JPH11161573A - Electronic mail communication equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide electronic mail communication equipment for automatically registering the mail address of a user to an address book at the time of receiving electronic mail from a non-registered user. SOLUTION: In address book registration processing, an electronic mail communication terminal confirms (S191) the reception of new arrival mail and reads (S192) the data of the address book from an ID card when the new arrival mail is received. Successively, whether or not the mail address of the transmitter of the new arrival mail is registered in the address book is judged (S193) and in the case that it is not registered, the mail address of the user is registered (S194) in the address book.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to an electronic mail communication device, and more particularly to an electronic mail communication device that receives an electronic mail based on personal communication information stored in a recording medium.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, with the miniaturization of information processing apparatuses such as personal computers, the number of users who carry information processing apparatuses has increased. In addition, with the spread of the Internet and the like, conventional telephones, F
In addition to communication means such as AX, the exchange of information using e-mail is also increasing. In particular, in a company, information exchange via e-mail has become indispensable, and the number of users who send and receive e-mail from outside the office regardless of location is increasing.

[0003]

By the way, in order to receive an e-mail from an information processing terminal, login information such as a mail server name and an IP address, an individual user ID, and a password for connecting to a mail server. And the like, and at the time of communication, it is necessary to set such information in the information processing device. Therefore, in general, the user often uses a specific information processing apparatus in which such information is already set. Therefore, when a user wants to receive an e-mail while away from home, it is necessary to always carry a specific information processing device for which communication information has been set. Since the information processing apparatus has not yet been reduced in size and weight in order to be carried, this burdens the user.

[0004] Therefore, a method is conceivable in which a communication terminal capable of transmitting and receiving e-mail is widely installed in a public place, and the user uses this communication terminal as needed. In this case, since an unspecified number of users use this communication terminal, it is impossible to store personal communication information of a specific user. Therefore, the user logs in to the mail server, carries a recording medium storing information such as an e-mail address and a password necessary for receiving an e-mail, and sends the e-mail to the mail server based on the information stored in the recording medium. It is conceivable to connect and send and receive mail. As a matter of course, it is effective to store the address book information to be referred to at the time of mail transmission in the recording medium. However, the user needs to update the address book as needed. Basically, this work places a burden on the user because the address book information is updated more frequently than login information or the like that is not frequently changed.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problem. It is an object of the present invention to automatically register an e-mail address of an unregistered user in an address book upon receiving an e-mail from the user. To provide an electronic mail communication device.

[0006]

According to the present invention, there is provided an electronic mail communication apparatus comprising: a recording medium attaching / detaching means for attaching a recording medium; Detecting means for detecting whether or not the mail address is recorded on the attached recording medium; and, as a result of the detection by the detecting means, when the mail address of the sender is not detected on the recording medium, the mail address is recorded. Registration means for registering in a medium.

[0007] The electronic mail communication device further includes address reading means for reading a mail address recorded on a recording medium mounted on the recording medium attaching / detaching means,
Display means for displaying the read mail address; address selection means for selecting a desired mail address from the displayed mail addresses; and mail transmission means for transmitting an e-mail to the selected mail address. May be provided.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of an electronic mail communication system according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a control block diagram of the electronic mail communication system. The electronic mail communication system according to the present embodiment includes a mail communication terminal 10 and an ID card 100 that can be attached to and detached from the mail communication terminal 10. The mail communication terminal 10 can send and receive e-mail via a network or a telephone line in addition to the functions of a conventional facsimile machine such as a telephone and a facsimile. ID card 1
00 is information necessary for connecting to a mail server where a specific user is registered and sending and receiving mail (hereinafter, referred to as “
This is called "server connection information." ) Etc. are stored. An ID card 100 is inserted into the mail communication terminal 10, and is electrically connected. Mail communication terminal 10
Reads out server connection information from the inserted ID card 100, connects to a predetermined mail server based on this information, and performs transmission and reception of e-mail.

In FIG. 1, a mail communication terminal 10 includes a control unit 11, an image reading unit 12, an image processing unit 13, an FA
X modem 14, card reader 15, image memory 1
6, a RAM 17, a video interface 18, a printer engine 19, a ROM 20, a hard disk 21, a network interface 22, and an operation panel 50. The mail communication terminal 10 is connected to a telephone line via the FAX modem 14. Further, the mail communication terminal 10 is connected to the network 150 via the network interface 21 and communicates with the mail server 200.

