INFORMATION PROVIDING METHOD

• US 20160057029A1
• Filed: 05/13/2014
• Published: 02/25/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 05/16/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Corporation of America (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Corporation of America (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: YAMADA, Kazunori, SASAGAWA, Michiko, IIDA, Shigehiro, ASO, Mitsuhiro, HIROMOTO, Masayuki
• Granted Patent: US 10,355,947 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 15/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/2642 Domotique, domestic, home control, automation, smart house
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/281 indicating a format for calling an appliance service function in a home automation network for remote control or remote monitoring of applications H04L67/025
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2812 describing content present in a home automation network, e.g. audio video content retrieval from the Internet G06F16/95
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2825 Reporting to a device located outside the home and the home network access arrangements H04L12/2856; for remote control or remote monitoring of applications H04L67/025; telephonic communication systems adapted for combination with telemetering systems H04M11/002
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/028 by filtering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/38 for collecting sensor information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]

Abstract

An information providing method is an information providing method for consumer electronics devices, a display device, and a server, all of which are connected via a public network, the information providing method including: (a) receiving, by the server from the consumer electronics devices, information pieces on the consumer electronics devices; (b) filtering, by the server, the information pieces on the consumer electronics devices received in step (a), to obtain one or more filtered information pieces, and performing, by the server, processing for generating display information for display, by the display device, in a specific display format; and (c) transmitting, by the server, the display information generated in step (b) to the display device.

Claims

1-26. -26. (canceled)

27. An information providing method for consumer electronics devices, a display device, and a server, all of which are connected via a network, the information providing method comprising:

(a) receiving, by the server from the consumer electronics devices, information pieces on the consumer electronics devices;

(b) filtering, by the server, according to a purpose of use, the information pieces on the consumer electronics devices received in step (a), to obtain one or more filtered information pieces, and performing, by the server, processing for generating display information for display, by the display device, in a specific display format which allows the one or more filtered information pieces to be viewed within one display screen; and

(c) transmitting, by the server, the display information generated in step (b) to the display device.

28. The information providing method according to claim 27, further comprising

(d) displaying, by the display device on the display screen of the display device in the specific display format, one or more objects associated with, among the consumer electronics devices, one or more consumer electronics devices including the one or more filtered information pieces, based on the display information transmitted by the server.

29. The information providing method according to claim 27,

wherein step (b) includes:

(b-i) aggregating the received information pieces on the consumer electronics devices per category, at certain time intervals or when a certain number of the information pieces on the consumer electronics devices are received; and

(b-ii) calculating display format information indicating the specific display format, using a result of the aggregation, the specific display format including a display size and a display position of each of one or more objects associated with, among the consumer electronics devices, one or more consumer electronics devices including the one or more filtered information pieces,

wherein in step (c), the display information is transmitted to the display device, the display information including the display format information.

30. The information providing method according to claim 29,

wherein in the step (b-i), the received information pieces on the consumer electronics devices are aggregated according to categories determined based on information on a house of a user of the consumer electronics devices, the information including geographic information including an area, a family structure, a total number of family members, and a housing type.

31. The information providing method according to claim 29,

wherein in step (a), the information pieces on and transmitted by the consumer electronics devices are received when states of the consumer electronics devices change,

in step (b-i), an operating rate for each of types of the consumer electronics devices is further estimated based on a total number of times the information pieces on the consumer electronics devices are received in step (a), and

in step (b-ii), the display format information is calculated based on the operating rate.

32. The information providing method according to claim 29,

wherein in step (b-ii), the display format information indicating the specific display format is calculated, the specific display format being independent of a size of the display screen of the display device and including the display position and the display size which are a relative display position and a relative display size on the display screen.

33. The information providing method according to claim 28,

wherein in step (a), the received information pieces on the consumer electronics devices are stored in a database,

step (b) further includes

(b-iii) assigning a category ID indicating a category type to each of the information pieces on the consumer electronics devices received in step (a), and determining a category display priority level indicating a display priority level of the category type and a consumer-electronics display priority level indicating a display priority level of each of the consumer electronics devices, based on the information pieces on the consumer electronics devices received in step (a) and the stored information pieces on the consumer electronics devices,

in step (b), the processing for generating the display information is performed, the display information including the assigned category ID, the determined category display priority level, and the determined consumer-electronics display priority level, and

in step (d), based on the display information, one or more consumer electronics devices having an identical category ID among the consumer electronics devices are displayed in a group on the display screen, and an information piece on a consumer electronics device having a category ID given a higher category display priority level is displayed in a larger size on the display screen.

34. The information providing method according to claim 33,

wherein in step (b-iii), the category display priority level is determined according to a sum total of frequencies of use of the one or more consumer electronics devices having the identical category ID.

35. The information providing method according to claim 33,

wherein in step (b), when a user uses a consumer electronics device a frequency of use of which is equal to or below a frequency of use determined in advance, the category display priority level of a category ID of the consumer electronics device used by the user is temporarily set higher than a predetermined value.

36. The information providing method according to claim 33,

wherein in step (b-iii), a category ID indicating an identical category type is assigned to two or more of the consumer electronics devices which are used in a preset time period at a preset frequency of use or more frequently than the preset frequency of use.

37. The information providing method according to claim 33,

wherein in step (d), based on the consumer-electronics display priority level, one or more icons representing the one or more consumer electronics devices having the identical category ID are displayed in a group on the display screen, and among the one or more icons representing the one or more consumer electronics devices, an icon associated with a consumer electronics device given a higher consumer-electronics display priority level is further displayed in a larger size.

