Patent ID: 8000721

Claim:
A first wireless communication terminal comprising: a display device; a wireless transceiver that is configured to communicate through an air interface with a second wireless communication terminal; at least one accelerometer that is configured to generate acceleration data responsive to movement of the first terminal; and a controller that is configured to generate movement data from the acceleration data that tracks movement of the first terminal, to communicate the movement data to the second terminal, to receive relative direction and distance data from the second terminal, and to respond thereto by causing an indication of direction and/or distance between the first and second terminals to be displayed on the display device, wherein the wireless transceiver comprises a wireless local area network (WLAN) transceiver and a cellular transceiver, and the controller is further configured to repetitively communicate the movement data to the second terminal through the WLAN transceiver while a WLAN communication link to the second terminal is available, and to respond to loss of the WLAN communication link by repetitively generating discrete text messages containing the movement data and communicating the text messages through the cellular transceiver to the second terminal, the controller is further configured to repetitively communicate the movement data to the second terminal at a first repetition rate through the WLAN transceiver while the WLAN communication link is available, and to respond to loss of the WLAN communication link by repetitively generating and communicating the text messages containing the movement data through the cellular transceiver at a second repetition rate that is less than the first repetition rate, and the controller is further configured to determine speed of the movement of the first terminal, and to regulate the second repetition rate at which the text messages containing the movement data are generated and communicated in response to the determined speed.