GB2135858A - Videotex alert-system - Google Patents

Abstract

An alarm system which enables an organisation to deliver to its distant links an urgent message, at any hour of the day or night, by keying into an appropriate viewdata message page and then requesting an update of the appropriate page. The receiving agent is equipped with a display device, e.g. a TV, with a decoder tuned to the selected page and adapted to merge a display of this page with whatever input, e.g. broadcast, VCR, is being displayed at the time of the update.

Description

SPECIFICATION Videotex alert-system 1. Introduction [The term 'Videotex' embraces teletext and viewdata (interactive videotex).] Since Viewdata's launch as a British information publishing medium in the early 70s, it has received significant Post Office and Government support and has evolved in a number of different ways.

In the UK, as a public service, in the form of PRESTEL (Trade Mark) viewdata is providing the domestic and business user with publishing and networking services for information. As privately owned systems, viewdata is being heralded as an information dissemination and inter-active media, which is cheaper and easier to implement than traditional on-line processing systems.

However, in spite of considerable marketing effort and the concept's apparent suitability, the anticipated mass involvement is still to be achieved. The device defined in this application, is designed to address this problem. In parallel with the thrust from further national viewdata projects already under way, this device will promote the use of viewdata and will remove one of the observed objections to its widespread use.

2. Background- Viewdata 2.1 The problem Though viewdata can be used in three basic, non-mutually exclusive forms: - public viewdata, such as PRESTEL, which is used primarily as a publication media for both public and business information, - private viewdata systems, such as "IVS-3", marketed by System Designers Ltd, and "Viewdata Plus" by Rediffusion Computers Ltd, (installed on an in-house computer), for in-house publishing, messaging and data capture applications, - external database processing, where the private or public viewdata system acts as a gateway to an inter-active transaction processing system, and is said to be cheap, user friendly and non-threatening, there are specific areas of requirement which it cannot address.

The technology harbours a weakness which curbs the breadth of its application and retards its general acceptance.

Explanation Each communication, be it information retrieval, information dissemination or messaging (one to one or one to several), consists of 3 phases.

These are: its creation, its dispatch and its comprehension.

Breaking down the 'comprehension' phase further into acceptance, translation/analysis and reaction, demonstrates that though reaction-predictability and ease of translation/analysis can be improved through the exercise of empathy at the creation stage, the physical acceptance of a communication cannot be influenced by the originator through viewdata.

The weakness Viewdata technology is passive! it requires an initiative to be taken by both originator and the recipient for a communication to be effected.

When Alexander Bell invented the telephone as a communications device, his thoughts did not have to project far from himself to alight upon a method of alerting the intended recipient of a communication.

With current viewdata technology a message, by definition, does not arrive; thus there is no arrival to be announced. An information retrieval step, to be performed by an intended recipient, demands discipline and timetable to avoid a build up of unattended/unanswered communications.

On the fringes of a distributed organisation, discipline tends to have a parochial rather than a central identity. For viewdata to be seen to make a clear contribution to the communications requirement of such an organisation, an originator's message must be heralded positively in the camp of the recipient.

In its current form, therefore, the technology can be seen to find difficulty in coping adequately with "emergency" and unplanned situations and, clearly, to be unsuitable for a portion of the requirement profile of each of a considerable number of distributed organisations.

2.2 The requirement 1. An organisation devoted to nationwide distribution has a significant communications requirement. But when using a messaging (electronic mail) system as is available within viewdata, such an organisation is plagued repeatedly by the question, "But how do they know we have sent them a message?" When a viewdata terminal is off, when a terminal is in viewdata use, when a terminal is on, but idle, when a terminal is tuned to TV, when a terminal is displaying a training film from tape, etc, - NO INDICATION is given of the presence of an urgent message awaiting acceptance.

ONLY when a viewdata facility is ENTERED does the "welcome page" alert a user to the presence of a message.

2. An organisation with a centralised character but having a distributed responsibility (either outgoing, as with distribution, or incoming, as with order entry) encounters the same problem when committing to the viewdata concept throughout, as its human interface.

