Patent Application
20090077095
The present invention relates to a metadata management apparatus which acquires metadata from a metadata providing terminal connected to a network, and manages the metadata.
Conventionally, there has been provided a recommended information providing system in which two or more terminals connected to a network recommend information to each other (for example, refer to patent reference 1).
Such a recommended information providing system carries out the following operations. More specifically, an agent which is called a user agent moves to another user terminal specified by the user, and acquires recommended information. A provision-of-information permission means of the terminal which is the movement destination judges whether to provide the recommended information to the user agent. When the acquisition of the information is permitted by the provision-of-information permission means, a personal information management means acquires the recommended information from a personal information storage means, and then provides it to the user agent. The recommended information acquired by the user agent is then inputted to a presentation information generating means, and final recommended information is displayed on an output means.
[Patent reference 1] JP,2001-43233,A
A problem with the above-mentioned prior art system is, however, that whether the recommended information interests the user is dependent upon the terminal which is a recommended information acquisition destination specified by the user. More specifically, because the recommended information is generated directly from the personal information stored in the terminal specified by the user, the user has to examine whether a user who uses the recommended information source terminal can be trusted when specifying the terminal which is the recommended information source. Furthermore, because rearrangement and selection of the information are not carried out according to the liking of the user who receives the information, the user has to search for his favorite information through the recommended information.
The present invention is made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, and it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a metadata management apparatus which can acquire metadata of information which matches the liking of the user without the user's being conscious of whether the information matches the user's liking.
A metadata management apparatus in accordance with the present invention is so constructed as to select metadata acquired from a metadata providing terminal by using at least of a user's degree of preference and degree of affinity.
Therefore, the metadata management apparatus can acquire metadata of information which matches the liking of the user without the user's being conscious of whether the information matches the user's liking.
Hereafter, in order to explain this invention in greater detail, the preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
First, a whole configuration of the system will be explained with reference to
In
The metadata management terminal 101 is so constructed as to transmit a metadata acquisition request 104 to a metadata providing terminal 102 via the network 103, and to receive, as a response to the request, metadata 105 from the metadata providing terminal 102.
Next, the details of the metadata management terminal 101 will be explained with reference to
The input means 201 is a means for allowing the user to provide an input to the metadata management terminal 101, and is comprised of, for example, a keyboard, a pointing device, and so on. The system control means 202 is a control unit for controlling the whole of the metadata management terminal on the basis of the input from the input means 201. The metadata acquisition destination terminal management means 203 is a functional unit which manages an address for specifying a metadata providing terminal 102 on the network 103. The metadata acquisition request generating/transmitting means 204 is a functional unit which generates a metadata acquisition request 104 for making a request to acquire metadata, which is to be transmitted to a metadata providing terminal 102 connected to the network 103, and transmits the metadata acquisition request to the metadata providing terminal.
The communications means 205 is a communications interface which transmits the metadata acquisition request 104 generated by the metadata acquisition request generating/transmitting means 204 onto the network, and which receives metadata from a metadata providing terminal as a response to the request, and receives contents on the network which the metadata management terminal has identified by referring to the metadata. The metadata storing/receiving means 206 is a storage unit for storing the metadata received via the communications means 205 in the terminal. The degree of preference storage means 207 is a storage unit for storing the user's taste for the contents which is extracted from the metadata. The degree of affinity storage means 208 is a storage unit for storing the user's degree of affinity with each metadata providing terminal 102, which the metadata management terminal has determined by monitoring the user's using state of the metadata acquired from each metadata providing terminal 102.
The filtering means 209 is a functional unit which performs a selection operation or an alignment operation on the metadata stored in the metadata storing/receiving means 206 on the basis of both a degree of preference which it has acquired from the degree of preference storage means 207 and a degree of affinity acquired by the degree of affinity storage means 208. The display means 210 is a functional unit which provides a user interface for receiving the user's key input, via the system control means 202, from the input means 201, and for determining a display of a list of the metadata filtered by the filtering means 209, and destinations from each of which metadata are to be acquired, and which provides a web browser for displaying and operating a playback image of the contents acquired by the contents acquisition means 211, and Web contents.
The contents acquisition means 211 is a contents acquisition means which refers to the identifier of the contents associated with the metadata specified by the user so as to acquire the contents via the communications means 205, and which plays back the contents. The sound output means 212 is an output means which is comprised of a speaker for generating a sound output of contents, etc.
