Examples of systems and methods for bridging virtual and physical spaces are described. In some of these examples, a particular communicant's real world state drives changes in one or more of the communications connections, virtual state, and communications interface of the particular communicant or another communicant.

A method and system are disclosed for determining the geographic location of a user communicating on a communications network such as the Internet. In one embodiment, a provider of a product or service: (a) receives the user's phone number (or other identification for contacting the user's station), and (b) supplies the user's station with a distinctive identifier. The provider then supplies a location determining service with the user's phone number (or other identification). A phone call is made to the phone number by the location determining service for retrieving the distinctive identifier from the network station having the phone number. If the distinctive identifier is retrieved and the location determining service determines that the user's station is within an appropriate geographical area (or not within an inappropriate area), then the provider can provide the requested product or service to the user.

Described herein are systems, devices, methods, and media providing emergency data to emergency service providers (ESP; e.g., public safety answering points (PSAPs)). Also provided are systems, methods, and media for utilizing location data and geofences to provide emergency data to ESPs and interactive graphical displays to efficiently display relevant emergency data.

An example method of assigning a telephone number to a user account in a communications system is provided. The method includes obtaining a mnemonic seed and obtaining a subset of telephone numbers filtered from a global telephone number pool based on the mnemonic seed. The alphanumeric representation of each telephone number in the subset is within a threshold Hamming distance of the mnemonic seed. The method further includes receiving an indication of a selected telephone number from the subset and assigning the selected telephone number to the user account.

A method and apparatus are provided for presenting multimedia content to a caller and/or a called party in association with a telephone call. Content may be presented pre-ring (before the called party's telephone rings), in-call, and/or post-call. Content presented to a party may be related to another party participating in the call or may be related to a third party (e.g., an advertiser that paid for the ability to have its content presented). Presented content may be actuable, to allow a caller to change the destination of a call, take advantage of an offer presented to him or her, redeem a coupon, schedule or queue a subsequent call, etc. To find a desired destination party, a caller may initiate a manual or automatic search of his or her local contacts (on his telephone) and/or a central or global directory or contact list.

Methods and architectures for improving operation of 9-1-1 and other emergency services networks. Enriched data (e.g., text messages, videos, phase II location information, etc.) may be transmitted to a PSAP via a secondary communication channel (i.e., data), wherein the primary communication channel is a voice telephony trunk. Disclosed embodiments may increase the speed with which accurate location information is made available to improve call routing accuracy and decrease dispatch time. Some embodiments may also enable continued operation of legacy emergency services systems during and after transition to next generation systems.

A system for providing locations of emergency callers receives call data related to emergency calls received at a public safety answering point (PSAP) and a supplemental data signal that includes a location of an emergency. A signal correlation engine determines whether the supplemental data signal corresponds to one of the emergency calls received at the PSAP. A web server provides a user interface that includes a map and a supplemental signal indicator corresponding to the supplemental data signal. The supplemental signal indicator is positioned on the map at the location of the emergency, and the supplemental signal indicator has a visual characteristic indicating whether or not the supplemental data signal corresponds to an emergency call received at the PSAP.

A system for publishing digital content is described which, in one embodiment, includes a beacon device associated with a first user configured to transmit identification information and information indicating its current position. A browsing device includes a display configured and adapted to display to a second user a representation of a local geographical area, and to selectively display to the second user content information associated with the first user, based at least in part on whether the location of the beacon device is within the local geographical area.

The present disclosure provides a system for intelligently sampling information, such as location, activities, etc. on device. Sampling and uploading of background context is optimized using machine learning, such that battery usage is reduced, and quality of metrics based on the reported information is maintained or improved. A policy is generated based on the machine learning, the policy dictating how scanning and upload rates should change in response to conditions on the device.

Methods, systems, and storage media for relaying a message through an offline mesh network are disclosed. Exemplary implementations may: relay messages by changing device names within a network; generate, at an initial node, an encoded message comprising a payload, an account identifier for the initial node, and an account identifier for the destination node; relay the encoded message through one or more intermediary nodes; determine, by each of the one or more intermediary nodes, whether device names in the vicinity are encoded messages and; in response to the determining, deliver the encoded message to the destination node; and cause display of the encoded message through the destination node.