Patent ID: 8170602

Claim:
An information acquisition device which acquires digital information from a server, the information acquisition device comprising: an image capturing unit shooting a subject and capturing image data of a subject image formed by a taking lens; an information request creation unit creating an information request that includes an address specifying the information acquisition device; a first transmission unit transmitting, wirelessly, an information request signal that includes the information request, without specifying any destination address of the information request signal; a reception unit receiving a radio signal addressed to the information acquisition device and transmitted wirelessly from the server in response to the information request signal transmitted by the first transmission unit, and acquiring information contained in the radio signal; an information storage unit storing the image data captured by the image capturing unit in addition to the information acquired by the reception unit; an operation unit detecting one user operation of a shutter switch for issuing an instruction to transmit the information request signal by the first transmission unit or to capture image data by the image capturing unit; and a mode selecting unit selecting a mode from (1) an information acquisition mode, (2) an image capture mode and (3) a mix mode, wherein when the operation unit detects the user operation of the shutter switch, then issues an instruction (A) to transmit the information request signal to the server only during the information acquisition mode, (B) to capture image data only during the image acquisition mode, or (C) to transmit the information request signal to the server and to capture image data during the mix mode, and wherein the first transmission unit has directivity and radiates the information request signal in a direction through an optical axis of the taking lens, and the reception unit has one of (A) no directivity and (B) broader directivity than the first transmission unit.