Patent ID: 8004396

Claim:
An information integration system for integrating information, comprising: a local information receiving unit configured to receive information from a plurality of sensors; an information collecting unit configured to collect information from a plurality of remote information sources; an information processing unit coupled to the local information receiving unit and the information collecting unit, the information processing unit being configured to process the information received by the local information receiving unit and the information collected by the information collecting unit, and to provide: the processed information; and supplemental information based on the processed information; a first server coupled with the information collecting unit through a network, wherein the remote information sources include one or more Internet servers, and the information collecting unit is further configured to collect the information from the Internet servers in an active mode and in a passive mode, in the active mode, the information collecting unit intermittently collects the information from the Internet servers, and in the passive mode, the information collecting unit sends an information request for the first server to collect the information from the Internet servers and to send the collected information to the information collecting unit.