JP2003323370A - Personal www proxy program, personal information terminal and content prefetch method of personal information terminal - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To add a function for prefetching WWW contents to a personal information terminal. <P>SOLUTION: A personal WWW proxy part 50 arranged in the personal information terminal 10 acquires contents requested by a WWW browser part 40 in the information terminal from a WWW server device (90) and sends them to the WWW browser part 40. The personal WWW proxy part 50 analyzes access requests for a plurality of contents to measure user-based access characteristic data 71 and 72 indicating characteristics of access to contents by a user. From the user-based access characteristic data, a determination is made whether or not to prefetch contents of any link destination designated by link information included in the contents acquired from the WWW server device, and if a prefetch of contents of any link destination is determined, the contents of the link destination are prefetched and stored in a cache storage means 60 arranged in the personal WWW proxy part 50. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention is used in a personal information terminal such as a personal computer and the WW on the personal information terminal.
The present invention relates to a personal WWW proxy program having a function of prefetching a content related to a content requested from a W browser in place of the WWW browser, a personal information terminal, and a content prefetching method in the personal information terminal.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A number of WWs connected to a network by using a WWW browser on a personal information terminal such as a personal computer.
Various WWW data (referred to as contents for simplification in this specification) held in the W server device can be acquired and displayed on the WWW browser. If the link information that specifies the URL of the link destination content is embedded in the character string or image in the displayed content, click the link information embedded part such as the character string or image with a pointing device such as a mouse. By selecting, the content of the link destination can be acquired from the WWW server device and displayed on the WWW browser. In this case, until the requested content is acquired from the WWW browser, the waiting time of the user becomes large due to the processing time of the request at the WWW server device of the access destination and the transfer time of the request and the content at the network. There are cases.

As a method of reducing the waiting time, WWW
A method of prefetching content using a proxy server device is known. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-2072
See Japanese Patent Publication No. 70. Usually, the WWW proxy server device is arranged in a network such as a local area network provided inside an organization such as a company, and is transmitted from WWW browsers activated on a plurality of WWW client devices connected to the network. In response to the access request, the requested content is acquired from the WWW server device arranged on the intranet or the Internet connected to the intranet instead of the WWW browser, and is transmitted to the WWW browser. W
The WW proxy server device temporarily holds the acquired content in a cache storage device provided inside,
When another WWW client device makes an acquisition request for the same content, the cache storage device transmits the content to the requesting client. Thereby, the waiting time required when acquiring the same content from the WWW server device is reduced.

Further, when the WWW proxy server device embeds link information designating a plurality of link destination contents in the acquired contents, the WWW proxy server device is based on the link information under certain conditions. Then, it is determined whether or not the content of each link destination satisfies a predetermined read-ahead condition, and the content of the link destination satisfying the read-ahead condition is pre-read and stored in the cache storage device. By doing so, when the pre-read link destination content is later requested by the WWW browser that requested the content in which the link information is embedded, the link destination content is read from the cache storage device and the request source WWW browser is read. Can reduce the waiting time that occurs when the linked content is acquired from the WWW server device. The pre-reading condition is the above-mentioned JP 2000-20.
In Japanese Patent No. 7270, a condition relating to the access frequency of the requested WWW content and the importance of the requesting viewer is used.

[0005]

Since a general WWW proxy server device is commonly provided for a plurality of WWW client devices, a cache storage device is used for contents that many people refer to. The hit rate is increased and unnecessary network traffic can be reduced. However, it cannot be expected that the hit rate of the cache memory device will be high for contents that are accessed by only a small number of people or a specific person.

At present, many individuals use WWW browsers on personal information terminals such as personal computers at home to acquire and use various contents on the Internet. Since such an individual user cannot use the WWW proxy server device as described above, there is a problem that the waiting time at the time of acquiring the content becomes long. Furthermore, when connecting to the Internet at a general home or the like using a telephone line, there are still many contract forms in which a charge is made according to the connection time. Therefore, if the waiting time for acquiring the content is long, the user will be charged more.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a personal WWW proxy program capable of shortening the waiting time when acquiring content from a WWW server device using a WWW browser activated on a personal information terminal, An object of the present invention is to provide a personal information terminal and a content prefetching method in the personal information terminal.

[0008]

In order to solve the above problems, the personal WWW according to the present invention as set forth in claim 1.
The proxy program is a personal WWW proxy program for proxy-acquiring contents to the personal information terminal from a WWW server device connected to a network in response to a request from a WWW browser activated on the personal information terminal. Then, the personal information terminal includes a storage unit for cache for temporarily storing WWW data,
According to a user's instruction, it is determined whether any content requested by the WWW browser is stored in the cache storage unit, and when the content is stored in the cache storage unit, the content is stored. Obtained from the cache storage means,
When the content is not stored in the cache storage unit, a content acquisition unit that acquires the content from a WWW server device, a unit that transmits the acquired content to the WWW browser, and the acquired content. It operates as a pre-reading unit that pre-reads the content of the link destination specified by any of the included link information and stores it in the cache storage unit.

As a result, the function of the personal proxy device can be incorporated in the personal information terminal, the content requested by the WWW browser is acquired by the personal proxy device, and any one of the contents included in the acquired contents is acquired. It becomes possible to read ahead the link destination content specified by the link information, and when the content at the link destination is requested later by the WWW browser, the content is already prefetched. The time can be very short.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a personal WWW proxy program according to the first aspect, wherein the personal information terminal analyzes the access request to the plurality of contents by the WWW browser to access the contents by the user. Means for measuring user-specific access characteristic data indicating characteristics, and whether or not to prefetch the linked content specified by any link information included in the acquired content based on the user-specific access characteristic data If the content of any link destination is determined to be prefetched, the content of the link destination is prefetched and stored in the cache storage unit. It is operated as a pre-reading means to be stored.

