JIANG, Dan (Philips China Investment Co, ltdLane 888, Tian Lin Road, shanghai 3, 20023, CN)
TAN, Jingwei (Philips China Investment Co, ltdLane 888, Tian Lin Road, shanghai 3, 20023, CN)
CHONG, Cheun, Ngen (CL South China P&A, G/F Philips Electronics Bldg 5 Science,Park East Avenue, Hong Kong Science Park, Hong Kong, CN)
JIANG, Dan (Philips China Investment Co, ltdLane 888, Tian Lin Road, shanghai 3, 20023, CN)
TAN, Jingwei (Philips China Investment Co, ltdLane 888, Tian Lin Road, shanghai 3, 20023, CN)
| What is claimed is: 1. A method of obtaining information, comprising: - obtaining (S302), from a source content, first data comprising a first program and at least one parameter associated with a second program; - executing (S303) said second program to obtain information, wherein said first program is configured to trigger the execution of said second program and to take said at least one parameter as input of the execution of said second program. 2. A method according to claim 1, wherein said source content is a visible content comprising a barcode, said step of obtaining comprises: - obtaining said first data by decoding said barcode. 3. A method according to claim 1, wherein said source content is multimedia data comprising digital watermarked data, said step of obtaining comprises: - obtaining said first data by decoding said digital watermarked data. 4. A method according to claim 1, wherein said source content is multimedia data comprising metadata, said step of obtaining comprises: - obtaining said first data from said metadata. 5. A method of providing information, comprising: - embedding(S301) first data into a source content, said first data comprising a first program and at least one parameter associated with a second program, wherein said first program is configured to trigger the execution of said second program stored in the apparatus for obtaining information and to take said at least one parameter as input of the execution of said second program after said first data has been obtained by the apparatus for obtaining information. 6. A method according to claim 5, wherein said source content is a visible content, said step of embedding further comprising: - encoding said first data into a barcode; - embedding said barcode into said source content to form a visible content comprising said barcode. 7. A method according to claim 5, wherein said source content is multimedia data, said step of embedding comprises: - embedding said first data into said source content in the form of payloads of digital watermarked data to form multimedia data comprising said digital watermarked data. 8. A method according to claim 5, wherein said source content is multimedia data, said step of embedding comprises: - embedding said first data into said source content in the form of metadata to form multimedia data comprising said metadata. 9. An apparatus (100) for obtaining information, comprising: a first unit(lθl) configured to obtain, from a source content, first data comprising a first program and at least one parameter associated with a second program; a second unit (102) configured to execute a second program to obtain information, wherein said first program is configured to trigger the execution of said second program and to take said at least one parameter as input of the execution of said second program. 10. An apparatus (100) according to claim 9, wherein said source content is a visible content comprising a barcode, said first unit (101) is configured to obtain said first data by decoding said barcode. 11. An apparatus (100) according to claim 9, wherein said source content is multimedia data comprising digital watermarked data, said first unit (101) is configured to obtain said first data by decoding said digital watermarked data. 12. An apparatus (100) according to claim 9, wherein said source content is multimedia data comprising metadata, said first unit (101) is configured to obtain said data from said metadata. 13. An apparatus (200) for providing information, comprising: a first unit (201) configured to embed first data into a source content, said first data comprising a first program and at least one parameter associated with a second program; wherein said first program is configured to trigger the execution of said second program stored in the apparatus for obtaining information and to take said at least one parameter as input of the execution of said second program after said first data has been obtained by the apparatus for obtaining information. 14. An apparatus (200) according to claim 13, wherein said source content is a visible content, said first unit (201) comprising: a first module (2011) configured to encode said first data into a barcode and; a second module (2012) configured to embed said barcode into said source content to form a visible content comprising said barcode. 15. An apparatus (200) according to claim 13, wherein said source content is multimedia data, said first unit (201) is configured to embed said first data into said source content in the form of payloads of digital watermarked data to form multimedia data comprising said digital watermarked data, or configured to embed said first data into said source content in the form of metadata to form multimedia data comprising said metadata. |
INFORMATION
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for providing and obtaining information.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Portable devices including mobile phone, smart-phone, personal device assistant (PDA), ultra-mobile PC (UMPC), GPS navigator device, etc. nowadays become one of the commodities to people. These portable devices are tiny and light with a wide-range of applications (e.g. play multimedia content) built-in Internet capability (through
WiFi/GSM/GPRS). However, these portable devices suffer from the same tradeoff of being tiny and light, of which the user-interaction capability is greatly restricted and therefore could be extremely inconvenient to the users .
