Apparatus and method for displaying information as background of user interface

• US 9,280,266 B2
• Filed: 10/05/2011
• Issued: 03/08/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 11/12/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: KT Corporation
• Original Assignee: KT Corporation
• Inventors: Chae, Haeng-Suk, Choi, Kyoung-Tae
• Primary Examiner(s): Thompson, James A
• Application Number:
  US13/253,465
• Publication Number:
  US 20120120110A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,616 Days
• Field of Search: 345/660
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/00 2D [Two Dimensional] image generation

Abstract

Apparatus and method for displaying information as a background of a user interface. In order to display the information as the background of a user interface, information such as user interest information may be received from a user. Based on the received information, contents may be retrieved. Then, the background of the user interface may be formed with at least one image. Each image of the at least one image may represent a respective one of the retrieved contents. The user interface having the background formed with the at least one image may be displayed.

Claims

1. A method for displaying information as a background of a user interface in a user equipment, the method comprising:

activating a background setting user interface according to a user request;

receiving information for a background creation from a user, through the background setting user interface;

automatically accessing a web server and transmitting a request for contents related to the received information to the web server, when the information is received from the user;

automatically receiving the contents related to the received information in response to the request for the contents, from the web server;

forming the background of the user interface with at least one image, wherein (i) each image of the at least one image represents a respective one of the received contents and allows an access to a corresponding content, and (ii) the background is formed by arranging the at least one image, according to a predetermined arrangement criteria associated with an image display on at least one divided screen region, wherein the arranging the at least one image according to the predetermined arrangement criteria includes controlling at least one of a size and a position of each of the at least one image according to a ranking associated with each image; and

displaying the user interface having the background formed with the at least one image.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the forming the background comprises:

extracting the at least one image from the received contents;

extracting supplementary data associated with the extracted at least one image from the received contents;

mapping the extracted at least one image with corresponding supplementary data;

storing a result of the mapping; and

arranging the extracted at least one image to form at least a portion of the background.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the forming the background further comprises:

selecting at least one image of the extracted at least one image according to a resolution of a display unit upon which the user interface is provided and the ranking associated with each image,

wherein the selected at least one image is arranged to form at least a portion of the background.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the size of a first image of the at least one image is controlled to be larger than other images of the at least one image when the first image has a ranking higher than the other images.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the position of a first image of the at least one image having a ranking higher than other images of the at least one image is positioned at a center of the background of the user interface.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein after the displaying the user interface, the method further comprises:

receiving a selection input for selecting a desired image from the background formed with the at least one image;

extracting an access address of a web page corresponding to the selected desired image based on the stored result of the mapping;

retrieving data for the corresponding web page using the extracted access address; and

displaying the corresponding web page based on the retrieved data.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the information received from the user comprises at least one of a search word and an information type that the user is interested about.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein:

the contents comprise at least one image related to the information received from the user and supplementary data associated with each image of the at least one image, and the supplementary data comprises an access address and a ranking of a web page related to each image of the at least one image; and

each image of the at least one image represents a respective type of the information received from the user.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein:

the ranking of each web page is determined based on at least one of a user stipulation, an associated web server, a search frequency of related information type, and an Internet hit count of the corresponding web page.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein after the displaying the user interface having the background, the method further comprises:

receiving updated contents; and

updating the displayed user interface having the background with the received updated contents at an update interval of time.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the number of images to be used for forming the background of the user interface is determined based on at least one of a user selection and a resolution of the user equipment.

12. A method for displaying information in a wallpaper of a user interface at a user equipment, the method comprising:

activating a wallpaper setting user interface according to a user request;

receiving a user input for selecting an information type for a wallpaper creation through the wallpaper setting user interface;

automatically establishing a communication connection between the user equipment and a web server when the user input for selecting the information type is received;

automatically transmitting a request for contents to the web server based on the selected information type, through the communication connection;

automatically receiving contents related to the selected information type in response to the request for the contents, from the web server;

selecting at least one image included in the received contents;

extracting the selected at least one image;

extracting an access address of a respective web page associated with each one of the selected at least one image;

mapping the extracted at least one image with associated extracted access addresses associated with respective ones of the selected at least one image;

arranging the extracted at least one image according to a predetermined arrangement criteria associated with an image display on at least one divided screen region;

displaying the arranged at least one image as at least a portion of the wallpaper;

selecting a desired image from the displayed at least one image of the wallpaper; and

accessing a web page associated with the desired image using a corresponding access address mapped to the desired image,

wherein the arranging includes controlling at least one of a size and a position of each of the extracted at least one image according to a ranking associated with each image, and

wherein the ranking represents a ranking of a web page related to each image.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

updating the displayed at least one image at an update interval of time by receiving update contents based on the access addresses mapped to the at least one image.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the selecting at least one images includes:

determining the number of images to be used for forming the wallpaper of the user interface, based on at least one of a user selection and a resolution of the user equipment.

15. An apparatus for displaying information as a background of a user interface, the apparatus comprising:

at least one hardware processor which executes;

an input unit configured to receive information for a background creation through an input device from a user;

a communication unit configured (i) to automatically access a web server through a communication network when the information is received from the user, (ii) to automatically transmit a request for contents related to the received information to the web server through the communication network, and (iii) to automatically receive the related contents in response to the request for the contents from the web server through the communication network;

a background formation unit configured to form the background of the user interface with at least one image, wherein (i) each image of the at least one image represents a respective one of the received contents and allows an access to a corresponding content, and (ii) the background is formed by arranging the at least one image according to a predetermined arrangement criteria associated with an image display on at least one divided screen region; and

a display unit configured (i) to display, on a display screen, a background setting user interface which enables the user to input the information and (ii) to display, on the display screen, the user interface having the background formed with the at least one image,

wherein the background formation unit is configured to arrange the at least one image by controlling at least one of a size and a position of each of the at least one image according to a ranking associated with each image, wherein the ranking represents a ranking of a web page related to each image.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the background formation unit is configured to:

extract the at least one image from the received contents;

extract supplementary data associated with the extracted at least one image from the received contents;

map the extracted at least one image with corresponding supplementary data;

store a result of the mapping; and

arrange the extracted at least one image to form at least a portion of the background.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the background formation unit is configured to select at least one image of the extracted at least one image according to a resolution of a display unit upon which the user interface is provided and the ranking associated with each image.

18. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the ranking of each web page is determined based on at least one of a user stipulation, an associated web server, a search frequency of related information type, and an Internet hit count of the corresponding web page.

19. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein:

the contents comprise at least one image related to the information received from the user and supplementary data associated with each image of the at least one image, and the supplementary data comprises an access address and the ranking of each image of the at least one image; and

each image of the at least one image represents a respective type of the information received from the user.

20. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the background formation unit is configured to determine the number of images to be used for forming the background of the user interface, based on at least one of a user selection and a resolution of the display unit.