JP2002024671A - Display device, relay server, display system, data receiving method and electronic publication display device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a display device, a relay server, a display system, a data receiving method and an electronic publication display device allowing successive reception of information, even if the capacity of a storage means is small, without a hindrance to grasp latest information. SOLUTION: An electronic newspaper distributing system is provided with a host server 1, the relay server 5 and a plurality of display terminals 10. The relay server 5 is provided with a reception means for receiving information, a storage means for storing information received by the reception means, a processing means for releasing a storage area for already stored information of one unit on the storage means in response to the reception of information of one unit by the reception means, a control means for storing received information in the storage means and a display screen 6 performing a display based on information stored newly in the storage means.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a display device for receiving distribution of electronic publications such as electronic newspapers and electronic magazines, a relay server, a display system, a data receiving method, and an electronic publication display device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, systems for distributing electronic publications such as electronic newspapers and electronic magazines through communication lines such as the Internet have been provided. In this type of system, on the receiving side, considering that new article information is sequentially distributed, it is necessary to increase the capacity of the memory, and since the memory is still limited, it has already been distributed. Information that needs to be deleted as needed. But,
It is troublesome to select and delete article information one by one, and the old version and the new version may be confused.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a display device, a relay server, a display system, a data receiving method, and an electronic publication which can sequentially receive information even if the capacity of the storage means is small and does not hinder the grasp of the latest information. A display device is provided.

[0004]

In order to achieve the above object, a display device according to the present invention comprises: a receiving unit for receiving information; a storage unit for storing information received by the receiving unit;
Processing means for releasing a storage area for one unit of information already stored in the storage means in response to reception of one unit of information by the reception means, and storing the received information in the storage means A control unit; and a display unit for performing display based on the information newly stored in the storage unit.

[0005] Here, one unit of information is, for example, data of an electronic newspaper or electronic magazine distributed and processed in one session, and includes information of a plurality of articles, images, advertisements, and the like.

[0006] In the display device having the above configuration,
When one unit of information is received, the storage area of one unit of information already stored is released. Here, releasing the storage area means a process of enabling data writing, such as deleting storage data in the storage area or invalidating the storage data to enable overwriting. Then, the received new information is stored in the storage unit.

Therefore, the capacity of the storage means does not need to be large enough to store a large number of units of information. Further, since the old information and the new information are exchanged, there is no problem in grasping the latest information. In addition, there is no need to select deletion information one by one, and new and old information are not confused. In addition, it is possible to prevent the storage capacity from being excessive due to excessive distribution.

[0008] In the display device according to the present invention, the control means may further cause the display means to initially display a specific item of information newly stored in the storage means. This is convenient for the user because a specific item to be viewed is displayed at an early stage.

Further, a relay server according to the present invention is a relay server for relaying information between a host device and a terminal, and a receiving means for receiving information from the host device; Storage means for storing the received information;
Processing means for releasing a storage area for one unit of information already stored in the storage means in response to reception of one unit of information by the reception means, and storing the received information in the storage means Control means.

[0010] The relay server having the above configuration has the same operation and effect as those of the display device.

Further, a display system according to the present invention includes the relay server and a display terminal to which information is transferred from the relay server, and at least information of a predetermined specific item is transferred from the relay server. Displayed on the display terminal.

In the display system having the above-described configuration, information of a predetermined item is transferred from the relay server to the display terminal, so that the owner of the display terminal can quickly see the information of the specific item. it can. Of course, the display terminal can instruct to transfer the information including information of other items.

In the above display system, the relay server may be capable of storing a plurality of units of information. The storage capacity of the display terminal can be minimized.

[0014] Further, the data receiving method according to the present invention comprises:
Receiving the information by the receiving means, and in response to receiving the one unit of information by the receiving means, releasing the storage area of the already stored one unit of information on the storage means; And storing the received information.

In the data receiving method having the above configuration, when one unit of information is received, the storage area of the already stored one unit of information is released, and the received information is stored. Need not be large enough to store a large number of units of information, and the old information and the new information are replaced, so that there is no problem in grasping the latest information. In addition, there is no need to select deletion information one by one, and new and old information are not confused. In addition, it is possible to prevent the storage capacity from being excessive due to excessive distribution.

Further, the electronic publication display device according to the present invention has a receiving means for receiving electronic publication information, a storage means for storing the received electronic publication information, and a storage means for storing the received electronic publication information. A display means for displaying and, in response to the reception of the new version information, a control means for releasing the area for storing the old version information of the storage means and for storing the new version information in the storage means.

