Patent ID: 8117547

Claim:
A computer-program product comprising one or more computer-usable media having computer-readable program code embodied therein, the computer-readable program code configured to be executed to implement a method for facilitating operation of a portable computing device, said method comprising: determining a location of the portable computing device, wherein the determining comprises: receiving location information from a location provider, the location information pertaining to a current location of the portable computing device; accessing one or more hierarchical tree structures each of which comprising multiple nodes that represent physical or logical locations, each node having a unique identifier; and traversing at least one node on the one or more hierarchical tree structures responsive to the receiving of the location information to ascertain a device location; wherein the multiple hierarchical tree structures further comprise: a first hierarchical tree structure having multiple nodes associated with first locations, the first hierarchical tree structure having a uniform standardized representation; a second hierarchical tree structure having multiple nodes associated with second locations, wherein the second hierarchical tree structure has a proprietary representation, each node has a URL (Uniform Resource Locator), and at least one node from the second hierarchical tree structure is linked with one node on the first hierarchical tree structure by a link that is configured to enable a complete location to be derived from the first and second locations; acquiring digital data associated with the determined location and that can permit the portable computing device to interact with an application associated with a location environment; and interacting with the application that queries the portable computing device about the current location by supplying the application with information that pertains to the determined location.