3. There are a number of groups of people who have a leisure time on-call responsibility to their organisations; and consequently many random instances occur whereby a significant number of people have to be contacted urgently from a central point.

Random examples: Notice to all station commanders Notice to all water authority engineers Notice to all forestry managers Notice to all dam operation managers Notice to all mining engineers Notice to all ambulance drivers Notice to all security forces Notice to all social workers Notice to all party (political) officials Notice to all union officials Notice to all regional officials Notice to all exam applicants (OU) For viewdata technology to experience the general acceptance it deserves, its areas of unsuitability must be remedied.

The general need for an 'alert-facility' is sufficiently widespread to warrant its being addressed urgently.

Should a single technology be inadequate on its own, a solution must be sought by combining the attributes of those strands of technological development available.

A vailable technology Telex, telephone, commercial teletext, viewdata.

Telex is basically a point-to-point communication device though current word processing technology can handle "telex mailshots" automatically. It is however not usually sited convenient to the need.

The telephone supports point-to-point communications making a one-to-many communication tedious and time consuming.

Paging systems have limited range and relay radio systems would involve multiple operators.

Teletext is a one-to-many medium but it is open totally to the public and its information has to be sought to be received.

Viewdata can accommodate a closed one-to-many communications requirement such as outlined above but it cannot alert a potential recipient who may be otherwise engaged. It is however, closest to satisfying the requirement and indeed could do so if used through disciplined procedure.

3. The way forward The situation For a user of any viewdata facility - public or private - to successfully communicate to a number of other users he must create and place the message in a page location which is accessible to each intended recipient(s).

Since viewdata communications are passive, there are no ways provided by this technology of interrupting or capturing the attention of a target recipient. Only when a user has just made connection with a viewdata facility does the "welcome page" appear and the user get informed of a message awaiting attention.

An organisation's need - To urgently research resource availability, - to reach the sales force with overall price changes, - to recall a faulty or dangerous product, - to reach an action group, - to alert a national emergency service or - to interrupt with an urgent update - all members - etc.

These requirements might occur during either working hours or leisure hours.

How do we make contact with our group? - We have no telegram service - We have a seldom used SOS service through radio - The telephone is tedious for the numbers in question - The telex service is inappropriate Solution 1 (valid only when a TV set (orterminal) is in use) An analysis of the 'leisure hours' indicates that: the UK pattern in the evenings is not radio but television for broadcast services, TV games or video cassette recorder (VCR) entertainment. There are very few homes where at least one member of the household is not taking input from a 'square screen'. The television terminal is therefore that communication 'port' which is active during the vast majority of the leisure hours in the average British home.Yet, as such, it cannot be utilised to convey urgent messages to a household member because, if the message's existence is not known, it is would not be accessed.

Is it necessary to inject a discipline or procedure into the home to cause receipt of a possible message? This would meet with resistance! Leisure and work disciplines, by definition, don't mix easily. If one has to interrupt the leisure pursuits of the rest of the household then let it be only when necessary, not a regular nightly invasion to which the whole family must bow.

Viewdata and teletext technologies are closest to the leisure entertainment but their standards, as they are established, do not accommodate an alert-system. The unlikely thought of a telephone bell (or bleeper) in each of a substantial number of television sets responding to a message changing the state of an area of storage in a very remote computer store (as in viewdata), has been pointed out. Without a connection to the viewdata network being established, no initiative can be taken by such a facility in isolation.

By combining the available technologies, consider the capability: Teletext broadcasts are displayed on those lines of the screen which are unused by the television picture! A blank teletext page can ALWAYS be displayed without picture interference! One teletext service permits the 'owning' of pages and has a rapid update capability! By manufacturing a device: A re-tunable teletext decoder positioned to capture the incoming signal (from aerial or cable), to extract a copy of the teletext signal from Oracle, to select the tuned page and to merge this with whichever input is being displayed on the screen at the time.

