Content display device, television receiver, content display method, content display control program, and recording medium

• US 8,479,096 B2
• Filed: 02/14/2008
• Issued: 07/02/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 02/16/2007
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Terada, Satoshi, Yagi, Ryouta, Matsubara, Takanobu, Saiki, Kazuhiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Bashore, William
• Assistant Examiner(s): DUONG, HIEN LUONGVAN
• Application Number:
  US12/526,987
• Publication Number:
  US 20100122162A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,965 Days
• Field of Search: 715/702
• US Class Current: 715/702
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1626 with a single-body enclosure integrating a flat display, e.g. Personal Digital Assistants [PDAs]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/169 the I/O peripheral being an integrated pointing device, e.g. trackball in the palm rest area, mini-joystick integrated between keyboard keys, touch pads or touch stripes G06F1/1643 takes precedence; constructional details of pointing devices G06F3/033
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0362 with detection of 1D translations or rotations of an operating part of the device, e.g. scroll wheels, sliders, knobs, rollers or belts
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0483 Interaction with page-structured environments, e.g. book metaphor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8586 by using a URL processing chained hypermedia data for information retrieval G06F16/94; information retrieval from the Internet by using URLs G06F16/955; URL in broadcast information H04H20/93; Web-based protocols H04L67/02

Abstract

A content display device for displaying content items on a screen includes: an operation instruction receiving section (70d) for receiving, from a user, a switching instruction to switch the content items; a content list analyzing and choosing section (40) for, based on an order prescribed in a content list, choosing a content item that is displayed on the screen, in accordance with the switching instruction received by the operation instruction receiving section (70d); and a content acquisition and display section for causing the content item chosen by the content choosing section (40) to be displayed on the screen. This provides a content display device whose operationality has been improved by comprehensively optimizing a user'"'"'s content browsing operation from the viewpoint of regarding, as a series of operations, access to the URL of a desired content item and an operation for controlling the display range of a displayed content item.

Claims

1. A content display device for displaying content items on a screen and configured to operate in a scrolling mode and a content switching mode, the display device comprising:

a monitor to display content;

a content switching instruction receiving section for receiving, by a user'"'"'s operation, a switching instruction to switch a content item currently displayed on a content display area of the screen to a previous content item or to a next content item;

a content choosing section for, based on an order prescribed in a content list containing identifiers of respective content items to be displayed on a content list area of the screen and descriptors of locations holding the respective content items to be displayed on the content display area of the screen, choosing the previous content item which precedes the content item currently displayed on the content display area of the screen or the next content item which follows the content item currently displayed on the content display area of the screen, in accordance with the switching instruction received by the content switching instruction receiving section;

a content display section for causing the content item, which is specified by a corresponding one of the descriptors of locations holding the content items and chosen by the content choosing section, to be displayed on the content display area of the screen; and

a content list display section for displaying, on the content list area of the screen, identifiers contained in the content list, the identifiers being (i) an identifier of the content item currently displayed and (ii) identifiers, of content items that may be displayed after the content item currently displayed, which are provided above and below the identifier of the content item currently displayed, wherein

the content list area overlaps a subset of the content display area when the display device is in the content switching mode, and

the content list area is not displayed on the screen and the content chosen by the content choosing section scrolls within the content display area in response to the user'"'"'s operation when the display device is in the scrolling mode.

2. The content display device as set forth in claim 1, wherein the prescribed order is an order in which the entries are written.

3. The content display device as set forth in claim 1, further comprising a content list acquiring section for acquiring the content list from an external storage device in which the content list has been stored.

4. The content display device as set forth in claim 1, further comprising:

a communication section for communicating with an external device; and

a content list acquiring section for acquiring the content list from the external device via the communication section.

5. The content display device as set forth in claim 1, further comprising:

a communication section for communicating with an external device, wherein

the content display section acquires, from an external device via the communication section, the content item chosen by the content choosing section.

6. The content display device as set forth in claim 5, wherein in accordance with an order in which the content items are written in the content list and information on which of the content items in the content list is currently being displayed, the content display device acquires, in advance before the content switching instruction receiving section receives a next switching instruction from the user, a content item that is chosen by the content choosing section when the content switching instruction receiving section receives the next switching instruction.

7. The content display device as set forth in claim 1, wherein in displaying at least a part of the identifiers of the content items in the content list on the screen, the content list display section displays an identifier of a content item that has been acquired, together with an icon indicating completion of the acquisition.

8. The content display device as set forth in claim 1, wherein after a certain period of time has elapsed since the content list display section displayed the content list or in accordance with input from the user, the content list display section changes from displaying the content list to displaying a title of the currently displayed content item.

9. The content display device as set forth in claim 1, further comprising slide-show mode setting section for receiving from the user an instruction to switch to a slide-show mode in which to change, at predetermined time intervals, from displaying one content item written in the content list to displaying another, wherein

while the slide-show mode is being used, the content display section changes, at the predetermined time intervals, from displaying one content item written in the content list to displaying another, without an instruction from the content switching instruction receiving section.

10. The content display device as set forth in claim 1, further comprising:

a display range changing instruction receiving section for receiving, from the user, a display range changing instruction to change a display range of a content item;

a display range control section for controlling, in accordance with a display range changing instruction received by the display range changing instruction receiving section, a display range of a currently displayed content item; and

a control switching instruction receiving section for receiving a control switching instruction as to whether to switch an operation mode of the content display device to the scrolling mode in which to control the display range of the currently displayed content item or the content switching mode in which to control choice of the entries in the content list, wherein;

the content switching instruction receiving section and the content display range changing instruction receiving section interact with each other;

in the scrolling mode, the control switching instruction receiving section sends, to the display range control section, input from the content display range changing instruction receiving section; and

in the content switching mode, the control switching instruction receiving section sends, to the content choosing section, input from the content switching instruction receiving section.

