1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to vehicular participative systems and, more particularly, vehicular participative systems that share vehicle/occupant information to allow for comparisons between vehicles and/or occupants of the vehicle.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Telematics involve communication applications that send, receive, and store information via telecommunication devices between multiple remote entities using cloud computing. Cloud computing describes many computing concepts that involve a large number of computing devices connected through a communications network such as the Internet. Cloud computing enables a program or application to run on many connected computers at the same time. Information may be shared with other remote entities using cloud computing for a variety of reasons. For example, information may be shared to provide safety communications, emergency warnings, and vehicle tracking.
Vehicle data acquisition devices are used to collect vehicle information as well as operator attribute information from vehicle trace data of the vehicle as the vehicle is being operated. While this information is known to be used for emergency warnings and safety communications, there is a need in the art to enable vehicle operators to use the collected vehicle trace data in vehicle applications that allow for ranking of the performance of vehicle operators and/or to share the vehicle trace data in applications such as social networking applications. Such ranking information may be used by vehicle occupants as a form of information and/or entertainment (i.e., eco-driving or safe-driving score) or vehicle usage (i.e., time-of-day usage or travel routes) to determine insurance risk.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds