JP2001320522A - Facsimile equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide facsimile equipment which always displays the most recent advertisement and from which detailed data of an advertisement can be acquired if necessary. SOLUTION: The facsimile equipment 20 is connected to an external advertisement information source 15 through a telephone line 14 or the Internet 16, and advertisement data is sent from the advertisement information source 15 to the equipment 20. Advertisement data is not only displayed on an LCD 7 but also stored in a RAM 3. When a request for detailed data of an advertisement is indicated by operation on an operation panel 5, detailed data of the advertisement is read out from the RAM 3 and is outputted by a printer 11, or detailed data of the advertisement is acquired from the advertisement information source 15 by a communication part and is outputted by the printer 11.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a facsimile apparatus having a function of receiving advertisement data from an advertisement information source and displaying the data on a display unit.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A facsimile apparatus has various functions, and in order to perform various operations related to those functions, the display section thereof has recently been increasing in size. Therefore, it has been proposed to advertise using the large-sized display unit (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 4-265061: "Multipurpose public facsimile terminal device").

[0003] The facsimile terminal described in this publication is
It relates to a kiosk terminal and has a monitor as a display unit, and has various functions such as “send fax”, “receive fax”, “create copy”, “call phone”, and “90
The main menu includes “0 audio service” and “additional service”, and a desired menu is selected on a main menu screen displayed on the monitor.

[0004] This terminal device can execute advertisements during periods of non-use, display video advertisements at the end of a standby period during use and at the end of a session, or display image advertisements at the top of a monitor when waiting for reception of a fax. Or display.

[0005]

However, in the terminal device described in the above publication, it is necessary to always update an advertisement to a new one, and when more detailed data is required for a certain advertisement, However, there is a problem that the user must access the advertiser by using a personal computer or the like.

That is, in the terminal device described in the above publication, only the advertisement stored in the device is displayed, and in order to change to a new advertisement, it is necessary to periodically exchange the contents of the storage unit. Also, the user cannot access the advertiser from the device.

The present invention has been made in view of such a conventional problem, and can not only always display new advertisement data on a display unit, but also can display a device when detailed data of an advertisement is required. It is an object of the present invention to provide a facsimile apparatus which can be obtained from a facsimile machine.

[0008]

In order to achieve the above object, a facsimile apparatus according to the present invention comprises a communication unit for transmitting and receiving data to and from an external information source, and a storage unit for storing data received by the communication unit. A display unit for displaying data received by the communication unit or data stored in the storage unit; and advertisement data received from an advertisement information source via the communication unit, stored in the storage unit, and stored in the storage unit. And a control unit for displaying on the display unit.

In this facsimile apparatus, since the communication unit receives the advertisement data from the advertisement information source and the storage unit stores the advertisement data, not only can the display unit always display the latest advertisement data, but also the storage unit can store the advertisement data. It is also possible to read out and display detailed data from the section, and the user can immediately acquire the latest advertisement data and its detailed data.

An operation unit for giving an instruction to the apparatus and an output unit for outputting data are provided, and when there is an instruction to request detailed data of an advertisement by operating the operation unit, the detailed data of the advertisement is transmitted. If read from the storage unit and output on the output unit, or if the communication unit obtains detailed data of the advertisement from the advertisement information source and outputs it on the output unit,
The user can obtain detailed data of the advertisement immediately with a simple operation, which is more convenient.

In the facsimile apparatus of the present invention, the communication unit is, specifically, a modem, TCP, IP, wireless, etc., and sends data such as advertisements to other devices, and transmits data such as advertisements to a host computer. I go to get it. The storage unit is a memory, a hard disk, a floppy or the like, and stores data such as advertisements. The display unit displays data such as advertisements. The output unit can output necessary data, and is exemplified by a printer.

[0012]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described below based on embodiments.

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of an overall configuration of a facsimile apparatus according to the embodiment and a connection form with an external advertisement information source. The facsimile device 20 includes an MPU (control unit) 1, a ROM 2, a RAM 3, an image memory (DRAM)
4. Operation panel (operation unit) 5, liquid crystal driver 6 for controlling operation of LCD 7, LCD (display unit) 7 for displaying various data including advertisement data, NCU 8, modem 9, scanner 10, printer (output unit) 11, CODEC12,
A LAN I / F 13 is provided. Here, ROM2, R
AM3 and the image memory 4 constitute a storage unit.
A communication unit includes the modem 9, the CODEC 12, and the LAN I / F 13.

The MPU 1 controls each unit constituting the apparatus 20, receives advertisement data from the advertisement information source 15 through the communication unit, stores the advertisement data in the storage unit, and displays the advertisement data stored in the storage unit on the LCD 7. It has a function to make The ROM 2 stores a program for controlling the device 20. The RAM 3 temporarily stores advertisement data and the like. The image memory 4 stores the received image data and the scanner 1
The image data read at 0 is temporarily stored. The operation panel 5 is used by the user to instruct facsimile transmission / reception, printing, acquisition of advertisement data, and the like.

The NCU 8 has functions for controlling connection with the telephone line (PSTN) 14 and detecting transmission and reception of a dial signal corresponding to a telephone number (including a FAX number) of a destination. . The modem 9 is an ITU-
Recommendation T. 30 based on a facsimile transmission control procedure according to V.30. 17, V. 27ter, V.A. Modulation and demodulation of transmission / reception data according to 29 or the like are performed. Scanner 10
Reads the image data of the original when performing FAX transmission.
The printer 11 records received image data and image data of a document read by the scanner 10 in a copy operation on a recording sheet. The CODEC 12 encodes (reads) the read image data by MH, MR, MMR, or the like in order to transmit the image data, and decodes (decodes) the received image data.

