JP4252416B2 - Mobile communication terminal, information provision system - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a mobile communication terminal such as a mobile phone capable of receiving a message, and an information providing system that includes the mobile communication terminal and a server, and the server instructs activation of an application held by the mobile communication terminal.

  For e-mail using a PC, a mobile phone, etc., a method called e-mail performed via the Internet is widely used. In e-mail, mail sent from the sending terminal is temporarily stored in the mail server, and the receiving terminal accesses the server and asks whether there is a new mail addressed to itself. The mail is requested to be transferred to the receiving terminal. Therefore, there is a problem that the receiving terminal needs to perform a certain amount of communication for making an inquiry to the server regardless of the presence of new mail, which is not efficient.

  On the other hand, in a method for transmitting and receiving short messages called SMS (Short Message Service), mail is transmitted from the SMS server to the receiving terminal using a control channel called a page channel. In that case, if the receiving terminal is within the communication service area and is in a receivable state, the mail is transferred to the receiving terminal as soon as it arrives at the SMS server. Accordingly, it is not necessary to perform useless communication for inquiries like e-mail, but the control channel is limited to short mail of about 100 bytes because of its small transmission capacity.

On the other hand, the following is one example of an information providing service system that provides various information, such as stock price information, weather forecast information, etc., to a mobile communication terminal.
The user's mobile communication terminal (user terminal) has several applications for receiving the above-mentioned various information. When the server acquires new information such as stock price information addressed to the user, the user terminal A message for instructing activation of an application for receiving and processing the stock price information among the applications to be generated is created and transmitted to the user terminal using the SMS. The user terminal automatically activates an application indicated by the received message and requests the stock price information and the like from the server, and the server transmits data including the stock price information and the like to the user terminal.
According to such an information providing system by starting an application, desired information can be automatically received from the server and displayed without any operation by the user.

  However, this system has the following problems. For example, when the user terminal is out of the communication service area, or the power is turned off and reception is not possible, the server acquires new information and instructs the user terminal to start the application with an SMS message. Even if SMS message cannot be received, it cannot be started. Thereafter, the SMS message is received in a state where the user terminal enters the service area again or becomes receivable when the power is turned on, and the application is started and information is acquired and displayed. In that case, while the user terminal is in a state incapable of receiving, the value of the information acquired by the server may decrease or become meaningless. For example, since stock price information is updated at regular intervals, even if the user terminal is able to receive it again, receives an SMS message, and activates the application, only the old stock price information before the update can be obtained.

In this way, when the user terminal acquires information with an expiration date based on the SMS message received late, the application is started,
-User terminal resources are wasted in order to obtain information that is no longer valid.
-Network resources are wasted in order to obtain information that is no longer valid.
Server resources are wasted in order to acquire information that is no longer valid or to handle errors.
There was a problem.
Moreover, the following patent document 1 is disclosing as SMS.
JP 2002-320025 A

  It is an object of the present invention to prevent a user from providing information that is no longer valid over time.

Mobile communication terminal according to the present invention includes a receiving means for receiving a message, and possesses means for requesting predetermined information to the server carrying denoted by the validity period to an application that performs reception processing of the information, the receiving means, receiving a message instructing the start of the predetermined application result, the time at which the predetermined information to the server that is attached to the message is accumulated, plus the effective period corresponding to the indicated application based on the expiration date, and is characterized in that and a application start means for starting the indicated application the holdings means is held.

The information providing system according to the present invention includes: a message transmission means for transmitting the time when the predetermined information is accumulated instructs the start of the predetermined application of the mobile communication terminal is attached message to a mobile communication terminal, wherein receiving a server a predetermined information requested by the activated application and a data transmitting means for transmitting to said mobile communication terminal in a mobile communication terminal, a message instructing the start of the application the server sent a receiving means, and possesses means for carrying denoted by the validity period to the application to perform the request receive process predetermined information to said server, said reception means, receiving said message then, in the message is assigned the time at which the predetermined information is stored in the server it is, the indicated application Based on the expiration date plus corresponding valid period for a mobile communication terminal and an application activation unit that activates the indicated application the holdings means is held, it is made of.

  According to the present invention, since information that is not valid is not acquired by the mobile communication terminal, resources in the mobile terminal, the network, and the server can be prevented from being wasted, and an efficient information providing service can be realized. Can do.

  In the present invention, an expiration date is set when an application activation instruction is issued from the server to the mobile communication terminal, and the mobile communication terminal does not follow the activation instruction whose expiration date has expired.

