Metadata generating apparatus

• US 20060235869A1
• Filed: 12/06/2005
• Published: 10/19/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/08/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation (Seiko Group)
• Original Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation (Seiko Group)
• Inventors: Nagahashi, Toshinori, Hyuga, Takashi
• Granted Patent: US 7,519,618 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/58 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

A metadata generating apparatus includes: a private-content-information creating unit that creates content information of an individual; a public-content-information collecting unit that collects public content information for which metadata for retrieval is created; a keyword extracting unit that extracts a keyword, which forms a basis of the metadata for retrieval, from the public content information collected by the public-content-information collecting unit; and a metadata generating unit that generates metadata for retrieval for a private content, which is created by the private-content-information creating unit, on the basis of the keyword extracted by the keyword extracting unit.

Claims

1. A metadata generating apparatus comprising:

a private-content-information creating unit that creates content information of an individual;

a public-content-information collecting unit that collects public content information for which metadata for retrieval is created;

a keyword extracting unit that extracts a keyword, which forms a basis of the metadata for retrieval, from the public content information collected by the public-content-information collecting unit; and

a metadata generating unit that generates metadata for retrieval for a private content, which is created by the private-content-information creating unit, on the basis of the keyword extracted by the keyword extracting unit.

2. A metadata generating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the public-content-information collecting unit collects public content information including metadata, and

the keyword extracting unit includes:

a metadata analyzing unit that analyzes metadata included in the public content information collected by the public-content-information collecting unit; and

a morphological analysis unit that subjects the public content information to morphological analysis on the basis of a result of the analysis of the metadata analyzing unit to extract a keyword.

3. A metadata generating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the public-content-information collecting unit collects public content information including sound information, and

the keyword extracting unit includes:

a sound recognizing unit that subjects the sound information to sound recognition to form text data; and

a morphological analysis unit that subjects the text data formed by the sound recognizing unit to morphological analysis to extract a keyword.

4. A metadata generating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the keyword extracting unit has a keyword storing unit that stores a keyword for which metadata for retrieval is generated, and

the keyword extracting unit selects a keyword, which coincides with the keyword stored in the keyword storing unit, among keywords extracted from the public content information as an object keyword.

5. A metadata generating apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the keyword storing unit stores the keyword extracted from the public content information.

6. A metadata generating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the metadata generating unit selects a keyword for retrieval on the basis of a predetermined degree of appropriateness from keywords extracted by the keyword extracting unit and generates metadata for retrieval on the basis of the keyword for retrieval selected.

7. A metadata generating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the metadata generating unit sets a high appearance frequency as the predetermined degree of appropriateness and selects a keyword with a high appearance frequency as a keyword for retrieval.

9. A metadata generating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the public-content-information collecting unit collects content information included in at least one of a broadcast radio wave, a network, and a storage medium.

8. A metadata generating apparatus, comprising:

a private-content-information creating unit that creates content information of an individual;

a public-content-information collecting unit that collects public content information including metadata for which metadata for retrieval is created;

a keyword input unit that inputs a keyword;

a public-content-information extracting unit that extracts public content information including metadata describing a keyword coinciding with the keyword inputted by the keyword input unit; and

a metadata generating unit that generates the metadata, which is included in the public content information extracted by the public-content-information collecting unit, as metadata for retrieval for private content information.