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| OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 shows diagrammatically, in terms of some of its functions, a ... |
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| Background-calibrating pipelined analog-to-digital converter |
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| Apparatus for detecting capacity of a standby power and method therefor |
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| Television program record scheduling and satellite receiver control using compressed codes |
| A principal object of a parent invention is to provide an improved system for the selection and ... |
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| Transmitter and receiver, and communication system and communication method |
| In view of the foregoing, an object of this invention is to provide a transmitter, a receiver, and ... |
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| Intelligent encoding method for wireless data communication and control |
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| Typematic guard protocol for wireless keyboards |
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Interactive television system for implementing electronic polling or providing user-requested services based on identification of users or of remote control apparatuses which are employed by respective users to communicate with the system
| Details |
Inventors: Harada, Takenosuke; Tsukidate, Ryota;
Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (Osaka, JP)
Primary Examiner: Lee; Michael H.
Assistant Examiner: Flynn; Nathan J.
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Lowe, Price, LeBlanc & Becker
An interactive television system which can provide services such as entertainment programs to users or conduct electronic polls of users, formed of a central computer installation, a plurality of terminal apparatuses each bidirectionally communicating with the central computer installation via a CATV network and each providing video/audio inputs to a display apparatus, with each of the terminal apparatuses being linked to one or more remote control apparatuses whereby users can request services or participate in polling, and in which any message data such as a service request which is issued by a remote control apparatus is automatically accompanied by identifier information, read out from a memory of the remote control apparatus, for identifying that remote control apparatus, and may also be accompanied by personal information concerning a registered user of the remote control apparatus. User recognition can be implemented by an arrangement such as a plug-in IC card interface section or fingerprint recognition section, for enabling restriction of each remote control apparatus to use by only a specific registered user, or to enable only a specific registered user to access certain services. |
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DETAILED DESCRIPTION It is an objective of the present invention to overcome the problems of the prior art set out hereinabove.
Specifically, in relation to an interactive television system which is utilized as an electronic polling system, it is a first objective of the present invention to prevent multiple polling responses from the same user.
A second objective is to enable the polling to be free from effects of delay times of respective data transmission paths over which polling requests from the system and polling responses from users must travel.
A third objective is to enable users to be individually notified of polling results, i.
e.
to enable specific result information to be supplied to only specific users.
A fourth objective is to ensure the privacy of users, by ensuring that detailed personal information of users is not held fixedly stored in a computer installation which could be accessed by persons other than the respective users, but also ensuring that such information can be made available for the purpose of categorizing polling results obtained from the users, so that the polling results can be effectively evaluated and used.
A sixth objective is to minimize the quantity of data which must be transferred within the interactive television system during polling.
A seventh objective is to enable the users' polling rights to be effectively utilized, by ensuring as far as possible that users will not inadvertently lose the right to participate in a poll.
An eighth objective is to provide an interactive television system which can provide various services on demand from users, while ensuring that specific users, or specific categories of users, can be accurately identified by the system.
Such a system can thereby determine, in accordance with the particular user or category of user, the types of service which will be provided to a user in response to a request that is input to the system by using a remote control apparatus.
A ninth objective is to provide an interactive television system in which identification of respective users or respective remote control apparatuses by the system is possible, and whereby information for use in identifying a user or a remote control apparatus can be sent to the system from an remote control apparatus in encrypted code form, to thereby ensure improved security
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