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an information providing system by application activation according to an embodiment of the present invention. This embodiment shows a case where the present invention is applied to a service system in which a server provides stock price information to a user.
In FIG. 1, this system includes a stock price information server 1, an SMS server 6 that transmits SMS from the stock price information server 1 to a user, a user terminal 7 as a mobile communication terminal owned by the user, a stock price information server 1, and an SMS. The mobile switching system 8 is configured to relay communication between the server 6 and the user terminal 7. The mobile switching system 8 and the user terminal 7 are connected by two transmission paths: a traffic channel used for e-mail communication and a page channel used for SMS (PUSH type message) communication.

  The stock price information server 1 is connected to a stock exchange 2 of a stock exchange and a securities company. The stock price information server 1 has a local stock price DB (database) 3 and a user DB 4. In the local stock price DB 3, information on the stock price being traded is registered, and the stock price information is updated in real time. In the user DB 4, a stock price of the user who receives the stock price information provision service, the number of stocks held, a stock price of interest, and a purchase price are registered in advance. FIG. 2 shows an example of the registered contents of the local stock price DB 3, and FIG. 3 shows an example of the registered contents of the user DB 4.

  When the stock price information server 1 receives the stock price update information from the securities network 2, the stock price information server 1 determines whether the updated stock is a stock registered in the user DB 4. . In the update activation process, first, price update information for the user as shown in FIG. 4 is created from information stored in the local stock price DB 3 and the user DB 4, and an area is secured and stored in the primary storage unit 5.

Subsequently, the stock price information server 1 transmits an application activation mail shown in FIG. 5 for updating data to the SMS address of the user stored in the user DB 4. The text of the activation mail includes a 2-byte binary code indicating that the mail is a special message (a message for instructing activation of the application), a code for identifying the application to be executed, and an application activation parameter. , The date and time of expiration of this email is entered.
When the user terminal 7 is ready to receive the SMS message, the SMS message as shown in FIG. 6 is received via the paging channel via the SMS server 6 and the mobile switching system 8.

FIG. 7 shows the flow of processing when the user terminal 7 receives an SMS message.
When the user terminal 7 receives the SMS message, the user terminal 7 first checks the first two bytes of the text of the SMS message and determines whether or not it is a binary code indicating a special message (step S1, hereinafter omitted). If it is not a special message, normal SMS message reception processing is performed (S2). If it is a binary code indicating a special message, the application code to be activated is read, and it is determined whether there is a registration in the application list shown in FIG. 8 registered at the time of application introduction (S3). Next, it is determined whether or not an expiration date is attached to the startup message, and whether or not it is within the expiration date (S4). If it is within the expiration date, the application registered in the application list is determined. Is activated (S5). If it is not within the expiration date, the application will not start, and the reason for not starting is recorded in the log (S6).

Whether or not the expiration date is within S4 is determined according to the procedure shown in FIG.
First, it is checked whether the expiration date is entered in the message as an absolute time (S11). The absolute time is entered with the UNTL header. It is determined whether or not it has been entered. If it has been entered, the absolute time is set as the expiration date (S12). If the UNTL header is not entered, it is checked whether the validity period is entered in the message (S13). The validity period is entered with the WHLE header. If it is entered, a value obtained by adding this validity period to the accumulation time of the message in the stock price information server 1 entered in the header of the SMS message is calculated as the expiration time (S14). In general, the mail transfer from the information providing server (here, the stock price information server 1) to the SMS server 6 is performed immediately, and the message accumulation time and the time when the information server transmits the message can be considered as substantially the same time.

  If neither the UNTL header nor the WHLE header is entered, the application type list shown in FIG. 10 is checked (S15). In the application type list, a valid period is entered for each type of application. Examples of application types include stock price service, weather forecast service, news service, alarm service, and game. If the validity period is entered, a value obtained by adding this validity period to the message accumulation time in the server entered in the header of the SMS message is calculated as the validity time (S16). If no valid period is entered, the valid period is indefinite. Alternatively, a deadline that cannot be realistically set, for example, December 31, 2099 is set (S17).

The user terminal 7 starts the application strenew with the parameters described in the mail. strenew acquires update information from the stock price information server 1 using the HTTP protocol. The user terminal 7 is configured to automatically connect to the Internet when necessary.
When there is an access for update from the application strenew, the stock price information server 1 searches the primary storage unit 5 and transmits all the update information that matches the user code via the traffic channel via the mobile switching system 8. To do. When the data transmission is completed, the update information is deleted from the primary storage unit 5. Upon acquiring the update information, the user terminal 7 displays that the stock price has changed, and notifies the user via the update notification screen shown in FIG. Further, the stock price information server 1 discards the price update information for users who have finished downloading, and releases the storage area reserved for that purpose. At the end of the day's transaction, update information that summarizes the summary of the day is generated and updated in the same manner.

