JPH0795255B2 - Information presentation device - Google Patents

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to an information presentation device that sequentially presents information composed of a plurality of presentation units.

[Conventional technology]

2. Description of the Related Art As a conventional system for presenting various kinds of information such as news and weather forecast using a computer, there is a system in which a window opens on a screen and character information flows. However, in such a method, since desired information is selected by tracing a menu or inputting a keyword, it is generally difficult for a person who is not familiar with the system to be familiar with it.

Therefore, in recent years, in order to make the image more familiar to the general public, a desktop metaphor method is often adopted in which an image of a desk is created on the screen and desired information is provided.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention]

However, even with the method using the desktop metaphor as described above, it is necessary to follow the menu or input the keyword to select the desired information, and it is still difficult for ordinary people to get used to. Further, for example, even if all the information is automatically presented, there is an advantage that the operation is not necessary, but there is a problem that the information desired to be known cannot be viewed in the order desired. On the other hand, there is a problem that the operation becomes troublesome even if the user can select the information by tracing the menu or inputting the keyword. Furthermore, even if you can select the information you want to know, it will flow as character information,
You have to read the textual information, and it's still difficult to get familiar with.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide an information indicating device that can take desired information in a desired order by a simple operation.

[Means for Solving the Problems]

Therefore, the present invention is an information presentation device that sequentially presents a plurality of units of information provided to the user from the outside, and presents a presentation information list having a hierarchical structure and a presentation order in units of information presentation, and information. It has a screen for displaying a virtual presentation device for presenting and a virtual input device consisting of buttons representing a plurality of control directions and layers, and controls and presents information presented by the presenting device in a predetermined order. The presenting means includes a presenting means, and the presenting means presents the information in accordance with the presenting order of the presenting information list, and changes the presenting information according to the control direction or the hierarchy input from the button of the input device. Characterize. Further, the presenting means includes a display device for displaying the virtual presenting device and the input device and an audio output device for outputting presented information by voice, and a metaphor and a news program for displaying a television set and a video controller on the screen. It is characterized in that a news program is constructed by a metaphor for displaying a program introduction on the screen of a television set to present information.

[Action]

In the information presenting apparatus of the present invention, the presenting information list has a hierarchical structure and a presenting order for each presenting unit of information, and the presenting means presents the information in accordance with the presenting order and the control direction input from the button of the inputting means. Since the information to be presented is changed according to the hierarchy, the control direction and hierarchy can be selected by a simple operation, and the desired information can be viewed in the desired order.

〔Example〕

 Hereinafter, embodiments will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an embodiment of a hardware configuration of an information presenting device according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a screen presented by the information presenting device of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 1, the present invention uses hardware (for example, NEC personal computer PC9801R) as a computer.
X) 1, electronic voice utterance device 2, mouse 3, modem 4, telephone line 5
-It consists of a script interpreter that runs on DOS and a script description file that gives instructions to it. Then, the user can use the environment by operating the television through the electronic voice utterance device 2 and the display 6 to watch a news program. The data may be, for example, "Mainichi Shimbun Online News Bulletin", "Mainichi Newspaper Online Regional News", "National City Forecast" of NIFTY-Serve, other data that can be taken in from a personal computer network, and other general data. FIG. 2 shows an example of the information presentation screen.

The functions required as a whole in the information presenting apparatus of the present invention as described above are roughly classified into a part constituting a television metaphor environment and a communication function.

The television metaphor is composed of four metaphors of a TV set, a VTR controller, a news program, and a program introduction, and describes a scoop corresponding to each metaphor.

TV set script, VTR controller script,
It describes what kind of state change the television receiver and the program cause in response to the operation to each metaphor. For example, it describes what kind of state change occurs when a power switch, volume button, or channel is pressed, what kind of state change occurs when each button of the VTR controller is pressed, and the like. The news program script describes the progress of the news program such as how to process the input data and presents it, and the rules for composing and presenting the data of the personal computer network such as NIFTY-Serve into the news program. The program introduction script describes the regulation of the program introduction configuration. The description about these metaphors is a file called a script, which the script interpreter reads and operates.

