AU1763399A

AU1763399A - Method and system for the browsing of hypertext pages

Info

Publication number: AU1763399A
Application number: AU17633/99A
Authority: AU
Inventors: Petteri Heinonen; Pasi Lahtinen
Original assignee: Sonera Oy
Current assignee: Sonera Oy
Priority date: 1997-12-31
Filing date: 1998-12-29
Publication date: 1999-07-26
Also published as: CN1285936A; EP1044415A2; CA2315653A1; WO1999035595A3; JP2002501232A; FI974662A0; WO1999035595A2

Description

WO 99/35595 PCT/FI98/01027 1 METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR THE BROWSING OF HYPERTEXT PAGES The present invention relates to telecommuni cation. In particular, the invention relates to an ad 5 vanced method for the browsing of hypertext pages using a mobile station. With the development of the World Wide Web (WWW) , the Internet has become one of the fastest grow ing telecommunication segments. In the near future, in 10 creasing integration of the WWW and digital mobile com munication systems is to be expected, which means that WWW pages can be browsed and various services associ ated with them can be used e.g. by means of a GSM tele phone. The problem so far has been that in most cases 15 WWW pages have been designed to be used via a graphic user interface and using e.g. a mouse, whereas a typi cal mobile station has a very limited text-based dis play with a keypad user interface. Therefore, display ing e.g. hyperlinks and following them is very diffi 20 cult. One solution to this problem is the Nokia Commu nicator mobile station, which, in addition to normal mobile station properties, contains a small computer system with a graphic user interface. However, adding a computer system makes the device too expensive, which 25 again makes it unavailable to the average user. A Nokia product called Artus NetGate again allows the user to search information on WWW pages by entering search words via an ordinary mobile station. However, this in volves the problem that WWW pages cannot be freely 30 browsed. It is only possible to search pages predeter mined by the operator. The object of the present invention is to dis close a new type of method to eliminate the drawbacks described above. 35 A specific object of the present invention is to disclose a method and system which make it possible WO 99/35595 PCT/FI98/01027 2 to browse WWW pages and move from page to page by fol lowing hyperlinks using an ordinary mobile station. As for the features characteristic of the in vention, reference is made to the claims. 5 In the method of the invention for browsing hypertext pages using a mobile station in a telecommu nication system comprising a telecommunication network, such as the Internet, conversion means, such as a proxy-type server, and which telecommunication system 10 comprises a mobile station that preferably supports the Smart Messaging definition, and/or which mobile station preferably comprises soft keys, when a hypertext page or a hyperlink is selected via the mobile station, the selection is transmitted to the conversion means. Next, 15 using the conversion means, the hypertext page corre sponding to the selection is fetched from the telecom munication network. Further using the conversion means, the page is converted into a form that allows it to be presented on the display of the mobile station. The 20 converted page is transmitted to the mobile station and presented on the display of the mobile station. Accord ing to the invention, hyperlinks present in the re trieved hypertext page are identified using the conver sion means. Further, according to the invention, using 25 the conversion means, information regarding the re trieved hypertext pages and the hyperlinks contained in them is saved. The information to be saved comprises e.g. the URL-format addresses of the pages/links (Uni form Resource Locator, URL) . Further, according to the 30 invention, the hyperlinks contained in the hypertext page to be transmitted to the mobile station and the rest of the contents of the page are transmitted to the mobile station separately from each other. In an embodiment of the invention, the links 35 contained in the page to be transmitted to the mobile station are sent as a form comprising descriptions of the links e.g. in a menu format as well as link- WO 99/35595 PCT/FI98/01027 3 specific identification data, such as e.g. a code by which the conversion means can find the link corre sponding to the description and its URL address in the information saved. The rest of the contents of the hy 5 pertext page except the links is transmitted to the mo bile station in the form of a SMS, USSD or correspond ing message (Short-Message Service Centre, SMS; Un structured Supplementary Service Data, USSD). If the contents exceed the maximum message length, the text 10 will be divided into parts and sent in several mes sages. In an embodiment of the invention, a hypertext page is selected for presentation by sending from the mobile station to the conversion means a form compris 15 ing identification data, such as e.g. the URL-format address of the page, identifying the selected hypertext page. To follow a hyperlink, the link is selected in a menu, whereupon a form comprising user-specific identi fication information as to which page is wanted and 20 which link is to be followed is sent to the conversion means. In an embodiment of the invention, hyperlinks are displayed and/or selected using soft keys. Soft keys are general-purpose keys used in certain mobile 25 station models for purposes varying according to the situation. For instance, a menu containing hyperlinks can be displayed by pressing a predetermined soft key, and a link in the menu can be selected with a soft key. In an embodiment of the invention, the form is 30 a TTML form, a WML form or equivalent (Tagged Text Markup Language, TTML; Wireless Markup Language, WML). In an embodiment of the invention, the hyper text page to be retrieved from the telecommunication network is a WWW page. 35 In an embodiment of the invention, the mobile station is based on digital mobile communication tech- WO 99/35595 PCT/F198/01027 4 nology, such as the GSM, DCS1800 or equivalent technol ogy. As compared with prior art, the invention pro vides the advantage that it makes it possible to browse 5 WWW pages and follow hyperlinks on the limited display of an ordinary mobile station. The user is not required to know the exact location of the data for each link, such as the URL address, but the user can find the de sired information by "surfing". The invention is espe 10 cially well suited for use in mobile stations support ing the Smart Messaging definition. No accessories such as joystick or trackball type devices need to be added to mobile stations to make it easier to follow the links, but links can be easily and flexibly followed 15 using existing mobile stations with only a keypad user interface. In the following, the invention will be de scribed by the aid of a few examples of its embodiments by referring to the attached drawing, wherein 20 Fig. 1 presents an embodiment of the method of the invention in the form of a flow diagram; and Fig. 2 presents an embodiment of the system of the invention in the form of a flow diagram. Fig. 1 presents a flow diagram representing an 25 embodiment of the procedure of the invention as an ex ample. The user's GSM telephone contains a certain type of TTML form with an input field, in which the user en ters the URL address of the desired WWW page. The form is sent to a server, which gets the required WWW page 30 from the Internet. The server identifies the hyperlinks on the page and saves appropriate page information, such as the URL addresses and the links in the page. In addition, the server converts the page into a form al lowing it to be presented on the display of a GSM tele 35 phone. At this stage, e.g. graphics included in the page are removed as they cannot be reproduced on a telephone display. The contents of the page excluding WO 99/35595 PCT/FI98/01027 5 the links are sent to the user in the form of a normal short message. If the text of the page exceeds the maximum length of a short message, then it is divided into parts and sent in several short messages. The user 5 reads the text. After that, a TTML form containing the links for the page just read/browsed by the user is sent to the GSM telephone. This form contains a menu with descriptions of the links. The form does not con tain the URL addresses of the links but only codes that 10 the server can use to find the appropriate link and its URL address in the information it has saved. The user can follow a desired link by selecting the link in the menu and sending the form back to the server. The form sent back contains user-specific identification data 15 indicating the WWW page concerned and the link to be followed. Fig. 2 presents a flow diagram representing an embodiment of the system of the invention as an exam ple. Using a GSM telephone 1, a desired WWW page is se 20 lected. The selection is transmitted to a proxy-type server 2, which gets the page from the Internet 3 and delivers it in a converted form to the GSM telephone. The server and the Internet communicate using the HTTP protocol (HyperText Transfer Protocol, HTTP). The 25 server and the GSM telephone communicate using SMS mes sages and TTML forms. The present application is based on Finnish application FI 980484, which has been filed on 3.3.1998 and whose contents are included here by this reference. 30 The invention is not restricted to the exam ples of its embodiments described above, but many variations are possible within the scope of the inven tive idea defined by the claims.

