JPH1141273A - Reception notifying device for electronic mail and electronic mail reception terminal equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a reception notifying device for electronic mail which can reduce useless communication time and communication costs. SOLUTION: This device is provided with a business data storage part 3 for previously storing the number of received electronic mail as setting information on the reception of the electronic mail, set number detecting part 2 for detecting whether the information on the number of mail provided by receiving the electronic mail through a mail reception part 6 is coincident with the number of received mail stored in the business data storage part 3 or not, and reception notifying means 4 for notifying the detection of coincidence with the set information due to this set number detecting part 2 to the recipient of electronic mail.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to an electronic mail reception notification device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, electronic mail services have been provided on the Internet and the like. In recent years, such an electronic mail service is used using a mobile information terminal such as a mobile phone. In this case, a contract is made in advance with a service provider that can use the e-mail service, and the e-mail addressed to the user is stored in the mail server of the service provider.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a general network configuration for transmitting an electronic mail. When the sender of the e-mail sends the e-mail to a specific destination, the sender's own mail terminal 1 of his / her service provider is sent from his / her own information terminal 11 via the public communication network 16.
Send an e-mail to 2. Sending mail server 12
Refers to the destination address added to the e-mail and transmits the e-mail to the receiving mail server 13 having the destination address via the Internet 17, for example. The transmitted e-mail is stored in the receiving mail server 13. Here, the receiving mail server 1
Reference numeral 3 denotes a mail server of a service provider to which the e-mail recipient subscribes.

[0004]

In order to know that an e-mail recipient has received an e-mail from a destination, for example, a telephone call can be made from a mobile information terminal 15 via a communication carrier 14. It is necessary to make a communication connection with the mail server 13 to check whether the e-mail addressed to the user is stored. Therefore, in a service such as a mobile phone that is charged according to the communication connection time, there is a problem that communication time and communication cost are required only for performing such confirmation.

The electronic mail reception notifying apparatus of the present invention has been made in view of such a problem, and an object thereof is to provide an electronic mail reception notification apparatus capable of reducing unnecessary communication time and communication cost. An object of the present invention is to provide a reception notification device.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, an electronic mail reception notifying apparatus according to the first invention comprises:
A setting information storage unit for storing in advance setting information relating to the reception of e-mail, and information obtained by receiving the e-mail via the mail receiving unit, the setting information stored in the setting information storage unit A detection means for detecting whether or not they match, and a notifying means for notifying the receiver terminal of the e-mail that the setting information has been detected by the detection means.

[0007] Further, according to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided the e-mail reception notifying apparatus according to the first invention, wherein the setting information relating to the e-mail reception is the number of received e-mails. Or the data capacity of an e-mail, and the notifying means, when a match with the setting information is detected, sends at least one of the number of received e-mails and the data capacity of the e-mail to the e-mail recipient terminal device. Notice.

Further, an electronic mail receiving terminal device according to a third aspect of the present invention is a mail system receiving terminal device having a mail server device for receiving an electronic mail and a receiver terminal device connected to the mail server device. Registration means for registering at least one of the number of received e-mails and the received data capacity in the mail server device, and the number of received data or the received data capacity registered in the mail server device by the registration means being satisfied. Notification means for notifying a notification signal transmitted from the mail server device for notifying the user.

[0009]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a receiving mail server 13 as an e-mail reception notifying device to which an embodiment of the present invention described below is applied.
A mail receiving unit 6 for receiving an e-mail from the sending mail server 12, a received mail storage unit 7 for storing the received e-mail, and data on the number of set e-mails set by the mobile information terminal 15. Number data storage unit 3 for storing and outgoing mail server 1
A setting number detection unit 2 for detecting whether the number of received e-mails received from the number 2 matches the number of settings stored in the number data storage unit 3, and moving information indicating that the number of e-mails has reached the set number. The system includes a reception notifying unit 4 for notifying the terminal 15, a capacity notifying unit 5 for notifying the capacity of the e-mail corresponding to the set number, and a control unit 1 for controlling the above-mentioned units.

