Information Processing Apparatus and Method, Program and Recording Medium

• US 20080077575A1
• Filed: 09/17/2007
• Published: 03/27/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/21/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Miyazaki, Mitsuhiro, Saito, Mari, Yamamoto, Noriyuki, Tateno, Kei
• Granted Patent: US 8,117,212 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/5
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation

Abstract

Herein disclosed an information processing apparatus for providing a service of introducing, from a predetermined item which is to make a reference, associated items associated with the reference item to one or more different information processing apparatus, including: an association degree collection section configured to collect association degrees applied between items by users of the different information processing apparatus and indicative of weights of a relationship between the items; and an introduction section configured to determine the associated items from the reference item based on a result of the collection by the association degree collection section and introduce the determined associated items to any of the different information processing apparatus.

Claims

1. An information processing apparatus for providing a service of introducing, from a predetermined item which is to make a reference, associated items associated with the reference item to one or more different information processing apparatus, comprising:

an association degree collection section configured to collect association degrees applied between items by users of the different information processing apparatus and indicative of weights of a relationship between the items; and

an introduction section configured to determine the associated items from the reference item based on a result of the collection by said association degree collection section and introduce the determined associated items to any of the different information processing apparatus.

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

a user liking calculation section configured to calculate a liking of any of the users of the different information processing apparatus based on the result of the collection by said association degree collection section; and

a comparison section configured to compare the liking of the user calculated by said user liking calculation section and the individual items to determine similarity degrees therebetween;

said introduction section introducing those of the items which are determined to have a high similarity degree to the liking of the user by the comparison by said comparison section as the associated items.

3. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a similar user search section configured to compare the applied association degrees for each of the users and search for similar users who have a high similarity degree of the liking to one of the users based on a result of the comparison; and

an item evaluation prediction section configured to predict an evaluation value for each of the items by the user based on evaluation items for the items by the similar users searched out by said similar user search section;

said introduction section introducing those of the items to which it is predicted for the user of said information processing apparatus to provide high evaluation by said item evaluation prediction section as the associated items.

4. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising

a reliability degree calculation section configured to calculate a reliability degree of each of the association degrees as information.

5. The information processing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein said introduction section introduces, together with the associated items, the association degrees applied from the reference item to the associated items and the reliability degrees of the association degrees.

6. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a user reliability degree calculation section configured to calculate a reliability degree of users by whom the association degrees are applied;

a similar user search section configured to compare the applied association degrees for each of the users and search for similar users who have a high similarity degree of the liking to one of the users based on a result of the comparison; and

an item evaluation prediction section configured to perform weighting for the similar users searched out by said similar user search section based on the reliability degrees of the users calculated by said user reliability calculation section and predict evaluation values for the items by the user based on the weights of the similar users and evaluation values for the items by the similar users;

said introduction section introducing those of the items to which it is predicted for the user of said information processing apparatus to provide high evaluation by said item evaluation prediction section as the associated items.

7. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising

an additional meta data application section configured to apply new meta data to the items based on the association degrees.

8. The information processing apparatus according to claim 7, further comprising

a reliability degree calculation section configured to calculate a reliability degree of the association degrees as information;

said additional meta data application section applying new meta data to the items based on both of the association degrees and the reliability degrees of the association degrees.

9. The information processing apparatus according to claim 7, further comprising

an item similarity degree calculation section configured to calculate a similarity degree between the items using new meta data applied by said additional meta data application section;

said introduction section introducing those of the items which have a high similarity degree to the reference item calculated by said item similarity degree calculation section as the associated items.

10. The information processing apparatus according to claim 7, further comprising:

a user liking calculation section configured to calculate a liking of users of the different information processing apparatus based on a result of the collection by said association degree collection section; and

a comparison section configured to compare the new meta data for the items applied by said additional meta data application section with the likings of the users calculated by said user liking calculation section to determine a similarity degree therebetween;

said introduction section introducing those of the items which are decided to have a high similarly degree to the likings of the users by the comparison by said comparison section as the associated items.

11. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising

an importance degree calculation section configured to calculate an importance degree of the items among all items based on the association degrees applied between the items.

12. The information processing apparatus according to claim 11, further comprising

a correction section configured to correct a display form of information of the associated items to be introduced to the other information processing apparatus based on the importance degrees calculated by said importance degree calculation section;

said introduction section causing any of the other different information processing apparatus which is a destination of the instruction to display the information of the associated items in the display form corrected by said correction section.

13. The information processing apparatus according to claim 11, further comprising

an explanation application section configured to apply an explanation of the associated items which is to be introduced to the other information processing apparatus to the information of the associated items based on the importance degrees calculated by said importance degree calculation section.

14. The information processing apparatus according to claim 11, further comprising:

a user liking calculation section configured to calculate a liking of users of the different information processing apparatus based on a result of the collection by said association value correction section; and

an explanation application section configured to apply an explanation of the associated items which is to be introduced to the other information processing apparatus to the information of the associated items based on the importance degrees calculated by said importance degree calculation section and the likings of the users calculated by said user liking calculation section.

15. An information processing method for an information processing apparatus for providing a service of introducing, from a predetermined item which is to make a reference, associated items associated with the reference item to one or more different information processing apparatus, comprising the steps of:

collecting association degrees applied between items by users of the different information processing apparatus and indicative of weights of a relationship between the items; and

determining the associated items from the reference item based on a result of the collection by the process at the association degree collection step and introduce the determined associated items to any of the different information processing apparatus.

16. A program which can be executed by a computer which controls a process of providing a service of introducing, from a predetermined item which is to make a reference, associated items associated with the reference item to one or more different information processing apparatus, comprising the steps of:

collecting association degrees applied between items by users of the different information processing apparatus and indicative of weights of a relationship between the items; and

determining the associated items from the reference item based on a result of the collection by the process at the association degree collection step and introduce the determined associated items to any of the different information processing apparatus.

17. A recording medium on or in which the program according to claim 16 is recorded.

18. An information processing apparatus for providing a service of introducing, from a predetermined item which is to make a reference, associated items associated with the reference item to one or more different information processing apparatus, comprising:

association degree collection means for collecting association degrees applied between items by users of the different information processing apparatus and indicative of weights of a relationship between the items; and

introduction means for determining the associated items from the reference item based on a result of the collection by said association degree collection means and introduce the determined associated items to any of the different information processing apparatus.