Information display apparatus and information display method

• US 8,904,434 B2
• Filed: 02/28/2013
• Issued: 12/02/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/13/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Toshiba Client Solutions CO., Ltd. (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Takao, Yuji
• Primary Examiner(s): Bui, Kieu Oanh T
• Application Number:
  US13/780,455
• Publication Number:
  US 20130242193A1
• Time in Patent Office: 642 Days
• Field of Search: 725/39, 725/40, 725/43
• US Class Current: 725/39
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/482 End-user interface for program selection broadcast systems using EPGs H04H60/72

Abstract

According to one embodiment, an information display apparatus, comprising: a first display controller configured to display a broadcasting station information to identify a plurality of broadcasting stations on a screen; a acquiring module configured to acquire one or more short comments with respect to the broadcasting station information from a server connected through a network; and a second display controller configured to display the one or more short comments on the screen on each of the plurality of broadcasting stations.

Claims

1. An information display apparatus that displays images of broadcast programs on a screen, the information display apparatus comprising:

a broadcasting station information acquiring module that acquires broadcasting station information that is received with the broadcast programs in a transport stream, the broadcasting station information including channel numbers or broadcasting station names for a plurality of broadcasting stations;

a mini blog acquiring module configured to acquire short comments related to one or more channel numbers or broadcasting station names from a plurality of short comments posted to a server of a mini blog website; and

a display controller configured to display the one or more channel numbers or broadcasting station names on a first area of the screen and display the acquired short comments on a second area of the screen, wherein the acquired short comments are arranged in the second area according to an arrangement of the one or more channel numbers or broadcasting station names in the first area.

2. The information display apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the channel numbers or the names are arranged on the first area of the screen in descending order of a number of the acquired short comments.

3. The information display apparatus according to claim 1, wherein if a broadcasting station is selected by an operating device in a state of displaying the channel numbers or the names of the plurality of broadcasting stations on the screen, a broadcast program corresponding to the selected broadcasting station is displayed on the screen.

4. The information display apparatus according to claim 3, wherein when the broadcast program is displayed on the screen, the broadcast program is displayed in a full screen manner.

5. The information display apparatus according to claim 3, wherein when the broadcast program is displayed on the screen, the broadcast program is displayed on a part of the screen.

6. The information display apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the first area of the screen includes at least one of a channel number or the broadcasting station name for each of the plurality of broadcasting stations.

7. An information display apparatus that displays images of broadcast programs on a screen, the information display apparatus comprising:

a broadcasting station information display module that displays broadcasting station information on the screen, the broadcasting station information being received with the broadcast programs in a transport stream, the broadcasting station information including channel numbers or broadcasting station names for a plurality of broadcasting stations;

a mini blog acquiring module configured to acquire short comments related to the broadcasting station information on the screen from a plurality of short comments posted to a server of a mini blog website by using the channel numbers or the broadcasting station names displayed by the broadcasting station information display module; and

a display controller configured to display the acquired short comments on the screen with the related broadcasting station information.

8. The information display apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the display controller displays the acquired short comments on a part of the screen for each of the plurality of broadcasting stations in the program guide.

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

the display controller configured to display the acquired short comments on a part of the screen for each of the plurality of broadcasting stations in the program guide.

10. The information display apparatus according to claim 9, further comprising:

a judgment module configured to compare the acquired short comments with the program information for each broadcasting station and judge that the acquired short comments are corresponding to the broadcast program, when the acquired short comments includes the same word as a word included in the program information.

11. The information display apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the program guide includes the channel numbers or names of the plurality of broadcasting stations.

12. An information display method executed by an information display apparatus that displays images of broadcast programs on a screen, the information display method comprising:

receiving broadcast programs in a transport stream;

acquiring broadcasting station information from the transport stream, the broadcasting station information including channel numbers or broadcasting station names for a plurality of broadcasting stations;

acquiring short comments related to one or more channel numbers or broadcasting station names from a plurality of short comments posted to a server of a mini blog website;

displaying the one or more channel numbers or broadcasting station names on a first area of a screen; and

displaying the acquired short comments on a second area of the screen, wherein the acquired short comments are arranged in the second area according to an arrangement of the one or more channel numbers or broadcasting station names in the first area.

