PinPoint Alerts

Overview
Alert Types
Privacy and Security
Location Technologies

Overview

PinPoint Alerts is a prototype service from Microsoft Research for providing location-sensitive alerts to a mobile device. For instance, you may want your phone to alert you if one of your friends is nearby, or if your child didn't make it to school, or if there is a traffic jam on your commute route. The screen shots below shows what it's like to use PinPoint.


Create a new alert with PinPoint's desktop client	Receive alert as SMS on cell phone

PinPoint is architected as a client/server. There is a mobile client that displays maps, shows friends and nearby points of interest, and updates the server with the mobile client's (latitude, longitude). The desktop client is used to manage accounts and set up alerts. The server processes location reports and sends out alerts in the form of SMS messages.

Alert Types

PinPoint has 17 different types of alerts, shown below. One interesting example of the "Event In Region" alert type is traffic. Using PinPoint, you can subscribe to alerts regarding live traffic incidents in any region and time period you specify, such as your commute route. The "Ad For Nearby Business" alert type is one way to make money with PinPoint. Ads could be delivered to people in the vicinity of a business, such as restaurant specials, free samples, or other special offers that appeal to potential customers nearby.

	Alert Type	Example
1	Position Ping	Notify me where Timmy is every 30 minutes
2	Stale Position Data	Notify me if Timmy's location hasn't been updated in over 2 hours
3	Person In Vicinity Of Place Type	Notify me if Grandma comes within 0.5 miles of any hospital
4	Person In My Vicinity	Notify me every time Molly is within 0.25 miles of me
5	Person Not In My Vicinity	Notify me every time Timmy is not within 0.1 miles of me
6	Person In Region	Notify me if Aunt Sally is in the ‘Airport' region
7	Person Not In Region	Notify me if Timmy is not in the 'School' region
8	Person Has Not Left Region In Time Limit	Notify me if Timmy has spent more than 2 hours in the 'Arcade' region
9	Excessive Distance	Notify me if Timmy travels more than 60 miles [during the active period]
10	Locatable People Near Me	Notify me every time someone who I can locate is within 0.2 miles of me
11	Locatable People In Region	Notify me if anyone I can locate is in the 'Mall' region
12	Locatable People Not In Region	Notify me if none of the people I can locate are in the 'Home' region
13	Two People Are Together	Notify me if Timmy and Jimmy are within 0.1 miles of each other
14	Two People Are Apart	Notify me if Timmy and Tammy are apart by more than a 0.25 miles
15	Three People Are Together	Notify me when any 3 of the people I can locate are within 0.1 miles of each other
16	Event In Region	Notify me if an event of type 'Concert' is happening in the 'Downtown' region
17	Ad For Nearby Business	Notify me of special offers for restaurants

Privacy & Security

Using the PinPoint desktop client, you can control who can see your location and who can set alerts on you. You can also create new accounts that you control, for instance accounts for your children or aging parents. With these controlled accounts, the creator can specify who can see the location of the person and who can set alerts for the person. The screen shot below shows a user controlling permissions on who can locate a child.

For security, PinPoint use SSL (https) Web service calls, enforces password protection on the desktop client, uses unique key protection for the mobile client, and employs a spoof-protected account invitation process. Yet undone is Passport sign-in and a thorough threat assessment and security review.

Location Technologies

PinPoint is agnostic about how the mobile device measures its location. We currently support four methods:

User Assertion -- The mobile user can explicitly assert his/her location by entering an address on the mobile client or picking a location from a list. The PinPoint desktop client supports the maintenance of a list of places for each user that is automatically downloaded to the mobile client.
Bluetooth GPS -- The PinPoint mobile client can take (latitude, longitude) readings from a Bluetooth GPS "puck" and transmit them to the PinPoint server.
Wi-Fi Triangulation -- The "Locate Me" option on Windows Live Local invokes a triangulation service based on a large database of Wi-Fi access points. We invoke this service from Wi-Fi-equipped cell phones to get (latitude, longitude).
Cell Tower Triangulation -- We have developed a triangulation service based on cell tower signal strengths, and we will soon be expanding its coverage area.