard has no user interface. Typically, the SmartCard is inserted into another device that allows the user to enter and retrieve data from the database. 2) A SmartCard must be physically docked with another device to transfer information. This is because the SmartCard has no user interface of its own, and it has no other communication link. 3) SmartCards tend to store a very narrow range of information. For example, a SmartCard would hold money, or at least its electronic equivalent. If one wanted to store pictures it would require another SmartCard. This is primarily because of the method used to access the information. The range of data on a SmartCard is narrow also because the SmartCard provides no mechanisms for structuring the data. 4) The user of a SmartCard must take overt action to use the capabilities of the SmartCard. At a minimum, they must pull it out of their wallet and run it through a reader. On the contrary, the user needs a device that can be configured to automatically (with no overt action from the user once programmed in this manner) perform transactions in specific situations. 5) When used for identification purposes, a specific SmartCard carrying legal identification must be physically read. This identification is performed only when the user takes the overt action to do so. What is needed is a device capable of beaconing a wireless digital identification at periodic intervals or when overtly "pinged" or interrogated by another unit. In this way the user can be identified with no overt action.
Another device which attempts to address some of the previously discussed needs and issues is a Personal Digital Assistant, otherwise known as a PDA. Advantages and disadvantages of the PDA include: 1) The PDA has some sort of user input capability and some user output capability directly on the unit. 2) The PDA can store fairly large amounts of unstructured data. 3) There is still a need to structure data beyond what the typical PDA allows. The typical PDA only allows business cards, notes and scheduling information. 4) The typical PDA uses some sort of physical coupling, perhaps through a docking station, to transfer information from one unit to another. In addition to a physical coupling capability, some PDAs also employ an IRDA wireless link for this purpose. 5) Current PDAs do not support "restricted data".
What is needed is a device/method for overcoming these deficiencies of the prior art, in a hand-holdable and readily reconfigurable fashion.