An information processing apparatus comprises a controller configured to acquire sponsor information including information on a facility available as a getting-in place or getting-off place for ride sharing, information on a time period during which the facility is available as the getting-in place or getting-off place for ride sharing, and information on a privilege when the facility is used as the getting-in place or getting-off place for ride sharing; and provide the acquired sponsor information to a ride sharing coordinator.

A robot for charging a vehicle is provided. The robot has wheels or configured for a track for the robot to automatically move to the vehicle to provide charge to a battery of the vehicle. A charge storage is associated with the robot. An articulating arm of the robot. The articulating arm is configured for movement that enables the articulating arm to automatically connect to a connector of the vehicle after the robot moves in position beside the vehicle for providing charge to the battery of the vehicle.

The systems may include dividing a digital map provided by a mapping system into a matrix having a plurality of cells; assigning a cell of the plurality of cells to encompass a geographic region of the digital map; calculating a number of sites of interest in the cell; creating a marker comprising a first count number representing the number of sites of interest in the cell; and sharing the marker with a browser for display on the digital map.

An information processing apparatus includes: a communication interface; and one or more processors configured to when determining that a degree of dirt of a vehicle exceeds a predetermined first threshold value, select at least one vehicle washing facility from among a plurality of vehicle washing facilities, based on an attribute of a user of the vehicle, and notify the user of guidance information for guiding the user to the selected vehicle washing facility via the communication interface.

A method includes: selecting a set of access points in a focus zone that identifies an area around the travel destination; determining access paths through one or more access points in the set of selected access points; listing crossings that the access paths pass through; for each of the listed crossings: determining a probability that the listed crossing is passed through by an access path; determining at least one complexity score of the listed crossing; determining a set of points of interest (POIs) along access paths passing through the listed crossing; and determining quality scores for the POIs, respectively, the quality score of one of the POIs reflecting a utility of that one of the POIs to facilitate orientation; selecting POIs from the set of POIs based on the quality scores; generating the access map including the access paths and the selected POIs; and outputting the access map.

Some embodiments provide a mapping application that displays a transit map including a group of transit lines. The mapping application receives a request to display a transit route in the transit map. The mapping application also, in response to the received request, displays the transit route by modifying portions of transit lines along the route to emphasize the portions of the transit lines while modifying other transit lines not along the route to de-emphasize the transit lines not along the route.

A POI (Point Of Interest) information updating device (1) includes an input unit (10) configured to input POI identification information for identifying a POI, an acquisition unit (11) configured to acquire event information on an event performed at a target POI identified by the POI identification information input by the input unit, a search unit (12) configured to search for similar event information similar to the event information acquired by the acquisition unit (11), and an updating unit (13) configured to update information on the target POI on the basis of information on a POI at which an event indicated by the similar event information searched for by the search unit (12) has been performed.

A charging facility guidance system is equipped with an electric vehicle and a server device. The electric vehicle is equipped with a first processor transmitting information on a current position and a remaining battery level of the electric vehicle to the server device. The server device is equipped with a second processor calculating a possible cruising distance of the electric vehicle based on the remaining battery level thereof, setting a charging facility search range indicating a range of search for charging facilities for the electric vehicle along a route from a place of departure of the electric vehicle to a destination of the electric vehicle, searching for charging facilities included in the charging facility search range, based on the possible cruising distance, selecting the charging facility located as close as possible to the destination, and transmitting information on the selected charging facility to the electric vehicle.

A data acquisition apparatus (200) comprises a processing resource operably coupled to an input unit (204) and an output unit (206). The processing resource (202) is arranged to provide an execution environment for supporting a user interface. An enquiry module (268) is provided and supported by the execution environment. The apparatus (200) also comprises a communications unit (166, 168) operably coupled to the processing resource for supporting communications over a communications network. The enquiry module (268) is arranged to generate (410) a search query relating to a point of interest and receive search results in response thereto via the communications unit (166, 168), the enquiry module (268) also being arranged to use the search results to derive data associated with the point of interest.

A processing apparatus is provided, to, for each candidate point-of-interest of at least one candidate point-of-interest identified for association with a road in a network of roads for determining a name for the road, generate first data indicative of a relationship relating to a distance between the candidate point-of-interest and a road segment of the road, generate second data indicative of a relationship between the road segment and a projection of the candidate point-of-interest in a direction of the road segment, and, if the first and second relationships satisfy a first and second conditions for association respectively, generate data indicative of the candidate point-of-interest being an associated point-of-interest, process data corresponding to the associated point-of-interest to extract name data indicative of a road name associated with the associated point-of-interest, and generate, based on the name data, data indicative of the name for the road.