Abstract:
A method for acquiring information is implemented in a hand-held mobile communications device to access information in a remote information server through the Internet. The method includes enabling the communications device to acquire information from the information server at predetermined times, to filter the acquired information according to a filtering rule, and to display information complying with the filtering rule or a notification message relating to the information complying with the filtering rule according to a user setting. The method and device permits user convenience and ensures information confidentiality, without incurring extra fees.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0001]     1. Field of the Invention  
         [0002]     The invention relates to a mobile information providing method, more particularly to a method for acquiring information, which is implemented in a hand-held mobile communications device.  
         [0003]     2. Description of the Related Art  
         [0004]     In this era when developments of Internet and wireless communications technologies flourish, use of a handset to send and receive e-mail has become one of the channels to obtain latest information. In order to facilitate reception of e-mail and to block spam mail, more and more telecommunications service providers provide push mail services, and push mail has recently become a popular subject for discussion.  
         [0005]     With the so-called push mail, after the user has set relevant rules or conditions, such as subjects of the mail to be received, or senders of the mail to be received, in a mail server, when contents of an e-mail message received by the mail server comply with the preset rules, the mail server will automatically send a backup copy of the mail to a device of the user, such as a handset or a personal computer. Therefore, the user can have the latest e-mail without having to go through such troublesome procedures as accessing the Internet, inputting his/her account number and user password, etc.  
         [0006]      FIG. 1  depicts a push mail service system developed by a company named Research In Motion (RIM) in Canada using the push mail technology. The system provides a push mail server  20  connected to a telecommunications service provider  10  having a cooperative relation with said company, and various mail servers  30  (only one is exemplified). When a user subscribes to a push mail service from the telecommunications service provider  10 , and the user has his/her handset  40  loaded with relevant software for the push mail server  20  or the user uses an electronic device supplied by RIM, the user can link up with the push mail server  20  through a personal computer  50  to set parameters of the mail to be received by the handset  40  thereby, such as subjects of the mail, senders of the mail, etc. Thereafter, the push mail server  20  will check and screen the e-mail on the push mail server  20  according to the rules preset by the user regularly, convert those e-mail messages that comply with the user&#39;s preset rules to a specific format suitable for reception by the user&#39;s handset  40 , and transmit the same to the user&#39;s handset  40  through the telecommunications service provider  10 .  
         [0007]     However, there exist the following problems with the aforesaid push mail service system:  
         [0000]     1. The push mail service provider has to invest manpower and time resources to maintain the push mail server  20 ;  
         [0000]     2. Subscribing to the push mail service involves payment of an extra fee to the provider of the push mail server  20 ; and  
         [0000]     3. Since the e-mail for the user is received and screened by the push mail server  20 , and is converted to a suitable format by the push mail server  20  before being sent to the user&#39;s handset  40 , security issues may arise.  
         [0008]     Therefore, how to provide push mail functionality while avoiding the aforesaid problems is a subject to be investigated in the present invention.  
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0009]     Therefore, the object of the present invention is to provide a method for acquiring information, and a hand-held mobile communications device implementing the method which can overcome the above drawbacks of the prior art.  
         [0010]     According to one aspect of the present invention, the method for acquiring information is adapted to be implemented in a hand-held mobile communications device so as to access information in a remote information server through the Internet. The method comprises: (A) acquiring information from the information server at predetermined times; (B) filtering the acquired information according to a filtering rule; and (C) according to a user setting, displaying one of the information that complies with the filtering rule and a notification message relating to the information that complies with the filtering rule.  