As a result, among the link destination contents designated by any of the link information included in the contents requested by the WWW browser and obtained by the personal proxy device, the contents which are likely to be requested by the user are selected by the user individually. It becomes possible to pre-read by discriminating based on the access characteristic data that reflects the unique taste and tendency of the pre-reading, it is possible to prevent pre-reading of the content less likely to be requested by the user, and Pre-reading with high utilization rate can be realized.

According to a third aspect of the personal WWW proxy program of the third aspect, in the second aspect, the user-by-user access characteristic data is data regarding the number of times of access for each site where the content is held, and a link embedded in the content. The prefetch determination means includes the data regarding the number of times of access for each keyword related to the keyword defined corresponding to any of the linked contents specified by the information, and the prefetch determination means is included in the content acquired by the content acquisition means. For each of a plurality of pieces of link information, site-by-site access frequency data regarding the site that holds the link destination content specified by the link information and keyword by keyword corresponding to any of the link destination contents specified by the link information Access count day Based on the bets, it determines whether to prefetch the contents of the link destination, is intended.

With this, it is possible to determine whether or not the linked content should be prefetched based on different evaluation items such as the number of times the site is accessed and the number of times the keyword is used.

In the personal WWW proxy program according to claim 4, in claim 2, the user-by-user access characteristic data includes a plurality of scores each indicating an evaluation value regarding an evaluation item different from each other, and the discriminating means is
For each of a plurality of link destination contents designated by a plurality of link information included in the content acquired by the content acquisition unit, using the plurality of scores and the plurality of weights defined for the respective scores Means for calculating a total score, means for determining whether or not the link destination content should be prefetched based on the total score and a reference value, and one of the plurality of link destination contents thereafter by the WWW browser. And means for correcting the values of the plurality of weights when the acquisition of is required. As a result, the weight values for a plurality of evaluation items can be corrected according to the taste or tendency of the user.

In the personal WWW proxy program according to the fifth aspect, the means for correcting the plurality of weights according to the fourth aspect depends on the values of the plurality of scores for the content subsequently requested by the WWW browser. Then, the values of the plurality of weights are corrected.

According to a sixth aspect of the personal information terminal of the present invention, any content requested by a WWW browser activated on the same personal information terminal is stored in the cache storage means according to a user's instruction. It is determined whether or not the content is stored, and when the content is stored in the cache storage unit, the content is acquired from the cache storage unit and the content is not stored in the cache storage unit. Sometimes, a content acquisition unit that acquires the content from a WWW server device, a unit that transmits the acquired content to the WWW browser, and a link destination specified by any link information included in the acquired content. To pre-read the contents of the above and store them in the cache storage means And only means, but with a.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, in the personal information terminal according to the sixth aspect, the access characteristic data for each user showing the access characteristic to the content by the user by analyzing the access request to the plurality of contents by the WWW browser. And means for determining, based on the user-specific access characteristic data, whether or not to prefetch the content of any link destination specified by the link information included in the acquired content. The pre-reading means is pre-reading means for pre-reading the linked content and storing it in the cache storage means when it is determined that any of the linked content should be pre-read. .

In the content prefetching method according to the present invention as set forth in claim 8, any content requested by the WWW browser activated on the personal information terminal according to the user's instruction is activated on the personal information terminal. WW
The W proxy program acquires the content from the WWW server device, and the acquired content is transmitted from the WWW proxy program to the WWW browser.
The proxy program pre-reads the content of the link destination specified by any of the link information included in the acquired content, and the WWW proxy program provides the pre-read content to the personal information terminal. Store in the cache storage means,
It includes steps.

The content prefetching method in the personal information terminal according to claim 9 is the WW according to claim 8,
The W proxy program analyzes the access request to the plurality of contents by the WWW browser to measure the user-specific access characteristic data indicating the access characteristic to the content by the user, and the WWW proxy program measures the acquired content. Determining whether or not to prefetch any of the linked contents specified by the link information included in the above, based on the access characteristic data for each user, the prefetching step further comprises the WWW proxy program. ,
When it is determined that any of the linked contents should be prefetched, the linked contents are prefetched without waiting for the request from the WWW browser.

[0020]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION A personal information terminal according to the present invention, a personal WWW proxy program used therein,
Each embodiment of the content prefetching method will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing one embodiment of a personal information terminal according to the present invention. In this embodiment, 10
Is an example of a personal information terminal, and it is assumed here that the personal information terminal is a personal computer. However, the personal information terminal according to the present invention is not limited to a personal computer, but may be any other information terminal as long as it can be used by incorporating a WWW browser unit and a personal WWW proxy unit as described below. Is also applicable. For example, it may be a personal information terminal called PDA or a workstation, and further,
It may be a communication device such as a mobile phone having a wireless telephone communication function.

Reference numeral 80 indicates the Internet as an example of a network. Internet 80 has many WWW
The server devices 90, 91, 92, 93, ... Are connected, and the user of the personal information terminal 10 has a site A (901) and a site B (90) provided in each WWW server device.
2), desired content can be acquired from the site C (903), the site D (904), and the like.

The personal information terminal 10 includes an input unit 20 such as a keyboard and a mouse, a display unit 30 including a CRT display device or a liquid crystal display device, and a WWW browser unit 40.
And a personal WWW proxy unit 50. The personal information terminal 10 is a central processing unit (CPU) not shown.
And a memory and an auxiliary storage device. The WWW browser section 40 is realized by these devices of a personal computer and a WWW browser program activated on the CPU. The personal WWW proxy unit 50 is implemented by the personal computer WWW proxy program and the personal WWW proxy program activated on the CPU. One embodiment of the content prefetching method according to the present invention is executed by the personal information terminal 10.

The personal WWW proxy unit 50 includes a content acquisition unit 51, an access request analysis unit 52, a content prefetching unit 53, a cache storage unit 60, and a user-specific access characteristic data storage unit 70. There is. As will be described later in detail, the user-specific access characteristic data storage unit 70 includes site-specific access characteristic data 71, keyword-specific access characteristic data 72, and evaluation item-specific weighting factor data 73 as user-specific access characteristic data. ,
The link keyword data 74 is stored.