The control unit 11 controls the operation of the mail communication terminal 10. The control unit 11 executes a program stored in the ROM 19 to control the operation of each unit in the mail communication terminal 10 to provide a predetermined function. To achieve. The control unit 11 has a CPU inside, for example,
It performs image data compression and input / output control.

The image reading section 12 scans an image and reads it as image data. The image reading section 12 has a sensor for irradiating a document to be read with an image and reading the reflected light.

The image processing section 13 performs processing such as character / photograph area discrimination, edge enhancement, smoothing processing, and error diffusion.

The FAX modem 14 is connected to a telephone line, and receives a FAX signal via the telephone line, transmits an image read by the image reading section 12 as a FAX signal, and exchanges data. It is for. The image memory 16 temporarily stores the read dot data for a plurality of pages.

The hard disk 21 stores the contents of the received mail. The ROM 21 stores a program to be executed by the control unit 11, an SMTP driver for e-mail connected to the network 150, and the like.

The network interface 22 is an interface for connecting to a network 150 such as Ethernet. This network interface 22
Can exchange data with the mail server 200 connected to the network 150 via the Internet.

The video interface 18 has a built-in printer engine 1 for printing out received mail.
9 is an interface for transferring data. The print engine 19 prints out the received mail, data read by the image reading unit 12, a signal input via the FAX modem 14, and data input via the network 150. Thus, the mail communication device 10 has a copier function, a facsimile function, and a print function.

The card reading section 15 stores the ID card 10
It has a mechanism (for example, a card slot) for mounting 0, and reads server connection information stored in the mounted ID card 100 from the card.

As shown in FIG. 2, the operation panel 50 includes a display panel 51 for displaying the operation state of the mail communication terminal 10 and the like.
And various operation buttons used for instructing operations of the ten keys 52, the start button 53, the mail transmission button 56, and the like. The display panel 51 is a touch panel, and can detect whether a key displayed on the panel is pressed. This allows the user to make various settings using the keys on the display panel.

The ID card 100 is connected to a predetermined mail server and stores information (hereinafter, referred to as “server connection information”) necessary for transmitting and receiving a predetermined user's mail.
This server connection information is unique to the user. Specifically, as shown in FIG. 3, the ID card 100 stores information (I) regarding the mail server 200 in which the user is registered.
It stores connection information 101 such as a P address, a mail server name, a mail address, a password, and the like, and information of an address book (address book) 103 which is a list of mail addresses of communication destination users. Also, when connecting to a mail server via a telephone line, information such as the telephone number of the access point is also stored. Here, the e-mail address is generally "user name @ host name.domain name"
It is represented by If the mail server and the communication terminal are in the same domain, it may be omitted only with the user name.

The operation of the present system will be described below. The mail communication terminal 10 can connect to the mail server 200 based on the server connection information stored in the ID card and receive an e-mail to the user. The processing at this time will be described below with reference to the flowchart of FIG. This processing is controlled by the control unit 11 and the ID card insertion slot 60 of the mail communication terminal 10
It starts when the card 100 is inserted.

In the mail communication terminal 10, the ID card 1
When 00 is inserted, the server connection information such as the mail server name, mail address, and password stored in the ID card 100 is read into the RAM 17 (S11).
Next, the user name and the password are transmitted to the mail server 200 registered in the ID card 100 (S12). The user logs in to the mail server 200 with the transmitted user name and password (S13). Mail server 2
At 00, authentication processing is performed using the transmitted user name and password, and the result is returned to the mail communication terminal 10. Based on the result, it is determined whether or not the login is successful (S14). When the login is successful, the reception of the new mail is requested by transmitting the mail address and the password to the mail server 200 (S1).
5). It is determined whether there is any new mail (S16).
If there is a new mail, the new mail is received, and its contents are stored in the hard disk 21 (S17), and the process proceeds to step S18. Step S if there is no new mail
Proceed to 18.

