JP2005122641A - Information providing system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an information providing system, capable of easily and accurately transmitting information through a portable terminal without imposing physical or monetary loads. <P>SOLUTION: A two-dimensional (2D) barcode 3, generated on the basis of the specification of data structure previously opened to the public, is printed out on a book 2. The 2D barcode 3 of the book 2 is read with a cellular phone 20, and an application program is downloaded to the cellular phone 20, so that the 2D barcode is decoded by the cellular phone 20 and processing corresponding to the decoded result is executed. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an information providing system that uses a mobile terminal and provides information to a user of the mobile terminal.

  An information providing service using a portable terminal such as a cellular phone and a two-dimensional barcode is known (for example, Patent Document 1). In this service, an advertisement requester registers information related to an advertisement in the information center, so that advertisement content identification information unique to the advertisement is issued from the information center. The advertisement requester prints the advertisement content identification information issued from the information center on the announcement medium in a form including the two-dimensional barcode. When a person who sees the announcement medium captures and reads the two-dimensional barcode on the announcement medium with the camera of the mobile phone, the read two-dimensional barcode is decoded in the mobile phone. By this decoding, the issued advertisement content identification information is displayed on the display screen of the mobile phone. By accessing the information center based on the displayed advertisement content identification information, the user of the mobile phone can take in detailed information regarding the announcement from the information center to the mobile phone and view it on the display screen.

On the other hand, when acquiring information from publications such as books and newspapers when going out, it is common to carry around publications that contain the desired information. As a result, the amount of baggage when going out increases, which may put a burden on the body. Further, in a paper medium such as a book, the described information is simply given by visual observation, and the operation of the described information is impossible. For this reason, the reader may not be able to fully understand the description.
JP 2002-111909 A

  In the information providing service using the mobile phone and the two-dimensional barcode described above, the operation in which the advertisement requester registers information related to the advertisement in the information center, the process of issuing the advertisement content identification information from the information center to the advertisement requester, An operation for the user of the mobile phone to access the information center based on the advertisement content identification information is necessary. For this reason, much effort is required before information is provided to the user of the mobile phone. In addition, the user of the mobile phone device needs to access the information center every time he / she sees the notice, which causes a lot of communication charges and increases the financial burden.

  On the other hand, when acquiring information from publications such as books and newspapers, as described above, baggage when going out increases the burden on the body, and the reader may not be able to fully understand the description.

  In view of the above circumstances, the present invention provides an information providing system that can easily and accurately convey information using a mobile terminal without incurring physical and financial burdens. It is an object.

  The information providing system of the invention according to claim 1 includes a publication attached with a two-dimensional barcode generated based on a specification of a data structure published in advance, and a decoding result obtained by decoding the two-dimensional barcode. Received by the server storing the application program for executing the processing according to the above, reading means for reading the two-dimensional barcode from the publication, receiving means for receiving the application program from the server, and receiving means Processing means for decoding the reading content of the reading means based on the application program and executing processing according to the decoding result, storage means for storing the decoding result and processing content of the processing means, processing result of the processing means, and And a portable terminal having display means for displaying the storage contents of the storage means.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to provide an information providing system capable of easily and accurately transmitting information without using physical and financial burdens using a mobile terminal.

Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
In FIG. 1, a publisher 1 publishes a publication, for example, a book 2, and ships and sells it on the market. At this time, the publisher 1 generates a matrix-type two-dimensional barcode 3 as shown in FIG. 2 on the basis of the data structure specifications publicly disclosed by the application provider 10 in advance, and generates the generated two-dimensional barcode. 3 is printed on an arbitrary page of the book 2. The two-dimensional barcode 3 includes at least content related to information described on the printed page.

  A server 11 is installed in the application providing company 10. The server 11 stores an application program for decoding the two-dimensional barcode 3 and executing processing according to the decoding result.

  The reader who has purchased the book 2 obtains the information described in the book 2 by normal visual observation, and takes in the contents described in the book 2 in a portable terminal with a camera, for example, a cellular phone 20 that he / she has. Can do.

  The cellular phone 20 includes a CPU 21 as a main control unit, a display unit 22 having a liquid crystal screen, an operation unit 23 including various key buttons, a transmission / reception unit 24 for transmitting / receiving data to / from the outside via a wireless telephone line, and an imaging unit. It has a CCD camera 25, a ROM 26 for storing control programs, and a rewritable nonvolatile memory 27 for storing various data.

  The transmission / reception unit 24 is used as reception means for receiving (downloading) an application program stored in the server 11 of the application providing company 10. The CCD camera 25 can be used not only as a normal photographic camera but also as a reading means for the two-dimensional barcode 3 on the book 2.

The CPU 21 has the following means (1) to (3) as main functions related to the present invention.
(1) Processing means for decoding the reading content of the two-dimensional barcode 3 by the CCD camera 25 based on the application program received by the transmission / reception unit 24 and executing processing according to the decoding result.
(2) Control means for storing in the memory 27 the result of decoding and processing contents of the processing means.
(3) Control means for displaying the processing result of the processing means and the contents stored in the memory 27 on the display unit 22.

Next, the operation of the above configuration will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.
It is determined whether or not the application program in the server 11 is stored in the memory 27 (step 101). If not yet stored (NO in step 101), the application program is downloaded from a predetermined website in the server 11 in response to a request operation of the application program by the user of the mobile phone device 20 (YES in step 102). And stored in the memory 27 of the cellular phone 20 (step 103).

