Patent ID: 7937726

Claim:
An information providing apparatus for displaying program information outputted from a plurality of information sources to facilitate selecting of a program, the information providing apparatus comprising: first obtaining means for obtaining a first program information from a first information source; second obtaining means for obtaining a second program information from a plurality of second information sources; a memory that stores the first program information and the second program information; and control means for unitarily managing and classifying the first program information and the second program information into a plurality of categories and displaying the plurality of categories in a layered menu having a plurality of layers, wherein each layer of the layered menu includes more than one classified categories and the user selects a program or a channel by sequentially passing through layers, and wherein the control means creates a recommended menu by selecting a predetermined number of channels based on the first program information and the second program information and a past viewing frequency of programs heard or watched by the user, and wherein the recommended menu includes a plurality of child menus arranged in a matrix form, and when the user selects a child menu, the control means shifts each child menu by a same distance in a same direction so that the selected child menu is disposed at a center of a screen, the same distance being determined by a position of the selected child menu and the center of the screen, and wherein during time period when the entire menu shifts, the selected child menu is gradually enlarged, and a child menu that is at the center of the screen before the entire menu shifts is gradually reduced at the same time.