In setting the WWW browser program, the user specifies in advance that a proxy server is used in order to enable the proxy device according to the present invention, and the WWW browser program is installed as the proxy server device. Personal information terminal 1
If the personal WWW proxy unit 50 operating at 0 is designated, the personal WWW proxy program can be used from the WWW browser program on the same information terminal.

By operating the WWW browser section 40, the user can request acquisition of content in any WWW server device. The user is either W
When requesting any WWW content in the WW server device, the WWW browser section 40 requests the personal WWW proxy section 50 to proxy the acquisition of the content requested by the user. In the personal WWW proxy unit 50 that has received the request, the content acquisition unit 51 requests the WWW server device 90 having a desired site, for example, 901 through the Internet 80 to send the content. The WWW server device 90 acquires the content from the site 901 and transmits it as a response to the content acquisition unit 51 of the personal WWW proxy unit 50. The content acquisition unit 51 receives the response and sends the acquired content to the W
It is transmitted to the WW browser section 40.

At the same time, whether or not the content prefetching unit 53 prefetches the content of the link destination designated by the link information embedded in the acquired content without waiting for the request from the WWW browser unit 40. If it is determined that the content should be prefetched, the content of the link destination is prefetched from an appropriate WWW server device via the Internet 80 and stored in the cache storage unit 60. Thus, when the user later requests the WWW browser unit 40 for the linked content, the content acquisition unit 51 can read the content from the cache storage unit 60 and supply the content. Accordingly, it is possible to reduce the waiting time when the linked content is acquired from the WWW server device via the Internet 80.

The access request analysis unit 52 included in the personal WWW proxy unit 50 is the WWW browser unit 40.
The plurality of contents sequentially requested by the user are analyzed, and the access characteristic data for each user is measured. The obtained access characteristic data for each user should read ahead the content of the link destination specified by the link information embedded in the content when the content acquisition unit 51 acquires the content according to the request from the WWW browser unit 40. It is used to determine whether or not

FIG. 2 shows an example of a plurality of contents linked to the contents. For content a (100a) in site A (901), other content b (100a)
b), c (100c), and d (100d) are linked. Here, the content b (100b) is in the same site A (901) as the content a, the content c is in another site 921, and the content d (10b).
0d) is assumed to be in another site D (931).

FIG. 3A shows the content a shown in FIG.
The content of (100a) is changed to HTML (Hyper Text Markup Lap
nguage) is an example described in. Usually, when a content is linked to another content, the link is performed by an anchor tag. Anchor tags may also be referred to as <A> tags. The anchor tag starts with the <A> start tag and ends with the </A> end tag. The anchor tag has a href attribute, and the URL of the linked content is described as the attribute value. This URL is used as link information. In this specification, the URL in the anchor tag may be simply referred to as link information.

The URL includes a portion for designating a protocol for acquiring the content, a name of a WWW site holding the content, path information of the content, and the like. In the example of the figure, for the content b,
Protocol specification part "http: //" and file name "content
Only the _b.html ”is described as the URL, and it can be seen that the content b exists on the same site as the content a. The URLs for the contents c and d respectively include the site after the protocol designation part“ http: // ”. First name "SITE_
C ”and“ SITE_D ”are shown, but these site names are a simplified representation of the actual display of the site names in which the contents c and d are stored. It is also possible to specify a protocol other than "http: //" (for example, ftp).

When the content is displayed on the screen, the link information is not directly displayed on the screen, but a character string or an image is displayed instead. Therefore, the URL in the anchor tag is sometimes referred to as being embedded in this character string or image included in the anchor tag. This character string or image has contents related to the content of the link destination. Therefore, this character string or image may be called a link destination related character string or image. The link destination related character string or image is included between the <A> start tag and the </A> end tag. In the present embodiment, a character string indicating a predetermined keyword corresponding to the link destination content specified by the link information included in the acquired content is used as the link destination related character string. In the example of the figure, the character strings of keyword x, keyword y, and keyword z are used for the contents b, c, and d. When the content is displayed on the WWW browser unit 40, the character string in which the URL is embedded is displayed in blue characters or underlined, and the viewer selects (clicks) this part with the mouse to display href.
The content is linked to the URL described in the attribute.

FIG. 3B shows an example of a screen displaying the content shown in FIG. In addition to the character string of the content title, the character strings of keyword x, keyword y, and keyword z are displayed as the link destination related character strings. These keywords are defined in advance corresponding to the contents b, c, and d, respectively. These keywords are content b,
URLs c and d are embedded. When the user clicks one of the keywords while the screen of FIG. 3B is displayed, the WWW browser unit 40 displays
The URL embedded therein is sent to request the personal WWW proxy unit 50 to acquire the linked content.

The personal WWW proxy unit 50 according to the present invention
Does not wait for a content acquisition request from the WWW browser unit 40, and determines whether or not the linked content satisfies the prefetch condition for each of the plurality of linked content specified by the link information. Then, the content that satisfies the prefetch condition is prefetched. The URL included in each link information and the link destination related character string (keyword here) are used to measure the access characteristic data for each user (FIG. 1), as described later,
This data is used to determine whether or not the linked content satisfies the prefetching condition.

Details of the structure and operation of the personal information terminal will be described below. FIG. 4 is a schematic flowchart of the process of the content acquisition unit 51. When the user operates the WWW browser section 40 to request acquisition of arbitrary content (for example, content a) in the WWW site, for example, the site A (901), the WWW browser section 40
Requests the personal WWW proxy unit 50 to specify the URL of the content and acquire the content by proxy. In the personal proxy device 50 that received the request,
The content acquisition unit 51 is activated. When activated, the content acquisition unit 51 receives a content acquisition request from the WWW browser unit 40 (step S511), notifies the access request analysis unit 52 of the content acquisition request (step S512), and is further requested. It is confirmed whether or not the selected content already exists in the cache storage unit 60 (step S513).

