HTC patents Palm Pre-like automatically adjusting appointment reminders

As if Palm does not have enough trouble, HTC is now trying to poach their technology.  In this patent application they constantly calculate the travel time between your current position and where you need to be for the next appointment, and adjust your appointment reminders appropriately, so as to always remind you in enough time to allow travel to your next location.

The abstract reads as below:

A method and an apparatus for reminding a calendar schedule and a recording medium are provided. First, a schedule and a location of an event are set in a calendar, and first positioning information of the location is obtained. Then, second positioning information of a current location of a mobile device is obtained. Next, the current location is determining whether to be within a signal range of a signal source. Once the current location is within the signal range, the time for moving from the location with the second positioning information to the location with the first positioning information is calculated. Finally, a reminding time is set according to the transferring time, and a reminding action is taken at the reminding time. Thereby, the reminding time of the event can be dynamically adjusted to avoid delay caused when the mobile device is too far from the event location.

This kind of smarts was to form part of Palm’s approach to smart mobile computing, but with their market failure will hopefully find a more wider home in more pockets.

Read the full patent here.