In this device 20, the NCU 8 is connected to a telephone line (P
It is connected to an advertisement information source (FAX or personal computer) 15 via the STN) 14 and exchanges data with the advertisement information source 15. The device 20 has a built-in LAN I
/ F 13 and the LAN 18 are also connected to the advertisement information source 15. Of course, a personal computer 19 of a client is connected to the LAN 18, and the device 20 is connected to the advertisement information source 15 via the Internet 16 and the gateway 17. Therefore, the device 20 fetches necessary advertisement data from the advertisement information source 15 or the advertisement data is sent from the client personal computer 19 to the device 20.

Next, the operation of the facsimile machine 20 configured as described above will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. First, in step (hereinafter abbreviated as ST) 1, it is determined whether or not there is advertisement data in the storage unit (RAM3), and in the case of YES, it is determined whether or not the advertisement data has expired (ST2). If it is within the time limit, the advertisement data (at first, rough advertisement data) is displayed on the display (LCD 7) (ST3). If the time limit has passed, the advertisement data is deleted from the storage unit (ST
8).

When the determination in ST1 is NO, and when ST3
After the process of step 8 is completed, the terminal waits for an incoming call in ST4. If there is an incoming call, it is determined whether or not the data is advertisement data (ST5). If YES, the advertisement data is stored in the storage unit. (ST6), and then terminate the communication (ST6).
7) Return to ST1. If the determination in ST5 is NO, the received data is faxed (ST9), the communication is similarly terminated (ST7), and the process returns to ST1.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing details of the display display processing in ST3 in the flowchart of FIG. First, S
At T31, rough advertisement data is displayed on the display,
Next, it is determined whether or not there is a key input (ST32). If there is a key input, detailed data of the advertisement indicated by the key input is obtained (ST33). This is shown in FIG.
In the configuration described above, the detailed information of the required advertisement is taken from the advertisement information source 15 through the telephone line 14 or the LAN 18. The detailed data of the acquired advertisement is stored in the storage unit (ST34) and displayed on the display (S34).
T35). After the display, the user is asked whether to print the detailed data of the advertisement (ST36), and when the user issues a print instruction, the advertisement is printed by the printer 11 (ST37), and this processing ends.

If there is no key input in ST32, S
Without performing the processing of T33 to ST35, it is asked whether to print the rough advertisement data initially displayed on the display (ST
36) Similarly, when there is a print instruction, the printer 1
1 to print (ST37), and this process ends.

The facsimile machine 20 reversely uses the polling function of the facsimile machine. Advertisement data to be viewed from the outside is sent to the machine 20 without permission, and the user selects one of the advertisement data. And print out the ad data if needed,
Alternatively, when detailed data of an advertisement is desired, the device can fetch detailed data from an advertisement information source according to a user's instruction, and the user can print out the detailed data.

In the flowchart of FIG. 3, detailed data of the advertisement is obtained from the advertisement information source 15 in accordance with an instruction from the user, but if the RAM 3 has a sufficient storage capacity,
When the advertisement data is received, the detailed data of the advertisement may also be acquired and stored in the RAM 3, and the detailed data may be read from the RAM 3 in accordance with an instruction from the user and displayed on the display.

As described above, the use of the facsimile machine 20 has a higher affinity than the transmission and reception of advertisement data on the Internet by a personal computer. The reason is that, as Internet connection fees become lower and flat-rate in the future, there is no doubt that always-connected Internet will spread, but it is unlikely that home computers will always be on. This is because it is normal for a facsimile machine to always open a line.

[0024]

As described above, according to the facsimile apparatus of the present invention, the communication unit receives the advertisement data from the advertisement information source, and the storage unit stores the advertisement data. Not only can the advertisement data be displayed, but also detailed data can be read out from the storage unit and displayed, so that the user can immediately acquire the latest advertisement data and its detailed data.

An operation unit for giving an instruction to the apparatus and an output unit for outputting data are provided, and when an instruction for requesting detailed data of an advertisement is issued by operating the operation unit, the detailed data of the advertisement is provided. Can be read from the storage unit and output by the output unit, or by acquiring the detailed data of the advertisement from the advertisement information source by the communication unit and outputting it at the output unit, the user can easily obtain the detailed data of the advertisement. It is immediately available by operation and becomes more convenient.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an overall configuration of a facsimile apparatus according to an embodiment and a connection type with an external advertisement information source.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the facsimile machine.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart for explaining display processing in the flowchart of FIG. 2;

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 MPU (control unit) 2 ROM 3 RAM 4 image memory 5 operation panel (operation unit) 7 LCD (display unit) 8 NCU 9 modem 10 scanner 11 printer (output unit) 12 CODEC 13 LAN I / F 15 advertisement information source 20 Facsimile machine

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A communication unit for transmitting and receiving data to and from an external information source, a storage unit for storing data received by the communication unit, and a display unit for displaying data received by the communication unit and data stored in the storage unit. And a control unit for receiving advertisement data from an advertisement information source via a communication unit, storing the advertisement data in a storage unit, and displaying the advertisement data stored in the storage unit on a display unit. . 2. An operation unit for giving an instruction to the apparatus, and an output unit for outputting data, wherein when there is an instruction to request detailed data of an advertisement by operating the operation unit, the detailed data of the advertisement is transmitted. 2. A facsimile apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said facsimile apparatus reads the data from a storage unit and outputs the data at an output unit. 3. An operation unit for giving an instruction to the apparatus, and an output unit for outputting data, and when an instruction for requesting detailed data of an advertisement is issued by operating the operation unit, a communication unit sends an instruction from an advertisement information source. 2. The facsimile apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the detailed data of the advertisement is acquired and output by an output unit.