When it is confirmed that the requested content does not exist in the cache memory unit 60, the WWW server device 90 in which the site A (901) is stored, for example, is requested to transmit the content a through the Internet 80. The WWW server device 90 returns the content a to the personal WWW proxy unit 50 as a response. Personal W
In the WW proxy unit 50, the content acquisition unit 51 receives the returned content a (step S51
4) and stores it in the cache storage unit 60 (step S5).
15) Further, it transmits to the WWW browser unit 40 (step S516), and further transmits the acquired content to the access request analysis unit 52 (step S517).

Incidentally, in the judgment of step S513,
When it is confirmed that the requested content exists in the cache storage unit 60, in step S516, the content is read from the cache storage unit 60,
It is transmitted to the WWW browser section 40. As will be described later, when the requested content is prefetched, the requested content is stored in the cache storage unit 60, so the waiting time required when acquiring the content can be significantly reduced. .

As will be described in detail later, the access request analysis section 52 updates the access characteristic data for each user, and further activates the content prefetching section 53. In the following, the details of the access characteristic data for each user and the process of the content prefetching unit 53 will be described before the details of the process of the access request analyzing unit 52.

FIG. 5 shows site-specific access characteristic data 71 stored in the user-specific access characteristic data storage unit 70.
An example of the keyword-specific access characteristic data 72, the evaluation item-specific weight coefficient data 73, and the link keyword data 74 is shown.

The contents frequently acquired by each user differ depending on the user. For some users, the content that users often acquire is concentrated on a specific site.
However, there are some users who use specific keywords to acquire frequently acquired content. Therefore, when evaluating the access characteristics of a user, it may be different depending on the user whether the site evaluation should be weighted or the keyword evaluation should be weighted. Therefore, in order to make it possible to evaluate the access characteristics for users having any of the access characteristics, in the present embodiment, as a method for evaluating the access characteristics of the user,
A method of evaluating a score by a site and a score by a keyword and calculating a total score by using a weighting coefficient for each score is adopted.

The access characteristic data 71 for each site is shown in FIG.
As shown in (a), for a site that holds any content requested by the user, for example, the site name 711, the number of access times 712 to the site, the access frequency ratio (%) 713, and the score 71 by the site.
4, the total number of accesses 715 is included. The total number of accesses is 712 for all sites.
Is the sum of The access count ratio 713 is a ratio between the access count 712 and the total access count 715 for each site. The score 714 given by the site is a score given depending on the site among the scores given to the contents held at each site. In this embodiment, the score 714 by the site has an access frequency ratio of 7
The same value as 13 is given. In this way, the score 714 by the site makes it possible to quantitatively distinguish the site that the user frequently accesses from the site that does not.

In the example of the figure, the number of accesses to site A is 5
0 (times), access frequency ratio is 5 (%), site C access frequency is 200 (times), access frequency ratio is 20 (%), sites B and D access frequency, access frequency ratio Is 0. Score 714 by each site
Is given the same value as the access count ratio 713, the scores by the sites A and C are:
The scores are 5 and 20, respectively, and the scores for the sites B and D are 0.

Under the present assumption, it is assumed that the content a is requested from the WWW browser section 40, so the access request analysis section 52 sends the WW in step S521.
The access count 712 of the site A to which the content a requested by the W browser unit 40 belongs is increased by 1, the total access count 715 is also increased by 1, and then the access count ratio 713 and the score 714 by the site are recalculated.

The access characteristic data 72 for each keyword is
As illustrated in FIG. 5B, the keyword 7 specified by the user to access any content
21, the number of times of use (time) 722 of the keyword, the ratio of times of use (%) 723, the score 724 by the keyword
The total number of uses 725 is included. The total usage count 725 is the total usage count 722 of all keywords. The usage count ratio 723 is a ratio between the usage count 722 and the total usage count 725 of each keyword. The keyword score 724 is set to have a larger value as the number of times the user has acquired the content using the keyword. Here, the value of the number-of-uses ratio 723 is used as it is for the keyword score 724.

The access characteristic data 72 for each keyword is
For example, it is updated as follows. When a user operates the WWW browser unit 40 to request content, there are roughly two methods. First, the user directly specifies the URL of the content to be acquired in the WWW browser section 40. For example, WWW browser unit 4
The user may select a desired URL from a large number of URLs registered in advance in 0. When the URL of the specific content is designated by the user in this way, the WWW browser unit 40 designates the URL and requests the personal WWW proxy unit 50 to acquire the content. In this way, when the user specifies the URL to the WWW browser section 40 and requests the acquisition of the content, the site-specific access characteristic data 71 is updated for the site specified by the URL. The data 72 is not updated.

Another method for the user to request the WWW browser section 40 to acquire the content is to specify a specific link destination included in the content while any content is displayed on the screen by the WWW browser section 40. That is, the user specifies a related character string (in this case, a keyword) to request acquisition of the content.

For example, when the content a illustrated in FIG. 3A is requested and acquired from the WWW browser section 40 and the screen illustrated in FIG. 3B is displayed on the WWW browser section 40, the user Is a case where the keyword y is clicked to request acquisition of the content c.
In this case, the WWW browser section 40 notifies the personal WWW proxy section 50 of the URL embedded in the clicked keyword and requests the acquisition of the content c. WW
When the link destination related character string is clicked, the W browser unit 40 notifies the personal WWW proxy unit 50 of the URL embedded therein, but normally the clicked character string (keyword in this embodiment) Is not notified to the personal WWW proxy unit 50. Of course, the WWW browser section 40 also notifies the personal WWW proxy section 50 of the clicked link destination related character string (keyword).
The WW browser section 40 can be improved. But,
In the present embodiment, the WWW browser unit 40 uses the conventional W
Similar to the WW browser unit, it is assumed that the clicked link destination related character string (keyword in this embodiment) is not notified to the personal proxy unit.

