Patent ID: 7912630
Filing Date: 2011-03-22
Classification: G01C,G06Q

Abstract:
1. A computerized method for facilitating communications between at least one vehicle and at least one application remotely located from the vehicle, the method comprising the steps of: defining by a vehicle response server a plurality of geographical boundaries for a region, wherein the vehicle response server includes a plurality of remotely located computing devices communicatively linked to one another via a network, each computing device communicating with vehicles located in different geographical boundaries; associating at least one application with each computing device so that the at least one application is hosted on the computing device; conveying activation contexts and associated actions for the contexts from the at least one application to the associated computing device; as a vehicle having a vehicle response agent travels, determining a geographical boundary in which the vehicle resides; conveying activation contexts of at least one application hosted on the computing device associated with the determined geographical boundary from the computing device to the vehicle within the determined geographical boundary, wherein different activation contexts are conveyed to the vehicle and received by the vehicle response agent within the vehicle as the vehicle travels from one geographical boundary to another; translating the received activation contexts into vehicle-specific events by a context processor of the vehicle response agent; obtaining vehicle state information by monitoring a plurality of vehicle sensors; determining by the context processor an occurrence of a vehicle-specific event based upon the vehicle state information; conveying a context indication from the vehicle response agent within the vehicle to an application associated with the activation context corresponding to the determined vehicle-specific event via the computing device responsive to the occurrence of the vehicle-specific event; and performing by the application at least one programmatic action responsive to receiving the context indication from the vehicle response agent.