Information retrieval device for displaying and directly refreshing the

Abstract

An information retrieval device displays portions of a dynamically modifiable document requested by a user. The information retrieval device has a controller connected to a display screen, input selector switches, such as buttons, and memory, such as non-volatile flash memory. One or more documents, such as a newspaper or magazine, is stored in the memory. A receiver, such as a pager, modem, or FM radio receiver, is connected to and dynamically updates the memory. When the device is turned on, a first portion of a document is displayed on a display screen. When the user wants to see a different portion of the document, or a different document altogether, she presses one of the buttons. Upon detection that a button was enabled, an action is performed that changes the display on the display screen. The action performed can vary in complexity: it may simply cause the next page of the document to be displayed, or may execute a nested hypertext link to cause related information contained in the same or a different document to update only a portion of the display screen. The document is stored in the memory in a manner that allows the display screen to be refreshed directly from the memory. When an updated portion of a document is received by the receiver, that portion of memory is updated.