38. The information providing method according to claim 28,

wherein step (b) further includes:

(b-iv) predicting a consumer-electronics operating time for each of the consumer electronics devices, based on the information pieces on the consumer electronics devices received in step (a), the consumer-electronics operating time indicating a time period in which the consumer electronics device has operated; and

(b-v) weighting the consumer-electronics operating time with a user operation time to calculate a display index value for determining a display size and a display position of each of one or more consumer-electronics icons that are the one or more objects associated with the one or more consumer electronics devices including the one or more filtered information pieces, and

in step (d), based on the display index value transmitted by the server, the display size and the display position of each of the one or more consumer-electronics icons on the display screen are determined, and the one or more consumer-electronics icons are displayed on the display screen.

39. The information providing method according to claim 38,

wherein in step (d), an icon indicating that a user operation is performed is displayed near a consumer-electronics icon associated with a consumer electronics device on which the user operation is performed among the one or more consumer-electronics icons.

40. The information providing method according to claim 38,

wherein in step (d), the one or more consumer-electronics icons and a person icon selected, in accordance with a display priority level that is predetermined, from among person icons representing users who are display targets, are superimposed on a background image and displayed on the display screen, as the specific display format, and

the display priority level is determined using information pieces pertaining to the users, the information pieces being the information pieces on the consumer electronics devices received in step (a).

41. The information providing method according to claim 40,

wherein the display priority level is determined using, as the information pieces on the consumer electronics devices, an operating time of each of the consumer electronics devices.

42. The information providing method according to claim 41,

wherein the display priority level is determined using, as the information pieces on the consumer electronics devices, a cumulative operating time of each of the consumer electronics devices.

43. The information providing method according to claim 40,

wherein in step (d), the background image is further deformed and displayed to avoid overlapping of the person icons or the consumer-electronics icons.

44. The information providing method according to claim 43,

wherein in step (d),

when the consumer-electronics icons displayed are switched after the background image is deformed and displayed, a deformed shape of the background image is further restored to an original shape, and

if consumer-electronics icons superimposed and displayed on the background image in the original shape overlap, the background image is deformed again and displayed.

45. The information providing method according to claim 38,

wherein the background image is a map.

46. The information providing method according to claim 28, further comprising:

(e) measuring, by a first consumer electronics device, a change in weight of an object, the first consumer electronics device having a weight measuring function and being one of the consumer electronics devices; and

(f) transmitting weight information indicating the change in weight measured in step (e) and an identifier for uniquely identifying the first consumer electronics device, to the server via the network,

wherein in step (a), the transmitted identifier of the first consumer electronics device and the transmitted weight information are received,

step (b) further includes

(b-vi) estimating, from a change pattern of the received weight information, a state of the object for which the measurement is performed by the first consumer electronics device,

in step (b), the display information for the display device to display, in the specific display format, display content in accordance with the state of the object estimated in step (b-vi) is generated, and

in step (d), based on the display information, an avatar of a user in relation to the object is changed in accordance with the display content, among avatars displayed on the display screen.

47. The information providing method according to claim 46,

wherein in step (e), a weight of a cup is measured by the cup being placed on the first consumer electronics device, and

in step (b-vi), whether a user of the first consumer electronics device has placed the cup on the first consumer electronics device or lifted the cup from the first consumer electronics device is estimated, as the state of the object, from the change pattern of the received weight information.

48. The information providing method according to claim 46,

wherein in step (b-vi), from the change pattern of the received weight information, the weight of the object used by a user of the first consumer electronics device is estimated,

step (d) further includes

(d-i) comparing, based on the display information, the estimated weight of the object with images registered in advance according to the weight of the object, and

in step (d), an image showing the object in relation to the avatar displayed on the display screen is changed to an image according to the weight of the object estimated in step (d-i).

49. The information providing method according to claim 46,

wherein in step (e), a second consumer electronics device having an electric-current amount measuring function further measures an amount of electric current flowing through a third consumer electronics device,

in step (f), the amount of electric current flowing through the third consumer electronics device measured in step (e) is further transmitted to the server,

step (d) further includes

(d-ii) disposing based on the display information, near the avatar displayed on the display screen, information indicating the third consumer electronics device which is determined to be used by the second consumer electronics device measuring the amount of electric current, and which is used within a given time difference from when the first consumer electronics device is used, and

in step (d-ii), how far the information indicating the third consumer electronics device is disposed away from the first consumer electronics device is changed according to a difference between an operation time of the third consumer electronics device estimated from the amount of electric current and a time at which the first consumer electronics device is used and which is estimated from the change pattern of the weight information.

50. The information providing method according to claim 27, further comprising:

(g) collecting a sound by a fourth consumer electronics device having a speech recognition function among the consumer electronics devices, to perfatin speech recognition; and

(h) determining a state of an object, based on the sound recognized in step (g),

wherein in step (a), the state of the object is received as the information pieces on the consumer electronics devices, and

in step (b), the display information for the display device to display, in the specific display format, display content according to the received state of the object is generated.

51. The information providing method according to claim 50,

wherein in step (g), a sound generated by a sound generator included in a fifth consumer electronics device used by the object is collected, and

the state of the object which uses the fifth consumer electronics device is determined based on the sound recognized in step (g).

52. The information providing method according to claim 50,

wherein in step (h), the state of the object is further determined based on a word included in the sound recognized in step (g),

in step (a), the state of the object is further received, and

in step (b), the display information for the display device to display, in the specific display format, display content according to the received state of the object is further generated.