In step S18, the hard disk 21
Is displayed on the display panel 51. If there is no new mail, a message indicating that there is no new mail is displayed. FIG. 5 shows an example of a display when a new mail is received. In FIG. 5, the display panel 51
Shows the date and time of mail transmission, sender, and title. The display panel 51 is a touch panel as described above, and the user can select a mail on the display panel 51 when the user wants to print the received mail. That is, when the printout button 51a displayed on the display panel 51 is pressed, the contents of the selected mail are sent to the printer engine 19 via the video interface 18 and printed out. When the user wants to delete the mail, the user can select the mail on the display panel 51 and press the delete button 51b to delete the mail. After step S18, an address registration process for registering an unregistered user in the address book 103 is performed (S1).
9), the process ends. The address registration processing will be described later.

On the other hand, if the login fails in step S14, a predetermined error process is performed (S2).
0), the content of the error is displayed on the display panel 51 (S2).
1), the process ends.

In the above description, an example of connecting to the mail server 200 via the network 150 via the network interface 22 has been described. However, the connection to the mail server 200 via the telephone line via the FAX modem 14 may be made. You may.

In the address book registration process (step S19), if the mail address of the user who has sent the new mail is not registered in the address book 103 in the ID card, this mail address is stored in the address book 10.
3 automatically registered. Hereinafter, this processing will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

First, it is determined whether a new mail has been received (S191). If no new mail has been received, the process ends. When a new mail is received, the data in the address book 103 stored in the ID card 100 is loaded into the RAM 17 (S19).
2). It is determined whether the address of the sender of the new mail is already registered in the address book 103 (S
193). When the user is not registered in the address book 103, information such as the user's mail address and user name is registered in the address book 103 (S19).
4). Specifically, first, the RA loaded in advance is
The user is registered in the address book 103 in M17,
By updating the address book 103 in the ID card 100 based on this data, the ID card 100 is updated.
The user is registered in the address book 103 in the. If the user is already registered in the address book 103, the user is not registered, and the process ends.

In the mail communication terminal 10, the image read by the image reading unit 12 can be attached to an electronic mail and transmitted. The processing of the control unit 11 at this time will be described below with reference to the flowchart of FIG.
Note that this processing is performed by the mail transmission button 5 on the operation panel 50.
It is started when 6 is pressed.

When the mail transmission button 56 is pressed by the user, it is determined whether or not the ID card 100 is inserted (S21). If the ID card 100 has been inserted, it is next determined whether or not login has been completed (S22). If the ID card 100 has not been inserted or the login has not been completed, an error is displayed on the display panel 51 (S30), and the process ends.

If the login has been completed in step S22, a mail address input box 51s and a title input box 51 are displayed on the display panel 51 as shown in FIG.
t, a keyboard 51u, an address search button 51v, and the like are displayed (S23). The display panel 51 is a touch panel, and the user operates a keyboard 51u displayed on the screen.
Can be used to input the destination address and title. The details of the method of specifying the address of the destination will be described later. After the user inputs the destination address, etc.,
When the K button 51w is pressed, the input content is set, and the information of the set destination address and title is obtained (S24). Thereafter, it is detected whether or not the start button 53 has been pressed (S25). When the start button 53 is pressed, the document set on the document feed tray 30 is scanned by the image reading unit 12, and the image is read (S26). ). The read image is compressed and TIFF
It is converted into data of the format (S27). The image data converted into the data in the TIFF format is attached to the mail (S28). At this time, since the data in the TIFF format is binary data, the data is converted into pseudo text data and then attached to a mail. Thereafter, the read image is transmitted to the mail server 200 as attached data (S29). At this time, the SMT
The P-mail driver is called, and the image read as the attached data of the e-mail is transmitted to the mail server 200 connected to the network at the designated mail address according to the communication protocol.

The user can designate and input the address of the transmission destination by referring to the address book 103 instead of inputting the transmission destination address using the keyboard 51u. In the present embodiment, the display panel 51 is operated by the user.
When the address search key 51v displayed above is operated, a list of mail addresses registered in the address book 103 stored in the ID card 100 is displayed. At this time, the mail communication terminal 10 performs the processing shown in FIG. That is, when the address search key 51v is pressed by the user, the ID card 1
From the address book 103 (RAM1
7 (S41), and a list of the acquired mail addresses is displayed on the display panel 51 (S42).
The user further depresses the address search key 51v,
The user can scroll the address list until a desired mail address is displayed, press the OK button 51w in that state, and specify and input the displayed desired mail address as a destination.