In the electronic publication display device having the above structure, the new version information is replaced with the old version information and stored, so that the storage means has a small capacity, and there is no problem in grasping the latest version information. Is not necessary, and new and old information is not confused. Also, it is possible to prevent the storage capacity from being exceeded due to excessive distribution.

[0018]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, embodiments of a display device, a relay server, a display system, a data receiving method, and an electronic publication display device according to the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

(Overall Configuration of Information Distribution System, FIGS. 1 and 2)
FIG. 1 shows a first example of an information distribution system using a relay server according to the present invention. This system generally includes a host server 1 installed in a host station, a relay server 5 and a display terminal 10 installed in each home or building.

The relay server 5 has a screen 6 and can communicate with the host server 1 via a telephone line or satellite communication.
For example, electronic newspaper information is periodically distributed from the host server 1. Therefore, the relay server 5 includes a memory for temporarily storing information and a relatively large-capacity storage device.

A plurality of display terminals 10 are arranged so that they can be used personally, and are managed by one relay server 5. They are connected by a LAN so that data communication with the relay server 5 is possible, and data communication between the terminals 10 is also possible. Communication between the relay server 5 and the terminal 10 and between the terminals 10 may be a wired LAN or a wireless LAN. Also, terminal 1
0 may be made detachable from the relay server 5 so that when the terminal 10 is attached to the relay server 5, the two communicate with each other.

FIG. 2 shows a second example of an information distribution system using the display device according to the present invention as a terminal. In this system, the relay server 5 is omitted, and each display terminal 20 can communicate with the host server 1 via a telephone line or satellite communication. For example, electronic newspaper information is periodically distributed from the host server 1 .

Accordingly, the display terminal 20 has a relatively large-capacity storage device for storing information distributed from the host server 1 and a relatively small-capacity storage device for storing necessary information. Note that a small-capacity storage device can also be used as a large-capacity storage device.

The display terminals 20 are connected by a LAN so that not only data communication with the host server 1 but also data communication between the terminals 20 is possible. Each terminal 2
Communication between 0 may be a wired LAN or a wireless LAN.

(Control Circuit of Display Terminal, see FIGS. 3 and 4) FIG. 3 shows a control circuit of the display terminal 10 used in the system of the first example. This control circuit is mainly composed of a CPU 30 and a ROM 3 storing a program.
1, a RAM 32 for temporarily storing control parameters, image data, and the like, a data processing device 36, a communication device 37, and an operation unit 38 having various operation members operated by a user are connected. Further, the CPU 30 is connected to a display panel 34 made of a liquid crystal or the like, a driver 33 for driving the display panel 34, and a touch panel 35 installed on the display panel 34.

The display panel 34 is composed of a display medium having a memory function. That is, the display panel 34 is composed of a chiral nematic liquid crystal obtained by adding a chiral material to a nematic liquid crystal, a ferroelectric liquid crystal, or the like. If a display medium having a memory property is used, the operation of the driver 33 is stopped after updating the display once, and the display is maintained even if the power supply to the display panel 34 is stopped, thereby contributing to energy saving.

FIG. 4 shows a control circuit of the display terminal 20 used in the system of the second example. This control circuit is basically the same as the circuit shown in FIG. 3, and a large-capacity storage device 41 and a small-capacity storage device 42 are added. The storage devices 41 and 42 are well-known hard disks, floppy (registered trademark) disks, optical disks, semiconductor memories, and the like, and the small-capacity storage device 42 can also be used as the large-capacity storage device 41 as described above.

(Control Circuit of Relay Server) The control circuit of the relay server 5 is basically the same as the control circuit of the display device 20 shown in FIG. The small-capacity storage device corresponds to a memory for temporarily storing information transmitted from the host server.
The large-capacity storage device corresponds to a storage device for storing electronic newspaper information.

(Data reception, data structure, see FIGS. 5 to 7) Next, data reception processing and data structure will be described. The following description is basically based on the system of the first example, and different points will be described with respect to the second example.

Electronic newspaper information is periodically distributed from the host server 1 to the relay server 5. In the second example, electronic newspaper information is directly delivered to the storage device 41 of each display terminal 20. Each display terminal 10 accesses the relay server 5 and displays a page requiring electronic newspaper information on the display panel 34.

The electronic newspaper information is stored in the relay server 5 in the first example.
In the second example, the mass storage device 41 of the information display terminal 20 is used.
Therefore, there is no need to access the host server 1 every time the information display terminals 10 and 20 browse the electronic newspaper information.

