JPH11187155A - Information providing service system and information providing service method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To serve information by character display even by a terminal provided with a simple character transmission reception and display function by providing a function of a short message service(SMS) to a terminal and a server and to acquire information designated by a server by using a means with much information transmission amount in the case of a terminal provided with a data communication function. SOLUTION: A portable information terminal 1 sends a character command on the SMS to an SMS browsing server 3 to request a menu. The server 3 returns the character command on the SMS to the portable information terminal 1. The portable information terminal 1 receiving a command displays a menu onto a display device 1A. Similarly, the user sends a character command to display a sub menu of the menu and displays the sub menu on the display device 1A, inputs designated information and sends it to the server 3.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information providing system and an information providing method in a system including a server and a terminal.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG.
4 is a conventional information providing system shown in FIG.

The operation will be described. When the user transmits a desired service request to the base station 22 through the portable terminal 21, the line of the simplified cellular phone system network 23 is connected. This service request is sent to the simplified portable telephone system network 23.
Is received by a predetermined server 24 and transmitted to, for example, a client 27 capable of providing a service requested by the user. The client 27 sends response information to the mobile terminal 21 via the server 24. If the user determines that the desired service can be obtained from the client 27 based on the response information, the user requests the client 27 to provide the service.

[0004]

Since the conventional information providing service using the data communication function is configured as described above, when the user of the portable terminal obtains information, the portable terminal accesses the server. However, it takes time just to go through the connection procedure of the line connection, communication costs are incurred according to the connection time and communication time, and special hardware such as data adapters or data modems that are not equipped with general mobile phones It was necessary to equip the wear. In addition, even when a high-speed data communication function is provided, if the data communication function is used to frequently obtain short information such as characters, the connection time ratio increases, and communication costs increase. There was a problem.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and has only a simple character transmission / reception and display function which does not have a data communication function such as a line connection or a packet data communication function. It is possible to provide information by character display even in a terminal such as a mobile phone equipped with a terminal, and in a terminal having a data communication function such as a line connection or a packet data communication function, receiving and receiving character information. An object of the present invention is to make it possible to obtain information specified by a server using information transmission means having a larger information transmission amount in response to information.

[0006]

An information providing service system according to the present invention provides an information providing service system in which a terminal requests information provision to a server and the server responds to the request. Each of the servers has a short message service function.

Further, in the information providing service system according to the present invention, the terminal has a function of information transmitting means other than the short message service.

Further, in the information providing service system according to the present invention, the information provided from the server to the terminal is in the form of a menu including selection items, and the selection items selected by the user from this menu are other than the short message service. When the terminal supports information that can be provided by another information transmission means, the terminal activates a function of another information transmission means other than the short message service.

An information providing service method according to the present invention is an information providing service method in which a terminal requests a service from a server, and the server responds to the request, and operates in accordance with the following steps. It was done. (A) the terminal requests the server to send a menu to the server by a short message service; (b) the server sends a menu having a selection item identifier corresponding to each selection item to the terminal by the short message service. (C) a step in which the terminal displays the menu; (d) a step in which the user selects a selection item from the menu; (e) the terminal and the server determine the following according to the content of the selection item selected by the user: (e1) performing one of the operations of (e2); (e1) When the selection item corresponds to information that can be provided by the short message service: the terminal sets the corresponding selection item identifier to the short message service. To the server, and the server that receives it sends the content corresponding to this (E2) when the selected item corresponds to information that can be provided by other information transmission means other than the short message service: the terminal transmits to the terminal other than the short message service Activating the function of the information transmission means of the present invention and acquiring this information.

[0010]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Embodiments of the present invention will be described below.
The service (hereinafter abbreviated as SMS) is a character data transmission service in a digital cellular phone system. For example, a service of NTT China Mobile Communication Network Co., Ltd. on the Internet shown in FIG.
This is the system shown in the system image of the company's short mail service published as of March 17.

Embodiment 1 Hereinafter, Embodiment 1 will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 7. FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram of the first embodiment, FIG. 2 is a command for requesting a main menu in the first embodiment, FIG. 3 is a command for instructing display of a user input screen in the first embodiment, and FIG. Is a main menu display screen in the first embodiment, FIG. 5 is a command for requesting a submenu in the first embodiment, FIG. 6 is a command for instructing display of a condition input screen in the first embodiment, and FIG. Is a display screen corresponding to the command of FIG.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a terminal for instructing the retrieval of the contents of the information service, and displaying and storing the retrieved result, and a display 1A such as an LCD screen.
2 is a wireless base station for accessing the mobile phone network 6 from the mobile information terminal 1, and 3 is an SMS terminal connected to the mobile phone network 6 and accessible from the mobile information terminal 1. An SMS browsing server, which is a server of 4, a database for storing necessary data, 5
Is a WWW server that is a server on the Internet, 6 is a mobile phone network, and 7 is the Internet connected to the mobile phone network 6.