Communication functions include a script interpreter communication function (a function that handles specified data input from RS232C as an event and a function that transmits data)
It is realized by describing the communication method with the personal computer network such as NIFTY-Serve as a script.

In the information presenting apparatus of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 2, the television receiver 11 and the VTR controller 12 are always displayed on the display. And with a few exceptions, the power switch 13, channel button 14, volume button 15, and buttons (16-21) of the VTR controller 12 of the TV receiver 11 can be operated in all situations, and these operations can be performed. Is called a basic operation. Further, some metaphors displayed on the brush tube 22 can be operated according to the scene.

In the example of FIG. 2 which presents information, the announcer 23 and the panel 24 are displayed on the cathode ray tube 33 of the television receiver 11 and the configuration of the news program is presented on the panel 24 in the headline scene as shown in FIG. To do. Then, the information of "national news" → "local news" → "weather forecast" is automatically presented in order. Figure (b) shows an example of the presentation scene of "nationwide news", and the item "Behave the hay fever violence" on the panel 24, "Second Kaifu Cabinet Cabinet", ...
... is presented, and information is audibly flowed from the electronic sound voicing device according to the order. Then, when the presentation of news nationwide is finished, the screen shifts to the “local news” scene shown in FIG. 7C and information is similarly presented by screen and voice. While information is being presented one after another in this way, for example, if you want to skip the information being presented and search for the information you want to know, or if you want to go back and view the information again,
Perform fast forward, rewind, etc. operations with the video controller.
FIG. 7D shows an example of the help message displayed when the announcer 23 is clicked.

Next, an information list and processing applied to the information presentation device will be described.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a configuration example of an information list applied to the information presentation device of the present invention, FIG. 4 is a flow chart for explaining an example of processing for determining the presentation order of information, and FIG. 5 is a flowchart for explaining an example of a process of changing the presentation order of FIG.

In the information presenting apparatus of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 3 (a), the upper (1,0), (2,0, the lower (1,1), (1,2) ...
It has a hierarchical structure consisting of (1, N ₁ ), (2,1), ... and (1,1), (1,2) …… (1, N), (2,1) ,.
An information list that has as the presentation order is used. The presentation order of information using this information list is as follows.

When there is no button operation of the video controller and information is automatically presented sequentially, as shown in FIG. 4, first, m = 1 and n = 0 are set to (1,0) for (m, n). Information, such as the scene in Fig. 2 (b) and voice "I will tell you about the news nationwide. ] Is presented. Then n until n or N _m
Is incremented by 1 and information of (1,1), (1,2) ... is presented in order. Further, information is similarly presented by incrementing m by 1 until m becomes M.

When the order of presenting information is changed by the button operation of the video controller, it is always checked whether or not there is a button input as shown in FIG. 5, and if there is a button input, the information presentation is immediately stopped. . Check if the button input is pause, back, play, rewind, or fast forward. Then, in the case of a pause, the information presentation is restarted after waiting for another button input. In the case of back, if n is not 0, n is decremented by 1, and if n is 0, m is decremented by 1 and n is set to N _m . Information (mn)
To start presenting. However, when m is 1, decrement cannot be performed, so the interrupted information presentation is restarted. In the case of play, if n is not N _m , n is incremented by 1. If n is N _m , m is incremented by 1 and n is set to 0, and presentation of information (m, n) is started. However, when m is M, the information presentation that has been interrupted is restarted because it cannot be incremented. In the case of rewinding, m is decremented by 1, and in the case of fast-forwarding, m is incremented by 1 and n is set to 0, and the presentation of information (m, n) is started. However, as above, m
When the can not be decremented or incremented, the suspended information presentation is restarted.

FIG. 3 (b) shows an example of a conventional information list. In the case of such a conventional list, even if it is a hierarchical structure, the next information is returned to the next higher layer. When it is desired to know, it is necessary to perform the "return" operation twice, and further to perform the operation of, for example, viewing the item list and making a judgment and inputting a numerical value twice. However, in the present invention, the order of presenting the information can be changed by operating the buttons of the video controller as described above, so that the information desired to be viewed can be viewed in the order desired by a simple operation.