Claims

1. Method for the browsing of hypertext pages by using a mobile station, in which method, to select a 5 hypertext page or hyperlink from the mobile station, a selection is transmitted from the mobile station, the hypertext page corresponding to the selection is re trieved from a telecommunication network, the page is converted into a form allowing it to be presented via 10 the mobile station, the page is transmitted to the mo bile station and presented on the display of the mobile station, characteri sed in that - the hyperlinks present in the hypertext page to be transmitted to the mobile station are identified; 15 - information regarding the hypertext page and the hyperlinks contained in it is saved; - the hyperlinks and the rest of the contents of the hypertext page are transmitted to the mobile station separately. 20

2. Method as defined in claim 1, c h a r a c terised in that - the hyperlinks are transmitted to the mobile station as a form comprising descriptions of the links and link-specific identification data; 25 - the rest of the contents of the hypertext page excluding the hyperlinks is transmitted to the mo bile station in the form of a SMS, USSD or correspond ing message.

3. Method as defined in claim 1 or 2, 30 charac teri sed in that - the selection of a hypertext page is trans mitted as a form comprising identification data for the hypertext page selected; and - the hyperlink selection is transmitted as a 35 form comprising identification data for the hyperlink selected. WO 99/35595 PCT/FI98/01027 7

4. Method as defined in any one of claims 1 3, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that hyperlinks are dis played and/or selected by utilising the soft keys of the mobile station.

5 5. Method as defined in any one of claims 1 4, c h a r acterised in that the form is a TTML form, a WML form or equivalent.

6. Method as defined in any one of claims 1 5, charac t eri s ed in that the hypertext page 10 is a WWW page.

7. Method as defined in any one of claims 1 6, charac t eri sed in that the mobile station is a digital mobile station.

8. System for the browsing of hypertext pages 15 by using a mobile station, said system comprising a mo bile station (1), which is used to select and present a hypertext page or hyperlink; conversion means (2) for retrieving and converting a desired hypertext page; and a telecommunication network (3), from which the hyper 20 text page is retrieved, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that the system comprises - identification means (2) for identifying the hyperlinks of the hypertext page to be transmitted to the mobile station (1); 25 - storage means (2) for saving information re garding the hypertext page and the hyperlinks contained in; - discriminating means (2) for transmitting the hyperlinks and the rest of the contents of the hy 30 pertext page to the mobile station (1) separately from each other.

9. System as defined in claim 8, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that the system comprises transmission means (2) for transmitting to the mobile station (1) 35 - the hyperlinks as a form comprising descrip tions of the links and link-specific identification data; and WO 99/35595 PCT/F198/01027 8 - the rest of the contents of the hypertext page in the form of a SMS, USSD or equivalent message.

10. System as defined in claim 8 or 9, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that the system comprises 5 transmission means (1) for transmitting a selection, said transmission means being used to transmit to the conversion means (2) - a hypertext page selection as a form com prising identification data for the hypertext page se 10 lected; and - a hyperlink selection as a form comprising identification data for the hyperlink selected.

11. System as defined in any one of claims 8 10, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that the mobile station 15 (1) comprises soft keys (1) which are used to present and/or select hyperlinks.

12. System as defined in any one of claims 8 11, characteri sed in that the form is a TTML form, WML form or a corresponding form. 20

13. System as defined in any one of claims 8 12, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that the hypertext page is a WWW page.

14. System as defined in any one of claims 8 13, characteri sed in that the mobile station 25 (1) is a digital mobile station.