Next, the operation will be described. First, for example, a character command on the SMS as shown in FIG. 2 is transmitted from the portable information terminal 1 to the SMS browsing server 3 to request a menu. In this example, "#" is SMS
Indicates the beginning of an SMS browsing service command for transmitting and receiving data, and "RM" indicates an RM command requesting transmission of a main menu. “′” Indicates a command suffix delimiter, and “12 × 4” indicates a first RM command suffix.
Means a suffix. Here, “12 ×
"4" indicates an attribute possessed by the screen of the portable information terminal, that is, in this example, a character screen capable of simultaneously displaying four lines with 12 characters per line. Further, “12 × 20” indicates a total screen capacity that can be scroll-displayed. In this example, it is shown that scrolling up to 20 lines with 12 characters per line is possible. In the following examples, the meanings of “#” and “′” are the same.

On the other hand, the SMS browsing server 3
Returns a character command on the SMS to the portable information terminal 1, for example, menu information to the portable information terminal 1 using FIG. Here, “DM” means a DM command instructing display of a user input screen. The next first suffix, "Main Menu" in this example, indicates the title to be displayed, and the suffix following the suffix indicates the provided display position, display content, and menu number as a selection item, separated by ".". For example, in this example, “2-1.
"XXXXXX" is displayed as menu number 2. Regarding the display position, the SMS browsing server 3 selects an appropriate one from several patterns in consideration of the display capability of the portable information terminal 1 notified by the RM command from the portable information terminal 1. You may.

Next, the portable information terminal 1 receiving the DM command displays a menu screen as shown in FIG. 4 on the display 1A. This screen may be scrollable using the display scroll function of the portable information terminal 1.

When the user selects, for example, No. 2 to display a submenu of this menu from the menu of FIG. 4, the portable information terminal 1 transmits a character command on the SMS to the SMS browsing server 3, for example, FIG. I do. In FIG. 5, “RS” indicates an RS command requesting transmission of a submenu, and “2” indicates a selection item identifier corresponding to menu number 2, “12 ×
"4" indicates an attribute possessed by the screen of the portable information terminal 1, that is, in this example, the portable information terminal 1 has a character screen capable of simultaneously displaying four lines with 12 characters per line. Further, “12 × 20” indicates the total screen capacity that can be scrolled and displayed.
In this example, it is possible to scroll up to 20 lines with 12 characters per line. S which received this RS command
The MS browsing server 3 changes the DM command “Main Menu” in FIG.
b Menu "to another title,
The sub menu is returned using the same SMS character command.

In the case where the item selected by the user from the menu in FIG. 2 is a specific service content in which information other than the sub-menu is displayed, a condition input can be requested from the SMS browsing server 3 as shown in FIG. The example in FIG. 6 is an inbound / outbound flight inquiry service related to an air timetable. The SMS browsing server 3 is used to prompt the user to input a departure place, an arrival place, and a date and time from the portable information terminal 1.
Is a command including screen control information sent to the portable information terminal 1 from the PC.

In FIG. 6, the DM command on the first line indicates the title to be displayed, the display position, and the display content as in FIG. 4, but since there is no menu number, there are two items in each suffix. The SR command starting with #SR on the second line is screen control information.

On the other hand, a screen displayed on the portable information terminal 1 as shown in FIG. 7 prompts a position designated by the SMS browsing server 3 and enters a designated information. When the input is completed, the portable information terminal 1 sends the input value back to the SMS browsing server 3. On the other hand, the SMS browsing server 3 searches the database 4 and returns the flight number and departure / arrival time to the portable information terminal 1, and the portable information terminal 1 displays a result on the display 1A to complete a series of information services. I do.

As described above, since information is bidirectionally exchanged using character commands, an information calling service using a simple SMS function attached to a digital portable telephone can be realized. In addition, since SMS is used, it is possible to actively send information from the SMS browsing server to the portable information terminal. In addition, only a mobile phone terminal that does not have a data communication function such as a line connection or a packet data communication function and has a simple character transmission / reception and display function can provide information by character display, such as a data adapter or a data modem. There is no need to equip with special hardware. Furthermore, even when the wireless line of the portable information terminal is busy, information can be transmitted reliably using the message storage function of the SMS.

Embodiment 2 FIG. Hereinafter, Embodiment 2 will be described with reference to FIGS. 1, 8, and 9. FIG. In the first embodiment described above, an interactive character service is realized using only SMS. In the present embodiment, an SMS function is provided to a portable information terminal having an information transmission unit other than SMS. An embodiment for realizing this, for example, when performing WWW browsing on the Internet by using information transmission means other than SMS for a menu provided from a browsing server will be described. FIG. 1 is the same system configuration diagram as in the first embodiment, FIG. 8 is a command for instructing display of a user input screen in the second embodiment, and FIG. 9 is a display screen corresponding to the command in FIG. is there.