13. The information display method according to claim 12, further comprising arranging the channel numbers or the names on the first area of the screen in descending order of a number of the acquired short comments.

14. The information display method according to claim 12, further comprising:

receiving a selection of a broadcasting station from the channel numbers or the names of the plurality of broadcasting stations displayed on the screen, the selection being made by an operating device;

displaying a broadcast program corresponding to the selected broadcasting station on the screen.

15. The information display method according to claim 14, wherein the broadcast program is displayed in a full screen manner.

16. The information display method according to claim 14, wherein the broadcast program is displayed on a part of the screen.

17. An information display method that displays images of broadcast programs on a screen of an information display apparatus, the information display method comprising:

receiving broadcast programs in a transport stream;

acquiring broadcasting station information from the transport stream, the broadcasting station information including channel numbers or broadcasting station names for a plurality of broadcasting stations;

generating a program guide from the broadcasting station information;

acquiring short comments related to the broadcasting station information in the generated program guide; and

displaying the acquired short comments with the program guide on the screen.

18. The information display method according to claim 17, wherein the acquired short comments are displayed on a part of the screen for each of the plurality of broadcasting stations in the program guide.

19. The information display method according to claim 17, further comprising:

comparing the acquired short comments with the program information for each broadcasting station and judging that the acquired short comments are corresponding to the broadcast program when the acquired short comments includes the same word as a word included in the program information.

20. The information display method according to claim 17, wherein the program guide includes the channel numbers or broadcasting station names of the plurality of broadcasting stations.

21. A non-transitory computer readable medium containing instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform an information display method that displays images of broadcast programs on a screen of an information display apparatus, the information display method comprising:

acquiring broadcasting station information that is received with the broadcast programs in a transport stream, the broadcasting station information including channel numbers or broadcasting station names for a plurality of broadcasting stations;

acquiring short comments related to one or more channel numbers or broadcasting station names from a plurality of short comments posted to a server of a mini blog website;

displaying the one or more channel numbers or broadcasting station names on a first area of a screen; and

displaying the acquired short comments on a second area of the screen, wherein the acquired short comments are arranged in the second area according to an arrangement of the one or more channel numbers or names in the first area.

22. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 21, wherein the information display method further comprises arranging the channel numbers or the names on the first area of the screen in descending order of a number of the acquired short comments.

23. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 21, wherein the information display method further comprises:

receiving a selection of a broadcasting station from the channel numbers or the names of the plurality of broadcasting stations displayed on the screen, the selection being made by an operating device;

displaying a broadcast program corresponding to the selected broadcasting station on the screen.

24. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 23, wherein the information display method further comprises displaying the broadcast program on a part of the screen.

25. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 23, wherein the information display method further comprises displaying the broadcast program in a full screen manner.

26. A non-transitory computer readable medium containing instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform an information display method that displays images of broadcast programs on a screen of an information display apparatus, the information display method comprising:

receiving broadcast programs in a transport stream;

acquiring broadcasting station information from the transport stream, the broadcasting station information including channel numbers or broadcasting station names for a plurality of broadcasting stations;

generating a program guide from the broadcasting station information;

acquiring short comments related to the broadcasting station information in the generated program guide; and

displaying the acquired short comments with the program guide on the screen.

27. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 26, wherein the information display method further comprises displaying the acquired short comments on a part of the screen for each of the plurality of broadcasting stations in the program guide.

28. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 27, wherein the information display method further comprises:

comparing the acquired short comments with the program information for each broadcasting station and judging that the acquired short comments are corresponding to the broadcast program when the acquired short comments includes the same word as a word included in the program information.

29. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 26, wherein the information display method further comprises obtaining information regarding the channel numbers or names of the plurality of broadcasting stations from the program guide.