Under such an assumption, the personal WWW proxy unit 50 is used for any content acquisition method.
Since the URL is notified to the user from the WWW browser unit 40, but the keyword is not notified, the personal WWW proxy unit 50 sets the URL of the content to be acquired by the user to WW.
It is not possible to determine whether it has been designated in the W browser unit 40 or the content to be acquired by clicking the link destination related character string (keyword in this embodiment) in the displayed content.

Therefore, in the present embodiment, any content, for example, the content a in FIG.
WWW browser unit 4 acquired by the WW proxy unit 50
0, another content, for example, content c is requested within a predetermined time, and the U of the other content c is requested.
When the RL is embedded as link information in the original content a, the user selects a link destination related character string related to the link information (specifically, the link destination is previously assigned to the link destination specified by the link information). It is estimated that the clicked keyword y) has been clicked, and the keyword-based access characteristic data 72 is updated. Here, it is considered that the predetermined time is highly likely that the user has selected one of the link destination related character strings (keywords) within the same content within the predetermined time, and if the time is greatly exceeded, the original This is the time when it is considered that the user is unlikely to have selected the link destination related information (keyword) of the content. For example, the time is about 10 minutes to several tens of minutes. This time need not be set strictly.

The access characteristic data 72 for each keyword is updated as follows, for example. The number of uses 722 of the keyword y is increased by 1, and the total number of uses 725 is also 1
The number of times of use 7 corresponding to the keyword y
23 and the score 724 based on the keyword are updated. When the user clicks the keyword y in which the link information of the content c is embedded and the content c is acquired, the site-specific access characteristic data 71 regarding the site where the content c is stored is also updated. , The score 714 by the site is also updated.

On the other hand, any content, for example, FIG.
When another content is requested after the content a of (a) is acquired by the personal WWW proxy section 50 and sent to the WWW browser section 40, the URL of the other content is linked within the original content a. Even when it is embedded as information, if the elapsed time from the acquisition of the original content a to the time when the other content is requested has already passed the predetermined time, or the URL of the other content is , When it is not embedded as link information in the original content a, it is determined that the user did not use the link information of the original content a, and therefore did not use the keyword in which the link information was embedded, and The access characteristic data 72 is not updated. The site-specific access characteristic data 71 is updated.

Regarding the weighting coefficient data 73 for each evaluation item, since the score by the site and the score by the keyword are used as the evaluation items in this embodiment, the weighting coefficient 731 for the score by the site and the keyword are used as the weighting coefficient. Weighting factor 7 for the weight by
32 and 32 are used. The sum of these weighting factors is determined to be equal to 1. In the example of the figure, the weighting factor for the score by the site and the weighting factor for the score by the keyword are 0.6 and 0.4, respectively. When increasing the number of evaluation items, the number of weighting factors may also be increased.
The link keyword data 74 will be described later.

As described above, in the present embodiment, it is possible to obtain data indicating the access characteristic of the user's content, that is, the access characteristic data reflecting the taste and tendency peculiar to the user.

FIG. 6 is a schematic flowchart of the processing of the content prefetching unit 53. Content prefetching unit 53
Is activated by the access request analysis unit 52 when the content acquired by the content acquisition unit 51 is transmitted to the access request analysis unit 52 and the link information designating the link destination content is embedded in the content. . When started, the content prefetching unit 53 prefetches only the link destination content satisfying a predetermined condition among the link destination contents specified by the link information embedded in the content already acquired by the content acquisition unit 51. Are stored in the cache storage unit 60. If all the link destination contents specified by the link information embedded in the content already acquired by the content acquisition unit 51 are prefetched, the total number of prefetched contents is unduly increased, and the prefetching process takes time, Also, it is necessary to increase the capacity of the cache storage unit 60 (FIG. 1) that holds the prefetched content. Of course, if the circumstances permit, all linked content may be prefetched.

In the content prefetching unit 53, first, based on the name of the site where the link destination content indicated by the link information (link destination URL) embedded in the acquired content exists, the score by the site of the link destination content is given. Is calculated (step S531). For example, when the content a illustrated in FIG. 3A is acquired, the link destination content included in the content a is the content b, c, or d, and the site holding each content is the site A. , C or D. Therefore, as the score by the site regarding each of the linked contents b, c, or d, the site A in the site-specific access characteristic data 71 (FIG. 5A),
The site score 714 for C, D is used. In the example of FIG. 5A, the score by the site regarding each of the linked contents b, c or d is 5, 2
It becomes 0 or 0.

Returning to FIG. 6, the content prefetching unit 53 calculates the score by the keyword for the link destination content specified by the link information embedded in the acquired content (content a in this example) (step S532). In the case of the content a in FIG.
The keywords in which the link information for linking to the contents b, c, d are embedded are the keywords x, y, z.
Therefore, the score by the keyword for those linked contents b, c, d is 1 from FIG.
It becomes 0, 0, 5.

In the content prefetching unit 53, step S5
Site score calculated in 31 and step S53
Using the score by the keyword calculated in 2 and the weighting coefficient for each score, the total score of each linked content is calculated according to the following formula 1 (step S533). In this example, the linked contents b, c,
The total scores for d are 7, 12, and 2, respectively.

[0058]

[Equation 1]   Overall score = score by site x site weighting factor             ＋ Keyword score × Keyword weighting factor (1)

The content prefetching unit 53 determines whether or not the total score of each of the linked contents b, c and d is equal to or more than a predetermined reference value (step S534). For example, assuming that the reference value is 10, only the total score of the content c is the reference value or more. For such content b, it is checked whether or not the linked content is already stored in the cache storage unit 60 (step S535). If not already stored, the link destination content is prefetched from an appropriate WWW server device via the Internet 80 without waiting for a request from the WWW browser unit 40, and stored in the cache storage unit 60 (step S5).
36). Until it is determined that the above processing has been executed for all the linked contents (step S53).
7) is repeated, and the processing of the content prefetching unit 53 ends.

