KR100260416B1 - Method and system for notifying receiption of electronic mail in internet television system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A system for informing a user of an electronic mail reception through the Internet television system and a method therefor are provided to enable a user to receive an e-mail automatically without connecting to the ISP(Internet Service Provider) server, whenever the ISP server receives e-mails. CONSTITUTION: When an ISP server(100) receives an e-mail via an Internet, the ISP server generates a VBI decoder address for designating a recipient corresponding to the received e-mail. The ISP server transmits the VBI decoder address and an e-mail reception code to a TV broadcasting station(102). The TV broadcasting station VBI encodes the VBI decoder address and the electronic mail reception code to a broadcasting signal. An Internet TV receiver(104) receives the broadcasting signal, stores the electronic mail reception code and displays an electronic mail reception message on a display screen.

Description

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR NOTIFYING RECEIPTION OF ELECTRONIC MAIL IN INTERNET TELEVISION SYSTEM}

The present invention relates to a television (hereinafter referred to as "TV") broadcasting system, and more particularly to an Internet TV system.

In general, Internet TV receivers not only have Internet search function in addition to the existing TV reception function, but also can send and receive electronic mail over the Internet using an ISP (Internet Service Provider) server through a telephone line. have. At this time, the ISP server did not separately notify the recipient of the e-mail when the e-mail was received.

Accordingly, in order to receive the e-mail received by the ISP server, the user of the Internet TV receiver had to first dial the ISP server and check whether the reception was made. And if an urgent e-mail is received by the ISP server, it has often been unable to cope with it by not checking it on time.

As described above, in order to check the e-mail when the ISP server is received, the user must make a phone call and check whether the e-mail is received.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an e-mail reception notification method and system capable of automatically notifying a recipient when an e-mail is received at an ISP server.

1 is a block diagram of an Internet television system according to an embodiment of the present invention;

2 is a process flow diagram of the ISP server 100 of FIG. 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention,

3 is a process flow diagram of the TV microcomputer 118 of FIG. 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention;

4 is a process flow diagram of the CPU 122 of the Internet module 120 of FIG. 1 in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention designates a receiver corresponding to the recipient information of the received e-mail when the ISP server receives the e-mail from the Internet, and transmits the notification information to the TV broadcast signal through the TV station. VBI (Vertical Blanking Interval) encoding and broadcasting, and the Internet receiver of the designated receiver receives the TV broadcasting signal and VBI decodes the notification information to display a message informing the reception of the e-mail on the screen. It features.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. Many specific details are set forth in the following description and in the accompanying drawings, in order to provide a more general understanding of the invention. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. And a detailed description of known functions and configurations that may unnecessarily obscure the subject matter of the present invention will be omitted.

First of all, the present invention notifies an Internet TV user corresponding to a receiver of an e-mail by broadcasting it by using the VBI of a TV broadcast signal when an e-mail is received from the Internet by an ISP server. As described above, a technique of encoding and inserting a limited amount of data into a VBI portion of a TV broadcast signal, broadcasting the same, and extracting the same by receiving and decoding the received data at a receiver is a known technique. At this time, VBI-encoded broadcasting information consisting of information for designating only one recipient of an e-mail and information for notifying reception of an e-mail among a large number of Internet TV receivers is broadcast. Of course, the user of the Internet TV receiver must be registered with the ISP server in order to receive the e-mail reception notification service.

1 is a block diagram of an Internet TV system according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. The Internet TV receiver 104 is connected to an ISP server 100 through a telephone line 130 of a public telephone network (not shown). ISP server 100 is connected to the Internet as well as to TV station 102. In the ISP server 100, the TV station 102, and the Internet TV receiver 104, a typical configuration not directly related to the present invention is omitted, not shown. Also shown is one TV station 102 and one Internet TV receiver 104, for example, but in practice there may be more than two TV stations and more Internet TV receivers.

2 is a flowchart illustrating a process of the ISP server 100 of FIG. 1 according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 2, when the ISP server 100 receives an e-mail from the Internet, the ISP server 100 performs step 202 in response to step 200 of FIG. 2. In step 202, the ISP server 100 generates a VBI decoder address specifying a recipient corresponding to the recipient information of the e-mail. The VBI decoder address is information for specifying only one recipient of an e-mail among a plurality of Internet TV receivers, and one VBI provided in each of the Internet TV receivers, such as the VBI decoder 116 included in the Internet TV receiver 104 of FIG. 1. Information specifying one of the decoders. Therefore, the VBI decoders of all Internet TV receivers each have their own unique VBI decoder address.

