Terminal apparatus and information acquiring system

• US 20050170848A1
• Filed: 10/07/2003
• Published: 08/04/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 10/08/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Taniguchi, Koji, Tada, Hiroyuki, Yamaguchi, Takao, Sato, Junichi, Takei, Ichiro
• Granted Patent: US 7,072,670 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/456.300
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences

Abstract

In the present invention, with respect to content that is predicted to be referred to after moving based on a current position, moving direction and/or moving speed of a terminal apparatus, the terminal apparatus inquires of a communication information area managing section whether a position associated with the content is in a communication area, and when the position is outside the communication area, selects at least one communication section with communication-capable channel quality, and acquires and stores the content predicted to be referred to using the selected communication section. It is thereby possible to refer to the content when a position in response to the content predicted to be referred to is outside a communication-capable area.

Claims

1. A terminal apparatus comprising:

a content list managing section that manages a content list that stores one or more addresses respectively of one ore more pieces of content to acquire;

one or more wireless communication sections;

a channel quality detecting section that detects channel quality of each of the wireless communication sections in a predetermined position;

a communication selecting section that selects at least one of the communication sections having channel quality that enables communication, using the channel quality in a current position detected in the channel quality detecting section;

an acquisition content determining section that determines at least one acquisition-scheduled content that is scheduled to acquire from among the content stored in content list; and

a content acquiring section that acquires the acquisition-scheduled content in the at least one of the communication sections selected, using an address associated with the acquisition-scheduled content.

2. The terminal apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a position detecting section that detects the current position; and

a communication area information managing section that manages communication area information on a communication-capable position of each of the wireless communication sections in a predetermined region, wherein based on the communication area information, the channel quality detecting section detects whether each of the wireless communication sections is able to communicate in the current position detected in the position detecting section.

3. The terminal apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the terminal apparatus performs control for decreasing a processing capability of each of the wireless communication sections that is not able to communicate.

4. The terminal apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the acquisition content determining section determines at least one of whether or not to acquire the acquisition-scheduled content and of the order in which the acquisition-scheduled content is acquired, based on an instruction input by a user.

5. The terminal apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the content list describes priorities associates with the addresses of the content, and based on the priorities, the acquisition content determining section determines at least one of whether or not to acquire the acquisition-scheduled content and of the order in which the acquisition-scheduled content is acquired.

6. The terminal apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the content list describes position information of inside of a predetermined region associated with an address of content, and based on the position information, the acquisition content determining section determines at least one of whether or not to acquire the acquisition-scheduled content and of the order in which the acquisition-scheduled content is acquired.

7. The terminal apparatus according to claim 6, wherein based on the communication area information, the acquisition content determining section judges whether communication is allowed in a position of the position information in the predetermined region described in the content list, and thereby determines at least one of whether or not to acquire content in response to the position information inside the predetermined region and of the order in which the content is acquired.

8. The terminal apparatus according to claim 6, wherein based on at least one of a moving direction and moving speed of the terminal apparatus, the acquisition content determining section determines at least one of whether or not to acquire content and of the order in which the content is acquired.

9. The terminal apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the content list describes reference history information associated with the addresses of content, and based on the reference history information, the acquisition content determining section determines at least one of whether or not to acquire the content and of the order in which the content is acquired.

10. The terminal apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the channel quality detecting section detects the channel quality of each of the wireless communication sections by detecting stability of the each of the wireless communication sections.

11. The terminal apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the channel quality detecting section detects the stability based on at least one of a wireless signal strength, a ratio of wireless signal strength to noise, an error rate of transmission data, an effective transmission bandwidth, and a variation with time in each of the wireless signal strength, the ratio of wireless signal strength to noise, the error rate of transmission data, and the effective transmission bandwidth.

12. The terminal apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the channel quality detecting section detects the channel quality of each of the wireless communication sections by detecting security that enables the each of the wireless communication sections to communicate without tapping.

13. The terminal apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the acquisition content determining section determines the number of pieces of acquisition-scheduled content based on the channel quality of each of the wireless communication sections detected in the channel quality detecting section.

14. An information acquiring system in which a terminal apparatus acquires content related to a position in a predetermined region transmitted from a server, wherein the server comprises:

a position information receiving section that receives a position of the terminal apparatus; and

a content list transmitting section that sets, as acquisition-scheduled content, content in response to a position in which the content is expected to be referred to after moving and which is outside a communication-capable area, from the position received in the position information receiving section, and generates a content list storing at least one of a pair of an address associated with the acquisition-scheduled content and a position to transmit to the terminal apparatus, and

the terminal apparatus comprises;

a position detecting section that detects a position of the terminal apparatus;

a position information transmitting section that transmits the position detected to the server;

a content list receiving section that receives the content list transmitted from the server; and

a content acquiring section that acquires the acquisition-scheduled content, using the address associated with the acquisition-scheduled content stored in the content list.

15. An information acquiring method comprising:

managing a content list storing one or more addresses respectively of one or more pieces of content to acquire;

detecting a communication section with channel quality that enables communication in a current position;

determining at least one acquisition-scheduled content that is scheduled to acquire from among the content stored in the content list; and

acquiring the acquisition-scheduled content in the communication section that enables communication using an address associated with the acquisition-scheduled content.