Systems and methods for using wireless beacons in point of purchase (“POP”) displays to facilitate the delivery of consumer oriented content to mobile devices is disclosed herein. Wireless beacons may be used to broadcast wireless signals from POP displays, where the wireless signals include data packets with unique identifiers for the wireless beacons. The wireless signals may be received by mobile devices. A wireless network gateway may also receive the wireless signals. A remote server may communicate with the mobile device and/or the wireless network gateway where the remote server includes a database with up-to-date content associated with the POP displays.

A system is described for producing location-specific print media for a multi-outlet enterprise. The system includes a marketing media builder configured to provide a set of print media design templates for the multi-outlet enterprise, wherein the templates include variable data fields. The system further includes a location manager comprising a database configured to maintain sets of location-specific information for populating the variable data fields of the set of print media design templates. A print quality image file is generated by the marketing media builder by populating the variable form fields with variable data acquired from the location manager for a particular location.

An information providing apparatus includes: a communication interface configured to communicate with a terminal apparatus; and a controller configured to: select either one of a food-serving facility and an accommodation facility as a facility to be recommended to a user, according to an arrival time slot in which the user is to arrive at a destination; refer to, when selecting a food-serving facility, first profile data indicating preference of the user for food to select at least one of a plurality of food-serving facility candidates; refer to, when selecting an accommodation facility, second profile data indicating preference of the user for accommodation services to select at least one of a plurality of accommodation facility candidates; and transmit, regardless of which of a food-serving facility and an accommodation facility has been selected, facility data indicating a selected candidate, to the terminal apparatus via the communication interface.

Adaptive system for communicating with a customer in a retail store environment includes a sensor disposed at a sensor location in a retail environment. The sensor location is selected so that the sensor captures information that facilitates identification of at least one trait associated with a customer located proximate to the sensor location. A processing system is configured to use the information to determine the at least one trait. Thereafter, in response to such determination, the processing system selectively determines a message or content selection to be displayed to the customer based at least in part on the at least one trait that has been identified.

A method is implemented by a server communicating with a user-end portable device carried by a user. The method includes: receiving from the user-end portable device information that indicates a user-end location of the user-end portable device; calculating a distance between the user-end location and a store location of the brick-and-mortar store; determining an advertised article that is sold in the brick-and-mortar store, according to at least one of a purchase record or a wish associated with the user; and when the distance is smaller than a pre-determined distance, transmitting data to the user-end portable device to enable the user-end portable device to display of a webpage for purchasing the advertised article.

Cloud systems executing method operations for communicating with connected vehicles of users having user accounts with the cloud system are provided. In one example, a method includes receiving discounts published by merchants for presentation to a network of charging units (CUs), each of the CUs being associated to a geo-location. The method also includes receiving an identification of an electric vehicle that is associated to a user account. The identification of the electric vehicle is received when the electric vehicle has parked over a charging pad of a particular CU, and the charging pad is at a geo-location of the particular CU. The method also includes identifying at least one discount to be presented to a device of the electric vehicle. The identifying is a result of filtering discounts based on user preferences associated with the user account and a proximity of a merchant location to the particular CU having the charging pad over which the vehicle has parked. The method further includes sending the at least one discount to the device of the electric vehicle upon determining use of the charging pad by the electric vehicle. The device of the vehicle can be electronics and displays of the vehicle, a portable device like a smartphone or watch, or a connected device.

A parking space management system comprising a plurality of parking meters and a backend server. Each of the parking meters includes a respective main body, processor, sensor and transceiver. The sensor is configured to sense visual information relating to one or more parking spaces associated with the respective parking meter and the transceiver is configured to externally transmit the sensed visual information. The backend server remotely controls the parking meters. The backend server receives the transmitted sensed visual information from the parking meters, processes the received sensed visual information via computer vision to determine an occupancy status of the parking spaces associated with the parking meters, and controls the parking meters to display a first status notification indicative of the determined occupancy status of the associated parking spaces. The backend server also establishes a reservation for selected parking spaces and controls each parking meter associated with each reserved parking space to display a second status notification indicative of the reservation. Additional features and capabilities also are provided.

The disclosed methods and apparatus relate generally to the use of electronic devices to interact with electronic tags associated with objects, services, places, people, or animals (“objects”) in order to access programming material related to these objects. The invention discloses the input of keywords, phrases, preferences, or interests into a user's device to search a plurality of electronic tags within a given physical range to access programming material from the tags—or via data links provided in the tags—that matches the keywords, phrases, preferences, or interests. Furthermore, the invention locates, maps, and labels the objects associated with this programming material on the user's display.

Computer-implemented systems and methods disclosed herein disclose features for determining the frequency of exposure to real-world products embedded with Internet-Of-Things (IoT) hardware and determining a comprehensive targeting profile identifying the interests of users based on their exposure to real-world products. A computing device carried by a user wirelessly receives product exposure data from a nearby IoT-enabled device upon entering within a certain proximity of the IoT-enabled device. The computing device further compiles the product exposure data with previous product exposure data for IoT-enabled devices to which the computing device was previously exposed. Based on the compiled product exposure data, a server device determines a frequency of exposure to a product corresponding to the IoT-enabled device over a period of time. The server device further transmits an electronic communication promoting the product corresponding to the IoT-enabled device if the frequency of exposure increases over a threshold value.