  Although the present invention is applied to an information providing service system that provides stock price information to a user and the stock price information server 1 is used as an e-mail server (information providing server), the embodiment has been described above. It can be applied to a system that provides information. For example, the present invention can be applied to a service system for providing various information such as a stock price service, a weather forecast service, a news service, an alarm service, and a game described with reference to FIG. As a server in that case, a weather forecast server, a news server, an alarm server,... Are used.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a mobile communication terminal as the user terminal 7 according to the embodiment of the present invention.
In FIG. 12, the CPU 10 controls the whole, determines whether or not an SMS message from a server such as a stock price information server has an expiration date, determines the expiration date of the message, and also determines the SMS message. The activation of the application is controlled based on the instruction included in the. The communication unit 11 performs communication of SMS messages and e-mails with the server, and has a communication function of a mobile communication terminal such as a normal mobile phone. The application holding unit 12 holds a plurality of types of applications corresponding to a plurality of services as shown in FIG. 10, and an application list, a validity period for each application, and the like are registered. The operation / display unit 13 is provided with operation keys and displays information such as stock price information provided from the server. The ROM 14 stores a program of the CPU 10 and the like. The RAM 15 is used for work.

Next, a program according to the present invention and a recording medium for recording the program will be described.
A program for the CPU of the computer system to execute processing based on the above-described operation in the mobile communication terminal such as the user terminal 7 constitutes a program according to the present invention.

  The recording medium for recording the program constitutes a computer-readable recording medium according to the present invention. As this recording medium, a magneto-optical disk, an optical disk, a semiconductor memory, a magnetic recording medium, or the like can be used, and these may be configured and used in a ROM, RAM, CD-ROM, floppy disk, memory card, or the like.

  In addition, this recording medium can store a program for a certain period of time such as a volatile memory such as a RAM in a computer system as a server or a client when the program is transmitted via a network such as the Internet or a communication line such as a telephone line. The thing to hold is also included.

  The program may be transmitted from a computer system storing 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. The transmission medium is 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.

  The program may be for realizing part of the functions described above. Furthermore, what can implement | achieve the function mentioned above in combination with the program already recorded on the computer system, what is called a difference file (difference program) may be sufficient.

  Therefore, the functions and functions described in each embodiment can be obtained by using the program and the recording medium in a system or apparatus different from the system or apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention and executing the program by the computer of the system or apparatus. Functions and effects equivalent to the effects can be obtained, and the problems of the present invention can be solved.

It is a block diagram of the application starting information provision system by the Example of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows an example of the registration content of local stock price DB. It is a block diagram which shows an example of the registration content of user DB. It is a block diagram which shows an example of the price update information for users. It is a block diagram which shows an example of an application starting mail. It is a block diagram which shows an example of SMS which a user terminal receives. It is a flowchart which shows an SMS message reception process. It is a block diagram which shows an example of an application. It is a flowchart which shows the calculation process of starting effective time. It is a block diagram which shows an example of an application classification list. It is a block diagram of an update notification screen. It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the portable communication terminal by the Example of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

1 Stock Price Information Server 2 Securities Network 7 User Terminal
10 CPU
11 Communication Unit 12 Application Holding Unit 13 Operation / Display Unit 14 ROM
15 RAM

Claims (2)

Receiving means for receiving the message;
A holding means for requesting predetermined information from the server and holding the application with a valid period for receiving the information;
Said receiving means, receiving a message instructing the start of the predetermined application result, the time at which the predetermined information to the server that is attached to the message has been stored, the valid period corresponding to the indicated application Based on the added expiration date, application launching means for launching the indicated application held by the holding means ;
Mobile communication terminal equipped with. A message transmitting means for instructing activation of a predetermined application of the mobile communication terminal and transmitting a message to which the time when the predetermined information is accumulated is attached to the mobile communication terminal; requested by the application started in the mobile communication terminal a server and an information transmitting means for transmitting the predetermined information to the portable communication terminal,
Receiving means for receiving a message instructing the start of the application the server sent, and possesses means for carrying denoted by the validity period to the application to perform the request receive process predetermined information to the server, the receiving means, receiving said message Then, at the time the predetermined information to the server that the message is attached is accumulated, based on the expiration date plus the effective period corresponding to the indicated application, the A portable communication terminal comprising : an application activation unit that activates the designated application held by the possession unit ;
An information provision system consisting of

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