Information providing system for vehicle

• US 8,090,367 B2
• Filed: 03/19/2009
• Issued: 01/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/25/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Original Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Inventors: Kameyama, Shogo
• Primary Examiner(s): Patel, Ajit
• Assistant Examiner(s): Navar, Erica
• Application Number:
  US12/407,400
• Publication Number:
  US 20090247151A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,020 Days
• Field of Search: 455/3.06, 455403-4042, 4554141-4144, 455/575.9, 455/556.1, 455 901- 903
• US Class Current: 455/426.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• 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 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 Push-based network services

Abstract

A cellular phone accumulates input information, which is inputted by a user using the cellular phone located not only inside but also outside of a vehicle, as parent population data for interest extraction, and extracts interest information, which reflects a present interest of a user, from the parent population data for interest extraction. An in-vehicle information output apparatus internally or externally collects provision information, which matches the interest information extracted in the cellular phone, and provides the user with the collected provision information.

Claims

1. An information providing system for a vehicle, the system including (i) an in-vehicle information output apparatus mounted to the vehicle and (ii) a cellular phone capable of communicating with the in-vehicle information output apparatus, the information providing system comprising:

an input information acquisition section provided in the cellular phone for acquiring input information based on at least one of (i) a speech of a user'"'"'s telephone call using the cellular phone located inside or outside of the vehicle and (ii) address information of a user'"'"'s browser to an external network using the cellular phone located inside or outside of the vehicle, the input information acquisition section including a microphone, which functions as a telephone transmitter of the cellular phone, the microphone acquiring the speech of the telephone call by the user;

a population accumulation section provided in the cellular phone for accumulating, as a parent population data, input information acquired by the input information acquisition section within a predetermined period up to a present time;

an interest information extraction section provided in the cellular phone or the in-vehicle information output apparatus for extracting interest information reflecting a present interest of the user from the parent population data for interest extraction accumulated by the population accumulation section;

a provision information collection section provided in the in-vehicle information output apparatus for collecting provision information, which matches the extracted interest information;

an information output section provided in the in-vehicle information output apparatus for outputting the provision information collected by the provision information collection section in an image, a sound, or a combination of an image and a sound;

a speech recognition section provided in the cellular phone or the in-vehicle information output apparatus for performing speech recognition of the speech acquired by the microphone of the cellular phone to speech-recognize input information; and

a keyword extraction section provided in the cellular phone or the in-vehicle information output apparatus for extracting a keyword for determining user'"'"'s interest from the speech-recognized input information;

the population accumulation section including a keyword accumulation portion to accumulate the extracted keyword;

the provision information collection section being configured to retrieve provision information to be collected based on the keyword extracted by the keyword extraction section,

the interest information extraction section being configured to analyze an appearance frequency of the keyword accumulated in the keyword accumulation portion, and give a higher priority to a keyword having a greater appearance frequency, the priority being used when the provision information collection section collects the provision information.

2. The information providing system according to claim 1,

wherein the interest information extraction section is provided in the cellular phone,

the information providing system further comprising:

a cellular phone side communication section provided in the cellular phone for transmitting the extracted interest information to the in-vehicle information output apparatus; and

a vehicle side communication section provided in the in-vehicle information output apparatus for receiving the interest information transmitted from the cellular phone.

3. The information providing system according to claim 1,

wherein the interest information extraction section is provided in the in-vehicle information output apparatus,

the information providing system further comprising:

a cellular phone side communication section provided in the cellular phone for transmitting the accumulated parent population for interest extraction to the vehicle; and

a vehicle side communication section provided in the in-vehicle information output apparatus for receiving the accumulated parent population for interest extraction transmitted from the cellular phone.

4. The information providing system according to claim 2, further comprising:

a bi-directional short range wireless communication network configured to wirelessly communicate the cellular phone and the in-vehicle information output apparatus with each other directly via the individual communication sections.

5. The information providing system according to claim 2,

each of the cellular phone and the in-vehicle information output apparatus communicating with an external network, the individual communication sections of the cellular phone and the in-vehicle information output apparatus indirectly communicating with each other by wirelessly entering the external network.

6. The information providing system according to claim 1,

the information providing system further comprising:

an in-vehicle provision information storage section provided in the in-vehicle information output apparatus for storing the provision information,

the provision information collection section being configured to retrieve and collect the provision information based on the interest information by referring to the in-vehicle provision information storage section.

7. The information providing system according to claim 1,

the information providing system further comprising:

an information provision server provided in an external network, which the cellular phone and the in-vehicle output system are allowed to access,

the provision information collection section being configured to retrieve and collect the provision information based on the interest information by referring to the information provision server.

8. The information providing system according to claim 1,

the interest information extraction section including a keyword dictionary storage portion which stores a keyword dictionary for covering a keyword group previously selected for interest extraction,

the keyword extraction section being configured to

perform a decomposition to decompose the speech-recognized input information into words and

collate a result of the decomposition with the keyword dictionary, to thereby selectively extract a keyword covered by the keyword dictionary.

9. The information providing system according to claim 8,

the interest information extraction section including

(i) a keyword update information acquiring portion for acquiring periodically update information relative to at least one of a most recent topic, a season, and a fashion, via an external network, and

(ii) a keyword update portion for updating the keyword dictionary based on the acquired update information.