A lot of useful information is "floating" surrounding us in our daily life, some of which might be very useful for us, e.g. the advertisement poster or video on the street, news feed or weather forecast in the subway or bus, etc. Some posters provide a barcode carrying a website to let a user retrieve additional information related to the contents of the posters through a portable device. To obtain additional information, a user has to open an explorer manually and input the website carried by the barcode to the address bar of the explorer since this barcode only carries website information. Due to the restriction of the interaction function of the portable device, such operation is very inconvenient to the user.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In view of the above-mentioned problem in the background of the invention, there is provided a solution for obtaining information and a solution supporting the information obtainment. An apparatus for providing information embeds first data comprising a first program and at least one parameter associated with a second program into a source content to form a source content comprising said first data. After receiving said source content, an apparatus for obtaining information obtains said first data from said source content so as to obtain said first program, triggers the execution of said second program by executing said first program and takes said parameter as the input of the execution of said second program so as to obtain information.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a method for obtaining information, the method comprising: obtaining, from a source content, first data comprising a first program and at least one parameter associated with a second program; executing a second program to obtain information, wherein said first program is configured to trigger the execution of said second program and to take said at least one parameter as the input of the execution of said second program.
Said source content can be a visible content including a barcode. Said step of obtaining comprises obtaining said first data by decoding said barcode.
Said source content can be multimedia data including digital watermarked data. Said step of obtaining comprises obtaining the first data by decoding said digital watermarked data.
Said source content can be multimedia data including metadata. Said step of obtaining comprises obtaining said first data from said metadata.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a method for providing information, the method comprising: embedding first data into a source content, said first data comprising a first program and at least one parameter associated with a second program; wherein after said first data has been obtained from the apparatus for obtaining information, said first program is configured to trigger the execution of said second program stored in the apparatus for obtaining information, said first program further serves to take said at least one parameter as input of the execution of said second program.
Said source content can be a visible content. Said step of embedding comprises a step of encoding said first data into a barcode and a step of embedding said barcode into said source content to form a visible content comprising said barcode.
Said source content can be multimedia data. Said step of embedding comprises a step of embedding said first data into said source content in the form of payloads of digital watermarked data to form multimedia data comprising said digital watermarked data.
Said source content can be multimedia data. Said step of embedding comprises embedding said first data into said source content in the form of metadata to form multimedia data comprising said metadata.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for obtaining information, the apparatus comprises: a first unit configured to obtain, from a source content, first data comprising a first program and at least one parameter associated with a second program; a second unit configured to execute a second program to obtain information, wherein said first program is configured to trigger the execution of said second program and to take said at least one parameter as the input of the execution of said second program.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for providing information, the apparatus comprises: a first unit configured to embed first data into a source content, said data comprising a first program and at least one parameter associated with a second program; wherein after said first data has been obtained by the apparatus for obtaining information, said first program is configured to trigger the execution of said second program stored in the apparatus for obtaining information and to take said at least one parameter as input of the execution of said second program. With the methods and apparatus provided in the present invention, the function of a portable device to obtain information is significantly extended without the need of performing a complicated input by a user. The user can obtain a lot of information without any operation or with some simple operations such as clicking some buttons like "Confirm","Yes","No".
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The above and other objects and features of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description considered in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which:
Fig. l is a structural schematic diagram of an apparatus 100 for obtaining information according to one embodiment of the present invention;
Fig.2 is a structural schematic diagram of an apparatus 200 for providing information according to another embodiment of the present invention ;
Fig.3 is a working flowchart of the apparatus 100 for obtaining information shown in
Fig.l and the apparatus 200 for providing information shown in Fig.2;
Fig.4 is a schematic diagram of the releasing way of a source content according to an embodiment of the present invention;
wherein same or similar reference signs denote same or similar step features/means (modules).
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
The embodiments of the present invention will be explained in detail in connection with the figures hereinafter.
Fig. l shows a structural schematic diagram of an apparatus 100 for obtaining information according to one embodiment of the present invention. In Fig. l, the apparatus 100 for obtaining information comprises a unit 101 configured to obtain, from a source content, first data comprising a first program and at least one parameter associated with a second program; and a unit 102 configured to execute the second program to obtain information, wherein the first program serves to trigger the execution of the second program and to take the at least one parameter as the input of the execution of the second program.