Next, the operation of the metadata management terminal 101 which is so constructed as mentioned above will be explained.
The user makes a key input by using the input means 201 so as to notify a metadata acquisition request to the system control means 202 (in step ST301). Next, the system control means 202 transmits a terminal address list acquisition request to acquire a terminal address list to the metadata acquisition destination terminal management means 203 (in step ST302).
The metadata acquisition destination terminal management means 203 which has acquired the terminal address list acquisition request transmits, as a response, a terminal address list indicating information which makes it possible for each metadata providing terminal on the network 103 to be identified, the terminal address list registered beforehand therein, to the system control means 202 (in step ST303).
As shown in the figure, the terminal address list is a list which consists of combinations each including an address ID 401, a nickname 402, a real address 403, and a data acquisition flag 404, and a real address 403 can be acquired by specifying a corresponding address ID 401. An IP address, a telephone number, or the like can be provided, as a real address 403, according to the network used. A data acquisition flag 404 is a flag for determining whether to make a request of a corresponding terminal to acquire metadata information.
Next, the system control means 202 transmits the acquired terminal address list to the display means 210 and makes a terminal address list display request to display the terminal address list (in step ST304), and the display means 210 displays the terminal address list received together with the terminal address list display request, and urges the user to select, as a destination from which the metadata management terminal will acquire the metadata, a terminal (in step ST305).
In
When the display of the terminal address list is completed, the display means 210 transmits a notification of the completion of the terminal address list display to the system control means 202 so as to notify that the drawing of the user interface as shown in
The system control means 202 which has received the notification stores temporarily an address ID which corresponds to each terminal to which the user has attached a check mark (in step ST309). When the user has selected, as the metadata acquisition destination, one or more terminals which he or she has convinced himself or herself to determine finally, the user makes a key input for pushing down the OK button 505 by using the input means 201 in order to finally determine the one or more terminals as the target of which the metadata management terminal will make a request to acquire metadata, and the key input is transmitted to the display means 210 via the system control means 202 (in step ST310). The display means 210 which has received the input causes the user interface included in the display means 210 to make a state transition, and transmits a notification of the determination of the metadata acquisition destination to the system control means 202 (in step ST311). Until the user presses down the OK button in step ST310, steps ST307, and ST308 and ST309 are repeated according to the user's input any number of times.
Because one or more terminals of which the metadata management terminal will make a request to acquire metadata are finally determined in step ST310, the system control means 202 makes a metadata acquisition destination terminal registration request of the metadata acquisition destination terminal management means 203 to register the one or more metadata acquisition destination terminals (in step ST312). The metadata acquisition destination terminal management means 203 which has received the metadata acquisition destination terminal registration request registers a data acquisition flag 404 in the terminal address list shown in
The system control means 202 verifies each address ID 401 acquired with the metadata acquisition destination selection input in step ST307 against the terminal address table as shown in the
The metadata acquisition request generating/transmitting means 204 generates the metadata acquisition request 104, as will be shown below, for each of the one or more addresses included in the metadata acquisition request-generating/transmitting request which it has received (in step ST317).
As shown in
After generating one or more metadata acquisition requests 104, the metadata acquisition request generating/transmitting means 204 transmits a request to transmit the one or more metadata acquisition requests to the communications means 205 so that the communications means 205 transmits the one or more metadata acquisition requests 104 to the one or more metadata providing terminals at the one or more addresses specified by the one or more metadata acquisition requests 104 (in step ST318). The communications means 205 finally refers to the transmission destination address included in each of the one or more metadata acquisition requests 104 in turn, and transmits the metadata acquisition request to each specified metadata providing terminal via the network 103 (in step ST319).
The metadata providing terminal 102 which has received the metadata acquisition request 104 from the metadata management terminal 101 selects the metadata of contents stored within the terminal, according to, for example, the following criteria, and transmits them, as metadata 105, to the metadata management terminal 101 which has made the request to transmit the metadata 105.
Metadata handled by each metadata providing terminal 102 indicate information which describes the descriptions of a video, a sound, or a photo, which exists on the network, or Web contents which are a combination of a video, a sound, and a photo, or one of various pieces of contents information and related information about contents, such as EPG (Electronic Program Guide) for TV program broadcast.
