Abstract: A traffic announcement system for a motor vehicle utilizes a vehicular navigation system covering a geographical area, a receiver that receives traffic announcement signals, an in-vehicle audio system for presenting to a driver of the vehicle the received traffic announcements, and a controller linked to the navigation system and to the receiver. Via the controller the driver of the vehicle can selectively suppress the presentation of at least some traffic announcements. The controller includes a user input by which the driver identifies particular routes or localities within the geographical area covered by the navigation system for which traffic announcements are to be selectively suppressed. The controller then automatically suppresses the traffic announcements when the vehicle is on the identified routes or within the identified localities. The driver can also input selected time ranges when traffic announcements are to be suppressed.

Abstract: The present invention relates to an optical media system (40) for suppressing externally induced rattle of an optical media pickup. The system (40) comprises: an optical pickup (41) for reading from and/or writing to an optical storage medium (43), the optical pickup (41) having one or more sources of light (61), an objective lens (2), a focus and/or tracking actuator (1) for moving the lens (2) to focus and/or track the light on the optical medium (43) and mechanical limits to limit the focus and/or tracking movement of the lens (2); and an actuator controller (58) for controlling the actuator (1) and hence the focus and/or tracking position of the lens (2), characterised in that the actuator controller (58) actively controls the lens position when the optical pickup (41) is not being used with the optical medium (43).