As described above, in the electronic mail communication system according to the present invention, the ID card 100 storing the personal server connection information 101 and the like, the server connection information 101 is read from the ID card 100, and based on the information, A mail communication terminal 10 is connected to a predetermined mail server 200 and receives a user's mail stored in the ID card. Further, the ID card 100 also stores information of the address book 103 in which mail addresses of a plurality of users are registered in addition to the server connection information 101. When an e-mail is received from a user who is not registered in the address book 103, The mail address of the unregistered user is automatically registered in the address book 103.

FIG. 10 is a perspective view showing the appearance of the mail communication terminal 10, and FIG. 11 is a sectional view thereof.

As shown in FIG. 10, the mail communication terminal 10
Are a document feed tray 30, a document discharge tray 40, a discharge tray 45, an operation panel 50, and a card insertion slot 60.
And The mail communication terminal 10 includes an image reading unit 12 that reads a document image as shown in FIG.
A printer engine 19 for performing printing, and a paper feed cassette 13
0.

The image reading section 12 includes the document feed tray 3
0, a document conveying path 102, a document discharge tray 40, and a CCD sensor 105 for reading a document and converting it into an electric signal. The document fed from the document feed tray 30 is read by the CCD sensor 105, and the read document is discharged to the document discharge tray 40.

A printer engine 19 is an electrophotographic printer engine, and includes a photosensitive drum 121 and a developing device 12.
2. An imaging cartridge 125 having a toner replenishing device 123 and the like, a laser optical system 126 for forming an image on the photosensitive drum 121, a fixing device 127 for fixing a toner image formed on recording paper, and the like. .

The laser light emitted from the laser oscillator of the laser optical system 126 is modulated based on the image signal output from the CCD sensor 105, and forms an image latent image on the photosensitive drum 121. The image latent image on the photosensitive drum 121 is developed by the developing device 122 to be visualized, and the toner image is transferred to recording paper fed from the paper feeding cassette 130 and fixed by the fixing device 127. Thereafter, the recording sheet on which the image has been formed is discharged to the discharge tray 45.

The mail communication terminal 10 thus configured
, The ID card 1 inserted into the card insertion slot 60
00 is read by the card reading unit 15,
Also, new data such as an update of the address book is recorded.

[0039]

According to the electronic mail communication device of the present invention,
When an e-mail is received from an unregistered user, the e-mail address of this user is automatically recorded on the recording medium, so that the burden of the user's address registration work on the recording medium can be reduced. In the electronic mail communication device, a mail address recorded on a recording medium may be displayed, and a desired mail address may be selected from the displayed mail addresses. This facilitates setting of a mail address at the time of transmission. In particular, the work of setting the mail address when replying to the person who sent the mail is facilitated, and the burden on the user can be reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a control block diagram of an electronic mail communication system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an operation panel unit of the mail communication terminal.

FIG. 3 is a view showing information stored in an ID card.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a mail receiving process of a control unit.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a display example of a received mail.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of an address book registration process of the control unit.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of a mail transmission process of the control unit.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a state when a setting keyboard is displayed on a display panel.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of an address book content display process of the control unit.

FIG. 10 is a perspective view of a mail communication terminal.

FIG. 11 is a sectional view showing a configuration of a mail communication terminal.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Mail communication terminal 11 ... Control part 12 ... Image reading part 13 ... Image processing part 14 ... FAX modem 15 ... Card reading part 16 ... Image memory 17 ... RAM 18 ... Video interface 19 ... Printer engine 20 ... ROM 21 ... Hard disk 22 ... network interface 50 ... operation panel 51 ... display panel 100 ... ID card 103 ... address book 150 ... network 200 ... mail server.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────の Continued on front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification symbol FI H04N 1/00 H04N 1/32 Z 1/21 H04L 11/20 101B 1/32

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A recording medium attaching / detaching means for attaching a recording medium, and detecting whether or not a mail address of a sender of the received e-mail is recorded on a recording medium attached to the recording medium attaching / detaching means. And a registration unit that registers the mail address in the recording medium when the mail address of the sender is not detected in the recording medium as a result of the detection by the detection unit. E-mail communication device. 2. The electronic mail communication device according to claim 1, wherein: an address reading means for reading a mail address recorded on a recording medium mounted on the recording medium attaching / detaching means; and a display for displaying the read mail address. Means, an address selecting means for selecting a desired mail address from the displayed mail addresses, and a mail transmitting means for transmitting an electronic mail to the selected mail address. Email communication device.