Next, the operation of the metadata management terminal 101 when receiving metadata 105 from a metadata providing terminal 102 will be explained.
First, the communications means 205 receives metadata 105 (in step ST701), and transmits the acquired metadata 105 to the metadata receiving storage means 206 (in step ST702). The metadata receiving storage means 206 which has received the metadata 105 then stores the received metadata therein (in step ST703), and transmits a metadata acquisition completion check request to check to see whether to complete the acquisition of the metadata to the metadata acquisition destination terminal management means 203 (in step ST704).
The metadata acquisition destination terminal management means 203 which has received the metadata acquisition completion check request, checks to see whether a response from each of all terminals which have been registered at the time of generating the metadata acquisition request has been sent to the metadata management terminal, and transmits a notification of the completion of the metadata acquisition to the metadata storing/receiving means 206 when responses from all of the terminals have been sent to the metadata management terminal (in step ST705). The metadata acquisition destination terminal management means performs the aforementioned checking by judging whether it has acquired data from all of the terminals for each of which the data acquisition flag 404 in the terminal address list shown in
When receiving a notification of the completion of the metadata acquisition from the metadata acquisition destination terminal management means 203, the metadata receiving storage means 206 makes a request of the filtering means 209 to filter the metadata stored therein (in step ST706). The filtering means 209 makes requests of the degree of preference storage means 207 and the degree of affinity storage means 208 to acquire degrees of preference and degrees of affinity, respectively (in steps ST707 and ST709), and acquires the degrees of preference and the degrees of affinity as responses to the requests (in steps ST708 and ST710).
In
Hereafter, how the degrees of preference and the degrees of affinity are stored respectively in the degree of preference storage means 207 and the degree of affinity storage means 208 will be explained.
The degrees of preference can be acquired as will be mentioned, as an example, below.
Each metadata providing terminal 102 in accordance with this embodiment can refer to metadata information which is filtered in such a manner as will be mentioned later, and can play back contents. In this case, the system control means 202 can acquire metadata which correspond to the contents, which the user has actually played back, from the metadata storing/receiving means 206, can decompose the acquired metadata into keywords, and can acquire the frequency of occurrence of each keyword. Sets of {a keyword and the frequency of occurrence of the keyword} which are thus acquired are stored in the degree of preference storage means 207 as shown in
Degrees of affinity can be acquired as will be mentioned, as an example, below. The system control means 202 can acquire information indicating that the contents which the user has played back are referred to by metadata provided by which metadata providing terminal 102 by inquiring of the metadata storing/receiving means 206 about the information. At that time, the system control means 202 can calculate a degree of affinity for, for example, a metadata providing terminal X as a function of X as follows:
The number of used metadata (X)=
The number of metadata which are provided by the metadata providing terminal X, and which are associated with video or music contents each of which have been played back during 60% or more of its playback time.
The number of metadata which are provided by the metadata providing terminal X, and which are associated with Web contents in each of which 60% or more of the total number of characters displayed by a web browser have been browsed.
The number of provided metadata (X)=the number of metadata provided by the metadata providing terminal X
The degree of affinity (X)=the number of used metadata (X)/the provided metadata (X)
After filtering the metadata with the degrees of preference and the degrees of affinity, as shown, as an example, in a flow chart of
In
The details of the filtering operation carried out in step ST711 will be explained with reference to the steps of
First, the filtering means 209 acquires the metadata which the metadata storing/receiving means 206 has stored therein, acquires the number of users associated with each metadata providing terminal 102 included in these metadata, and substitutes the number of users into X. Each of X users can be referred to as a user 0, . . . , or a user X−1.
In
Next, the filtering means determines, as Ni, the number of metadata which the metadata management terminal has acquired from the user i from the following equation: N*(Mi/M) (the fractional portion of the number is dropped) (in step ST1004). This means that a larger number N of metadata determined in step ST1002, which are to be filtered, are distributed to users with a higher degree of affinity, whereas a smaller number N of metadata which are to be filtered are distributed to users with a lower degree of affinity. After acquiring Ni, the filtering means evaluates each metadata acquired from the user i on the basis of the degrees of preference acquired from the degree of preference storage means 207, and extracts, as Di, Ni metadata with higher degrees of preference from among the evaluated metadata (in step ST1005). At this time, the filtering means can make the evaluation of each metadata with degrees of preference by using, for example, the sum total of the frequencies of occurrence of keywords which match with each metadata. When the number of metadata acquired from the user i is less than Ni, the filtering means can extract all the acquired metadata as Di. In this case, the total number of metadata filtered becomes less than N.