         [0011]     According to another aspect of the present invention, the hand-held mobile communications device is adapted to access information in a remote information server through the Internet. The hand-held mobile communications device includes: a communications unit for communicating with the information server; and a processing unit for acquiring information from the information server at predetermined times through the communications unit, for filtering the acquired information according to a filtering rule, and for displaying one of information that complies with the filtering rule and a notification message relating to the information that complies with the filtering rule according to a user setting. 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0012]     Other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent in the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment with reference to the accompanying drawings, of which:  
         [0013]      FIG. 1  is a schematic diagram of the system architecture of a conventional push mail service system;  
         [0014]      FIG. 2  is a schematic diagram of a system for the preferred embodiment of a method for acquiring information according to the present invention;  
         [0015]      FIG. 3  is a block diagram of the internal hardware architecture of the preferred embodiment of a hand-held mobile communications device according to the present invention;  
         [0016]      FIG. 4  is a flowchart of a mail information search using the preferred embodiment of the hand-held mobile communications device;  
         [0017]      FIG. 5  is a flowchart of an initialization procedure conducted for the preferred embodiment of the hand-held mobile communications device through a personal computer;  
         [0018]      FIG. 6  is a schematic diagram showing a “Set Up an E-mail Account” screen in the preferred embodiment;  
         [0019]      FIG. 7  is a schematic diagram showing an “Add a New Account” screen in the preferred embodiment;  
         [0020]      FIG. 8  is a schematic diagram showing an “Add a POP3 Account” screen in the preferred embodiment;  
         [0021]      FIG. 9  is a schematic diagram showing an “Add an iNotes Account” screen in the preferred embodiment;  
         [0022]      FIG. 10  is a schematic diagram showing an “Add a Google Mail Account” screen in the preferred embodiment;  
         [0023]      FIG. 11  is a schematic diagram showing a “Set Up Mail Filter” screen in the preferred embodiment;  
         [0024]      FIG. 12  is a schematic diagram of a home page screen on the hand-held mobile communications device in the preferred embodiment;  
         [0025]      FIG. 13  is a schematic diagram showing contents of an e-mail displayed on a display screen of the hand-held mobile communications device in the preferred embodiment;  
         [0026]      FIG. 14  is a schematic diagram of another home page screen on the hand-held mobile communications device in the preferred embodiment;  
         [0027]      FIG. 15  is a schematic diagram of a “Check Mail Schedule” screen in the preferred embodiment;  
         [0028]      FIG. 16  is a schematic diagram of a “Mobile Mail Filter” screen in the preferred embodiment;  
         [0029]      FIG. 17  is a schematic diagram of another “Mobile Mail Filter” screen in the preferred embodiment;  
         [0030]      FIG. 18  is a schematic diagram of a “Search Mail” screen in the preferred embodiment;  
         [0031]      FIG. 19  is a schematic diagram of a “Mail Account” screen in the preferred embodiment;  
         [0032]      FIG. 20  is a schematic diagram of a “Mail Account Settings” screen in the preferred embodiment;  
         [0033]      FIGS. 21-23  are schematic diagrams of “POP3 Account Settings” screens in the preferred embodiment;  
         [0034]      FIG. 24  is a schematic diagram of an “iNotes Account Settings” screen in the preferred embodiment; and  
         [0035]      FIG. 25  is a schematic diagram of a menu screen including options of “Filter,” “Mail Account,” “Check Mail Schedule,” and “Backup/Save” in the preferred embodiment. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT  
       [0036]     Referring to  FIGS. 2 and 3 , the preferred embodiment of a hand-held mobile communications device  21  according to the present invention is shown to be able to connect with various remote information servers  31  (only one is exemplified) through the Internet so as to access information in the information servers  31 .  
         [0037]     In this embodiment, the information server  31  is a mail server, such as the existing Exchange Mail Server, POP3/SMTP Mail Server, Gmail (Google mail) Server, and iNotes Server developed by IBM. In addition, the hand-held mobile communications device  21  of this embodiment is a smart phone having a network accessing function, such as a mobile phone or a PDA phone supporting a wireless communications protocol, e.g., the GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), the WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), the CDMA 2000 or the Wi-Fi, and an operating system capable of executing information downloading and reading functions, such as Win CE5.0.  
         [0038]     As shown in  FIG. 3 , the hand-held mobile communications device  21  has a conventional hardware architecture which includes a communications unit  23 , a processing unit  24 , a real time clock  25 , and a memory unit  26 . The invention can be implemented with conventional hand-held mobile communication device  21 , avoiding altering the hardware thereof.  
         [0039]     The communications unit  23  can be connected to the Internet based on, for example, GPRS, WCDMA, CDMA 2000, or Wi-Fi protocols to permit wireless transmission with the information server  31 . The real time clock  25  provides time information. An independent power source (not shown) of the hand-held mobile communications device  21  supplies power to the real time clock  25  so as to ensure that the real time clock  25  can still operate even when the hand-held mobile communications device  21  is turned off.  