  If an application program has already been stored (YES in step 101), or if the application program is stored by the user's requested operation as described above, 2 of the book 2 based on the stored application program The three-dimensional barcode 3 is read by the cellular phone 20 (YES in step 104), the read content is decoded, and a process corresponding to the decoded result is executed (step 105).

  As an example of the process to be executed, in addition to the process of displaying the description content of the book 2 as an image as it is on the display unit 22, various image information related to the description content of the book 2 is displayed according to the simple operation of the user. There is a process of sequentially displaying on the display unit 22. This processing content (including data newly generated with the processing) is stored in the memory 27 together with the decoding result (step 106).

  When reprocessing is requested by the user's operation (YES in step 107), the same operation as the stored processing content is executed again (step 108).

  There is an example of learning English words as a process of sequentially displaying various image information related to the description contents of the book 2 on the display unit 22 in accordance with a user's simple operation.

  In this case, the publisher 1 generates a two-dimensional barcode 3 including English word contents as information based on a publicly available data structure, and prints the two-dimensional barcode 3 on a book (for example, a reference book) 2. After that, the book 2 is shipped.

  The purchaser of the book 2 downloads and stores the application program from the Web site of the server 11 in the application provider company 10 to his / her mobile phone device 20 and also stores the two-dimensional barcode printed on the book 2 with the mobile phone device. Read at 20. This completes preparation for learning English words.

  After the preparation is completed, the user of the mobile phone device 20 activates the application program, whereby the read two-dimensional barcode 20 is decoded, and English word learning processing corresponding to the decoding result is executed. Specifically, as the user repeats the operation in accordance with the display contents of the display unit 22, as shown in FIG. 4, the learning of English words for the user proceeds while the display of the display unit 22 changes sequentially. Go. That is, a screen for starting learning, a screen for presenting a problem with English words, a screen for displaying translated English words and sentence examples as answers, and the like are sequentially switched according to the button operation of the user. New data input by the user as the learning progresses, for example, a check input for a word that has been learned or a check input for a word that is easily forgotten, is stored in the memory 27 as a history.

  When this English word learning is performed, the book 2 is not necessary, and it is possible to carry out the learning at a place desired by the user such as in a train by taking only the mobile phone 20 outside. As long as the two-dimensional barcode 3 and the application program are stored in the memory 27, the same learning can be repeatedly performed. The history such as word check stored in the memory 27 can be used as a user's own English word book.

  Here, although English word learning was described, various information, such as learning of Japanese language, arithmetic, science, society, etc., or a common sense quiz, can be incorporated into the two-dimensional barcode 3. The application program downloaded from the server 11 has versatility, and can handle all of the information regardless of the content of the information included in the two-dimensional barcode 3.

  For the user, it is possible to receive provision of desired information by a simple operation of reading the two-dimensional barcode 3 with the mobile phone 20 and downloading the application program. For the publishing company 1, the two-dimensional barcode 3 can be freely generated at any time based on the specification of a data structure that is open to the public. There is no need for troublesome measures such as having the information center issue identification information as in the conventional example.

  Since the server 11 is accessed only once when the application program is downloaded, the communication fee is small and the financial burden on the user is very small.

  If the mobile phone 20 is held, it is not necessary to carry the book 2, so the baggage when going out does not increase and the body is not burdened. Since a large amount of information that cannot be put on the book 2 can be taken into the mobile phone device 20 via the two-dimensional barcode 3, the paper usage fee of the book 2 can be reduced and the environmental resources can be effectively used. It also becomes.

  Since various images relating to the description content of the book 2 can be sequentially displayed on the display unit 22 in accordance with the user's simple operation, it is easy and accurate to transmit information from the book 2 to the user. is there.

  Note that the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment as it is, and can be embodied by modifying the constituent elements without departing from the scope of the invention in the implementation stage. In addition, various inventions can be formed by appropriately combining a plurality of components disclosed in the embodiment. For example, some components may be deleted from all the components shown in the embodiment. Furthermore, you may combine the component covering different embodiment suitably.

The block diagram which shows the structure of one Embodiment of this invention. The figure which shows the example of the two-dimensional barcode in the same embodiment. The flowchart for demonstrating the effect | action of the embodiment. The figure which shows the example of the display screen of English learning in the embodiment.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Publishing company, 2 ... Book, 3 ... Two-dimensional barcode, 10 ... Application provision company, 11 ... Server, 20 ... Mobile phone, 21 ... CPU, 22 ... Display part, 23 ... Operation part, 24 ... Transmission / reception part 25 ... CCD camera, 26 ... ROM, 27 ... Rewritable non-volatile memory

Claims (1)

A publication with a two-dimensional barcode generated based on a specification of a data structure published in advance;
A server storing an application program for decoding the two-dimensional barcode and executing processing according to the decoding result;
Reading means for reading the two-dimensional bar code from the publication, receiving means for receiving the application program from the server, and decoding contents read by the reading means based on the application program received by the receiving means A portable terminal having processing means for executing processing in accordance with the storage means, storage means for storing the decoding results and processing contents of the processing means, display means for displaying the processing results of the processing means and the storage contents of the storage means,
An information providing system characterized by comprising:

Images