JP2003308399A - Weather information providing system, program and storage medium - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To automatically extract area information or facility information within the area from the contents of an electronic content browsed by a user to provide weather information related to the area. <P>SOLUTION: This weather information providing system (user terminal 1) is connected to a weather information server 2 for accumulating weather forecasting information through a communication network 3 and provided with a GUI for displaying windows to enable the browsing of electronic documents. This system comprises a weather information providing means for extracting information of a specified window displayed on a display screen, receiving weather information from the weather information server according to the contents of the electronic document described in the window concerned, and displaying the weather information on the specified window. The weather information providing means comprises an electronic document extraction part 11, a word retrieval part 12 and a weather information display part 13. An agent 15 is also usable. <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 connected to a weather information server for accumulating weather forecast information via a communication network and displays a GUI (Graphical User).
・ A weather information providing system capable of browsing electronic documents, a program therefor, and a recording medium.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Currently, information related to weather is displayed on a television,
It is distributed not only by radio but also through various media such as distributed via the Internet. In particular, if a weather information distribution site via the Internet is used, various contents and weather contents can be browsed together. For example, by using a computer connected to the Internet, you can browse both the site where the highlights of the travel destination are introduced and the site where the weather information of the travel destination is introduced by starting the web browser. Becomes

As described above, according to the computer connected to the Internet, different information such as travel destination information and weather information can be simultaneously browsed by a simple operation. This convenience is a charm that cannot be obtained by other media. However, if the user is browsing a website related to a region such as a travel destination site and wants to know the weather in the region, the user accesses the weather information site and follows the link to the weather information of the corresponding region. There was a need.

[0004]

By the way, at some sites, local contents and weather information are inquired at the same time (for example, at a site that examines traffic information for a certain day, the weather information is The site that is displayed) is known. However, the amount of content such sites hold is limited. There are many tourist information sites on the Internet that do not have the simultaneous display function of weather information, including websites opened by individuals.
When a user is browsing such a site and wants to know the weather information on the planned travel date of the area, it is necessary to separately launch a browser or the like to search for the weather information of the area.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and automatically extracts area information or facility information within an area from the contents of electronic contents viewed by a user, and obtains weather information about the area. A weather information providing system that can be provided while reducing the burden on the user,
And a program therefor, and a recording medium.

[0006]

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention is an electronic document that is connected to a weather information server that stores weather forecast information via a communication network and has a GUI for displaying a window. Is a weather information providing system capable of browsing, extracting information of a specific window displayed on the display screen, and displaying the weather information from the weather information server according to the content of the electronic document described in the window. Meteorological information providing means for receiving and displaying the meteorological information in the specific window.

According to the present invention, the meteorological information providing means extracts the information of a specific window displayed on the display screen, and the meteorological information server provides the meteorological information in accordance with the contents of the electronic document described in the window. By receiving the information and displaying the weather information in a specific window, the area information or facility information in the area is automatically extracted from the contents of the electronic document viewed by the user, and the weather information about the area is displayed. It is possible to build a weather information providing system that can provide the information. Therefore, in addition to improving operability, convenience can be provided to the user.

Further, according to the present invention, the weather information providing means extracts an electronic document described in the active window displayed on the display screen or in the window which was active immediately before. The word included in the content of the electronic document extracted by the extraction unit and the electronic document extraction unit includes a word indicating a region accumulated in the region / meteorological information accumulating unit included in the weather information server or a facility in the region. And a weather information corresponding to a word representing an area or facility within the area searched by the word searching means, and presenting it to the user. Meteorological information display means is provided.

According to the present invention, the word search means uses the words contained in the content of the electronic document extracted by the electronic document extraction means to the area of the area / weather information storage means provided in the weather information server, or the facility within the area. When the user searches for whether or not the word representing the word is included, the weather information corresponding to the word representing the searched area or facility in the area is received from the area / weather information storage means through the weather information display means, and the user The user can easily browse the weather information corresponding to the area or facility information displayed in the window being browsed. Therefore, since the user can easily browse the weather information together with the regional information, the efficiency of presenting information to the user can be improved. Moreover, the burden on the user is reduced.

The present invention further comprises a resident interface agent, wherein the weather information display means presents weather information to a user via an agent display screen. According to the present invention, since the resident interface agent is used to notify the user of weather information, a series of operations required therefor can be automated, further improving operability and providing convenience to the user.