         [0040]     The processing unit  24  not only can execute voice communication, but can also receive filtering rules input from users. The processing unit  24  filters the mails received from the information server  31  according to the predetermined filtering rules. When there are new mails that pass through the filtering rules, the processing unit  24  notifies the user. In addition, the hand-held mobile communications device  21  is loaded with a proprietary mobile mail application program which can control the aforementioned components, and execute the following steps.  
         [0041]     The proprietary application program allows the user to set the interval for checking e-mail. Therefore, the application program triggers the processing unit  24  to access the e-mail in the information server  31  at preset intervals according to the timing of the real time clock  25 .  
         [0042]     Therefore, in step  41  of  FIG. 4 , when the mobile communications device  21  is in a standby mode, the application program will not trigger the processing unit  24  to access the e-mail in the information server  31  until the checking e-mail interval has come. At this time, in step  42 , the processing unit  24  will download the e-mail from the information server  31  through the communications unit  23  and store the same in the memory unit  26 . Then, in step  43 , according to the filtering rules preset by the user, some of the data of the received e-mail are screened, e.g., the senders, the subjects, or some of the contents of the e-mail are screened, to rule out unwanted e-mail, and the e-mail that complies with the preset filtering rules is retained in the memory unit  26 .  
         [0043]     Then, step  44  is carried out to determine whether or not to send a notification to alert the user based on a previous setting by the user. For instance, if the setting of the user is to issue a notification before the user decides whether or not to read the mail, step  45  is performed to generate and display a notification on a screen of the hand-held mobile communications device  21  to notify the user of receipt of new e-mail. Then, in step  46 , the processing unit  24  waits for the user to issue a read-mail command and, whereupon, carries out step  47  to read the mail from the memory unit  26  and display the mail on the display screen of the hand-held mobile communications unit  21 . On the contrary, if the user&#39;s previous setting in step  44  is to read the mail directly, a notification will not be issued, and the flow skips to step  47  to enable the processing unit  24  to read the mail from the memory unit  26  directly and to display the mail on the screen.  
         [0044]     The above is a brief description of the flow of the application program in this embodiment. The method of use and the flow of operation of the hand-held mobile communications device  21  will now be described in detail in the succeeding paragraphs.  
         [0045]     Referring to  FIG. 2 , before the mobile mail function of the hand-held mobile communications device  21  can be used, an initialization procedure with respect to the hand-held mobile communications device  21  has to be conducted through a personal computer  32 .  
         [0046]     Referring to  FIG. 5 , in step  51 , before commencement of the initialization procedure, the personal computer  32  is enabled to inspect whether the hand-held mobile communications device  21  has installed therein software (e.g., the conventional Active sync software) that allows access to the hand-held mobile communications device  21  by the personal computer  32 . After confirming the presence of such software, in step  52 , the personal computer  32  inspects whether the hand-held mobile communications device  21  is connected to the personal computer  32 . If yes, the flow goes to step  53 , in which a “Set Up an E-mail Account” screen as shown in  FIG. 6  is displayed on the personal computer  32 . In the upper text box of the screen, there is shown mail server account information (Profile  1  Name, Profile  2  Name, James Wu Hinet, . . . etc.) of a mail handler (e.g., outlook or outlook express) in the personal computer  32  available for the user&#39;s selection and addition to the lower text box of the screen so as to set the mail server to be searched.  
         [0047]     At the same time, command buttons of “Add,” “Edit,” “Delete,” etc., are displayed at a lower portion of the screen. When the user selects the “Add” command button, a screen entitled “Add a New Account” such as that shown in  FIG. 7  will appear, listing a number of mail server accounts, e.g., POP3, Exchange, iNotes, and Gmail, for the user&#39;s selection. When the user selects “POP3,” a screen entitled “Add a POP3 Account” as shown in  FIG. 8  will appear to allow the user to set relevant information of the mail server (incoming mail server POP3 and outgoing mail server SMTP), such as server address, user account and password. When the user chooses “iNotes” or “Gmail,” on the screen of  FIG. 7 , an “Add an iNotes Account” screen as shown in  FIG. 9 , or an “Add a Google Mail Account” screen as shown in  FIG. 10 , will appear to allow the user to input information such as mail account and password or mail address (for iNotes). After the user has finished inputting such information and has clicked on the “OK” button, the personal computer  32  will inspect the accuracy of the data inputted by the user before proceeding with the search for the newly added mail account. After locating the mail account, the mail account will be added to the lower text box of the screen of  FIG. 6 . In addition, the user can also choose “Edit” or “Delete” on the screen of  FIG. 6  to edit the mail account data or delete the mail account.  
