Patent ID: 8356249

Claim:
A method of creating a dynamic video tour using video devices, the method comprising: receiving a list of attributes, the list of attributes describing attributes of the video devices; continuously receiving a list of factors, the list of factors including historical data specifying areas in which events have occurred in the past; utilizing the historical data in the list of factors as a basis to predict locations of future events that have not yet occurred; based on the predicted locations of the future events and the list of attributes describing attributes of the video devices, selecting a subset of the video devices from which to receive video capturing occurrence of the future events, the subset changes over time due to changes in the list of factors; displaying the video from the selected subset of the video devices as a tour, the displayed video changing over time as the selected subset changes over time; wherein displaying video comprises: dividing the selected subset of the video devices into a plurality of groups; assigning, to each group in the plurality of groups, a display priority, the display priority indicating how often video from video devices in that group should be displayed in the tour; and displaying loops of video in the tour, the video in a respective loop taken from video devices in groups associated with the respective loop, the groups associated with the respective loop determined according to the display priority assigned to those groups; the method further comprising: receiving a first list of factors including first historical data specifying geographical areas in which at least one event has occurred in the past; predicting occurrence of a first possible future event based on the received first list of factors; selecting a first subset of the video devices based upon the received list of attributes and the first list of factors, the received list of attributes indicating respective locations of the video devices; in the tour, initiating display of images captured by video devices in the first subset to display occurrence of the first possible future event; receiving a second list of factors including second historical data specifying geographical areas in which at least one event has occurred in the past; predicting occurrence of a second possible future event based on the received second list of factors; selecting a second subset of the video devices based upon the received list of attributes and the second list of factors; in the tour, initiating display of images captured by video devices in the second subset to display occurrence of the second possible future event.