Information processing apparatus, method and program

• US 20090043811A1
• Filed: 06/12/2006
• Published: 02/12/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/16/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Saito, Mari, Yamamoto, Noriyuki, Tateno, Kei, Tsunoda, Tomohiro
• Granted Patent: US 7,953,735 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/435 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/51 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/105 of operating discs
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/28 by using information signals recorded by the same method as the main recording G11B27/22 takes precedence

Abstract

The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, and a program in which a content piece matching preference information of a user or a content piece similar to a specified content piece can be searched for with a smaller amount of computation and can be provided to the user. Each of items of metadata (such as title, artist name, genre, review text, tempo, beat, and rhythm) of music is classified into any of cluster layers (first to n-th layers), and is classified (clustering) into a plurality of clusters provided in the cluster layers into which actual information of each of the items is classified. Then, instead of the metadata, cluster information including cluster IDs (such as CL11 in FIG. 2) of the clusters into which actual information of each of the items of metadata is classified is compiled in a database as information indicating the features of music. The present invention can be applied to a homepage server for recommending a purchase of content such as music data, a video recorder for recommending a recording reservation of a television program, and the like.

Claims

1-11. -11. (canceled)

12. An information processing apparatus for selecting a content piece satisfying a predetermined condition from a content group, the information processing apparatus comprising:

content classifying means for classifying each of content pieces constituting the content group into any of a plurality of first clusters in each of layers associated with items of metadata of the content pieces according to classification of the metadata by a distance measure for the metadata, the classification of the metadata being defined for each of the layers;

holding means for holding a database indicating correspondences between the content pieces and the first clusters in the layers into which the content pieces are classified;

specifying means for specifying a first cluster corresponding to the predetermined condition for each of the layers from among the first clusters and specifying a content piece corresponding to the specified first cluster from among the content pieces; and

providing means for providing the content piece specified by the specifying means.

13. The information processing apparatus according to claim 12, further comprising storing means for storing a preference value indicating a degree of preference of a user in association with each of the first clusters into which the content pieces are classified by the content classifying means,

wherein the specifying means specifies a first cluster from among the first clusters on the basis of the preference values stored by the storing means, and specifies a content piece corresponding to the specified first cluster from among the content pieces.

14. The information processing apparatus according to claim 13, wherein the specifying means further specifies from among the content pieces a content piece corresponding to the specified first cluster using an evaluation value indicating a degree of preference of the user with a weight for each of the layers in accordance with the preference value.

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

setting means for setting a keyword for the first clusters into which the content pieces are classified by the content specifying means; and

generating means for generating a reason statement indicating the reason for providing the content piece using the keyword set by the setting means,

wherein the providing means further provides the reason statement.

16. The information processing apparatus according to claim 12, wherein:

the content pieces are music pieces; and

the items of metadata include at least one of tempo, beat, and rhythm of the music pieces.

17. The information processing apparatus according to claim 12, wherein the items of metadata include review text for the corresponding content pieces.

18. The information processing apparatus according to claim 12, further comprising metadata classifying means for classifying each of the items of metadata with respect to the plurality of content pieces into any of a plurality of second clusters, and allocating the layers to the second clusters,

wherein the content classifying means classifies each of the content pieces into any of the plurality of first clusters for each of the allocated layers.

19. The information processing apparatus according to claim 12, wherein the specifying means further specifies a content piece using a similarity level indicating a degree of similarity to a similarity-reference content piece from among content pieces corresponding to a first cluster among the first clusters into which the similarity-reference content piece is classified.

20. The information processing apparatus according to claim 19, wherein the specifying means specifies a content piece using the similarity level that is weighted by a weight for each of the layers in accordance with a belonging weight of the similarity-reference content piece for the first cluster.

21. An information processing method for an information processing apparatus for selecting a content piece satisfying a predetermined condition from a content group, the information processing method comprising:

a classifying step of classifying each of content pieces constituting the content group into any of a plurality of clusters in each of layers associated with items of metadata of the content pieces according to classification of the metadata by a distance measurement of the metadata that is defined for each of the layers;

a holding step of holding a database indicating correspondences between the content pieces and the clusters in the layers into which the content pieces are classified;

a specifying step of specifying a cluster corresponding to the predetermined condition for each of the layers from among the clusters and specifying a content piece corresponding to the specified cluster from among the content pieces; and

a providing step of providing the specified content piece.

22. A program for selecting a content piece satisfying a predetermined condition from a content group, the program causing a computer to execute a process comprising:

a classifying step classifying each of content pieces constituting the content group into any of a plurality of clusters in each of layers associated with items of metadata of the content pieces according to classification of the metadata by a distance measurement of the metadata that is defined for each of the layers;

a holding step of holding a database indicating correspondences between the content pieces and the clusters in the layers into which the content pieces are classified;

a specifying step of specifying a cluster corresponding to the predetermined condition for each of the layers from among the clusters and specifying a content piece corresponding to the specified cluster from among the content pieces; and

a providing step of providing the specified content piece.