11. The content display device as set forth in claim 10, wherein the display range control section changes, in accordance with contents of the currently displayed content item, a way in which the display range is controlled.

12. The content display device as set forth in claim 10, wherein the control switching instruction receiving section is input from a touch sensor provided on the screen.

13. The content display device as set forth in claim 10, further comprising light-emitting section that varies in color of emitted light according to at least either a source or an attribute of the currently displayed content item.

14. The content display device as set forth in claim 1, wherein:

the content choosing section and the content display section are controlled by separate application programs; and

while the switching instruction to switch the content items is controlled by the application program corresponding to the content choosing section, scrolling of the content items is controlled by the application program corresponding to the content display section.

15. A content display device for displaying content items on a screen, comprising:

a monitor to display content;

a content switching instruction receiving section for receiving, by a user'"'"'s operation, a switching instruction to switch a content item currently displayed on the screen to a previous content item or to a next content item;

a content choosing section for, based on an order prescribed in a content list containing identifiers of respective content items to be displayed on the screen and descriptors of locations holding the respective content items to be displayed on the screen, choosing the previous content item which precedes the content item currently displayed on the screen or the next content item which follows the content item currently displayed on the screen, in accordance with the switching instruction received by the content switching instruction receiving section;

a content display section for causing the content item, which is specified by a corresponding one of the descriptors of locations holding the content items and chosen by the content choosing section, to be displayed on the screen;

a content list display section for displaying, on the screen, identifiers contained in the content list, the identifiers being (i) an identifier of the content item currently displayed and (ii) identifiers, of content items that may be displayed after the content item currently displayed, which are provided above and below the identifier of the content item currently displayed;

a display range changing instruction receiving section for receiving, from the user, a display range changing instruction to change a display range of a content item;

a display range control section for controlling, in accordance with a display range changing instruction received by the display range changing instruction receiving section, a display range of a currently displayed content item; and

a control switching instruction receiving section for receiving a control switching instruction as to whether to switch an operation mode of the content display device to a scrolling mode in which to control the display range of the currently displayed content item or a content switching mode in which to control choice of the entries in the content list,

wherein when in the scrolling mode the display range reaches an edge of the currently displayed content item and then a display range changing instruction to move the display range farther than the edge is inputted, the control switching instruction receiving section switches from the scrolling mode to the content switching mode in response to the display range changing instruction as a trigger.

16. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium coupled to one or more processors connected to a display device including a screen configured to operate in a scrolling mode and a content switching mode, having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by said one or more processors, causes said one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

a content switching instruction receiving step in which a content switching instruction receiving section receives, from a user, a switching instruction to switch a content item currently displayed on a content display area of the screen to a previous content item or to a next content item;

a content choosing step in which a content choosing section chooses, based on an order prescribed in a content list containing identifiers of respective content items to be displayed on a content list area of the screen and descriptors of locations holding the respective content items to be displayed on the content display area of the screen, the previous content item which precedes the content item currently displayed on the content display area of the screen or the next content item which follows the content item currently displayed on the content display area of the screen, in accordance with the switching instruction received by the content switching instruction receiving section;

a content display step in which a content display section causes the content item, which is specified by a corresponding one of the descriptors of locations holding the content items and chosen by the content choosing section, to be displayed on the content display area of the screen;

a content list display step in which a content list module displays, on the content list area of the screen, identifiers contained in the content list, the identifiers being (i) an identifier of the content item currently displayed and (ii) identifiers, of content items that may be displayed after the content item currently displayed, which are provided above and below the identifier of the content item currently displayed;

overlapping the content list area over a subset of the content display area when the display device is in the content switching mode; and

removing the content list area from the screen and scrolling the content chosen in the content choosing step within the content display area in response to a user'"'"'s operation when the display device is in the scrolling mode.

17. A content display method for displaying content items on a display device including a screen, configured to operate in a scrolling mode and a content switching mode, the method comprising:

a content switching instruction receiving step in which a content switching instruction receiving section receives, from a user, a switching instruction to switch a content item currently displayed on a content display area of the screen to a previous content item or to a next content item;

a content choosing step in which a content choosing section chooses, based on an order prescribed in a content list containing identifiers of respective content items to be displayed on a content list area of the screen and descriptors of locations holding the respective content items to be displayed on the content display area of the screen, the previous content item which precedes the content item currently displayed on the content display area of the screen or the next content item which follows the content item currently displayed on the content display area of the screen, in accordance with the switching instruction received by the content switching instruction receiving section;

a content display step in which a content display section causes the content item, which is specified by a corresponding one of the descriptors of locations holding the content items and chosen by the content choosing section, to be displayed on the content display area of the screen;

a content list display step in which a content list module displays, on the content list area of the screen, identifiers contained in the content list, the identifiers being (i) an identifier of the content item currently displayed and (ii) identifiers, of content items that may be displayed after the content item currently displayed, which are provided above and below the identifier of the content item currently displayed;

overlapping the content list area over a subset of the content display area when the display device is in the content switching mode; and

removing the content list area from the screen and scrolling the content chosen in the content choosing step within the content display area in response to a user'"'"'s operation when the display device is in the scrolling mode.