In the television metaphor environment of the present invention, similar to news programs in the real world, information is presented one after another without any explicit operation. In addition, the user can actively browse the information desired by the user by operating the metaphor that appears at that time.
The operation is performed by an instruction with a mouse cursor, and a scene transition corresponding to each scene occurs by operating the metaphor, and information is presented in the form of a news program.

FIG. 6 is a scene transition diagram of a news program, FIG. 7 is a state transition diagram, and FIG. 8 is a module diagram of a TV set metaphor.

First of all, I will explain the scene transition by basic operation,
Next, each scene and the operation unique to the scene will be described, and finally, the information presentation method in the information presentation scenes “national news scene”, “local news scene”, and “weather forecast scene” will be described.

 Basic operations Basic operations that can be performed in each scene will be described.

The power switch 13 is a toggle switch. When the power switch 13 is turned on, a transition is made to the first scene of the channel when the power switch 13 was last turned off. That is, it holds the previous channel number. Further, when the power switch 12 is turned off, the scene is switched to the power off scene from any scene.

Each time the volume button 15 is pressed, the volume value is increased or decreased by 1 within the range of 1 to 10. In accordance with this, the volume is displayed on the lower part of the cathode ray tube 22 by a bar, and the volume of the electronic voice uttering device 2 is controlled.

VTR controller 12 has fast-forward button 20 and rewind button 1
By operating each button of 7, each scene of the news program is transitioned back and forth. Play button 19, Back button 17
By operating each button of, for example, the news item is skipped forward or backward, or the explanation of weather, precipitation probability, and maximum and minimum temperatures in the weather forecast is skipped forward or backward. Pressing the stop button 18 will stop the progress of the program. The cancellation of the stop is performed by pressing the stop button 18 again, the play button 19 or another button. Then, when the recording button 21 is pressed, the data received until the recording button 21 is pressed next time is recorded in a file.

Scenes and Operations Unique to the Scenes FIG. 6 explains each scene and the operation depending on the scene.

In the power off scene, only the power switch 13 can be operated,
When the power switch 13 is operated, a transition is made to the first scene (opening scene, hottite noise scene) of the channel when the power switch 13 was turned off last. The power-off scene can be changed from all other scenes by turning off the power switch 13.

The opening scene is the first scene of the news program which is a display imitating so-called program introduction. In this scene,
When the announcer 23 is clicked in addition to the above basic operations, a simple help message as shown in FIG. Further, an operation of selecting a program metaphor to be used by instructing a panel (not shown) on the left side of the announcer 23 may be introduced. From this scene, panel instructions and VT
When there is no button operation of the R controller 12, the scene changes over time.

The headline scene is the second scene of the news program as shown in FIG. While presenting the composition of the news program and connecting to the NIFTY-Serve, for example, during the timely greeting. When the line is connected, in this scene, in addition to the basic operation, click on the "national news", "local news", and "weather forecast" areas on panel 24 (panel instruction) to skip to the desired news. be able to.

The nationwide news scene is the third scene of the news program as shown in FIG. In this scene, for example, NIFTY-Se
You can change the order of news by presenting information from "Mainichi Shimbun Online News Flash" of rve and clicking the desired news title on panel 24 in addition to the basic operation.

The local news scene is the fourth scene of the news program as shown in FIG. 7C, and presents information from, for example, "Mainichi Shimbun Online Regional News" of NIFTY-Serve. In this scene, the order of news can be changed by clicking a desired news title on the panel 24, as in the case of the nationwide news scene, in addition to the basic operation.

The weather forecast scene is the fifth scene of the news program, and, for example, the weather mark, the maximum temperature, the minimum temperature, and the probability of precipitation are presented in order based on the information from the "national city forecast" of NIFTY-Serve. To change this order, press the play button 19 and the back button 17.

The above scenes from the opening scene to the weather forecast scene are assigned to the first channel.

The white noise scene exists to offer that the channel cannot be used, and basic operation is possible, but nothing is done to the operation of the VTR controller 12.

