Patent ID: 8046213

Claim:
A driving directions system capable of accessing a database comprising a storage memory storing a plurality of geographic names, wherein each of the plurality of geographic names is associated with at least one stored prerecorded spoken utterance of the associated geographic name, and wherein at least some of the plurality of geographic names are associated with a plurality of stored prerecorded spoken utterances of the associated geographic name, each pronounced according to a respective speech style of a particular region and/or pronounced in a particular language associated with the particular region, the driving directions system comprising: a location determination module for determining the location of the driving directions system; a run-time memory for temporarily storing at least some geographic names and the associated prerecorded spoken utterances associated with a route from a starting location to a destination location, the geographic names and associated prerecorded spoken utterances associated with the route forming a first set; and a storage manager to successively store subsets of the geographic names and the associated spoken utterances in the run-time memory by retrieving from the database only a subset of the geographic names and associated spoken utterances from the first set that are within a predetermined distance from a current location of the driving directions system, and storing the subset in the run-time memory, the storage manager further configured to periodically retrieve successive subsets from the remote database as the location of the driving directions system changes along the route, and to store the successive subsets in the run-time memory, wherein the geographic names and the associated spoken utterances that become out of range as the location changes are overwritten by portions of the next successive subset retrieved and stored in the run-time memory, the storage manager further configured to identify in each successive subset each of the geographic names in the subset having a plurality of stored prerecorded spoken utterances, and to select one of the plurality of stored prerecorded spoken utterances for retrieval and storing based, at least in part, on a similarity between the location determined by the location determination module and the particular region associated with the selected one of the plurality of stored prerecorded spoken utterances.