Fig.2 shows a structural schematic diagram of an apparatus 200 for providing information according to an embodiment of the present invention. In Fig.2, the apparatus 200 for providing information comprises a unit 201 configured to embed first data into a source content, the first data comprising a first program and at least one parameter associated with a second program; wherein after the first data has been obtained by the apparatus 100 for obtaining information, the first program serves to trigger the execution of the second program stored in the apparatus for obtaining information and to take the at least one parameter as the input of the execution of the second program.
Alternatively, in one embodiment, the unit 201 comprises a first module 2011 configured to encode the first data into a barcode and a second module 2012 configured to embed the barcode into the source content to form a visible content including the barcode.
Fig.3 shows a working flowchart of the apparatus 100 for obtaining information and the apparatus 200 for providing information shown in Fig. l and Fig.2 according to an embodiment of the present invention. The working flow shown in Fig.3 will be explained in detail in connection with Fig. l and Fig.2 hereinafter.
At first, in step S301, the unit 201 embeds first data into a source content. The first data comprises a first program and at least one parameter associated with a second program. After an apparatus 100 for obtaining information has obtained the first data, the apparatus 100 for obtaining information executes a second program with at least one parameter, wherein the execution of the second program is triggered by the first program, and at least one parameter is taken as the input of the execution of the second program so that information related to the parameter is obtained.
The source content can be various. For example, the source content can be visible contents, such as posters, photos, documents etc.; the source content can also be multimedia data etc.
The second program is usually a program for obtaining information, such as an explorer program, a GPS navigation program, a file -downloading program in a portable device etc. The first program is usually a program for calling the second program by taking from the aforementioned at least one parameter as an input parameter. Those skilled in the art should understand that at least one parameter can be fixed in the code of the first program or separated from the first program, depending on specific realization requirements. In the latter case, at least one parameter is stored in a specified storage space. When the first program is executed, it reads out at least one parameter automatically from the specified storage space and takes the parameter as the input of the execution of the second program.
Alternatively, if the source content is a visible content, then the first data can be embedded into the source content in the form of a barcode. In this case, the process that the unit 201 embeds the first data into the source content to form the source content can also be accomplished by the first module 2011 and the second module 2012. Specifically, the first module 2011 encodes the first data into a barcode; then the second module 2012 embeds the barcode encoded by the first module 2011 into the source content to form a visible content comprising the barcode. For example, the first module 2011 can be a barcode encoder and the second module 2012 can be a document editor pasting the barcode to the visible content that can be shown on a computer display as digital content, such as posters, photos and documents etc.
Those skilled in the art should understand that the barcode mentioned herein can be a one-dimensional barcode or a two-dimensional barcode. Typically, a one-dimensional barcode contains less information than a two-dimensional barcode. In practical use, the decision whether a one-dimensional barcode or a two-dimensional barcode is used can be made according to the size of the contained information. Of course, those skilled in the art should understand that the present invention is not limited to a one -dimensional barcode or a two-dimensional barcode, and other types of barcode can also be applicable.
If the source content is multimedia data, then the first data can be embedded into the source content by means of various ways such as in the form of payloads of digital watermark, metadata etc. This will be elucidated in detail hereinafter.
Alternatively, the unit 201 can embed the first data into the source content in the form of payloads of digital watermark to form the multimedia data comprising digital watermarked data. As payloads of digital watermark, the first data is embedded into the source content, after processed by the digital watermark algorithm, so as to obtain the multimedia data comprising the digital watermarked data. Since there are many algorithms and literature references about digital watermark, which can be referred to, the present invention will not explain them herein. In this case, the unit 201 can be a digital watermark encoder.
Alternatively, the unit 201 can embed the first data into the source content in the form of metadata to form the multimedia data comprising the metadata. In this case, the unit 201 can be a metadata generator. Metadata is data describing data about data, mainly describing data property. A multimedia content, such as digital photos, MP3 or video sequences etc., usually has metadata serving to describe information about the size of the multimedia content, the creation datum and so on.
The apparatus 200 for providing information can be an apparatus comprising the unit 201 with information processing function, e.g. a computer with document processing function, a digital watermark encoding device etc.
After the unit 201 has formed the source content, the formed source content can be released in various ways. For example, as shown in Fig.4, the first data comprising a first program and at least one parameter associated with a second program is embedded in a tourism promotion advertisement 401 (source content) by the unit 201 in the form of a two-dimensional barcode 4011. The function of the first program is to call a GPS navigation program 403 in the portable means 402. At least one parameter can be the longitude or latitude information of the tour destination or the address of the tour destination, so that the at least one parameter is taken as input parameter of the GPS navigation program 402. Still for example, the formed source content is audio data and the audio data is released via network.