Next, FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a configuration of the mobile information terminal 15, a transmitting / receiving unit 41 for transmitting / receiving data via the communication carrier 14, and a mail for storing the transmitted / received e-mail. A memory 42, a storage device 43 storing programs executed by the control unit 40 and predetermined data, a RAM 44 used as a work area by the control unit 40, and a key input unit 4 for instructing various functions
5, a display unit 46 for displaying various data, and a control unit 40 for controlling each unit and executing a program.

Note that the storage device and the storage device 43 included in the control unit 1 have a storage medium, which is a magnetic or optical recording medium or a semiconductor memory. This recording medium is fixedly provided in the storage device, or is detachably mounted.
Further, the program, data, and the like to be recorded on the recording medium may be received from another device connected via a communication line or the like and stored. A storage device provided with the recording medium is provided on the device side, and a program stored in the recording medium,
The data may be used via a communication line.

Hereinafter, an e-mail reception notification method according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. In this embodiment, the receiving mail server 13
Is to notify the mobile information terminal 15 that the set number of e-mails has been received when the set number of e-mails have been received. Note that a program for realizing each function shown in this flowchart is stored in the recording medium in the form of a program code readable by the CPU of the control unit.

First, the user uses the mobile information terminal 15 to set the number of e-mail reception notifications set on the receiving mail server 1.
3 (the server where the user's mailbox resides) (step S21). That is, as shown in FIG. 5 (a), the user operates the display screen 1 of the mobile information terminal 15.
In accordance with the message 20 for setting the number of received mails in 5a, an arbitrary number is input in the field of the set number 21 (the figure shows a case where 5 is input). Next, it is determined whether to register the set number. When registering, the registration item 22 is selected, and when it is desired to change the set number, for example, the NO item 23 is selected and the set number is input again. Thus, the registration of the set number is completed. Thereafter, the user waits for an incoming call from the receiving mail server 13 (step S22).

The receiving mail server 13 receives the set number of e-mails from the mobile information terminal 15 and stores it in the number data storage unit 3 in advance (step S3).
1). Thereafter, the electronic mail sent from the sending mail server 12 is sequentially received via the mail receiving unit 6 and stored in the received mail storing unit 7 (step S32). At this time, whether the number of received e-mails has reached the set number is determined by the set number detection unit 2 each time (step S33). Then, when the number of received mails reaches the set number, the data regarding the set number is notified to the mobile information terminal 15 together with the header (step S34).
It waits until the transmission OK signal is received.

When an incoming call is received from the receiving mail server 13, the mobile information terminal 15 receives a message 24 indicating that there is a received mail and a message 25 indicating the number of received mails, as shown in FIG. A message 26 asking whether or not to receive the mail is displayed. The user determines whether or not to receive the e-mail based on his / her own convenience (step S23).
Item 27 is selected. In this case, the sending OK signal requesting the sending of the e-mail is sent to the receiving mail server 13.
(Step S24).

When the receiving mail server 13 receives the transmission OK signal from the mobile information terminal 15 (step S35), it reads out the electronic mail stored in the received mail storage unit 7 and sends it to the mobile information terminal 15. (Step S36).

Next, as shown in FIG. 5C, the mobile information terminal 15 displays a message 29 indicating that a mail is being received on the display screen 15a and receives the e-mail sent from the receiving mail server 13. (Step S25).

After transmitting all the e-mails, the receiving mail server 13 transmits a signal indicating completion of the e-mail transmission to the mobile information terminal 15 (step S37). When the mobile information terminal 15 receives the signal indicating the completion of the transmission of the electronic mail, the reception is completed (step S26). In this case, a message 30 indicating the completion of the mail reception is displayed as shown in FIG. At the same time, a message 31 for hanging up the phone is displayed. The user performs communication disconnection processing according to the message 31 (step S27). In response, the receiving mail server 13
Performs a communication disconnection process (step S38).

On the other hand, if no e-mail is received in step S23, item 2 of NO is displayed on the screen of FIG.
Select 8. In this case, the process proceeds to step S27 to disconnect the communication.

The receiving mail server 13 determines whether or not to notify the mobile information terminal 15 based on whether or not a set number of e-mails have been received (step S33). The determination may be made by using

According to the above-described first embodiment, since the user only needs to make a communication connection when the electronic mail addressed to the user is stored in the receiving mail server 13, unnecessary communication time and communication cost are reduced. be able to.