When the WWW browser section 40 subsequently requests the acquisition of the prefetched link destination content, the content acquisition section 51 determines that the content is already stored in the cache storage section 60. Content can be transmitted from the cache storage unit 60 to the WWW browser unit 40, and the waiting time for content acquisition can be greatly reduced.

FIG. 7 shows numerical examples of the score by the site, the site weighting factor, the score by the keyword, the keyword weighting factor, and the total score for the linked contents b, c, d of the content a. In this example, the content c has a score of 0 according to the keyword, but has a high score of the site, so the total score is 1
It became a high value of 2 and was decided as the target of prefetching. On the other hand, the content b has a high score of 10 for the keyword, but has a low score of 5 for the site, and thus has a total score of 7, and thus it is determined that the content is not prefetched.

FIG. 8 is a schematic flowchart of the processing of the access request analysis unit 52. As already mentioned, W
When the content acquisition unit 51 notifies the access request analysis unit 52 of the content acquisition request issued from the WW browser unit 40 to the content acquisition unit 51, the access request analysis unit 52 causes the site related to the site where the content is stored. The different access characteristic data 71 is updated (step S521).

As described with respect to the site-specific access characteristic data 71 shown in FIG. 5A, based on the site name included in the URL of the content requested to be acquired,
The access count 712 of the site that holds the content requested to be acquired is increased by 1, the total access count 715 is also increased by 1, and the access count ratio 713 and the score 714 by the site are updated.

In the access request analysis unit 52, the content requested by the WWW browser unit 40 is the content acquisition unit 5.
1 and is transmitted from the content acquisition unit 51 to the access request analysis unit 52, it is determined whether or not link information for linking to another content is embedded in the content (step S522). .
When the link information is embedded, the character string (keyword) in which the link information is embedded is extracted by a predetermined method, and the link information (U
RL) is extracted and the set of the URL and the keyword is stored as the keyword data for link 74 together with the acquisition time (step S523).

The link keyword data 74 is shown in FIG.
As shown in (d), for example, the WWW browser unit 4
URL 74 of the content acquired by the request from 0
1 and the link destination UR embedded in the content
L742 and a keyword 743 related to the link destination,
The URL related to these link destinations and the acquisition time 744 at which the keyword is acquired are stored. Acquisition time 74
No. 4 is used to store the keyword 743 stored in the link keyword data 74 as a valid keyword until a certain time has elapsed after the acquisition, and to invalidate it thereafter.

Then, the access request analysis unit 52 notifies the content prefetching unit 53 of the link destination URL and requests prefetching of the linked content (step S52).
4). As already described, the content prefetching unit 53 determines whether or not the link destination content satisfies the prefetching condition, and prefetches the link destination content when there is the link destination content that satisfies the prefetching condition.

In the access request analysis section 52, thereafter, the processing for updating the keyword-specific access characteristic data 72 (FIG. 5B) and correcting the weighting factor data 73 (FIG. 5C) is executed. . As described above, in the present embodiment, any content, for example, the content a of FIG. 3A is acquired by the personal WWW proxy unit 50 and sent to the WWW browser unit 40, and then within a predetermined time. When another content is requested, for example, c, and the URL of the other content c is embedded as link information in the original content a, the user is associated with the link information in which the link information is embedded. It is presumed that you clicked the link destination related character string (keyword y)
The keyword-based access characteristic data 72 is updated.

Specifically, the access request analysis section 52 performs a determination process for determining whether or not the keyword-specific access characteristic data 72 should be updated in step S525. That is, other content requested thereafter by the WWW browser unit 40 is the content acquisition unit 5
UR of the other content when acquired by 1.
It is determined whether or not L is included as a valid link destination URL in the link keyword data 74 in a pair with the URL of the original content. If it is included (Yes in step S526), it is determined that the user has clicked the keyword (for example, keyword y) in which the link destination URL is embedded, and the URL of the original content and the relevant URL are included in the link keyword data 74. The keyword stored in association with the link destination URL is extracted, the keyword-specific access characteristic data 72 is updated for the keyword (step S527), and the processing of the access request analysis unit 52 ends. If the result of determination in step S525 is that it is not included (No in step S526), steps S527 and S5.
28 is not executed, and the processing of the access request analysis unit 52 ends.

The access characteristic data for each keyword 72 is updated as follows, for example. The number of uses 722 of the specific keyword (for example, keyword y) is increased by 1, the total number of uses 725 is also increased by 1, and the number of times of use 723 corresponding to the specific keyword (for example, keyword y) and the score 724 by the keyword are updated. To be done.
Even when the user clicks the specific keyword y to request the acquisition of the content c, the site-specific access characteristic data 71 regarding the site in which the content c is stored is also updated, and the score 714 by the site is acquired. Will also be updated.

When the user clicks the keyword in which the link information in the acquired content is embedded and further requests the acquisition of the linked content,
In this embodiment, the two weighting factors for the site score and the keyword score are corrected (step S52).
8). Specifically, the weighting coefficient for each of the score by the site and the score by the keyword is corrected by Expression 2 depending on the link destination content specified by the link information embedded in the keyword clicked by the user.

[0071]

[Equation 2]   Corrected weighting factor     = Weighting coefficient before correction     + Weight variation coefficient x (score ÷ total score-weight coefficient before correction) (2)

As the uncorrected weighting coefficient, the uncorrected site weighting coefficient is used when correcting the site weighting coefficient, and the uncorrected keyword weighting coefficient is used when correcting the keyword weighting coefficient. For the score and the total score, when correcting the site weighting factor, the score and the total score by the site for the linked content requested to be acquired are used, and when correcting the keyword weighting factor, the linked content requested to be acquired. Use the keyword score and the overall score for. The weight variation coefficient takes a value between 0 and 1. The closer the value of the weight variation coefficient is to 1, the larger the correction amount of the weight coefficient. Below, the value of the weight variation coefficient is assumed to be 0.1.

