Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Osamu Araki

Fumiyuki Kato

Yutaka Tomioka

Kazumi Harada

In a history display method, positional information and type information are extracted from nodes to be displayed on respective metaphors, thereby allowing a user to intuitively comprehend the nodes in a sense of a map of routes followed among information sources. The history holding section 101 reads a history indicating the routes followed by user from the memory unit 105 and holds the history. The history geographical analyzing section 102 analyzes geographical information contained in the history. The history managing section 103 controls the result of the analysis of the history. The history display section 104 displays the history analysis result by use of metaphor display along with a node connection relationship. The novel constitution provides the user with a new clue namely geographical information for accessing desired nodes and displays the history on a map metaphor, thereby allowing the user to intuitively comprehend the nodes in a sense of a map of routes followed among information sources.

History display apparatus

When various pieces of information relating to a particular page are received, pieces of link information (or items) respectively indicating a link relationship between the particular page and a reference page are extracted from the pieces of information, a positional relationship among the items is managed in a link managing unit, and a two-dimensional map indicating a relative positional relationship between each pair of items is prepared according to the positional relationship among the items in a two-dimensional map preparing unit. Also, an image of the pieces of information is prepared in an image preparing unit, and the image in which the items are included is displayed on an image displaying unit. Thereafter, when a user input an instruction indicating a change of a remarked item, a particular item placed on an upper, lower, right or left side of the remarked item is automatically specified according to the two-dimensional map and is selected. Therefore, a desired item can be easily selected without strictly specifying a position of the desired item.

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Kawasaki, Japan

Osamu Araki