An information providing device is provided which can provide necessary guidance in an intuitively and easy-to-recognize form even when guidance is mainly by audio or sound.

In searching for a route destination, when the distance to the destination is within a prescribed distance, guidance that includes information indicating the distance to the destination is provided by audio, and when the destination is farther than said prescribed distance, guidance that includes address information indicating the address of the destination is provided by audio (steps S28, S30, S17).

A method is disclosed for determining and displaying an area comprising a plurality of locations that can be reached by a person or vehicle from a departure node or current position while still reaching a destination node or home location given the initial value at the departure node or current position of a parameter that constrains the distance travelable by the person or vehicle. The method may be implemented on a mobile device such as a portable navigation device and/or on a server or computer, or may be provided as a computer program product.

A multi-stop route selection system may include a telematics device associated with a vehicle having one or more sensors arranged therein, a mobile device, and a server computer. The server computer may receive driving data of a driver of the vehicle and a vehicle location from the telematics device, determine one or more driving behaviors of the driver based on the driving data, receive data regarding a calendar of the driver from the mobile device, identify a plurality of appointments in the calendar, determine a route comprising multiple destinations for the driver based on the vehicle location, the one or more driving behaviors, and the plurality of appointments, transmit the route to the mobile device, receive a request to add a new destination to the route from the mobile device, generate a modified route comprising the new destination, and transmit the modified route for the driver to the mobile device.

A computer-implemented method of using telematics data associated with an originating vehicle at a destination vehicle is provided. The method may include receiving telematics data associated with the originating vehicle by (1) a mobile device or (2) a smart vehicle controller associated with a driver or vehicle. The mobile device or smart vehicle controller may analyze the telematics data received to determine that (i) a travel event exists, or (ii) that a travel event message or warning is embedded within the telematics broadcast received. If the travel event exits, the method may include automatically taking a preventive or corrective action, at or via the mobile device or smart vehicle controller, which alleviates a negative impact of the travel event on the driver or vehicle to facilitate safer or more efficient vehicle travel. Insurance discounts may be provided to insureds based upon their usage of the risk mitigation or prevention functionality.

To provide content-aware audio navigation instructions, a client device executing a mapping application obtains one or more audio navigation directions for traversing from a starting location to a destination location along a route. The client device also identifies electronic media content playing from a source different from the mapping application which is executing at the client device or in proximity to the client device. The client device determines characteristics of the electronic media content and adjusts the audio navigation directions in accordance with the characteristics of the electronic media content. Then the client device presents the adjusted audio navigation directions to a user.

An information presentation device includes: a communication unit that receives the degree of congestion at each position on each of a plurality of routes from each of human flow sensors installed at predetermined intervals on each of the plurality of routes to a specific point; a calculation unit that calculates the required time for each time series of the route on the basis of the degree of congestion at each position in each of the routes; a prediction unit that inputs the time-series required time calculated for each of the routes to a predetermined device for predicting The required time of each of the routes learned in advance, and predicts the timing when the required time approaches the threshold for each of the routes as an output of the predetermined device; and an information management unit that identifies a route that requires inducement from the timing predicted for each of the routes, selects an incentive for prompting a change in the identified route and an inducement time for the incentive, and instructs the information presentation terminal installed at least at a starting point of the identified route to present information corresponding to the selected incentive and inducement time.

An apparatus for controlling multimedia of a vehicle includes: a display to display a route guiding screen or a content screen; and a controller to control the display to display the route guiding screen or the content screen based on an active screen switching manner or a non-switching manner. A driver is prevented from deviating from a route because the driver fails to see the route guiding screen or prevented from inconveniently performing the additional handling of the driver to switch to the route guiding screen.

A computer-implemented method of using telematics data at a destination device is provided. The destination device may be a mobile device associated with a driver, or a smart vehicle controller of a destination vehicle. The telematics data is generated by an originating mobile device (i) having a Telematics Application (or “App”), and (ii) associated with a second driver/vehicle, the telematics data including acceleration, braking, speed, heading, and location data associated with an originating vehicle. The telematics data may be broadcast from the originating mobile device to the destination device that (a) analyzes the telematics data received, (b) determines that an abnormal travel condition exists, and (c) automatically take corrective action that alleviates a negative impact of the abnormal travel condition on the destination vehicle to facilitate safer travel. A usage-based or other insurance discount may be provided based upon insured usage of the telematics data-based risk mitigation or prevention functionality.

Embodiments of the present invention allow users to navigate to a destination by way of haptic feedback. An embodiment employs: (1) a processor executed software application, and (2) one or more vibrating nodes worn by a user. In such an embodiment, upon providing a destination via an application, the application sends commands to the nodes to vibrate along a specific signature to indicate, through the sense of touch, navigation commands to the user.

A three-dimensional information processing method includes: obtaining, via a communication channel, map data that includes first three-dimensional position information; generating second three-dimensional position information from information detected by a sensor; judging whether one of the first three-dimensional position information and the second three-dimensional position information is abnormal by performing, on one of the first three-dimensional position information and the second three-dimensional position information, a process of judging whether an abnormality is present; determining a coping operation to cope with the abnormality when one of the first three-dimensional position information and the second three-dimensional position information is judged to be abnormal; and executing a control that is required to perform the coping operation.