Finally, the filtering means 209 adds Di which is the metadata acquired from the user i and extracted to D which is the final output of the filtering means 209 (in step ST1006), and increments i by one so as to process the next user (in step ST1007). In order to check whether the filtering means has finished the process for all the users, the filtering means carries out an end process judgment on the following condition: i<the number of users X (in step ST1008). While this condition is satisfied, the filtering means repeats the processes of steps ST1004 to ST1007.
In contrast, because i becomes equal to the value of X and that condition is no longer satisfied when the process is completed for all the users from whom the metadata management terminal has acquired the metadata, the filtering means outputs D which are the final output results of the acquired metadata as filtered results (in step ST1009), and ends the filtering process. Furthermore, the filtering means can output the filtered results after sorting the metadata in such a manner that metadata from a metadata providing terminal 102 with a higher degree of affinity has a higher rank and metadata from a metadata providing terminal 102 with the same degree of affinity has a higher rank as it has a higher degree of taste for the user.
The filtering means carries out the filtering process using information about both degrees of preference and degrees of affinity. As an alternative, the filtering means can carry out the filtering process using information about only either of degrees of preference and degrees of affinity.
The user of the metadata management terminal can operate the user interface as shown in
For example, when the user presses down the cursor key disposed in the input means 201 once in the screen display as shown in
In contrast, when the contents associated with the metadata do not have to be subjected to copyright protection management, the metadata management apparatus directly acquires and plays back video or music contents or the like by referring to the identifier of the contents included in the acquired metadata. The operation of the metadata management apparatus at this time will be mentioned below.
First, the system control means 202 acquires the identifier used for referring to the contents which is included in the metadata which the user has selected from the display means 210. This identifier can be a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) or the like, and the system control means can uniquely determine the location of the contents on the network. The system control means 202 makes a request of the contents acquisition means 211 to acquire the contents specified by the specified URL, and the contents acquisition means 211 creates a message containing the specified URL in a form which complies with HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) which is a protocol used for acquiring, for example, a video, a music piece, a photo, a text, or a hypertext in which some of them coexist, and sends out the message to the network via the communications means 205.
When a response to the message saying the aforementioned request to acquire the contents is received by the communications means 205, the contents acquisition means 211 receives the data from the communications means 205. The contents acquisition means 211 changes its operation according to the type of the acquired data, for example, as follows:
In the Case of a Video
For example, when the metadata management apparatus acquires video data which complies with the MPEG (Moving Picture Expert Group) 2 standard, the metadata management apparatus inputs the data to a hardware MPEG2 decoder (not shown) which the contents acquisition means 211 controls, and outputs a decoded picture to the display means 210.
In the Case of a Piece of Music
For example, when the metadata management apparatus acquires music data which complies with the MP3 (MPEG1 Audio Layer-3) standard, the metadata management apparatus inputs the data to a hardware MP3 decoder (not shown) which the contents acquisition means 211 controls, and outputs a decoded sound to the sound output means 212.
In the Case of a Photo
For example, when the metadata management apparatus acquires still picture data which complies with the JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) standard, the contents acquisition means 211 decodes the JPEG file by using a software library, and outputs a decoded image to the display means 210.
In the Case of Web Contents
When the metadata management apparatus acquires an HTTP message containing a HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) document, the metadata management apparatus provides the above-mentioned HTTP message to a web browser which the display means 210 has therein. The web browser which has received the message interprets the acquired HTML document, and displays it on the display means 210.
As mentioned above, the radio base station system in accordance with embodiment 1 includes: the metadata acquisition request generating/transmitting means for generating a metadata acquisition request to acquire metadata from a metadata providing terminal; the metadata storing/receiving means for storing the metadata which are acquired from the metadata providing terminal with the metadata acquisition request; the degree of preference storage means for holding a degree of the user's taste for the metadata; the degree of affinity storage means for storing a degree of affinity between the metadata providing terminal and the user, the degree of affinity being determined from the user's using state of the metadata acquired from the metadata providing terminal; and the filtering means for selecting metadata stored in the metadata storage means by using at least of the degree of preference and the degree of affinity. Therefore, the user can browse the metadata of the contents which he or she likes on a priority basis by using the information on the degree of preference without examine whether or not the information provided for the user is information which interests himself or herself. Also when receiving provision of pieces of information from two or more metadata providing terminals, the user can browse many pieces of information from a terminal having a high degree of affinity for the user by using the information on the degree of affinity without being conscious of whether metadata provided from which terminal interests himself or herself.