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides
A GUI that connects to a weather information server that stores weather forecast information via a communication network and displays a window
A weather information providing program used in a weather information providing system capable of browsing an electronic document, comprising: extracting information of a specific window displayed on a display screen; and an electronic program described in the window. It is characterized in that the computer is made to execute the steps of receiving the weather information from the weather information server according to the content of the document and displaying the received weather information in the specific window.

According to the present invention, by causing a computer to execute the above-mentioned weather information providing program, information of a specific window displayed on the display screen is extracted,
By receiving the weather information from the weather information server according to the contents of the electronic document described in the window and displaying the weather information in a specific window, the contents of the electronic document viewed by the user are automatically displayed. Regional information or facility information in the area can be extracted to provide weather information about the area. Therefore, in addition to improving operability, convenience can be provided to the user.

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention provides
A GUI that connects to a weather information server that stores weather forecast information via a communication network and displays a window
A computer-readable recording medium recording a weather information providing program used in a weather condition providing system capable of browsing an electronic document, the method including: extracting information of a specific window displayed on a display screen; , Weather for causing a computer to execute the steps of receiving weather information from the weather information server according to the content of the electronic document described in the window, and displaying the received weather information in the specific window It is characterized in that the information providing program is recorded.

According to the present invention, by reading the above-mentioned weather information providing program from the recording medium and causing the computer to execute the information, the information of a specific window displayed on the display screen is extracted and described in the window. By receiving the weather information from the weather information server according to the content of the electronic document and displaying the weather information in a specific window, the area information or the area within the area is automatically displayed based on the content of the electronic document viewed by the user. The facility information can be extracted and the weather information regarding the relevant area can be provided. Therefore,
Besides improving the operability, it is possible to provide convenience to the user.

[0015]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a functional development of a connection configuration and an internal configuration of a user terminal in which the weather information providing system of the present invention is mounted. Here, information of a specific window displayed on the display screen is extracted from the functional blocks of the user terminal 1, and the weather information is sent from the weather information server 2 according to the content of the electronic document described in the window. Is received and the relevant weather information is extracted and shown only in the portion corresponding to the weather information providing unit that displays it in a specific window. That is, the user terminal 1
Includes an electronic document extraction unit 11 with an input / output control unit 10 as a core,
The word search unit 12, the weather information display unit 13, the agent display screen 14, and the interface agent (I
E) 15 and is connected to the weather information server 2 via a communication network 3 such as an IP (Internet Protocol) network. The weather information server 2 is an area / weather information storage unit 2
Equipped with 0. It is assumed that the region / weather information storage unit 20 stores a predetermined region, facilities within the region, and correspondence relationships between the weather information corresponding to the region.

The electronic document extracting unit 11 has a function of extracting the contents of the electronic document described in the active window displayed on the display screen or the window that was active immediately before, and the word searching unit 12 Whether the words included in the content of the electronic document extracted by the electronic document extraction unit 11 include the word of the area of the area / weather information storage unit 20 included in the weather information server 2 or the facility within the area. It has a function to search for. Further, the weather information display unit 13 receives the weather information corresponding to the word representing the area or the facility within the area searched by the word search unit 12 from the area / weather information storage unit 20 of the weather information server 2 and informs the user. Has a function to present. Further, the interface agent (IE) 15 is installed, and the weather information display unit 13 also has a function of presenting weather information to the user via the agent display screen 14.

FIG. 2 is a diagram cited for explaining the database structure of the area / weather information storage unit 20 shown in FIG. Here, the area is shown in the vertical direction, and the facilities in the area, the weather today, the weather of tomorrow, the weather condition, etc. are shown in the horizontal direction, and these contents are regularly updated. That is, there are facilities such as Kichijoji Station and Inokashira Park in Musashino City, Tokyo, and today's weather is sunny, temperature is 24 degrees,
Precipitation probability is 0%, tomorrow's weather is fine, temperature is 25 degrees, precipitation probability is 10%, and the weather condition is that the weather will be fine for the next week.

