VEHICLE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM WITH NEWS SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE

• US 20080140408A1
• Filed: 11/05/2007
• Published: 06/12/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/13/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: E-Lane Systems Inc., Value8 Co., Ltd. (Wisefin Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Intelligent Mechatronic Systems Inc. (Trak Global Group Ltd.)
• Inventors: Basir, Otman A.
• Granted Patent: US 8,015,010 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/260
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1859 adapted to provide push services, e.g. data channels
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/58 Message adaptation for wireless communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/6091 including a wireless interface
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72436 for text messaging, e.g. short messaging services [SMS] or e-mails

Abstract

A vehicle communication system facilitates hands-free interaction with a mobile device in a vehicle or elsewhere. The invention also provides remote access to information such as existing news sources (i.e. existing RSS feeds) and supported websites. This also includes subscription to value-added services including: weather, custom alerts (i.e. stock price triggers), traffic conditions, personalized news, e-books (not limited to audio books, but any e-book), personalized audio feeds, and personalized image or video feeds for passengers. The system obtains, translates, and provides personalized news content in audible form within a vehicle without explicit user requests. An individual may set their preferences by selecting from a set of common sources of information, or by specifying custom search criteria. When new information is available and relevant to the individual'"'"'s preferences, it is read out loud to the individual when appropriate. Appropriate instances can be specified by the individual using a combination of in-vehicle presence detection, time-of-day, and importance of the information relative to other personal events including email, phone calls, meetings and text messages.

Claims

1. A vehicle communication system comprising:

a communication device having data network access; and

a control unit in a vehicle, the control unit storing a profile associated with a user, the profile indicating preferences of the user regarding information desired by the user, the control unit retrieving information via the communication device over the data network based upon the profile, wherein the information includes publicly available text.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the communication device is a personal mobile communication device.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the mobile communication device switches modes based upon establishment of communication between the mobile device and the control unit.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein the information further includes a plurality of emails and wherein the control unit converts text in the plurality of emails to audible speech and plays the audible speech in the vehicle, and wherein the control unit prioritizes whether to play email versus whether to play publicly available text based upon the profile.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein the control unit selects the profile based upon an identification of the mobile device associated with the profile.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein the control unit determines when to present the information to the user based upon the user profile.

7. The system of claim 6 wherein a plurality of profiles, including the profile, are stored on a server accessible via the internet and wherein the profile can be modified by the user on the server via the internet, the control unit downloading the profile from the server via the data network access of the mobile device.

8. A method for communicating in a vehicle including the steps of:

a) selecting information based upon a user profile;

b) downloading the selected information into a vehicle; and

c) converting text of the information to speech and audibly playing the speech for the user.

9. The method of claim 8 further including the step of determining whether to perform said step c) based upon the user profile associated with the mobile device.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein the selected information is publicly available on a wide area network.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the selected information includes news.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the selected information includes weather.