         [0048]     After the user has set the mail account in the “Set Up an E-Mail Account” screen and selected the “Next” command button thereon, in step  54 , a screen entitled “Set ail Filter” as shown in  FIG. 11  will appear to allow the user to set filtering rules. The user can enter one or more keywords in the “keyword” box on the screen, and choose the “sender” or “subject” option button to relate the entered keyword/keywords to the sender or the subject of an e-mail message. By clicking the “Add” button, the keyword/keywords can be added to the filtering rule box at the lower part of the screen. The setup data will be recorded in the processing unit  24 . After the settings are completed, in step  55 , the personal computer  32  executes a software install procedure with respect to the hand-held mobile communications device  21  to install another application program for executing a mobile mail service into the hand-held mobile communications device  21 . After installation, the hand-held mobile communications device  21  will have a mobile mail function.  
         [0049]     Therefore, referring to  FIG. 12 , when the processing unit  24  of the hand-held mobile communications device  21  checks the mail in the information server  31 , and locates mail that has complied with the filtering rules, an incoming notification will be generated to notify the user to check the hand-held mobile communications device  21 . The incoming notification may be a ringing tone or vibration. Moreover, a visible incoming notification icon, such as a star-shaped icon  120 , will be displayed on a home page screen of the hand-held mobile communications device  21  as shown in  FIG. 12 . The user can customize or edit the form of the incoming notification as well as edit the icon  120 . Therefore, when the user clicks on the star-shaped icon  120 , a message window  121  will open at the lower part of the home page screen to display a mail notification message, which includes the sender of the mail, the subject of the mail, and the size of the mail. At the same time, a “Read” button  124  is shown at the bottom of the home page screen to allow the user to read the text of the mail upon clicking the “Read” button  124 . Furthermore, when there are several notification messages from the hand-held mobile communications device  21 , the number of the notification messages will be shown at the right upper corner of the message window  121 , and left and right arrows  122 ,  123  are provided to allow the user to choose to read the notification messages of interest.  
         [0050]     In addition, the message window  121  may be a customized message window that allows the user to edit settings of the message window.  
         [0051]     Furthermore, aside from being configured to send a notification in advance, the processing unit  24  of the hand-held mobile communications device  21  may also be set to automatically display the text (content) of the mail, including the sender, the subject, and the size of the mail, upon obtaining mail that complies with the filtering rules.  
         [0052]     In addition, since the processing unit  24  downloads the text of the mail in whole or in part (depending on the size of the mail), in case the mail is not downloaded in its entirety or there is an attachment to the mail, referring to  FIG. 13 , when the content of the mail is being displayed on the display screen of the hand-held mobile communications device  21 , a “Download the Rest” option button will appear at the bottom of the screen to allow the user to choose to download the rest of the content of the mail.  
         [0053]     Referring to  FIG. 14 , a virtual button  141  is further provided at a lower right corner of the home page screen of the hand-held mobile communications device  21 . Upon clicking the virtual button  141 , a menu  142  displaying several choices including “Check Mail Immediately,” “Scheduling,” “Filter,” “Search Mail,” and “Set Up Account” is shown. When the user clicks “Check Mail Immediately,” the processing unit  24  will be activated to search the information server  31  for any mail that complies with the filtering rule, and to display the search results, as shown in  FIG. 12 . When the “Scheduling” option is clicked, the display screen of the hand-held mobile communications device  21  will display a “Set Up” page, as shown in  FIG. 15 , and the user can set the mail checking time of the processing unit  24  on the “Set Up” page to enable the application program to activate the processing unit  24  to search for mail data in the information server  31  at preset times according to the time setting.  
         [0054]     Furthermore, to ensure the accuracy of the date and time for the processing unit  24  to perform data searches, the hand-held mobile communications device  21  can also be automatically connected to a clock server on the Internet at predetermined times so as to permit automatic calibration of the time of the real time clock  25 .  
