POSITIONAL CAMERA AND GPS DATA INTERCHANGE DEVICE

• US 20140287784A1
• Filed: 06/04/2014
• Published: 09/25/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/21/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Silver State Intellectual Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Silver State Intellectual Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Obradovich, Michael L.
• Granted Patent: US 9,247,524 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/457
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/14 specially adapted for specific applications
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096716 where the received information does not generate an automatic action on the vehicle control
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096741 where the source of the transmitted information selects which information to transmit to each vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096775 where the origin of the information is a central station
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/3805 with built-in auxiliary receivers
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72469 for operating the device by selecting functions from two or more displayed items, e.g. menus or icons
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00307 with a mobile telephone apparatus constructional features of portable telephone sets H04M1/0202; mobile radio systems H04W84/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/2112 using still video cameras
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/51 Housings
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/183 for receiving images from a single remote source
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/006 with additional information processing, e.g. for direction or speed determination

Abstract

A location tagged data provision and display system. A personal communication device (PCD) with electromagnetic communication capability has a GPS receiver and a display. The PCD requests maps and location tagged data from data providers and other for display on the PCD. The data providers respond to requests by using searching and sorting schemes to interrogate data bases and then automatically transmitting data responsive to the requests to the requesting PCD.

Claims

1-14. -14. (canceled)

15. A system, comprising:

a first personal communications device (PCD) associated with a first user, and a second PCD associated with a second user, each PCD each having a processor and a display comprising a touch screen input device, and being configured to operate as a portable telephone and to send and receive Global Positioning System (GPS) encoded location data;

a data provider that collects map data and other data and tags the other data to the map data;

the first PCD configured to receive map data from the data provider and to show the map on the display and showing the position of the first PCD as a first icon on the map;

the first PCD further configured to receive GPS encoded location data regarding the second PCD and to show the position of the second PCD as a second icon on the map;

wherein the first PCD display is configured so that when the map is shown on the display, an interface to communications with the second user is provided through the touch screen input device at touch points on the display.

16. A system as in claim 15, wherein the first PCD receives data about the second user other than GPS encoded data.

17. A system as in claim 15, wherein the first PCD display is configured to have a sub-menu, and an interface to communications with the second user can be actuated through touch points in the sub-menu.

18. A system as in claim 17, wherein the first PCD receives data about the second user other than GPS encoded data.

19. A system as in claim 15, additionally comprising one or more condition reporting devices that are configured to detect a road condition at a location and to send traffic speed data to a computer network.

20. A system as in claim 19, wherein the detected road condition comprises traffic speed.

21. A system as in claim 20, wherein the condition reporting device is stationary.

22. A system as in claim 20, wherein the first PCD serves as a mobile condition reporting device.

23. A system as in claim 22, wherein the first PCD is configured to send detected road condition data to a central computer system.

24. A system as in claim 23, wherein each PCD comprises a digital camera configured to apply a GPS location stamp on a digitized image captured by the PCD digital camera, and each PCD is configured to select a road condition, wherein the detected road condition data comprises a digitized image with the GPS location stamp and a tag based on the selected road condition.

25. A system as in claim 23, wherein the central computer system is configured to make the detected road condition data available to one or more other PCDs.

26. A system as in claim 25, wherein the PCDs are configured to communicate with the central computer system via a cellular telephone communication system, and each PCD is configured to receive detected road condition data from the central computer system, and to use current speed information to determine travel times to a desired destination along a plurality of proposed routes.

27. A system as in claim 15, wherein the PCDs serve as a mobile condition reporting devices configured to send a road condition data to a central computer system.

28. A system as in claim 27, wherein the PCDs are configured so that the associated user can select a road status data reflecting the user'"'"'s observation of a road status, and the PCD is configured to send the selected road status data to the central computer system.

29. A system as in claim 28, wherein the PCDs each comprise a digital camera configured to apply a GPS location stamp on a digitized image captured by the PCD digital camera, wherein the road condition data comprises a digitized image with the GPS location stamp and a tag based on the selected road status.

30. A system as in claim 28, wherein the central computer system is configured to make the detected road condition data available to one or more other PCDs.

31. A system as in claim 15, wherein locations of interest are indicated by a marker on the map shown on the display, and the marker is linked to other data structures.

32. A system as in claim 31, wherein the PCDs are configured so that if the associated user selects the marker through the touch screen input device, the PCD displays or makes use of additional data concerning the location of interest.

33. A system as in claim 32, wherein the additional data concerning the location of interest is obtained by the PCD from the data provider.

34. A system as in claim 15, wherein each PCD is configured so that the associated user can indicate a roadway status and communicate the status to the data provider.

35. A system as in claim 34, wherein each PCD comprises a camera, and each PCD can communicate an image tagged with the roadway status to the data provider.

36. A system as in claim 34, wherein the data provider will accept communications about the roadway status only from authorized users.

37. A method of exchanging GPS encoded and non-GPS encoded information between handheld devices, each of the handheld devices including at least a processor, a memory, a display screen configured to accept touch-screen inputs, a microphone, and a speaker, and being configured to operate as a portable telephone and to send and receive Global Positioning System (GPS) encoded location data, the method comprising:

a first one of the handheld devices receiving map data from a data provider;

the first one of the handheld devices receiving GPS encoded location data regarding a second one of the handheld devices;

the first one of the handheld devices showing the map on the display and showing the position of the second one of the handheld devices as an icon on the map, and simultaneously receiving an input through a touch point on the display; and

in response to the input, the first one of the handheld devices communicating with the second one of the handheld devices.

38. A method as in claim 37, wherein the touch point corresponds to a menu shown on the display with the map and the icon.

39. A method as in claim 38, wherein the first one of the handheld devices receives data about the second one of the handheld devices other than GPS encoded data.

40. A method as in claim 37 additionally comprising the first one of the handheld devices sending road condition data to a central computer system.

41. A method as in claim 40 additionally comprising a plurality of handheld devices receiving the road condition data from the central computer system.

42. A method as in claim 41 additionally comprising the first one of the handheld devices capturing a digitized image and applying a GPS location stamp to the digitized image, and sending road condition data to the central computer system comprises sending the digitized image with the GPS location stamp to the central computer system.

43. A method as in claim 42, wherein the first one of the handheld devices additionally sends a tag based on a selected road condition to the central computer system with the digitized image.

44. A method as in claim 42, wherein the first one of the handheld devices receives a user input with information about the road condition, and the road condition data includes the user input.