For reference, e-mail recipient information, or address, is usually in ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) code text. Therefore, using an e-mail address as the VBI decoder address is not practical given the number of users and the amount of data. Accordingly, in the present invention, binary data having a value corresponding to each email address is generated as a VBI decoder address. In other words, binary data of sequentially increasing values for email addresses are allocated in advance. At this time, the number of bits of the VBI address is set differently according to the number of users. For example, if ²⁰ million subscribers have 2 ²⁰ = 1,048,576, the bit number of the VBI address may be about 20 bits. An example of allocating a VBI decoder address corresponding to an e-mail address is shown in Table 1 below.

Email address VBI Decoder Address User 1 "00000000000000000000" User 2 "00000000000000000001" User 3 "00000000000000000010" ··· ··· User n "11111111111111111111"

The ISP server 100 then transmits the e-mail receiving code together with the VBI decoder address as described above to the TV station 102 as notification information in step 204 and terminates. The e-mail receiving code is defined in advance as a code indicating that an e-mail has been received as information for notifying reception of an e-mail. The e-mail receiving code may include an urgent receiving code. If the e-mail is an urgent content, the e-mail receiving code includes a code indicating an emergency in the e-mail transmission. In this case, the ISP server 100 transmits the electronic mail receiving code to the TV broadcasting station 102 as an emergency receiving code.

The TV station 100 has a VBI encoder 106 connected to the ISP server 104 and a broadcast transmitter 108 connected thereto. The VBI encoder 106 VBI-encodes the notification information received from the ISP server 100, that is, the VBI decoder address and the e-mail receiving code, into the TV broadcast signal and outputs the broadcast information to the broadcast transmitter 108. The broadcast transmitter 108 modulates the TV broadcast signal input from the VBI encoder 106 and transmits the same through the antenna 110 by modulating the TV broadcast signal as in a normal TV broadcast.

The Internet TV receiver 102 includes a broadcast receiver 114, a VBI decoder 116, a TV microcomputer (MICOM) 118, and an internet module 120. The broadcast receiving unit 114 receives a TV broadcast signal through the antenna 112 and tunes and demodulates a channel. The output signal of the broadcast receiving unit 114 is processed as in the usual case, and then is output to the video and audio through the water pipe and speaker (not shown) and is applied to the VBI decoder 116. The VBI decoder 116 VBI decodes a signal input from the broadcast receiver 114 to extract a VBI decoder address and an email reception code. At this time, if the VBI decoder address is a value that specifies the self, the electronic mail receiving code is output to the TV microcomputer 118. The TV microcomputer 118 performs a TV function by controlling each part of the Internet TV receiver 104 as in a normal case, and displays a screen according to the Internet search by the Internet module 120. In addition to these conventional functions, the TV microcomputer 118 performs an e-mail reception notification function according to the present invention.

Figure 3 shows a processing flow diagram according to an embodiment of the present invention of such a TV microcomputer 118. Referring to FIG. 3, when the TV microcomputer 118 receives the email receiving code from the VBI decoder 116 in step 300 of FIG. 3, the TV microcomputer 118 performs step 302 in response thereto. In step 302, the TV microcomputer 118 checks whether an e-mail receiving code is an emergency receiving code. At this time, if the emergency reception code, the TV microcomputer 118 immediately displays the email reception message on the screen and performs step 306. The e-mail receiving message is displayed in text or graphic form as a message informing the reception of the e-mail. In this case, displaying an e-mail received message on a screen may use a conventional On Screen Graphic (OSG) function, and a detailed description thereof will be omitted. On the contrary, if it is not an emergency reception code, step 306 is immediately performed. In step 306, the TV microcomputer 118 transmits the e-mail receiving code to the central processing unit (CPU) 122 of the internet module 120 and terminates.