Thus, irrespective of whichever channel is selected for broadcast viewing or whether displaying a signal from VCR, another teletext signal or a viewdata signal, the page tuned to will also be displayed. The set has simply to be in use.

Putting it together An organisation wishing to call certain of its members to action would therefore prepare thus: - As an information provider, establish a Closed User Group on a viewdata facility, - arrange to 'own' two blank page numbers on IBA Oracle (Registered Trade Mark) - equip each member with viewdata adaptor and special decoder (as described above) which would be tuned to the first of the blank pages ("A"), - negotiate a rapid update service with the IBA (Oracle), - instruct its members how to comprehend and respond to emergencies.

The alert procedure would then function by: - the organisation - recording the action message to the group of members on the 'action pages' of the viewdata facility, - notifying the Oracle update centre of a change to its two blank pages - eg enter "ALERT" as the teletext message on the "A" page and blank on the "B" page.

(a) Residential contact, during leisure hours - each member - being informed by a member of the household that "ALERT" was being superimposed upon their viewing.

- retunes the special decoder to the second blank page of the Oracle database (the "B" page).

- begs forgiveness and switches over to the alert message pages of viewdata, receives and stores (or whatever) his message.

- re-switches to TV (the original viewing) effects the requested action.

(b) Business contact, during working hours - each member - when the "ALERT" message is superimposed upon the viewing screen the operator notifies the elected local recipient who then performs the same steps as described above, suitably edited for the business situation.

Solution 2 With this solution the staged reaction to the ALERT is the same as that for Solution 1 but the method of alert is different. Just as a normal teletext decoder can recognise the page number of a broadcast oracle page, a special decoder can additionally recognise a 'string' of characters or colours within a page. Such a decoder would then trigger a continuous bleeping and flashing system which would be cancelled only when the decoder was tuned to the second blank page, as described earlier. This decoder does not interfere with the screen signal and so its installation should be simpler than that for Solution 1. Further, with a separate power supply, it could be kept on ALL the time (the power drain would be similar to that of an electric clock).

Thus a signal can be detected within a recipient domain when the TV set/terminal is NOT switched on and the recipient alerted as soon as they move within visual or audio range.

More than one sequence of characters or colours could be identified by such a device, permitting (for instance) a soft and an urgent bleep pattern to be accommodated.

An extension to this solution would be for a decoder to be able to bleep, switch on the set, switch to viewdata and search to the preset message page. The bleeper remains on until the status of the set is changed (ie any switch depressed). Such an extension would be more applicable to purpose-built units since the function tappings would be more extensive.

Note: A combination of Solutions 1 and 2 could display on a screen the name of the organisation initiating the alert-signal. Hence, in a situation where a terminal is not wholly owned, a shared facility could operate whereby each organisation has its own viewdata Closed User Group, the way into which is known only to its own employees.

Solution recommended In spite of the visual charm of Solution 1 and the interesting combinations and extensions of the solutions mentioned, it is the straighfforward Solution 2 which offers greatest simplicity of installation and which does not require the terminal to be in active use, or even attended, to effect an alert.

Thus, by combining the broadcasting qualities of Oracle teletext with the controlled one-to-many communications capability of viewdata, one creates using a constantly attendant device ('the invention'), an 'alert-system' which enables an organisation to deliverto its distant links an urgent or timely message, at any hour of the day or night, simply by keying into its appropriate viewdata message page and then requesting Oracle to perform an update of the appropriate teletext page.

Because of the internationai standards of videotex, the technique can be used in UK with Prestel or with any viewdata system and used worldwide with any teletextlviewdata link-up.

Claims (2)

1. By combining the attributes of viewdata and teletext technologies with the commercial interests of a teletext service, the device allows a communication from one geographic point to many geographic locations to be heralded within the domain of each intended recipient.

2. The device, in Solution 2, can also be employed with any electronic messaging system where the input aerial, bringing in the teletext signal, and the power connection are the only two attachments used. When an alert is detected, the device emits the bleep and flashes, then the recipient addresses his communications device, which may be a VDU terminal, a keyboard terminal or a telephone, to receive the message.