In FIG. 1, as in the first embodiment, an RM command, which is a character command on the SMS, is transmitted from the portable information terminal 1 to the SMS browsing server 3 to request a menu. On the other hand, the SMS browsing server 3 transmits a DM command as shown in FIG. 8 to the portable information terminal 1. In this example, the WWW address on the Internet is one of the options as the menu number 4 as an example. It is presented as. In this example, it is assumed that the portable information terminal 1 has a function capable of accessing and browsing the WWW server 5 on the Internet 7 connected to the portable telephone network. On the portable information terminal 1, the menu screen is as shown in FIG. When the user selects the menu number 4 from the screen of FIG. 9, the portable information terminal 1 activates a line connection data communication or a packet connection data communication other than the SMS to connect to the mobile phone network 6 corresponding to the menu number 4. It accesses the connected WWW server 5, takes in predetermined information, and displays it.

As described above, in a portable information terminal having a data communication function such as a line connection or a packet data communication function, character information received via SMS is used as a kind of tag, and such information having a larger information transmission amount is used. Information specified by the SMS browsing server can be obtained from another server on the network via the transmission means.

[0024]

As described above, according to the present invention, in the information providing service system in which the terminal requests information provision to the server and the server responds to the request, the terminal and the server each include an SMS. Is provided, there is an effect that inexpensive information transmitting means can be used.

Further, in the information providing service system according to the present invention, since the terminal has a function of information transmitting means other than the SMS, there is an effect that the terminal can obtain various information.

Further, in the information providing service system according to the present invention, the information provided from the server to the terminal is in the form of a menu including selection items, and the selection item selected by the user from this menu is information transmission other than SMS. When the terminal supports information that can be provided by means, the terminal activates the function of other information transmission means other than the SMS,
There is an effect that various information can be easily obtained.

[0027] Also, in the information providing service method according to the present invention, when an item selected from a menu displayed on the terminal by the user corresponds to information that can be provided by SMS, the terminal sets the corresponding selection item identifier to the server by SMS. And the server receiving the message transmits the content corresponding to the selected item identifier to the terminal by SMS, and the item selected by the user from the menu displayed on the terminal is the information transmission other than SMS. When the terminal supports information that can be provided by the means, the terminal activates the function of the information transmission means other than the SMS and acquires this information, so that there is an effect that various information can be easily obtained. .

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a system configuration of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an example of a selection menu screen in the portable information terminal of the present invention.

FIG. 3 shows an example of a character command on an SMS according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an example of a character command on an SMS according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an example of a character command on an SMS according to the present invention.

FIG. 6 shows an example of a character command on an SMS according to the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a condition setting screen in the portable information terminal according to the present invention.

FIG. 8 shows an example of a character command on an SMS according to the present invention.

FIG. 9 is an example of a selection menu screen in the portable information terminal of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an example of an SMS system.

FIG. 11 is a block diagram showing a conventional system configuration.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Mobile Information Terminal 2 Base Station 3 SMS Browsing Server 4 Database 5 WWW Server 6 Mobile Phone Network 7 Internet.

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. An information providing service system in which a terminal requests information provision to a server in response to an input from a user, and the server provides information in response to the request.
An information providing service system, wherein the terminal and the server each have a short message service function. 2. The information providing service system according to claim 1, wherein said terminal has a function of information transmitting means other than the short message service. 3. The information provided from the server to the terminal is in the form of a menu consisting of selection items, and the selection items selected and input by the user from this menu correspond to the information that can be provided by the other information transmission means. 3. The information providing service system according to claim 2, wherein the terminal activates the function of the other information transmitting means when the terminal performs the function. 4. An information providing service method in which a terminal requests a service from a server, and the server responds to the request, wherein the method operates according to the following steps. (A) a terminal requesting a menu transmission to a server using a short message service; (b) a server displaying a menu having a selection item identifier corresponding to each selection item in a short message service; (C) displaying the menu by the terminal; (d) selecting a selection item from the menu by the user; (e) according to the content of the selection item selected by the user. A step in which the terminal and the server perform one of the following operations (e1) and (e2); (e1) when the selection item corresponds to information that can be provided by the short message service: the terminal selects a corresponding selection item identifier Is sent to the server using the short message service, and the server that receives the (E2) When the selected item corresponds to information that can be provided by other information transmission means other than the short message service: the terminal transmits the short message to the terminal. Activating the function of the information transmission means other than the message service and acquiring this information.