Patent ID: 7103369

Claim:
A terminal apparatus that is associated with a mobile unit and acquires content related to at least one position, comprising: a storing section that stores a content list that stores data representing at least one position corresponding to content; a position detector that detects a position of the mobile unit; an acquisition region determiner that predicts at least one road on which the mobile unit will pass, based on the detected position of the mobile unit, the at least one predicted road defining a content acquisition region; a selector that selects content corresponding to at least one position associated with the determined content acquisition region from the content list; a prefetcher that acquires a first part of the selected content; an acquisition determiner which determines whether a remaining part of the selected content will be referred to based on a position of the mobile unit subsequent to acquisition of the first part of the selected content, and thereby determines whether to acquire the remaining part of the selected content; and an acquiring section that acquires the remaining part of the selected content when the acquisition determiner determines to acquire the remaining part of the selected content, wherein the acquisition determiner calculates a time it will take to acquire the remaining part of the selected content, determines whether the mobile unit will be located within a predetermined distance from a position corresponding to the selected content after a period of time corresponding to the time it will take to acquire the remaining part of the selected content, and when determining that the mobile unit will be located within the predetermined distance from the position corresponding to the selected content after the period of time corresponding to the time it will take to acquire the remaining part of the selected content, determines to acquire the remaining part of the selected content.