Patent ID: 7363357

Claim:
A method of operating a vehicle comprising: collecting user preferences that pertain to a user-desired experience associated with operation of a vehicle; storing the user preferences in a computer-accessible location; authenticating a user to the vehicle; retrieving one or more user preferences associated with the authenticated user from the computer-accessible location using a computer that is mounted in the vehicle, the computer comprising one or more processors and computer-readable media associated with the one or more processors; receiving location information from one or more location providers operably associated with the computer; determining, based at least in part on the received location information, the vehicle's location, said determining comprising: accessing a first hierarchical tree structure resident on the computer-readable media and having multiple nodes associated with first vehicle locations; and accessing at least one second hierarchical tree structure resident on the computer-readable media and having multiple nodes associated with second vehicle locations, at least one node from the second hierarchical tree structure being linked with one node on the first hierarchical tree structure by a link that is configured to enable a complete vehicle location to be derived from the first and second vehicle locations; and based at least in part on the vehicle's location, configuring the vehicle in a manner consistent with the one or more retrieved user preferences, wherein said configuring is performed at least in part by one or more applications resident on the computer-readable media and configured to be executed on the one or more processors.