Patent Grant
10031926
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a method and apparatus for providing information about an object, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for identifying an object from an image or context aware information and providing information about the identified object.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the development of communications technology, communication between persons and relationship-based activities has increased. In particular, as online activities using social network websites such as Facebook®, Cyworld®, Twitter®, etc. increase, a variety of applications that provide information using a user device have been widely suggested.
Accordingly, an aspect of the present invention is to provide a method for providing and apparatus for identifying an object from an image or context aware information and providing information about the identified object.
Another aspect of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for providing recommendation information based on relationship information between objects or between an object and a user.
Another aspect of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for providing relationship information between objects or between an object and a user that is included in an image being displayed on a user device.
Another aspect of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for providing recommendation information based on relationship information between objects or between an object and a user that is included in an image being displayed on a user device.
Another aspect of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for providing relationship information between objects or between an object and a user based on the context of a user device.
Another aspect of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for providing recommendation information based on relationship information between objects or between an object and a user based on the context of a user device.
According to an aspect of the present invention, a method of providing information includes identifying an object included in an image being displayed or to be displayed on a user device, obtaining relationship information of the object based on identification information of the object, and outputting the relationship information to at least one of the user device and a device of the object.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a method of providing information includes identifying an object from context aware information based on a user device, acquiring relationship information of the object based on identification information of the object, and outputting the relationship information to at least one of the user device and a device of the object.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a user device includes an output unit for displaying an image, and a processor for identifying an object included in the image being displayed or to be displayed on the output unit, obtaining relationship information of the object based on identification information of the object, and outputting the relationship information to at least one of the output unit and a device of the object.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a user device includes a context aware information collection unit, and a processor for identifying an object from information collected by the context aware information collection unit and obtaining relationship information of the object based on identification information of the object.
The above and other aspects, features, and advantages of certain embodiments of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
Various embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings. This present invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art.
Specifically, the user device provides information between objects included in an image being displayed on the user device or between an object and a user included in an image being displayed. Additionally, the image may be an image to be displayed on the user device.
The user device illustrated in
Referring to
The user interface unit 110 interfaces between the user device and a user of the user device, using an input unit 111 and an output unit 112. For example, the user interface unit 110 may input an input signal such as a touch-based signal, a key-based signal, and a mouse operation-based signal, and may output an image and other information.
A signal input through the user interface unit 110 may be interpreted as a signal input through the input unit 111. A signal output through the user interface unit 110 may be interpreted as a signal output through the output unit 112. For example, the output unit 112 may be a display device such as a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), a Light-Emitting Diode (LED) display, an Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode (AMOLED) display, etc.
An image is displayed by the user interface unit 110. The image may be read from the storage unit 130, received from outside the user device, e.g., received through the network unit 140, or obtained by the image obtaining unit 150. Usually, an object, e.g., a person, an animal, a tree, etc., is included in an image being displayed on the user device.
The information about an object that is provided according to an embodiment of the present invention may include relationship information and recommendation information. The relationship information may link or correlate an object included in an image and a user of the user device or link or correlate objects included in an image. When an image includes a plurality of objects, the relationship information may indicate link or correlation between multiple objects included in the image and the user.
For example, when an object is a person, the relationship information may be defined as personal connections between the person included in an image and the user or between people included in an image, a birthday of a person, an interest of a person, a common interest between a person and the user or between people in the image, etc. The common interest between the a person and the user or between people in the image may be defined as, for example, a music lovers group, a noodle lovers group, a swimming group, etc.
As another example, when an image includes an object such as a ball, an animal, ball+person, ball+animal, or animal+person, the relationship information may be defined as information indicating link or correlation between the object and the user or information indicating link or correlation between objects. For example, when the object is a user's house, the relationship information may be defined as “our house”. For example, when the image includes two objects, i.e., person A and a house, and person A owns the house, the relationship information may be defined as “A's house”.
Recommendation information is based on relationship information. For example, when the relationship information is “friend”, the recommendation information may be particular place information or guide information to a particular shopping mall, based on a particular activity between the object and the user. For example, when the relationship information is “our house”, the recommendation information may be guide information to a shop that was recently visited by the user from our house.
That is, the recommendation information is information that is obtainable based on various types of relationship information such as information obtained based on interest between an object and a user or between objects, information obtained based on a link and correlation between an object and a user or between objects, information obtained based on a common interest of a group between an object and a user or between objects, or information obtained based on interests and schedules between an object and a user or between objects. Further, the recommendation information may be defined as guide information based on the relationship information.
Referring back to
The processor 120 outputs the obtained relationship information to the output unit 112, or transmits the obtained relationship information to the output unit 112 while simultaneously outputting the obtained relationship information to a device (not shown) that an object, e.g., a person, has through the network device 140. That is, if the object is a person, the device of the object may be a mobile device of the person or a smart phone of the person. If the object is a building or a company or a museum, the device of the object may be a communication device registered to the building or the company or the museum, wherein the communication device can receive information. If the object is an animal or a tree, the device of the object does not exist. Information about the device of the object may be obtained when an object is identified.
