Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Apple seeks patent on "podmaps" concept

Published: 01:00 PM EST

A new software concept proposed by Apple Inc. would merge visual maps and spoken driving directions into an advanced form of on-demand podcast known as a podmap, a recent company filing has revealed.

The software-driven concept would consist of four core components that would let users request directions from a starting location to a destination location and have the results of that request returned in the form of a podcast media file that includes visual maps and spoken step-by-step driving instructions.

The GPS alternative of sorts would function as such: users would request a set of driving directions, which would then be sent to a remote map server. In turn, the map server would return textual based directions and pass them through a text-to-speech conversion engine that would return audible equivalents.

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