Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Intellectual Property Corporation of America

Tsuyoshi Sakata

Masayuki Kozuka

Motoji Ohmori

Toshihisa Nakano

Masataka Minami

Takeshi Matsuo

Fumiaki Suzuki

Yoshiyuki Miyabe

Masao Nonaka

Masaru Yamaoka

Kazuo Okamura

Masayoshi Tojima

Takako Hirose

Michihiro Matsumoto

Tomoaki Ohira

Kazuo Kajimoto

Toshiaki Ohnishi

Ryota Miyazaki

Takehiko Nitta

Hirokazu Kamoda

Toshimitsu Koda

Masahiro Maki

Akira Iuchi

Provided is a server device () including: a transmitting/receiving section () for receiving, from a household electric appliance (), an identifier for identifying the household electric appliance () and an operation status of the household electric appliance (); an updating section () for estimating a consumption status of a consumer good using the received operation status so as to update the consumption status of the consumer good stored in a utilization information accumulating section () based on the estimated consumption status of the consumer good; and a determination section () for deciding whether or not to transmit a confirmation message for confirming the consumer good being used with the household electric appliance, based on the updated consumption status of the consumer good.

Information obtaining method, information obtaining system, and information appliance

Device control method including: operation receiving step of receiving a device control operation for controlling a device; determining step of determining whether an operation terminal is in a first state or a second state; limiting step of, when determined in the determining step that the operation terminal is in the second state, limiting a range of controls of the device made available to the operation terminal when in the second state so as to correspond to part of a range of controls of the device made available to the operation terminal when in the first state; and device controlling step of controlling the device based on the device control operation. When determined in the determining step that the operation terminal is in the second state, the device is controlled within the range of controls of the device made available to the operation terminal when in the second state.

Device control method, device control system

A device control method used in a device control system in which an operation terminal is used to remotely operate a device with a server device mediating between the operation terminal and the device, the device control method including: acquiring, upon reception of an operation instruction for operation of the device from the operation terminal, environment information pertaining to at least one of the device and the operation terminal; performing a determination of whether or not to cause execution of processing corresponding to the operation instruction based on whether or not the environment information satisfies a predetermined condition; and causing the device to execute an execution command for execution of the processing when a result of the determination is affirmative, and not causing the device to execute the execution command when the result of the determination is negative.

Device control method, device control system, and server device

A user-friendly cooperative process execution method for causing household electric devices that are registered to a server to execute cooperative processes. The server stores correspondence information associating a particular operation to be executed by a particular household electric device with one or more groups each composed of one or more household electric devices, and indicating, for each of the household electric devices in each of the groups, a control signal to be transmitted to the household electric device. The method includes: detecting whether or not the particular operation is executed; selecting one of the groups that is composed of one or more household electric devices that are registered to the server by referring to the correspondence information when the execution of the particular operation is detected; and transmitting the control signal to each of the household electric devices in the selected group.

Coordination processing execution method and coordination processing execution system

The present invention provides a communication apparatus and a communication method that can easily indicate the position of the antenna incorporated in the communication apparatus to a user and can align the antenna of the communication apparatus with the antenna of an external device. A portable device () includes a loop antenna () for performing near-field communication, a display unit () provided on a side of the portable device () opposite the orientation of the loop antenna (), and an antenna position information storing unit () that stores antenna position information representing the position of the loop antenna () in the portable device (). The display device () displays the position of the loop antenna () on the basis of the antenna position information stored in the antenna position information storing unit ().

Communication apparatus and communication method

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa, Japan

Tsuyoshi Sakata