The processor 120 may load a program for performing the information providing method that is stored in the storage unit 130. The program may be stored in the storage unit 130 during the manufacture of the user device or by downloading the program from a server (not shown) through the network interface unit 140. For example, the server may an Application Store server.
Referring to
The external database may be managed by a database management server (not shown) or a social network server connected through a network, or stored in an external storage medium (not shown) connected through a wired network. The external storage medium may be storage media such as a hard disk drive. The external database or the database 131 stored in the storage unit 130 may include data according to a result of analysis of data collected from the social network server. The data collected from the social network server may include information about an object and user information of the user device.
The processor 120 may identify the object included in an image by extracting the object included in the image from a background and searching the database 131 stored in the storage unit 130 or the external database, in units of extracted objects. For example, when the extracted object is a person, the extraction may include extracting a face image from the image.
Further, when an image includes a plurality of objects and a signal for selecting any one object is received from the input unit 111 of the user interface unit 110, the processor 120 may extract an object selected from an image being displayed and search the above-described database based on the extracted object, thereby identifying the selected object.
The processor 120 may obtain identification information of the object included in an image by conducting a search in units of the above-described images or objects. For example, the identification information of an object may be presented as information such as a name of an object, a keyword, an ID, a nickname, etc.
In step S202, the processor 120 obtains relationship information of an identified object based on identification information of the object. The relationship information obtained in operation S202 may be relationship information between objects included in an image or relationship information between at least one object included in the image and a user of the user device.
The relationship information may be obtained by searching the database 131 or the above-described external database using the identification information of an object. Thus, the database 131 stored in the storage unit 130 or the above-described external database may include the identification information of an object and relationship information based on the identification information and the user information.
Additionally, in step S202, the processor 120 outputs the obtained relationship information to at least one of the output unit 112 and the device of an object, or transmits the obtained relationship information to the device of an object through the network device 140, while simultaneously outputting the obtained relationship information to the output unit 112.
Referring to
When a signal for selecting an object corresponding to identification information 2 is received, after identification information of each object is obtained, the processor 120 may obtain relationship information between object 2 and a user of the user device by searching the database 131 or/and the external database. As illustrated in screen 303, the obtained relationship information may be displayed in a separate area 304.
For example, the relationship information displayed in area 304 may be relationship information between at least two of objects 1, 2, and 3, or relationship information between at least two of objects 1, 2, and 3 and a user of the user device.
Referring to
A device of an object receiving the obtained relationship information through a network may display the same image as screen 303 or 403. If an object is a person and the device of the object is a mobile device of that person, the relationship information is also sent to the mobile device of that person.
Compared to the method illustrated in
Specifically, in step S503, the processor 120 obtains recommendation information about an object based on relationship information. The recommendation information may be obtained by searching the database 131 or/and the above-described external database using the relationship information. For example, when the relationship information obtained in step S502 is at least one of personal connections information, correlation information, and interest information, information inferred through the searching of the database 131 or/and the external database based on the at least one of personal connections information, correlation information, and interest information is obtained as recommendation information. The obtained recommendation information may be output to the output unit 112 or transmitted to the device of an object through the network interface unit 140 while being output to the output unit 112. The recommendation information output to the output unit 112 and the device that an object has may be displayed on a corresponding image, as illustrated in screen 303 of
However, when the recommendation information is displayed together with the relationship information, the processor 120 displays the recommendation information and the relationship information in separate areas that do not overlap with each other. Although the recommendation information or an image to be displayed with the recommendation information may be transmitted to the device of an object, the relationship information is also transmitted to the device of the object so that an image including the same information as that displayed in the user device may be displayed on the device of the object. For example, the transmission to the device of an object may be performed using a Multimedia Message Service (MMS) method.
When there is more than one piece of recommendation information obtained in step S503, the processor 120 detects a keyword from each piece of recommendation information and outputs the detected keyword. The keyword, which is a word representing the recommendation information, may be defined by at least one of the words included in the recommendation information or determined based on the content of the recommendation information. The keyword detected from the recommendation information is information different from a keyword of an object. Thus, when the identification information of an object is defined by a keyword, a keyword for identification information of an object may be defined as a first keyword and a keyword for recommendation information may be defined as a second keyword.
For example, if recommendation information is related to a restaurant, a keyword may be determined as a “top restaurant” based on the content of recommendation information or defined as a “restaurant” based on words included in the recommendation information. If recommendation information is related to playing, a keyword may be determined as “activity” based on the content of recommendation information or defined as “swimming” based on words included in the recommendation information. If recommendation information is related to a celebration, a keyword may be determined as an “anniversary” based on the content of recommendation information or defined as a “birthday” based on words included in the recommendation information.
When a selection signal based on the keyword is received, the processor 120 may output recommendation information corresponding to a selected keyword according to the selection signal, or transmit the recommendation information corresponding to the selected keyword to the device of an object while simultaneously outputting the recommendation information to the user device.
Although the selected keyword may be transmitted during the transmission of a keyword, finally output image information may be transmitted by the MMS method in order to have the same image as an image finally output to the output unit 112 output to the device of an object, as described above.