Then, in step S302, the unit 101 obtains the first data from the aforementioned source content. As mentioned above, the first data comprises a first program and at least one parameter associated with a second program.
Specifically, the unit 101 employs a way, which is inverse to the embedment way of the unit 201 to obtain the first data from the source data.
Alternatively, if the source content is a visible content comprising a barcode, then the unit 101 decodes the barcode to obtain the first data. Specifically, if the visible content comprising a barcode is an advertisement posted somewhere on the street, then the unit 101 can comprise a camera or a barcode reader to read this barcode; the unit 101 can also comprise a barcode decoder configured to decode the barcode to obtain the first data. Alternatively, the visible content comprising a barcode can also be a digital content that can be shown on a computer display, such as a Word or a pdf document. The unit 101 obtains the barcode from the word or a pdf document and decodes the barcode to obtain the first data.
Alternatively, if the source content is multimedia data comprising digital watermarked data, then the unit 101 decodes the digital watermarked data to obtain the first data acting as payloads of digital watermark. Specifically, the unit 101 can be a digital watermark decoder decoding the digital watermarked data by using the algorithm, which is inverse to the digital watermark algorithm employed by the unit 201 during encoding. Alternatively, if the source content is multimedia data comprising metadata, then the unit 101 can be a metadata extractor configured to obtain the first data from the metadata of the multimedia data.
Finally, in step S303, the unit 102 executes the second program by making use of at least one parameter contained in the obtained first data to obtain information, wherein the second program is triggered by the first program and the first program takes the aforementioned at least one parameter as input of the execution of the second program. In other words, after the unit 101 has obtained the first program, the unit 102 executes the first program to trigger the execution of the second program and the first program takes the aforementioned at least one parameter as the input of the execution of the second program.
The obtained information can be various kinds of information. For example, as shown in Fig.4, the obtained information may be traffic information of the tour destination or tour detailed guidelines of the tour destination etc. For instance, with respect to a source content that is a multimedia content like audio or video, the obtained information can be information about audio/video contents, introduction of the author or the actor etc. Still for instance, with respect to a new album promotion poster about a star singer on the street, the information obtained by the unit 102 can be a trial edition of the songs in the new album.
Alternatively, if the first data is embedded into the multimedia data in a invisible form like metadata or digital watermark, i.e. under the circumstances that the information obtainment is not triggered actively by a user, before the second program is executed by the unit 102, the unit 102 can also generate and show a user interface to let the user choose whether to execute the second program to obtain information.
Those skilled in the art should understand that the actual implementation of the unit
102 can be different according to the difference of the practical platforms. Alternatively, in order to be transplanted easily among multiple platforms, the function of the unit 102 can be implemented through ways independent of platforms such as Java virtual machine, Python virtual machine or Perl virtual machine etc.
The apparatus 100 for obtaining information can be a portable device comprising the unit 101 and the unit 102, such as a mobile phone, a smart phone, a PDA, a super portable mobile computer, a GPS navigation device etc., wherein the second program is preinstalled in the portable device, the second program is a program configured to obtain information, e.g. an explorer, a GPS navigation program, a file download program etc.
The working process of the apparatus 100 for obtaining information and the apparatus 200 for providing information has been explained in detail hereinabove from the view of the function. Those skilled in the art should understand that the apparatus
100 for obtaining information or the apparatus 200 for providing information or each unit thereof, such as the unit 101 and/or the unit 102 and/or the unit 201, can be implemented by means of software or hardware or combination thereof, e.g. by a processor linked a memory storing the instruction codes implementing the function of the unit 101 and/or the unit 102 and/or the unit 201.
The embodiments of the present invention have been explained in detail hereinabove. It should be noted that the above -described embodiments are for the purpose of illustration only and not to be construed as limitation of the invention. All such modifications which do not depart from the spirit of the invention are intended to be included within the scope of the appended claims. In the claims, any reference signs placed between parentheses shall not be construed as limiting the claim. The word "comprising" does not exclude the presence of elements or steps not listed in a claim or in the description. The word "a" or "an" preceding an element does not exclude the presence of a plurality of such elements. In the apparatus claims enumerating several units, several of these units can be embodied by one and the same item of hardware or software. The usage of the words first, second and third, et cetera, does not indicate any ordering. These words are to be interpreted as names.
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