As described above, the weighting factor data is updated when the acquisition of the linked content specified by the link information included in the acquired content is further requested.
Moreover, the amount changed by the update differs depending on which link destination content is requested to be acquired. That is, the corrected weight correction coefficient is corrected so as to reflect the score by the site and the score by the keyword of the linked content requested by the user to be acquired. That is, it can be said that the weight correction coefficient is corrected so as to reflect the access characteristic of the user.

In the correction calculation by the above-described equation 2, the corrected site weighting coefficient is corrected in the direction of approaching the ratio of the score by the site of the link destination content newly requested to be acquired and the total score, and the correction is made. The subsequent keyword weighting factor is corrected in the direction of approaching the ratio of the score by the keyword of the link destination content newly requested to be acquired and the total score.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of correction of weighting factor data. The content a already shown in FIG. 3A is WW.
In the state requested by the W browser unit 40, the site weighting factor and the keyword weighting factor that form the weighting factor data 73 are 0.6 and 0.4, respectively, in the example shown in FIG. When the WWW browser unit 40 requests the link destination content b specified by the link information embedded in the content a within the predetermined time after the content a is acquired, the weighting factor correction step S528 ( 8) is executed.

Regarding the weighting coefficient data 73A after correction when the content b is requested, the score by the site and the total score in the formula 2 are 5 and 15, respectively.
The ratio of these scores is 5/15 (= 0.3), and the site weight correction coefficient before correction is 0.6, so the site weight coefficient after correction is higher than the site weight coefficient before correction. 0.03 is reduced to 0.57. Similarly, the score by the keyword and the total score are 10 and 15, respectively,
The ratio of these scores is 10/15 (= 0.66), and the keyword weight correction coefficient before correction is 0.40. Therefore, the keyword weight coefficient after correction is higher than the keyword weight coefficient before correction. It increases by 0.03 to 0.43.

On the other hand, when another link destination content c designated by the link information embedded in the content a is requested by the WWW browser section 40 according to a user operation within the predetermined time after the content a is acquired. Also, the weighting factor correction step S528 (FIG. 8) is executed. Regarding the corrected weight correction data 73B when the content c is requested, the ratio of the score by the site to the total score is 20/20 (= 1.0) in Expression 2, and the site weight correction coefficient before correction is Is 0.6, the site weight coefficient after correction is increased by 0.04 from the site weight coefficient before correction to be 0.64. On the contrary, the corrected keyword weight coefficient is reduced by 0.04 to 0.36.

As can be seen from the above-described embodiments, the evaluation by a plurality of evaluation items, that is, the score by the site and the score by the keyword is used as the characteristic data when the user accesses the content. Other evaluation items can be used as the evaluation items for evaluating the access characteristics of the user. In this way, by evaluating the access characteristics of the user with respect to a plurality of evaluation items, it is possible to evaluate the access characteristics of the user in consideration of various tastes or tendencies that one user may have. Furthermore, when the weights for the plurality of evaluation items are corrected according to the score for the linked content requested by the user thereafter, the weights for the plurality of evaluation items are also automatically corrected to match the user's taste or tendency. be able to.

In the above-described embodiment, since it is determined whether or not to prefetch the linked content based on the access characteristic data reflecting the user's taste and tendency in accessing the content, the user may request. Content with a high link destination is prefetched, and prefetching convenient for the individual user is realized. Moreover, it is expected that the more frequently the user uses the personal WWW proxy unit 50 in the present embodiment, that is, the more the user uses the personal WWW proxy unit 50, the more convenient prefetching is realized for the user. It

It is needless to say that the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and the above embodiments can be modified or changed without changing the gist of the invention.

For example, in evaluating the linked content,
In addition to the site evaluation and the keyword evaluation described above, the position of the link in the HTML of the link source content can be added as an evaluation item. The score for this evaluation is weighted appropriately and summed with other scores. For example, in many WWW sites, especially news distribution sites, etc., a title in which the URL of the content representing the information has been incorporated is placed at the top of the content indicating the home page of the news distribution site as the information regarding the recently arrived information. There are many. This takes into consideration that the user generally has a strong tendency to click the title of new arrival information displayed at the upper position of the screen displaying the content. Therefore, among the plurality of link information embedded in the content requested by the user, the score of the link destination specified by the link information embedded in the title displayed at the top of the content is increased. It is considered appropriate to add the score based on the display position of the character string (specifically, the title) in which is embedded as another evaluation item of the linked content. For example, by using a height of 10% of the height of the content showing the home page of the news distribution site, the content is divided into a plurality of ranges in the height direction, and the title displayed in the range of the highest position is divided. The link content specified by the embedded link information is given a score according to the highest title display position, and the link content specified by the link information embedded in the title displayed at the lowest position is given the highest score. The value changes according to the range to which the display position of the title in which each link information is embedded belongs, so as to give a score based on the low display position,
It is sufficient to give a score according to the display position.

When the linked content is evaluated, the linked content itself may be evaluated as an evaluation item. The score for this evaluation is weighted appropriately and summed with other scores. For example, evaluate whether a certain content is likely to be linked to the linked content by using the link information embedded in the content, and add this evaluation to the evaluation for the linked content. Good. An example of the evaluation of the possibility of being linked is that, when the number of times the link source content itself in which the link information is embedded is referred to and the number of reference times are not 0, the link source content is linked to another link destination content. It is to decide the score by the content of the link source on the basis of the number of times the content has been made. For example, if the number of references in the past is 0 and the content of the link source is the one visited for the first time this time,
If the score is an ordinary score, and the number of past references is large and the number of links to other contents is large, the score is set to the highest and the number of past references is large, but the number of links to other contents is 0. If it is close to, the evaluation point is the lowest.