Furthermore, because the metadata management apparatus in accordance with embodiment 1 includes the contents acquisition means for referring to the identifier of the contents associated with the metadata which the user has selected so as to acquire the contents, and for playing back the contents, the user can acquire the contents associated with the provided metadata by simply browsing and selecting the metadata, and can enjoy the contents promptly.
A metadata management apparatus in accordance with embodiment 2 manages identification information for identifying a metadata providing terminal for every group. Because the metadata management apparatus according to this embodiment has the same structure as that of embodiment 1 in terms of drawings, the metadata management apparatus will be explained by using
In embodiment 1, the user is allowed to select terminals of which the metadata management apparatus will make a request to acquire metadata one by one from the screen as shown in
The metadata acquisition destination terminal management means 203 of the metadata providing device in accordance with embodiment 2 has a group management table shown in
Next, the operation of the metadata management terminal of embodiment 2 will be explained.
In
When the user presses down the OK button 1503 after inputting a group name to the group name entry form 1502 by using the input means 201, information on the group name is registered into the group management table which the metadata acquisition destination terminal management means 203 manages. At this time, an integer value being able to uniquely identify the group which is newly registered in the group management table is registered into the group ID, a character string indicating the group name inputted to the group name entry form 1502 is registered into the group name, and an address ID of one or more terminals which the user has selected by checking corresponding one or more check marks in the screen display as shown in
Next, the operation of the metadata management terminal 101 at the time when the user selects a group which he or she has registered will be explained.
When the user makes a request to select metadata providing terminals 102 by specifying a group by using the input means 201, the system control means 202 makes a request of the metadata acquisition destination terminal management means 203 to acquire the group management table. The system control means 202 transmits the acquired group management table to the display means 210, and the display means 210 displays a group selection screen as shown in
In
When the user presses down the OK button 1605 after selecting a group by checking a corresponding check mark 1603 in the group selection screen display as shown in
As mentioned above, because the metadata management apparatus in accordance with embodiment 2 has the metadata acquisition destination terminal management means for managing identification information for identifying metadata providing terminals for every group, the user can collectively register metadata providing terminals on a group-by-group basis and therefore does not have to select terminals one by one. As a result, the metadata management apparatus can make a request of two or more metadata providing terminals of a group to acquire metadata at a time by, for example, simply selecting the group.
In the figure, a group suggestion means 1701 is a group suggestion means for detecting metadata providing terminals each of which has a degree of affinity exceeding a predetermined degree of affinity, and for suggesting registering, as a group, those metadata providing terminals into the metadata acquisition destination terminal management means 203. More specifically, the group suggestion means has a function of sending out metadata providing terminals 102 each of which has a degree of affinity exceeding a predetermined degree of affinity as candidates for a group which is managed by the metadata acquisition destination terminal management means 203. Blocks having the same functions as those of the metadata management terminal shown in
Hereafter, the operation of the metadata management terminal in accordance with embodiment 3 will be explained.
After making a request of the degree of affinity storage means 208 to acquire the degrees of affinity of metadata providing terminals and then acquiring these degrees of affinity, the group suggestion means 1701 detects address IDs which correspond to users to whom values larger than a constant value (e.g., 0.6) which is pre-registered in the group suggestion means 1701 are assigned. Next, the metadata management terminal transmits a notification of group registration suggestion to the system control means 202 together with the detected address IDs and nicknames. The system control means 202 which has received the notification of group registration suggestion transmits the nicknames received thereby to the display means 210, and makes a request to display a screen as shown in
In the screen shown in
When the user browses members displayed in the detected member list 1802 in
When the user judges that the members displayed in the detected member list 1802 can be registered as a group, he or she presses down the OK button 1804 to cause the metadata management terminal to carry out the group registration. In contrast, when the user judges that the metadata management terminal does not have to carry out the group registration, he or she can stop the group registration by pressing down the cancel button 1805.
