http://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/2/how-can-an-ethereum-contract-get-data-from-a-website
This is what you're looking for to make etherium contracts pull data. There are a few options in this post. I'm no expert so I won't try to summarize. If you're not worried about "centralization" than it would be easier and cheaper to run a program that links locally or on a server.
Yes this answers part of it. It can get data into an Ethereum smart contract if the data feed is public. It's not ideal because it's probably not good enough to build some form of communication mechanism beyond a data feed but it's a start. I could work with that.