Usually, in the mobile information terminal 15, the data storage capacity of the terminal body is often small. For this reason,
If the data volume of the mail stored in the number data storage unit 3 of the receiving mail server 13 is large, the memory capacity of the mobile information terminal 15 may become full during reception and reception may be interrupted. If reception is interrupted, communication costs will be wasted.

Therefore, the receiving mail server 13 may notify the mobile information terminal 15 not only that there has been the set number of electronic mails but also the data capacity thereof.

The method of notifying the reception of the e-mail will be described below with reference to the flowchart of FIG. That is,
The set number detection unit 2 determines whether the number of received e-mails has reached the set number (step S3).
3). Then, when the number of received mails reaches the set number, the mobile terminal 15 is notified of the set number and the information on the data capacity of the e-mail corresponding to the set number together with the header to the mobile information terminal 15 (steps S34 and S41). The mobile information terminal 15 is connected to the receiving mail server 13.
In the case where there is an incoming call from, as shown in FIG.
A message 32 indicating that a received mail has been received, a message 33 indicating the number of received mails, a message 34 indicating the data capacity of the electronic mail, and a message 35 asking whether to receive the mail are displayed. Here, the user is the mobile information terminal 1
5 after determining whether or not the current memory free space has room and is in a receivable state (step S2).
3) If receiving, select item 36 of YES.
In this case, a transmission OK signal requesting transmission of the electronic mail is transmitted to the receiving mail server 13 (step S24).

Although the user is asked to confirm the free space in the memory here, the mobile information terminal 15 may automatically check the free space. This is because the free space of the mail memory 42 is checked by the memory management manager of the control unit 40 and compared with the received data capacity. If there is free space, an e-mail is received when the user performs an e-mail receiving operation. . However, if there is no free space, even if an e-mail reception operation is performed by the user, it is sufficient to display a message indicating that "there is no space and cannot be received".

In this manner, the user can receive the e-mail after confirming that the memory capacity of the mobile information terminal 15 is larger than the data capacity of the e-mail to be received, so that the reception is interrupted. As a result, unnecessary communication time and communication cost can be reduced.

[0027]

According to the present invention, it is possible to provide an e-mail reception notification device and a reception terminal device capable of reducing unnecessary communication time and communication cost.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a receiving mail server to which an embodiment of the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a general network configuration when performing e-mail transmission.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a configuration of a mobile information terminal applied to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating an e-mail reception notification method according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing display contents of a display screen serving as a user interface in an e-mail notification process according to the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Control part, 2 ... Setting number detection part, 3 ... Number data storage part, 4 ... Reception notification means, 5 ... Capacity notification means, 7 ... Reception mail storage part, 11 ... Information terminal, 12 ... Sending mail server, DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 13 ... Receiving mail server, 14 ... Carrier, 15 ... Mobile information terminal, 15a ... Display screen, 16, 18 ... Public communication network, 17 ... Internet, 40 ... Control part 41 ... Transmission / reception part 42 ... Mail memory 43 ... Storage device 44 RAM 45 key input unit 46 display unit

Claims (3)

[Claims] A setting information storage unit for storing setting information relating to reception of an electronic mail in advance, and information obtained by receiving an electronic mail via a mail receiving unit are stored in the setting information storage unit. Detecting means for detecting whether or not the setting information matches the setting information, and notifying means for notifying the receiver terminal of the e-mail that the matching with the setting information has been detected by the detecting means. An electronic mail reception notification device. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the setting information relating to the reception of the e-mail is the number of received e-mails or the data capacity of the e-mail. 2. The e-mail reception notifying apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the e-mail receiver notifies the e-mail recipient of at least one of the e-mail and the data capacity of the e-mail. 3. A receiving terminal device of a mail system having a mail server device for receiving an e-mail and a recipient terminal device connected to the mail server device, wherein the mail server device has at least the number of received e-mails or Registering means for registering one of the received data volumes; and a notification transmitted from the mail server device for notifying that the number of received data or the received data volume registered in the mail server device by the registering device has been satisfied. An e-mail receiving terminal device, comprising: a notifying unit for notifying a signal.