Multimedia system and navigation unit terminal

• US 20080263181A1
• Filed: 04/22/2008
• Published: 10/23/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/23/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Ten Limited (DENSO Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Ten Limited (DENSO Corporation)
• Inventors: Nagata, Yuu
• Granted Patent: US 7,895,294 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/16 Combinations of two or more digital computers each having at least an arithmetic unit, a program unit and a register, e.g. for a simultaneous processing of several programs coordinating program control therefor G06F9/52; in regulating and control system G05B
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54

Abstract

A multimedia system includes a master unit terminal and slave unit terminals. The master unit terminal functions as an interface for communications with an external server, in which status a program updating process is executed between the server and the slave unit terminal. In the multimedia system, property information on the slave unit terminal is acquired when the master unit terminal is connected to the slave unit terminal on a communication-enabled basis, an update program for the slave unit terminal is acquired from the server via the master unit terminal on the basis of the property information, and thereafter the updating process is executed. This scheme in the multimedia system enables troublesomeness felt by a user to be reduced to the greatest possible degree and security for updating the program of the unit terminal to be guaranteed.

Claims

1. A multimedia system including a plurality of unit terminals, comprising:

a master unit terminal defined as one of said plurality of unit terminals in said multimedia system and functioning as an interface for performing communications with a server located outside said multimedia system and with each of said plurality of unit terminals; and

a slave unit terminal defined as a unit terminal other than said master unit terminal in said plurality of unit terminals and connected on a communication-enabled basis to said master unit terminal;

said multimedia system updating the program held on said slave unit terminal by performing the communications with said server and with said master unit terminal;

said multimedia system further comprising;

a slave information acquiring unit acquiring, when said master unit terminal and said slave unit terminal are connected on the communication-enabled basis, property information on said slave unit terminal for said master unit terminal;

an update program acquiring unit acquiring an update program for said slave unit terminal from said server via said master unit terminal on the basis of the property information acquired by said slave information acquiring unit; and

an updating unit updating a program in said slave unit terminal into the update program acquired by said update program acquiring unit.

2. A multimedia system according to claim 1, further comprising an update appropriateness determining unit causing, via said master unit terminal, said server to determine based on the property information acquired by said slave information acquiring unit whether or not said slave unit terminal at which the property information is targeted becomes a target appropriate for updating the program in said multimedia system,

wherein said update program acquiring unit, when said update appropriateness determining unit determines that said slave unit terminal is the target appropriate for updating the program, acquires the update program for said slave unit terminal from said server via said master unit terminal.

3. A multimedia system according to claim 1, further comprising an update checking unit causing, via said master unit terminal, said server to check based on the property information acquired by said slave information acquiring unit whether or not the program held by said slave unit terminal at which the property information is targeted is a program required to be updated,

wherein said update program acquiring unit acquires, when said update checking unit determines that the program is required to be updated, the update program for the slave unit terminal from said server via said master unit terminal.

4. A multimedia system according to claim 3, wherein said update checking unit segments the update target program in said slave unit terminal according to every predetermined area, checks a necessity for updating the program by making a partial comparison about the update target program between said server and said slave unit terminal according to every segmented area via said master unit terminal, then narrows stepwise, when confirming the necessity for updating the program as a result of the comparison, a capacity of the predetermined area becoming a further comparison target down to a predetermined minimum capacity, and checks the necessity for updating the program according to every predetermined area of which the capacity has been narrowed down stepwise.

5. A multimedia system according to claim 4, wherein the predetermined minimum capacity is determined based on a communication speed between said master unit terminal and said slave unit terminal.

6. A multimedia system according to claim 5, wherein said slave unit terminal further includes a temporary storage unit that temporarily stores the program acquired by said update program acquiring unit,

said updating unit updates the program in said slave unit terminal into the program stored in said temporary storing unit, and

the predetermined minimum capacity is determined based on program updating performance of said updating unit.

7. A multimedia system according to claim 4, wherein said slave information acquiring unit acquires a value of the predetermined minimum capacity as part of the property information from said slave unit terminal when said master unit terminal and said slave unit terminal are connected to each other on the communication-enabled basis for the first time.

8. A multimedia system according to claim 3, wherein said update checking unit checks the necessity for updating the program by comparing part of the update target program in said slave unit terminal with data in said server according to every predetermined area on the basis of a checksum system.

9. A multimedia system according to claim 1, further comprising an encryption processing unit executing, when said update program acquiring unit acquires the update program, an encryption process about the update program in order to disable said master unit terminal from decrypting the update program.

10. A multimedia system according to claim 1, wherein said updating unit updates the program into the update program after said slave unit terminal becoming the update target terminal has finished a normal process.

11. A multimedia system according to claim 1, wherein said multimedia system is capable of performing the communications with a plurality of servers located outside said multimedia system, and

said update program acquiring unit specifies said server that should be accessed by said master unit terminal on the basis of the property information acquired by said slave information acquiring unit, and acquires the update program from said specified server via said master unit terminal.

12. A multimedia system including a plurality of unit terminals, comprising:

a server supplying, when updating a program in a unit terminal, a new program to said unit terminal;

a master unit terminal defined as one of said plurality of unit terminals in said multimedia system and functioning as an interface for performing communications with said server and with each of said plurality of unit terminals;

a slave unit terminal defined as a unit terminal other than said master unit terminal in said plurality of unit terminals and connected on a communication-enabled basis to said master unit terminal;

a slave information acquiring unit acquiring, when said master unit terminal and said slave unit terminal are connected on the communication-enabled basis, property information on said slave unit terminal for said master unit terminal;

an update program acquiring unit acquiring an update program for said slave unit terminal from said server via said master unit terminal on the basis of the property information acquired by said slave information acquiring unit; and

an updating unit updating a program in said slave unit terminal into the update program acquired by said update program acquiring unit.

13. A navigation unit terminal comprising a navigation information acquiring unit acquiring navigation information from an external server located outside a vehicle,

said navigation unit terminal being mounted on the vehicle and navigating the vehicle on the basis of the navigation information acquired by said navigation information acquiring unit,

said navigation unit terminal being connected to a single or plural slave unit terminals mounted on the vehicle on a communication-enabled basis and functioning as an interface for performing the communications with a multimedia system including said navigation unit terminal and said slave unit terminal(s) and with said external server,

said navigation unit further comprising:

a slave information acquiring unit acquiring property information on said slave unit terminal when said navigation unit terminal is connected to said slave unit terminal on the communication-enabled basis;

an update program acquiring unit acquiring an update program needed for updating a program in said slave unit terminal from said external server via said navigation information acquiring unit on the basis of the property information acquired by said slave information acquiring unit; and

an updating unit causing said slave unit terminal to update the program in said slave unit terminal into the update program acquired by said update program acquiring unit.