Information processing system, information processing apparatus, and information processing method

• US 10,360,544 B2
• Filed: 01/08/2009
• Issued: 07/23/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 01/09/2008
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Matsuo, Takashi
• Primary Examiner(s): Kim, Steven S
• Application Number:
  US12/350,516
• Publication Number:
  US 20090177556A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,848 Days
• Field of Search: 705 64, 705 76, 705 261, 705 262, 705 2663, 705 268, 705 2681, 705 2682, 705 271, 705 272
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/123 Shopping for digital content
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0643 Graphical representation of items or shoppers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2547 Third Party Billing, e.g. billing of advertiser
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47211 for requesting pay-per-view content payment schemes payment architectures or payment protocols G06Q20/00, G07F

Abstract

A system effectively performs content information acquisition processing and content purchase processing in which it is necessary to access different servers. If a user views information provided by an information providing server, for example, television program table information, and acquires content related to information selected from among pieces of information included in the television program table information, the user can transmit a content acquisition request including content specification information to a content providing server simply by dragging and dropping the selected information displayed on a display screen onto a toolbar included in a display unit or onto another server information display area. As a result, the user can effectively perform the selection and acquisition of content without switching between connections to various servers.

Claims

1. An information processing apparatus, comprising:

a display device; and

one or more processors, wherein the information processing apparatus is connected to a plurality of servers via a communication network, wherein the plurality of servers includes an information-providing server, a content-management server, and a content-purchase server, and wherein the one or more processors are programmed to;

acquire a user identification (ID) from an Integrated Circuit (IC) card;

transmit the user ID acquired from the IC card to the content-management server;

receive from the information-providing server a first plurality of pieces of information comprising listing of contents;

receive from the content-management server a second plurality of pieces of information on user content information, wherein the second plurality of pieces of information are retrieved by the content-management server based on the user ID and comprises listing of contents of a user;

display the first plurality of pieces of information provided by the information-providing server in a first data display area on the display device, in parallel with the second plurality of pieces of information provided by the content-management server in a second data display area on the display device;

receive a first piece of information of the first plurality of pieces of information via a graphical user interface from the user by controlling a drag and drop operation of the first piece of information of the first plurality of pieces of information from the first data display area onto an icon in the second data display area, wherein the icon is associated with server specification information that specifies one of the content-management server or the content-purchase server;

determine whether the server specification information specifies the content-management server or the content-purchase server in response to the drag and drop operation;

transmit a content purchase request of the first piece of information to the one of the content-management server or the content-purchase server based on a uniform resource locator (URL) and based on the determination of the server specification information by executing a script associated with the icon, wherein the URL is specified by the script; and

receive from the content-purchase server a content associated with the first piece of information in response to the content purchase request.

2. The information processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further programmed to:

acquire one of a password or an electronic certification from the IC card;

transmit the one of the password or the electronic certification acquired from the IC card to the content-management server; and

display the second plurality of pieces of information, provided by the content-management server on the display device, based on the one of the password or the electronic certification.

3. The information processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the the content purchase request is transmitted to the one of the content-management server or the content-purchase server further based on the user ID.

4. The information processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further programmed to:

acquire one of a password or an electronic certification from the IC card;

transmit the one of the password or the electronic certification to the content-management server; and

display the second plurality of pieces of information, provided by the content-management server in the second data display area, based on the one of the password or the electronic certification,

wherein the content purchase request is transmitted to the one of the content-management server or the content-purchase server further based on the one of the password or the electronic certification.

5. An information processing method, comprising:

in an information processing apparatus comprising one or more processors, wherein the information processing apparatus is connected to one or more a plurality of servers via a communication network, wherein the plurality of servers includes an information-providing server, a content-management server, and a content-purchase server;

acquiring, by the information processing apparatus, a user identification (ID) from an Integrated Circuit (IC) card via a proximity communication unit;

transmitting, by the information processing apparatus, the user ID acquired from the IC card to the content-management server;

receiving, by the information processing apparatus, from the information-providing server a first plurality of pieces of information comprising listing of contents;

receiving, by the information processing apparatus, from the content-management server a second plurality of pieces of information on user content information, wherein the second plurality of pieces of information are retrieved by the content-management server based on the user ID and comprises listing of contents of a user;

displaying, by the information processing apparatus, the first plurality of pieces of information provided by the information-providing server in a first data display area on a display device, in parallel with the second plurality of pieces of information provided by the content-management server in a second data display area on the display device;

receiving, by the information processing apparatus, a first piece of information of the first plurality of pieces of information via a graphical user interface from the user by controlling a drag and drop operation of the first piece of information of the first plurality of pieces of information from the first data display area onto an icon in the second data display area, wherein the icon is associated with server specification information that specifies one of the content-management server or the content-purchase server;

determining, by the information processing apparatus, whether the server specification information specifies the content-management server or the content-purchase server in response to the drag and drop operation;

transmitting, by the information processing apparatus, a content purchase request of the first piece of information to the one of the content-management server or the content-purchase server based on a uniform resource locator (URL) and based on the determination of the server specification information by executing a script associated with the icon, wherein the URL is specified by the script; and

receiving, by the information processing apparatus, from the content-purchase server a content associated with the first piece of information in response to the content purchase request.

6. The information processing method of claim 5, further comprising:

acquiring, by the information processing apparatus, one of a password or an electronic certification from the IC card via the proximity communication unit;

transmitting, by the information processing apparatus, the one of the password or the electronic certification acquired from the IC card to the content-management server; and

displaying, by the information processing apparatus, the second plurality of pieces of information provided by the content-management server on the display device, based on the one of the password or the electronic certification.

7. The information processing method of claim 5,

wherein the content purchase request is transmitted to the one of the content-management server or the content-purchase server further based on the user ID.

8. The information processing method of claim 5, further comprising:

acquiring, by the information processing apparatus, one of a password or an electronic certification from the IC card via the proximity communication unit;

transmitting, by the information processing apparatus, the one of the password or the electronic certification to the content-management server; and

displaying, by the information processing apparatus, the second plurality of pieces of information provided by the content-management server in the second data display area, based on the one of the password or the electronic certification,

wherein the content purchase request is transmitted to the one of the content-management server or the content-purchase server based on the one of the password or the electronic certification.

9. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon, computer-executable instructions which, when executed by a processor causes an information processing apparatus including the processor to execute operations, the operations comprising:

acquiring a user identification (ID) from an Integrated Circuit (IC) card via a proximity communication unit;

transmitting the user ID acquired from the IC card to a content-management server;

receiving from an information-providing server a first plurality of pieces of information comprising listing of contents;

receiving from the content-management server a second plurality of pieces of information on user content information, wherein the second plurality of pieces of information are retrieved by the content-management server based on the user ID and comprises listing of contents of a user;

displaying the first plurality of pieces of information provided by the information-providing server in a first data display area on a display device, in parallel with the second plurality of pieces of information provided by the content-management server in a second data display area on the display device;

receiving a first piece of information of the first plurality of pieces of information via a graphical user interface from the user by controlling a drag and drop operation of the first piece of information of the first plurality of pieces of information from the first data display area onto an icon in the second data display area, wherein the icon is associated with server specification information that specifies one of the content-management server or a content-purchase server;

determining whether the server specification information specifies the content-management server or the content-purchase server in response to the drag and drop operation;

transmitting a content purchase request of the first piece of information to the one of the content-management server or the content-purchase server based on a uniform resource locator (URL) and based on the determination of the server specification information by executing a script associated with the icon, wherein the URL is specified by the script; and

receiving from the content-purchase server a content associated with the first piece of information in response to the content purchase request.