Harvesting Addresses

Abstract

Some embodiments of the invention provide an address harvester that harvests addresses from one or more applications executing on a device. Some embodiments use the harvested addresses to facilitate the operation of one or more applications executing on the device. Alternatively, or conjunctively, some embodiments use the harvested addresses to facilitate the operation of one or more applications executing on another device than the one used for harvesting the addresses. In some embodiments, a prediction system uses the harvested addresses to formulate predictions, which it then provides to the same set of applications from which it harvested the addresses in some embodiments.

1 . A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program for harvesting addresses on a first device, the program for execution by at least one processing unit, the program comprising sets of instructions for:
 extracting a first plurality of physical addresses from a first set of applications executing on the first device and storing the physical addresses in a data storage of the first device;   receiving a second plurality of physical addresses from a set of devices associated with the first device through a network and storing the physical addresses in the data storage; and   using the stored physical addresses in the data storage to facilitate operations of a second set of applications executing on the device.   
     
     
         2 . The non-transitory machine readable medium of  claim 1 , wherein the program further comprises a set of instructions for sending at least a subset of the first plurality of physical addresses to the set of devices through the network in order to facilitate the operation of applications executing on the set of devices. 
     
     
         3 . The non-transitory machine readable medium of  claim 1 , wherein the physical addresses are addresses harvested from electronic mail (email) messages, text messages, or locations of calendared appointments, and the first set of applications includes at least one of an email program, a text messaging program, and a calendar application. 
     
     
         4 - 11 . (canceled) 
     
     
         12 . The non-transitory machine readable medium of  claim 1 , wherein the program further comprises sets of instructions for:
 computing a ranking for each of the physical addresses based on a plurality of factors; and   selecting a particular set of physical addresses to use for a particular application based on the computed ranking.   
     
     
         13 . The non-transitory machine readable medium of  claim 12 , wherein the set of instructions for computing the ranking for a particular physical address comprises a set of instructions for counting a number of times that the particular physical address has been extracted. 
     
     
         14 . The non-transitory machine readable medium of  claim 12 , wherein the set of instructions for computing the ranking for a particular physical address comprises a set of instructions for analyzing the plurality of factors, the plurality of factors including (i) the identity of the particular application from which the particular physical address was extracted, and (ii) determining if the particular physical address had been displayed on the device. 
     
     
         15 . (canceled) 
     
     
         16 . A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program for harvesting addresses of a device, the program for execution by at least one processing unit, the program comprising sets of instructions for:
 extracting a plurality of physical addresses from a first plurality of applications executing on the device and storing the physical addresses in a data storage of the device; and   using the stored physical addresses in the data storage to facilitate operations of a second plurality of applications.   
     
     
         17 - 22 . (canceled) 
     
     
         23 . The non-transitory machine readable medium of  claim 3 , wherein the electronic mail messages have been viewed by a user of the device. 
     
     
         24 - 26 . (canceled) 
     
     
         27 . The non-transitory machine readable medium of  claim 16 , wherein the set of instructions for using the stored physical addresses comprises sets of instructions for:
 predicting at least one future destination of the device based on the stored physical addresses; and   providing an output based on the predicted destination.   
     
     
         28 - 30 . (canceled) 
     
     
         31 . The non-transitory machine readable medium of  claim 12 , wherein the plurality of factors comprises a source of the physical address, an identity of a sender of a message that contains the physical address, or a user's interaction with the physical address. 
     
     
         32 . The non-transitory machine readable medium of  claim 12 , wherein the plurality of factors are a first set of factors, wherein the program further comprises a set of instructions for decaying the ranking for each of the plurality of physical addresses based on a second set of factors. 
     
     
         33 . The non-transitory machine readable medium of  claim 32 , wherein the second set of factors comprises a time stamp of a particular physical address that stores a time that the physical address was received by its source application and a source identifier identifying the source application of the physical address. 
     
     
         34 . The non-transitory machine readable medium of  claim 33 , wherein the set of instructions for decaying the ranking of the particular physical address comprises a set of instructions for reducing the ranking based on a length of time that has elapsed since a value of the time stamp of the physical address. 
     
     
         35 . The non-transitory machine readable medium of  claim 16 , wherein the program further comprises sets of instructions for:
 marking a particular physical address as a bookmark for a mapping application of the device; and   storing the marked physical address in the data storage of the device.   
     
     
         36 . The non-transitory machine readable medium of  claim 16 , wherein the first set of applications includes a mapping application, wherein the program further comprises sets of instructions for:
 detecting, within the mapping application, (i) input of a particular physical address, (ii) viewing of a particular physical address on the device, or (iii) searching for a particular physical address; and   storing the physical address in the data storage of the device.   
     
     
         37 . A mobile device comprising:
 an address harvesting engine for harvesting a plurality of physical addresses from a first plurality of applications on the device;   a data storage for storing the harvested physical addresses; and   a prediction engine for facilitating operations of a second plurality of applications based on the stored harvested physical addresses.   
     
     
         38 . The mobile device of  claim 37 , wherein the address harvesting engine is further for (i) receiving physical addresses from a set of other devices associated with the device through a network, (ii) storing the physical addresses in the data storage of the device, and (iii) using the received physical addresses to facilitate the operation of the second plurality of applications. 
     
     
         39 . The mobile device of  claim 37  further comprising an interface for receiving user input in a particular application, wherein the prediction engine matches the user input to the plurality of physical addresses in the data storage in order to identify a set of candidate physical addresses and outputs the set of candidate physical addresses for display in the interface of the particular application. 
     
     
         40 . The mobile device of  claim 37  further comprising a ranking engine for specifying a ranking score for each physical address, wherein the prediction engine is further for selecting a particular set of physical addresses to use for a particular application based on the computed ranking score. 
     
     
         41 . The mobile device of  claim 37 , wherein the first set of applications comprises at least one of an email application, a messaging application, a calendar application, a ticketing application, a web-browsing application, and a mapping application. 
     
     
         42 . The mobile device of  claim 37 , wherein the prediction engine is further for predicting at least one future destination of the device based on the stored physical addresses and providing an output based on the predicted destination. 
     
     
         43 . The mobile device of  claim 37 , wherein the address harvesting engine is further for receiving content from a particular application in the first plurality of applications and performing data detection on the content to detect physical addresses for extraction. 
     
     
         44 . The mobile device of  claim 43 , wherein the content is one of an electronic document, a calendar event, or an electronic ticket. 
     
     
         45 . The mobile device of  claim 37 , wherein the address harvesting engine is further for computing a ranking for each of the plurality of physical addresses based on a plurality of factors, and wherein the prediction engine is further for selecting a particular set of physical addresses to use for a particular application based on the computed ranking.