When the electronic newspaper information is taken into the relay server 5 or the display terminal 20, a filter according to the user's preference may be applied. For example, only economic articles may be imported, or only local editions may be imported.

An electronic newspaper contains header information and footer information of the entire publication and various information including a plurality of pages. FIG. 5 shows an example of the data structure. As shown in FIG. 5, one edition (that is, one unit) of electronic newspaper information includes header information and footer information for specifying that it is one edition of electronic newspaper, and article page information including an article of the electronic newspaper. And flyer page information corresponding to an insert advertisement in a paper newspaper. Here, an example is shown in which article page information for n pages and flyer information for 5 pages are included.

The header information includes information for specifying the page to be initially displayed (initial display specifying information).
The initial display specifying information includes, for example, a page number and an article classification (“economic section”, “sport section”, “social section”, etc.).

As shown in FIG. 5, each article page information is composed of a plurality of article data. Each article data has tag information including a publishing page and an article number, article information including characters and images, and additional information including markup information provided by a user.

Relay server 5 when electronic newspaper is distributed
Is as shown in FIG. First, step S
In step S1, the fact that reception is in progress is displayed on the screen 6 or on a display means such as a display lamp provided separately. In step S2, the data is received and stored in a memory for temporary storage. Next, in step S3, the storage area of the old data (for example, the morning data of the previous day) already stored in the storage device is released. The release of the storage area may be realized by making data overwriting possible, but all old data may be deleted or deleted.

Next, in step S4, of the received data,
Specific items specified in advance by the operator of the relay server 5 or the display terminal 10 or the distributor of the electronic newspaper are displayed on the screen 6. Thereafter, in step S5, the received data is stored in the storage device. Then, the power supply to each unit is turned off, and a sleep state (for example, a state in which only the minimum necessary circuit for detecting the next distribution is activated) is established. As a result, the power supply to the display device by the driver is stopped, but the display is maintained due to the memory property. Therefore, energy saving can be achieved.

FIG. 7 shows an example of a mode of exchanging old data and new data at the time of data distribution. In the form 1, the evening edition 1 is stored after the morning edition 1, and when the morning edition 2 is distributed the next morning, the data of the morning edition 1 is released and the data of the morning edition 2 is stored. Further, when the evening paper 2 is distributed, the data of the evening paper 1 is released and the data of the evening paper 2 is stored. This form 1 is
In other words, data is updated in a push-out manner, and only one day's worth of data is stored, so that the capacity of the storage device can be small.

Form 2 is similar to form 1 in that data for one day is stored, but when morning 2 is distributed the next day after morning 1 and evening 1 are stored, morning 1 and evening 1 are stored. Release the data of No. 1 and store the data of Morning Newspaper 2. Next, when the evening paper 2 is distributed, the data is stored. In the second embodiment, the advantage that the capacity of the storage device is small is the same as that of the first embodiment, and further, there is an advantage that the new data is not confused with the data of yesterday.

Mode 3 is a case where the storage device has a capacity to store one week's morning and evening data. When the morning publication 8 is distributed one week later, the morning publication 1 data is released and the morning publication 8 is released. To store the data. Hereinafter, similarly, when new data is distributed, it is replaced with the oldest stored data. In mode 3, information for a certain period (here, information for one week) can be viewed retrospectively. Moreover, the amount of stored data does not increase beyond a predetermined amount.

(Initial display, see FIGS. 8 and 9) Next, an initial display when information is received will be described with reference to FIG. First, when the relay server 5 receives new electronic newspaper data, the front cover is initially displayed on the screen 6. This allows you to check the distribution of the new publication.
The items to be initially displayed are not limited to the cover, and may be other pages or specific items.

When the relay server 5 receives new electronic newspaper data even at each display terminal 10, the information of a specific item corresponding to the initial display page specified in advance is displayed on each display terminal 10. The data is distributed, and a specific item of the data is initially displayed. In FIG. 8, a sports column is displayed on the display terminal 10 located on the left side, a cover is displayed on the display terminal 10 located on the center, a list of newspaper articles (menu screen) is displayed on the display terminal 10 located on the right side, The state where each is initially displayed is illustrated.

The menu screen is created by the control means of either the relay server 5 or the display terminals 10 and 20 based on various data of the distributed electronic newspaper.

Note that the date and time of distribution and the title are displayed on any of the initial screens. Therefore, since the user can know the distribution date and time and the name of the publication, it is easy to understand whether the information has been distributed recently, and it is possible to save the trouble of rereading the page.