         [0055]     When the user chooses the “Filter” option of the menu  142  in the screen of  FIG. 14 , a screen entitled “Mobile Mail Filter” as shown in  FIG. 16  will appear, showing the original filtering rule settings, with a menu  161  containing options of “Add Keywords” and “Delete Keywords” to allow the user to choose to add or delete a keyword to be searched, as shown in  FIG. 17 .  
         [0056]     When the user chooses the “Search Mail” option of the menu  142  in the screen of  FIG. 14 , a “Search Mail” screen as shown in  FIG. 18  will pop up to allow the user to enter search parameters, e.g., mail account, sender, time period, subject, etc. The processing unit  24  of the hand-held mobile communications device  21  will immediately access the information server  31  to search for e-mail based on the search parameters, and display the search results, as shown in  FIG. 12 .  
         [0057]     When the “Set up an account” option of the menu  142  in the screen of  FIG. 14  is chosen, a screen entitled “Mail Account” as shown in  FIG. 19  will appear, showing the currently set mail accounts. At the same time, option buttons of “Add” and “Delete” are provided at the bottom of the screen to allow the user to choose to add or delete a mail account. When the user chooses “Add” option, a screen entitled “Mail Account Settings” as shown in  FIG. 20  will appear to allow the user to select the type of account, e.g., POP3, Exchange, iNotes, or Gmail. If the type of account selected by the user is POP3 or Gmail, windows such as those respectively shown in  FIGS. 21 and 22  will appear in sequence to allow the user to set relevant information, e.g., to enter the user account number, password, server address, etc. Then, a screen as shown in  FIG. 23  will appear to confirm the data inputted by the user so as to add a new account. On the other hand, if the type of account selected by the user is Exchange or iNotes, a window as shown in  FIG. 24  will appear to allow the user to enter relevant information, and a checking procedure as illustrated in  FIG. 23  is performed to add a new mail account.  
         [0058]     After the hand-held mobile communications device  21  has undergone the initialization procedure on first use, if the user wants to change the settings of the hand-held mobile communications device  21  through the personal computer  32 , the hand-held mobile communications device  21  is connected to the personal computer  32 , and the personal computer  32  will display a menu including the options “Filter,” “Mail Account,” “Check Mail Schedule,” and “Backup/Save” for the user to choose. The process for setting the “Filter,” the “Mail Account,” and the “Check Mail Schedule” is the same as that described heretofore (see  FIGS. 16-17 ,  FIGS. 19-24 , and  FIG. 15 ), and will not be discussed further herein.  
         [0059]     The “Backup/Save” option allows the user to store the setup data in the personal computer  32 , or, in case of damage to the original setup data in the hand-held mobile communications device  21 , to use the backup copy of the setup data stored in the personal computer  32  to replace the damaged setup data in the hand-held mobile communications device  21 .  
         [0060]     In addition, the hand-held mobile communications device  21  of this embodiment not only can screen e-mail, it can also screen web page information provided by the information server  31 . The information server  31  referred to in this case is a web server which can supply articles published in different blogs, or news information provided by different websites (e.g., Yahoo news).  
         [0061]     In the same manner as that described hereinabove, the processing unit  24  of the hand-held mobile communications device  21  can go to the information server  31  at predetermined times to retrieve web information, and can filter the web information of interest to the user according to the filtering rule (keywords relating to web page source, subject, text, etc.) set in the filter of the processing unit  24 , and issue notifications to alert the user to read the filtered web page information or directly display the web page information of interest to the user for the user to browse the information provided on the web page through a hyperlink.  
         [0062]     By means of setting a filtering rule in the hand-held mobile communications device  21  of this embodiment, the hand-held mobile communications device  21  can search information in the information server  31  which complies with the filtering rule set by the user, and then issue a notification to advise the user to read the filtered information. Thus, the user will not receive unwanted information through the hand-held mobile communications device  21 , and, as the retrieval of information does not need to go through a third party, no additional telecommunications service fees are required. Besides, the integrity and confidentiality of the information can be ensured. Thus, the intended effect and object of this invention can be achieved.  
         [0063]     While the present invention has been described in connection with what is considered the most practical and preferred embodiment, it is understood that this invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiment but is intended to cover various arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and equivalent arrangements.