FIGS. 3, 4 and 5 are diagrams quoted for explaining the operation of the embodiment of the present invention shown in FIG. 1, which shows an operation flow chart, an example of a weather information screen configuration, and an image of providing weather information. An example is shown for each. The flowchart shown in FIG. 3 specifically shows the processing procedure of the weather information providing program of the present invention. Hereinafter, FIGS.
The operation of the embodiment of the present invention shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 will be described in detail with reference to FIG.

Here, description will be made assuming that the user is browsing Inokashira Park information with a browser. The user uses the interface agent 15 (hereinafter simply referred to as IE
Is browsing the Inokashira Park website on the display of the user terminal 1 in which the user is resident.
Here, when the user wants to know the weather of tomorrow in Inokashira Park, he right-clicks on IE15 (S30).
1). As a result, the popup menu shown in FIG. 4 is displayed (S302), and "weather information" under this popup menu is selected.

When the user selects the "weather information" menu, the window that was active immediately before the bob-up menu was displayed (becomes active), that is, the window displaying the Inokashira Park website The character string contained therein is input to the electronic document extracting unit 11 (S304). In FIG.
If all the strings in the corresponding window are extracted,
Three items, "Homepage of Inokashira Park,""Parkinformation," and "Please click the information you want to know" are extracted, and these character strings are input to the word search unit 12 (S305). In the word search unit 12, the electronic document extraction unit 1
It is searched whether or not the character string input from 1 includes a word indicating a region or a word indicating a facility in the region. Specifically, the area / weather information storage unit 20 shown in FIG.
"Database", "Region", "Regional facility"
It is searched whether the value registered in the attribute is included in the electronic document extracting unit 11 (S306). In this example, "Inokashira Park home page", "Park information", and "Please click the information you want to know" include "Inouta Park" of the "Regional facility" attribute in Figure 3. Therefore, "Inokashira Park" (or some index that means "Inokashira Park") is output as the search result (S3).
07).

If the words searched by the word search unit 12 represent different "regions", for example, in the example shown in FIG. 2, in addition to the word "Inokashira Park", "Tokyo""Mitaka,Miyako" (or the word included in the "local facility" attribute of Mitaka, Tokyo) is included (S
308 YES), the user displays “Inokashira Park” and “Mitaka City, Tokyo” (or the value of the “regional facility” attribute of Mitaka City, Tokyo) in another window or the like (S309), and selects which weather information. Prompt the user to decide whether to do it (S
310). Further, if neither the “region” nor the “region attribute” attribute value is present in the character string input to the word search unit 3, the fact that the corresponding region of the weather information is not known is notified via the IE15. (S306 No, S3
11). Therefore, the user receives an input of area information of an area to be checked (S312), and inputs the input value into the word search unit 12 again.

The weather information corresponding to "Inokashira Park" obtained by the word search unit 12 is the area / weather information storage unit 2
It is passed from 0 to the weather information display unit 13 (S313), and the output obtained by processing the input information is expressed on the display browsed by the user (S314). FIG. 5 is an example in which the weather information is provided by the weather information window and the utterance of the IE 15. From the area / weather information storage unit 20 shown in FIG. 2, it can be seen that the weather in Inokashira Park is clear today and tomorrow. Therefore, a clear image is displayed in the weather information window on the display. In addition, the weather condition of Inokashira Park is "It seems that fine weather will continue for the next week", so I will tell IE15 this content.

As described above, according to the present invention, the area information is automatically calculated from the contents of the electronic contents browsed by the user.
Alternatively, the facility information in the area is extracted and the weather information about the area is provided, which reduces the burden on the user and provides convenience. In addition, it is possible to improve the efficiency of presenting information to the user. The electronic document extraction unit 11, the word search unit 12, the weather information display unit 13, and the agent display screen 1 shown in FIG.
4, the procedure executed by each of the IEs 15 is recorded in a computer-readable recording medium, and the program recorded in this recording medium is read into a computer system and executed to realize the weather information providing system of the present invention. It shall be. The computer system mentioned here includes an OS and hardware such as peripheral devices.

The "computer system" is a WW.
If the W system is used, the homepage providing environment (or display environment) is also included. The "computer-readable recording medium" means a flexible disk, a magneto-optical disk, a ROM, a CD-
A portable medium such as a ROM or a storage device such as a hard disk built in a computer system. Further, the "computer-readable recording medium" is a volatile memory (RAM) inside a computer system which is a system or a client when a program is transmitted via a network such as the Internet or a communication line such as a telephone line. In addition, those that hold the program for a certain period of time are also included.