[0083]

As described above, according to the present invention, by incorporating the function of the personal proxy device in the personal information terminal, the content requested by the WWW browser is acquired by the personal proxy device and acquired. When it becomes possible to prefetch one of the link destination contents specified by the link information included in the stored content and store it in the cache storage device, and the content of the link destination is later requested by the WWW browser. Since the content is already prefetched, the effective content acquisition time can be extremely shortened. Further, among the link destination contents specified by the link information included in the acquired contents, contents that are likely to be requested by the user are discriminated based on the access characteristic data reflecting the individual taste and tendency of the user. Pre-reading makes it possible to increase the usage rate of pre-read content so that the content that is likely to be requested by the user is pre-read and the content that is unlikely to be requested by the user is not pre-read. Can be reduced.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an embodiment of a personal information terminal according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a plurality of contents linked to contents.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of contents described in HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and an example of a screen displaying the contents.

FIG. 4 is a schematic flowchart of a process of a content acquisition unit.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing specific examples of various data included in user-specific access characteristic data.

FIG. 6 is a schematic flowchart of processing of a content prefetching unit.

[Fig. 7] Link destination contents b, c, d of the content a
FIG. 5 is a diagram showing numerical examples of a score by a site, a site weighting coefficient, a score by a keyword, a keyword weighting coefficient, and a total score regarding the.

FIG. 8 is a schematic flowchart of processing of an access request analysis unit.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of correction of weighting factor data.

Claims (9)

[Claims] 1. A personal WWW proxy program for proxy-acquiring content from a WWW server device connected to a network to said personal information terminal in response to a request from a WWW browser activated on the personal information terminal. In the personal information terminal, cache storage means for temporarily storing WWW data, and any content requested by the WWW browser according to a user's instruction is stored in the cache storage means. Whether the content is stored in the cache storage means, the content is acquired from the cache storage means,
When the content is not stored in the cache storage unit, a content acquisition unit that acquires the content from a WWW server device, a unit that transmits the acquired content to the WWW browser, and the acquired content A pre-reading means for pre-reading the content of the link destination specified by any of the included link information and storing it in the cache storage means, and operating the personal WWW proxy program. 2. The personal information terminal, means for analyzing access requests to a plurality of contents by the WWW browser to measure user-specific access characteristic data indicating an access characteristic to the content by the user, and the acquisition. Means for determining, based on the user-specific access characteristic data, whether or not to prefetch the content of the link destination specified by any of the link information included in the stored content, and further operating the prefetching means. The pre-reading unit that pre-reads the linked content and stores it in the cache storage unit when it is determined that one of the linked contents should be pre-read. A personal WWW proxy program as described in. 3. The access characteristic data for each user is determined in correspondence with the access frequency data for each site in which the content is held and the content of any link destination specified by the link information embedded in the content. The pre-reading determination unit, for each of the plurality of link information included in the content acquired by the content acquisition unit, the link destination specified by the link information. Pre-read the content of the link destination based on the site-by-site access count data regarding the site where the content is held and the keyword-based access count data regarding the keyword corresponding to one of the link destination contents specified by the link information. Determine whether Personal WWW proxy program according to claim 2, characterized in that. 4. The access characteristic data for each user includes a plurality of scores indicating evaluation values regarding evaluation items different from each other, and the determination unit includes a plurality of links included in the content acquired by the content acquisition unit. For each of the plurality of linked contents specified by the information, a means for calculating a total score using the plurality of scores and a plurality of weights determined for the respective scores, and the total score and the reference value. Means for determining whether or not the linked content should be prefetched based on the above, and when the WWW browser thereafter requests any of the plurality of linked content, the values of the plurality of weights are set. The personal WW according to claim 2, further comprising: a correcting unit.
W device proxy program. 5. The means for updating the plurality of weights corrects the plurality of weights according to the plurality of score values for the content subsequently requested by the WWW browser. The personal WWW device proxy program according to claim 4. 6. A storage unit for cache for temporarily storing WWW data, and any content requested by a WWW browser activated on the same personal information terminal according to a user's instruction is used for the cache. It is determined whether or not the content is stored in the storage means. When the content is stored in the cache storage means, the content is acquired from the cache storage means, and the content is stored in the cache storage means. If not, content acquisition means for acquiring the content from the WWW server device, means for transmitting the acquired content to the WWW browser, and any link information included in the acquired content is designated. Pre-read the contents of the linked destination and store it in the cache A personal information terminal comprising: a pre-reading unit that stores the unit in advance. 7. A means for analyzing access requests to a plurality of contents by the WWW browser to measure user-specific access characteristic data indicating an access characteristic to the contents by the user, and a unit included in the acquired contents. Means for determining whether or not to prefetch any of the link destination contents designated by the link information based on the access characteristic data for each user, wherein the prefetch means is 7. The personal information terminal according to claim 6, further comprising: a pre-reading unit that pre-reads the linked content and stores the pre-reading content in the cache storage unit. 8. A WW launched on the personal information terminal for any content requested by a WWW browser launched on the personal information terminal according to a user's instruction.
The W proxy program acquires from the WWW server device, the acquired content is transmitted from the WWW proxy program to the WWW browser, and the WWW proxy program displays any link information included in the acquired content. Personal information characterized in that the content of the designated link destination is prefetched, and the prefetched content is stored in the cache storage means provided in the personal information terminal by the WWW proxy program. Content prefetching method on the terminal. 9. The WWW proxy program,
A link included in the acquired content is analyzed by the WWW proxy program by analyzing an access request to the plurality of contents by the WWW browser to measure user-specific access characteristic data indicating an access characteristic to the content by the user. It further includes a step of determining whether or not to prefetch any of the linked contents specified by the information based on the access characteristic data for each user, wherein the prefetching step includes any link by the WWW proxy program. The content in the personal information terminal according to claim 8, wherein when it is determined that the previous content should be prefetched, the content of the link destination is prefetched without waiting for a request from the WWW browser. Look-ahead method.