When the OK button 1804 is selected, the display means 210 displays a group name registration dialog as shown in
After the metadata management terminal has completed the group registration, the user can select a group through a group selection screen display as shown in
As mentioned above, the metadata management apparatus in accordance with embodiment 3 includes the group suggestion means for detecting metadata providing terminals each of which has a degree of affinity exceeding a predetermined degree of affinity, the degree of affinity being determined on the basis of the user's using state of the contents provided by each target metadata providing terminal, and for sending out information indentifying the detected metadata providing terminals as candidates for a group which is managed by the metadata acquisition destination terminal management means. Therefore, the present embodiment offers an advantage of enabling the user to automatically receive suggestion of registration of a degree of affinity-based group which can be a destination of acquisition of metadata, and to easily make a request of two or more metadata providing terminals to acquire metadata at a time without selecting other users whom the user desire to register as a group by himself or herself.
In the figure, because a network 103 and metadata 105 are the same as those shown in
The metadata management terminal 1902 is a terminal which makes a request to acquire metadata provided by the two or more metadata providing terminals 1905 by transmitting a metadata acquisition request 1903 to the server terminal 1901, and which acquires the metadata list 1904 from the server terminal 1901. The metadata management terminal 1902 corresponds to the metadata management terminal 101 in accordance with embodiment 1. More specifically, a metadata acquisition request generating/transmitting means 204 in the metadata management terminal 1902 in accordance with embodiment 4 has a function of generating a metadata acquisition request 1903 to acquire metadata which the user desires from the server terminal 1901. Because structural components of the metadata management terminal 1902 other than this component are the same as those of the metadata management terminal 101 in accordance with embodiment 1, the explanation of the other structural components will be omitted hereafter.
The metadata list 1904 is data transmitted to the metadata management terminal 1902 as a response to the metadata acquisition request 1903 from the server terminal 1901. Furthermore, each metadata providing terminal 1905 is a terminal which, when the metadata held therein change periodically or, transmits the metadata to the server terminal 1901, and corresponds to a metadata providing terminal 102 in accordance with embodiment 1.
Hereafter, the operation of the metadata management terminal 1902 in accordance with embodiment 4 will be explained.
Because the operation up to step ST315 in
As shown in
When the metadata acquisition destination terminal management means 203 generates the metadata acquisition request 1903 as mentioned above, the metadata acquisition request generating/transmitting means 204 transmits a metadata acquisition request transmission request to the communications means 205 together with the generated metadata acquisition request 1903 (in step ST318), and the communications means 205 transmits the metadata acquisition request 1903 to the server terminal 1901 specified by the transmission destination address 2001.
The server terminal 1901 which has received the metadata acquisition request 1903 compares the metadata stored in the local terminal with the metadata providing terminal address list 2003 included in the metadata acquisition request 1903, collects the metadata which match with the metadata providing terminal address list to generate a metadata list 1904, and transmits the metadata list 1904 to the metadata management terminal 1902. Because the process carried out after receiving the metadata list 1904 is the same as the operation shown in embodiment 1, the explanation of the process will be omitted hereafter.
As mentioned above, the metadata management apparatus in accordance with embodiment 4 includes: the metadata acquisition request generating/transmitting means for generating a metadata acquisition request to acquire metadata which the user desires from the server terminal which manages metadata which the server terminal has acquired from a plurality of metadata providing terminals; the metadata storing/receiving means for storing the metadata which are acquired from a metadata providing terminal with the metadata acquisition request; the degree of preference storage means for holding a degree of the user's taste for the metadata; the degree of affinity storage means for storing a degree of affinity between the metadata providing terminal and the user, the degree of affinity being determined from the user's using state of the metadata acquired from the metadata providing terminal; and the filtering means for selecting metadata stored in the metadata storage means by using at least of the degree of preference and the degree of affinity. Therefore, in order to acquire metadata provided by each metadata providing terminal specified by the user, the metadata management apparatus has only to transmit a metadata acquisition request to the server terminal once without transmitting the metadata acquisition request independently to each metadata providing terminal.
As mentioned above, the metadata management apparatus in accordance with the present invention is suitable for use in a system in which plural terminals each of which uses metadata in which a description of contents, such as a video or a piece of music, is written are connected to a network, and metadata are acquired and provided among terminals, and so on.
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/JP2005/008988 | 5/17/2005 | WO | 00 | 10/31/2007 |
