A time / location
information delivery system that provides focused advertising and / or other information to individuals based on the time and their location. A
wireless identification device is carried by an individual and can be read from or written to when the individual passes by interrogators in a specific geographic location. The detectors read ID information embedded in the
wireless identification device. A computer uses the ID and location information to select, from a
list of
information providers, those
information providers which provide information content identifiable or correlated to a location and / or time, and is of interest to the individual. The information content can be forwarded to the individual by a variety of information channels. One channel uses conventional Internet email to deliver advertisements and other information to the individual's Internet mailbox. The email can be delivered to a conventional PC, a
portable computer, a PDA, an intelligent telephone,
pager or other suitable device. For ease of discussion, a
pager and a PDA will be referred to collectively as a PDA. The
wireless identification device can be an RFID tag embedded in a card, or even a wireless telephone. The RFID tag is read or written to by fixed interrogators and the location of the wireless telephone is detected by triangulating information from
cell towers or by embedding the
GPS receiver in the wireless telephone thereby providing the location information directly from the telephone. Of course, other nearly identical
location determination means, such as quadrangulation could also be used. The
location determination can be performed through similar means with other devices such as PDAs, laptops, pagers, etc.