Information Presenting Method Next, an information presenting method in the above-mentioned national news, local news, and weather forecast, which are information presenting scenes, will be described.

In the presentation of information in national news and local news,
Use data from "Online national breaking news" and "Online regional news" as news sources.

When presenting information, a command is automatically issued in a predetermined procedure as shown in [Table 1] above in order to fetch necessary information. For national news, first read "READ ZENKO
KU ", and subsequently, when the command of" 1 "is issued in order to watch the news on the first page, the information of the numbers 1 to 10 is presented from the data of" online nationwide news ". Then, from this text data, the title part of is displayed on the panel 24 on the right side of the announcer 23. Further, since articles appear in the order of the numbers, the information is presented in the form of a news program by sending the content of the article to the electronic voice utterance apparatus 2 and reading it in place of the voice. Although the data to be presented in the form of numbers 1 to 10 is selected, it is of course possible to change the number of information to be presented, and it is also possible to select the information according to the keyword desired by the user.

Even when presenting information in the weather forecast, for example, [Table 2] above
The command is issued according to the program like.
Then, from the weather forecast data for the Kanto region, 1 metropolitan area and 6 prefectures of the "national city forecast", the weather data of the part is read and converted into a weather mark on the map panel, or the probability of precipitation, maximum temperature, At the same time as displaying the numerical value indicating the minimum temperature, the electronic voice utterance device 2 makes a weather forecast by voice. Do this for each prefecture. The information to be presented may be changed according to the time of use, such as today's weather in the morning and tomorrow's weather in the evening.

Next, the state transition will be described based on the script description.

In the script description, one state does not always correspond to one scene, and a flow of several states creates one scene. Here, an embodiment of the present invention will be described from the internal description.

FIG. 4 is a state transition diagram.

It will be explained step by step according to the description such as communication with the television metaphor environment and NIFTY-Serve.

The start state is a state in which the script interpreter makes a transition when the script is read. In this state,
Display the TV receiver and VTR controller, and initialize variables and flags. After that, transition to the power-off state.

The power-off state corresponds to the scene where the power is turned off. When this state is entered, the channel lamp is turned off and then
Observe the power switch being pressed. When the power switch is pressed, the tvset state is entered.

The tvset state is a part that monitors events for the television receiver and the VTR controller and determines a transition destination for each event.

When the channel button is pressed in the tvset state, if the stop flag F-STOP is not on, set the variable PRES-CH that indicates the channel to transition to next, and set the flag used at the transition destination. Continue the tvset state.

When the volume button is pressed, the state changes to the Vol-up / Vol-dn state corresponding to each button for increasing the volume, the volume is displayed and controlled, and then the state returns to the tvset state.

When the button is clicked in the CRT area and each button of the VTR controller is pressed, the flags used in other states are set and the tvset state is continued. At this time, the clicked coordinates are substituted into the reserved variables X and Y of the script interpreter. Using the flags and the values of the variables X and Y, the program script described later performs the corresponding process.

The nonoperation event in the tvset state is the entry point from the TV set metaphor to the program metaphor. If the above operation is not performed by the user, nonopera
A pointer event corresponding to the current channel among the pointers (P-CH1, P-CH2, P-CH3) that determine the progress of the program when the motion event occurs is incremented by 1, and the variable PRES indicating the current channel is displayed. -Transition to the channel indicated by CH.
However, when the stop flag F-STOP is set, the pointer is not increased and the state transition does not occur, and the tvset state is continued. This controls the progress of the program.

The following ch1-0 state to ch2-0 / ch3-0 state is similar to the subroutine, and returns to the tvset state when the operation in each state is completed.

The ch1-0 state transitions from the tvset state when the value of the variable PRES-CH is 1, and branches to each state of ch1-1 to ch1-5 corresponding to each scene of the news program according to the value of the pointer P-CH1. Go. Also, fast forward / rewind /
When the play / back button is pressed, it also plays the role of changing the progress of the news program by adjusting the value of the pointer P-CH1.

The ch1-1 state is the state at the center of the opening scene. After the opening screen is displayed, if the CRT operation flag F-CRT is on, it is judged from the clicked coordinates whether the operation is for the announcer, and in that case, a help message is displayed.