The keyword and the recommendation information may be displayed in separate areas, when output to user device. When the keyword and the recommendation information are separately displayed, the recommendation information may be defined as keyword-based detailed information.
When there are multiple objects in an image, the recommendation information obtained in step S503 may be transmitted to all devices of the objects. However, a device to which the obtained recommendation information is transmitted may be chosen according to a user's selection. Also, when there are multiple objects in an image, the recommendation information and the relationship information may be defined as the recommendation information and the relationship information of a group.
Referring to
Obviously, the positioning of area 604 and area 606 may vary.
Although, in
Referring again to
Accordingly, a user interface unit 710, a storage unit 730 storing a database 731, a network interface unit 740, and an image obtaining unit 750 included in the user device of
Referring to
The processor 720 identifies an object included in an image being displayed, similar to processor 120 of
Referring to
The processor 720 identifies at least one object included in an image being displayed on the output unit 712 in step S802. For example, the object included in an image may be identified using information of the above-described database 731 or/and external databases.
In step S803, the processor 720 obtains relationship information of the identified object based on the received context aware information and the identification information of the object. When the received context aware information is the current time and current location information, as described above, the time information and current location information may be used in obtaining relationship information between objects included in an image or between an object included in an image and a user. The obtained relationship information may be output to at least one of the output unit 712 and the device of the object (not shown), or transmitted to the device of the object through the network interface unit 740, while being simultaneously output to the output unit 712.
In addition to steps S901, S902, and S903, which correspond to steps S801, S802, and S803 of
In step S904, the processor 720 obtains recommendation information about an object based on relationship information. The processor 720 may obtain recommendation information about an object using the context aware information collected by the context aware information collection unit 760 and the relationship information. The processor 720 may output the obtained recommendation information to at least one of the output unit 712 and the device of the object or may transmit the obtained recommendation information to the device of the object, while simultaneously outputting the obtained recommendation information to the output unit 712. The recommendation information may be obtained by searching the database 731 or/and the above-described external database using relationship information.
Referring to
The context aware information collection unit 1050 includes an identification information collection unit (not shown) for collecting identification information of at least one object existing in a predetermined area. Accordingly, the context aware information collection unit 1050 may be defined as an identification information collection unit. The context aware information collection unit 1050 may include a GPS module (not shown) or a base station based location information collection module to collect the current time and current location information. The base station based location information collection module may be referred as the base station based positioning system.
Referring to
The processor 1020 may then obtain relationship information by searching the database 1031 or/and an external database based on identification information for each object which is collected by the context aware information collection unit 1050 or the identification information for each object and current time and current location information, and output the obtained relationship information to the output unit 1012 or transmit the obtained relationship information to devices 1100_1 through 1100_3 of objects, while simultaneously outputting the obtained relationship information to the output unit 1012.
Referring to
In step S1203, the processor 1020 obtains relation information of the identified object by searching the database 1031 or/and an external database based on the identification information of an object. The processor 1020 may output the obtained relationship information to at least one of the output unit 1012 and the device 1100_1 through 1100_3 of objects or transmit the obtained relationship information to the devices 1100_1 through 1100_3 of objects, while simultaneously outputting the obtained relationship information to the output unit 1012.
In addition to steps S1301, S1302, and S1303, which correspond to steps S1201, S1202, and S1203 of
In step S1304, the processor 1020 may obtain recommendation information about an object based on relationship information or the relationship information and context aware information, and output the obtained recommendation information to the output unit 1012 or to both of the output unit 1012 and the devices 1100_1 through 1100_3 of objects. The transmission to the devices 1100_1 through 1100_3 of objects is performed using the network interface unit 1040. The recommendation information may be obtained by searching the database 1031 or/and the above-described external database using the relationship information or the relationship information and context aware information.
With reference to
The above-described user devices of
Referring to
An external database 1450 may store data based on a result of analysis of data collected by the first server 1430 through the network 1420. The external database 1450 may be modified to be connected to the user device 1410 through the network 1420. Thus, the search for information from an external database may be defined as search from a website, i.e., a search for identification information of an object, relationship information, and recommendation information from a website by the user device 1410.
Although the above-described embodiments are described based on an image being displayed on a user device, the above-described embodiments may also be applied to an image to be displayed on the user device.
The above-described embodiments of the present invention can also be embodied as computer-readable codes on a computer-readable recording medium. The computer-readable recording medium is any data storage device that can store data, which can be thereafter read by a computer system. Examples of the computer-readable recording medium include a Read-Only Memory (ROM), a Random-Access Memory (RAM), a Compact Disc (CD)-ROM, a magnetic tape, a floppy disk, an optical data storage device, etc. The computer-readable recording medium can also be distributed over network-coupled computer systems so that the computer-readable code is stored and executed in a distributed fashion.
While the present invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to certain embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10-2010-0076970 | Aug 2010 | KR | national |
This application is a continuation application of U.S. application Ser. No. 13/205,912, which was filed on Aug. 9, 2011 and claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119(a) to Korean Patent Application No. 10-2010-0076970, which was filed in the Korean Intellectual Property Office on Aug. 10, 2010, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
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