Here, the process of designating the items of the initial display by the user will be described with reference to FIG. The processing here can be similarly performed on the relay server 5, each display terminal 10, and even on the display terminal 20 that can independently communicate with the host server 1.

That is, the designation or change of the initial display is accepted in step S11, and the items to be initially displayed are corrected in step S12. The user can specify or change an item by using the operation keys on the relay server 5 or the operation unit 38 of the display terminals 10 and 20.
, Or using the touch panel 35 or the like. Next, in step S13, the change is confirmed, and in step S14, it is confirmed that it is "OK", and then the process is terminated.

On the other hand, the electronic newspaper distributed from the host server 1 may include priority display information. The priority display information is emergency information such as extra information, and is displayed on the relay server 5 and the display terminals 10 and 20 prior to the initial display items. An identifier indicating such priority display information is given by the distribution side as header information.

(Electronic publication display device)
Display terminals 10, 20 systemized by communication means
In addition, the present invention can be applied to an electronic publication display device. Such an electronic publication display device is the same as using the display terminal 20 shown in FIG. 2 in a stand-alone manner, and mainly receives electronic magazine information. In this electronic publication display device, in response to the reception of the new version information, the area storing the old version information of the storage device is released, and then the new version information is stored in the released area.

(Other Embodiments) The display device, the relay server, the display system, the data receiving method, and the electronic publication display device according to the present invention are not limited to the above embodiment, but fall within the scope of the gist thereof. Various changes can be made.

In particular, the configuration of the information distribution system and the configuration of the host server, relay server, and display terminal used in the system are arbitrary. The information to be distributed is not limited to the electronic newspaper, but may be other types of information such as an electronic magazine or an electronic catalog.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing a first example of an information distribution system using a relay server according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic configuration diagram showing a second example of the information distribution system using the display device according to the present invention as a terminal.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a control circuit of the display terminal used in the first example.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a control circuit of a display terminal used in the second example.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a data structure of an electronic newspaper.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the reception processing of an electronic newspaper.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram showing a data exchange mode at the time of distribution of an electronic newspaper.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram of an initial display screen.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating a process of changing an initial display.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Host server 5 ... Relay server 6 ... Display screen 10, 20 ... Display terminal 30 ... CPU 34 ... Display panel 36 ... Data processing device 37 ... Communication device 41, 42 ... Storage device

Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Keizo Ochi 2-3-13 Azuchicho, Chuo-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka Inside Osaka International Building Minolta Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Yutaka Tsurumoto 2-chome Azuchi-cho, Chuo-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka No. 13 Osaka International Building Minolta Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Hideo Hotomi 2-3-13 Azuchicho, Chuo-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka F-term in Osaka International Building Minolta Co., Ltd. 5B049 BB26 BB49 CC02 CC36 DD01 EE01 EE07 FF03 FF04 GG04 GG06 GG07 5B069 AA01 BC09

Claims (7)

[Claims] A receiving unit for receiving information; a storing unit for storing the information received by the receiving unit; and a storage unit for storing the information received by the receiving unit. Processing means for releasing a storage area of one unit of information that has been set, control means for storing received information in the storage means, and display means for displaying based on information newly stored in the storage means. A display device, comprising: 2. The display device according to claim 1, wherein the control unit further causes a specific item of information newly stored in the storage unit to be initially displayed on the display unit. 3. A relay server for relaying information between a host device and a terminal, the receiving device receiving information from the host device, and the storage device storing information received by the receiving device. Processing means for releasing a storage area of one unit of information already stored in the storage means in response to reception of one unit of information by the reception means, and storing the received information in the storage means. A relay server, comprising: control means for storing; and transmission means for transmitting information stored in the storage means to a terminal. 4. A relay server according to claim 3, further comprising a display terminal to which information is transferred from the relay server, wherein at least information of a predetermined specific item is transferred from the relay server and displayed on the display terminal. A display system. 5. The display system according to claim 4, wherein said relay server can store a plurality of units of information. 6. A step of receiving information by a receiving unit, and in response to the receiving of the unit of information by the receiving unit, releasing a storage area of the unit of information already stored in the storage unit. Storing the received information in the storage means. 7. A receiving means for receiving electronic publication information,
Storage means for storing the received electronic publication information, display means for performing display based on the stored electronic publication information,
An electronic publication display, comprising: control means for storing the new version information in the storage means after releasing an area storing the old version information in the storage means in response to receiving the new version information. apparatus.