Further, the program may be transmitted from a computer system that stores the program in a storage device or the like to another computer system via a transmission medium or by a transmission wave in the transmission medium. Here, the "transmission medium" for transmitting the program refers to a medium having a function of transmitting information, such as a network (communication network) such as the Internet or a communication line (communication line) such as a telephone line. Further, the program may be a program for realizing some of the functions described above. further,
It may be a so-called difference file (difference program) that can realize the above-mentioned functions in combination with a program already recorded in the computer system.

The embodiment of the present invention has been described in detail above with reference to the drawings. However, the specific configuration is not limited to this embodiment, and a design etc. within the scope not departing from the gist of the present invention are also possible. included.

[0027]

As described above, according to the present invention, the user can easily browse the weather information corresponding to the area or facility information displayed in the window being browsed. Therefore, since the user can easily browse the weather information together with the regional information, the efficiency of presenting information to the user can be improved. Also,
The convenience is provided to the user, and the operability is improved while reducing the burden on the user.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a functional development of a connection configuration and an internal configuration of a user terminal in which a weather information providing system of the present invention is implemented.

FIG. 2 is a diagram cited for explaining a database structure of an area / weather information storage unit included in the weather information server shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart cited to explain the operation of the exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a screen configuration quoted for explaining the operation of the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a screen configuration quoted for explaining the operation of the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... User terminal (weather information providing system), 2 ... Weather information server, 3 ... Communication network, 10 ... Input / output control part, 11 ... Document extraction part, 12 ... Word search part, 13 ... Weather information display part, 14 ... Agent display screen, 15 ... Interface agent (IE), 20 ... Area / weather information storage unit

   ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued front page    (72) Inventor Yasuto Kono             3-19-2 Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo Tohnichi             Inside Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (72) Inventor Hosoya Miu             3-19-2 Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo Tohnichi             Inside Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (72) Inventor Tomoya Kosaka             3-19-2 Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo Tohnichi             Inside Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (72) Inventor Hiroto Ishii             3-19-2 Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo Tohnichi             Inside Telegraph and Telephone Corporation F term (reference) 5B075 KK02 ND20 NK32 UU40

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A meteorological information providing system, which is connected to a meteorological information server for accumulating weather forecast information through a communication network, has a GUI for displaying a window, and is capable of browsing electronic documents, and is provided on a display screen. Meteorological information for extracting the information of the displayed specific window, receiving the weather information from the weather information server according to the content of the electronic document described in the window, and displaying the weather information in the specific window A meteorological information providing system comprising: a providing means. 2. The weather information providing means comprises an active window displayed on the display screen,
Alternatively, an electronic document extracting unit that extracts the contents of the electronic document described in the window that was active immediately before, and the word included in the contents of the electronic document extracted by the electronic document extracting unit may be the weather information server. Area to prepare
A word search means for searching whether or not a word representing an area or facility within the area stored in the weather information storage means, and a word representing the area or facility within the area searched by the word search means 2. The meteorological information providing system according to claim 1, further comprising: meteorological information display means for receiving corresponding meteorological information from the area / meteorological information accumulating means and presenting it to the user. 3. The weather information according to claim 2, further comprising a resident interface agent, wherein the weather information display means presents weather information to a user via an agent display screen. Offer system. 4. A meteorological information providing program used in a meteorological information providing system which is connected to a meteorological information server for accumulating weather forecast information via a communication network and has a GUI for displaying a window so that an electronic document can be browsed. And extracting information of a specific window displayed on the display screen, receiving weather information from the weather information server according to the content of the electronic document described in the window, and receiving the information. A weather information providing program that causes a computer to execute the step of displaying the meteorological information in the specific window. 5. A meteorological information providing program used for a meteorological information providing system, which is connected to a meteorological information server for accumulating weather forecast information via a communication network, has a GUI for displaying a window, and is capable of browsing electronic documents. A computer-readable recording medium for recording, wherein the step of extracting information of a specific window displayed on the display screen, and the weather information from the weather information server according to the content of the electronic document described in the window A recording medium recording a weather information providing program that causes a computer to execute the steps of receiving information, and displaying the received weather information in the specific window.