The internet module 120 includes a CPU 122, a memory 124, and a modem (modulator-demodulator) 126, and the CPU 122, the memory 124, and the modem 126 are connected to a bus 128. The modem 126 is connected to the ISP server 100 through the telephone line 130. The CPU 122 communicates with the TV microcomputer 118 and performs an internet search function through the modem 126. The memory 124 stores an operation program of the CPU 122 and various reference data, and temporarily stores data according to program execution of the CPU 122, such as data of an electronic mail. The modem 126 makes a call to the ISP server 100 under the control of the CPU 122, and modulates a demodulated signal transmitted and received through the telephone line 130.

4 is a flowchart illustrating a process of the CPU 122 of the Internet module 120 of FIG. 1 according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 4, the CPU 122 performs step 402 in response to receiving an e-mail receiving code from the TV microcomputer 118 in step 400 of FIG. 4. In step 402, the CPU 122 stores the email receiving code in the memory 124. Thereafter, the CPU 122 waits whether the user uses the e-mail in step 404. In this state, if the user uses the e-mail, the CPU 122 displays the e-mail reception message as described above on the screen through the TV microcomputer 118 in step 406 and terminates.

Therefore, by automatically notifying the ISP server 100 that the e-mail has been received, the user can check this without a separate call. In particular, when an urgent e-mail is received by the ISP server 100, an e-mail reception message indicating this is displayed on the screen of the Internet TV receiver 104 so that it can be confirmed in a timely manner.

Meanwhile, in the above description of the present invention, specific embodiments have been described, but various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. In particular, although the exemplary embodiment of the present invention shows an example of a conventional TV station for wirelessly transmitting a TV broadcast signal, it may also be a cable TV station. In this case, the ISP server and the broadcasting station may be the same system. In addition, the processing at the time of emergency reception may be omitted if necessary. Therefore, the scope of the invention should not be defined by the described embodiments, but should be defined by the equivalent of claims and claims.

As described above, the present invention automatically notifies the ISP server that the e-mail has been received, so that the user can check it without a phone call separately, and when the urgent e-mail is received by the ISP server, the timely response can be checked. There is an advantage.

Claims (6)

In the Internet TV system, When the ISP server receives the e-mail from the Internet, designating a receiver corresponding to the recipient information of the received e-mail, and broadcasting the notification information informing the e-mail reception to the TV broadcast signal through a TV station, And receiving, by the Internet TV receiver of the designated receiver, the TV broadcast signal, VBI decoding the notification information, and displaying a message informing of reception of the electronic mail on a screen. In the Internet TV system, When the ISP server receives the e-mail from the Internet, generates a VBI decoder address specifying a receiver corresponding to the recipient information of the e-mail, and transmits it to a TV station with an e-mail receiving code indicating the e-mail reception; Broadcasting by the TV station by VBI encoding the VBI decoder address and an email receiving code into a TV broadcast signal; An Internet TV receiver receiving the TV broadcast signal, VBI decoding, and storing an e-mail receiving code that is received together when a VBI decoder address for specifying a self is received; And displaying, on the screen, a message informing the reception of the e-mail on the screen in response to the user using the e-mail. The electronic mail reception notification according to claim 2, further comprising the step of displaying the electronic mail reception message on the screen immediately after the Internet TV receiver receives the electronic mail reception code as an emergency reception code. Way. In the Internet TV system, An ISP server for generating a VBI decoder address specifying a recipient corresponding to the recipient information of the email when the email is received from the Internet and transmitting it to a TV station with an email reception code for notifying the reception of the email; A TV broadcasting station for VBI encoding the VBI decoder address and the e-mail receiving code received from the ISP server into a TV broadcasting signal for broadcasting; Receiving the TV broadcast signal and VBI decoding to receive the VBI decoder address that specifies the self stores the received e-mail receiving code, and displays a message notifying the reception of the e-mail in response to the user's use of the e-mail And an Internet TV receiver for displaying on the screen. The email reception notification system according to claim 5, wherein the Internet TV receiver displays the email reception message on the screen immediately after the reception of the email reception code is an emergency reception code. A VBI decoder for VBI decoding and extracting data inserted into a TV broadcast signal by VBI encoding, the Internet TV receiver having internet access, Storing an e-mail receiving code received when a VBI decoder address for receiving a TV broadcast signal, VBI decoding, and specifying a self is received; And in response to the user using the e-mail, displaying a message on the screen informing the reception of the e-mail according to the e-mail receiving code.

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