The ch1-2 state is the center of the headline scene. After displaying the headline screen, if the CRT operation flag F-CRT is on, adjust the value of the pointer P-CH1 so as to jump to which scene of the news from the clicked coordinate, ch1-3 state. The ch1-4 states are the central states of the national news scene and the local news scene, respectively. When transitioning to this state, an action for one step of news progress, such as displaying a news title and displaying one news item, is executed, and the state returns to the tvset state.

That is, the news program progresses every time the state transitions to the ch1-3 state / ch1-4 state.

The ch1-5 state is the center of the weather forecast scene. When transitioning to this state, the weather mark is displayed. Execute the action for one step of the weather forecast, such as displaying the probability of precipitation and temperature, and return to the tvset state.

The ch2-0 state and ch3-0 state transition from the tvset state when the value of the variable PRES-CH is 2 or 3. This is a place to describe a metaphor split having an information presentation form different from that of a news program, but in this embodiment, white noise is assigned.

The module diagram of FIG. 5 is obtained by rewriting the state transition diagram shown in FIG. 4 from the viewpoint of module division.

ch1-0 is a part that defines and processes the order of the scenes of the news program and the scene to move to when each button of the VTR controller is pressed, and is a script from the viewpoint of the progress of the program. On the other hand, the display for each scene and NIFTY-Serv
The method / rules for displaying the data of e in the program status are described in the opening part, headline part, national news part, local news part, and weather forecast part in the program metaphor, respectively. It is the script from the perspective of defining the content of the program.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, and various modifications can be made. For example, in the above-mentioned embodiment, the explanation was given of the one in which the data is taken online from the personal computer network and the information is presented, but it is similarly applied to various online databases, and the information is displayed by the channel switching or the button operation of the video controller. Of course, the search may be performed. Also, the hierarchy of the information list may be configured by further increasing it from the example shown in FIG.

〔The invention's effect〕

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, a virtual television receiver or video controller is displayed in the display to flow information by voice, and button operation for channel selection and volume control, fast forward, Since the presentation information can be controlled and selected by video operations such as rewinding and pausing, even users who have little knowledge about computers and how often they use computers and who have a passive attitude toward computers can watch TV news programs. You can select the information you want to know by operating the video controller by presenting the information on the screen and voice like this. Moreover, since the information of the hierarchical structure can be changed according to the operation of fast-forwarding and rewinding, it is possible to select the information that one wants to know as if operating the video.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an embodiment of a hardware configuration of an information display device according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a screen presented by the information presentation device of the present invention, and FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the present invention. Showing an example of the configuration of an information list applied to the information presenting apparatus of FIG.
FIG. 6 is a flow chart for explaining an example of a process for determining the presentation order of information. FIG. 5 is a flow chart for explaining an example of a process for changing the presentation order of information from input.
Figure is scene transition diagram of news program, Figure 7 is state transition diagram,
FIG. 8 is a module diagram of the TV set metaphor. 1 ... Computer, 2 ... Electronic voice utterance device, 3 ...
Mouse, 4 ... Modem, 5 ... Telephone line, 6 ... Display.

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An information presenting device for sequentially presenting a plurality of units of information provided to a user from the outside, the presenting information list having a hierarchical structure and a presenting order for each information presenting unit,
And a screen for displaying a virtual presentation device for presenting information and a virtual input device composed of buttons representing a plurality of control directions and layers, and controlling information presented by the presentation device in a predetermined order. The presenting means is configured to present the information according to the presentation order of the presentation information list and to change the information to be presented according to the control direction or the hierarchy input from the button of the input device. An information presenting device characterized by the above. 2. The information presenting device according to claim 1, wherein the presenting means comprises a display device for displaying a virtual presenting device and an input device and a voice output device for outputting presented information by voice. . 3. The presenting means comprises a display device and an audio output device, and a news program is constituted by a metaphor for displaying a television set and a video controller on the screen and a metaphor for displaying a news program and a program introduction on the screen of the television set. The information presenting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the information presenting apparatus is configured to present the information.