US Patent 9756136 Broadcasting local function templates to proximate mobile computing devices

Techniques include broadcasting, via a local wireless network (e.g., Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or NFC), a uniform resource locator (URL) template (e.g., an alphanumeric string) that references a software application (app) and indicates one or more operations (e.g., a function) for the app to perform based on one or more parameters (e.g., alphabetic, numeric, and/or symbolic characters). In this example, the URL template includes one or more fields (e.g., placeholders) configured to indicate the parameters. The techniques further include, in response to broadcasting the URL template, receiving, from a mobile user device (e.g., a smartphone) via the network, a URL including (e.g., generated based on) the template, where the fields include one or more user-specified parameters specified by a user of the device. The techniques also include causing the software app to perform the operations (e.g., the function) based on the user-specified parameters included in the fields of the received URL.