10. The information providing system according to claim 1,

the provision information collection section being configured to retrieve the provision information using a first keyword having a greatest appearance frequency, from among keywords extracted by the keyword extraction section within a most recent predetermined period.

11. The information providing system according to claim 10,

the provided information collection section being configured to retrieve the provision information using a second keyword having a second greatest appearance frequency next to the first keyword, when a number of retrieval hits in retrieving the provision information using the first keyword exceeds a predetermined threshold value.

12. The information providing system according to claim 1,

the input information acquisition section including an information input portion of address information for browsing an Internet website as the external network wirelessly accessible from the cellular phone,

the parent population accumulation section including a website browsing history accumulation portion to accumulate a browsing history of an Internet website.

13. The information providing system according to claim 1, further comprising:

a navigation section provided in the in-vehicle information output apparatus for navigating the vehicle,

the provision information collection section being configured to retrieve and collect, in the navigation section, destination information as provision information, the destination information matching the interest information.

14. The information providing system according to claim 1, further comprising:

a wireless access section provided in the in-vehicle information output apparatus for accessing a website on an Internet,

the provision information collection section being configured to retrieve and collect, on the Internet, website information as provision information, the website information matching the interest information.

15. The information providing system according to claim 1, further comprising:

an output history information record section provided in the in-vehicle information output apparatus for recording output history information of the provision information outputted by the information output section,

the provision information collection section being configured to preferentially collect provision information having an output frequency within a newest predetermined period, the output frequency being less than a predetermined first threshold value, by referring to the output history information in the output history information record section.

16. The information providing system according to claim 15,

the provision information collection section being configured to perform a first retrieval using the extracted interest information,

the provision information collection section being further configured to,

when as a result of the first retrieval, a number of retrieval hits to retrieve provision information having an output frequency being less than the first threshold value within the newest predetermined period, is less than a predetermined threshold value,

perform a second retrieval by using a narrowing down condition, which is alleviated from a narrowing down condition used for the first retrieval.

17. A method for outputting provision information for a user in a vehicle in cooperation with a cellular phone of the user, the method comprising:

acquiring input information based on at least one of (i) a speech of a user'"'"'s telephone call using the cellular phone located not only inside but also outside of the vehicle and (ii) address information of a user'"'"'s browser to an external network using the cellular phone located not only inside but also outside of the vehicle;

accumulating, as a parent population data, input information acquired within a predetermined period up to a present time;

extracting interest information reflecting a present interest of the user from the accumulated parent population data for interest extraction;

collecting provision information, which matches the extracted interest information; and

outputting, for the user located in the vehicle, the collected provision information in an image, a sound, or a combination of an image and a sound, wherein

said acquiring step utilizes a microphone, which functions as a telephone transmitter of the cellular phone, the microphone acquiring the speech of the telephone call by the user;

speech recognition is performed of the speech acquired by the microphone of the cellular phone to speech-recognize input information;

a keyword is extracted from the acquired recognized speech for determining user'"'"'s interest;

extracted keywords are accumulated;

provision information is retrieved and collected based on the extracted keyword;

an appearance frequency of the accumulated keywords is analyzed; and

a higher priority is given to a keyword having a greater appearance frequency, the priority being used when collecting provision information.

18. An information providing system for a vehicle, the system including (i) an in-vehicle information output apparatus mounted to the vehicle and (ii) a cellular phone capable of communicating with the in-vehicle information output apparatus,

the information providing system comprising:

an input information acquisition section provided in the cellular phone for acquiring input information based on at least one of (i) a speech of a user'"'"'s telephone call using the cellular phone located inside or outside of the vehicle and (ii) address information of a user'"'"'s browser to an external network using the cellular phone located inside or outside of the vehicle;

a population accumulation section provided in the cellular phone for accumulating, as a parent population data, input information acquired by the input information acquisition section within a predetermined period up to a present time;

an interest information extraction section provided in the cellular phone or the in-vehicle information output apparatus for extracting interest information reflecting a present interest of the user from the parent population data for interest extraction accumulated by the population accumulation section;

a provision information collection section provided in the in-vehicle information output apparatus for collecting provision information, which matches the extracted interest information;

an information output section provided in the in-vehicle information output apparatus for outputting the provision information collected by the provision information collection section in an image, a sound, or a combination of an image and a sound; and

an output history information record section provided in the in-vehicle information output apparatus for recording output history information of the provision information outputted by the information output section,

the provision information collection section being configured to preferentially collect provision information having an output frequency within a newest predetermined period, the output frequency being less than a predetermined first threshold value, by referring to the output history information in the output history information record section.

19. The information providing system according to claim 18,

the provision information collection section being configured to perform a first retrieval using the extracted interest information,

the provision information collection section being further configured to,

when, as a result of the first retrieval, a number of retrieval hits to retrieve provision information having an output frequency being less than the first threshold value within the newest predetermined period, is less than a predetermined threshold value,

perform a second retrieval by using a narrowing down condition, which is alleviated from a narrowing down condition used for the first retrieval.