Method and device for accessing information sources and services on the web

Abstract

A communication device and method for selectively accessing remote sources of information and services on the Web through a communication network.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a divisional of copending application serial number: 10 / 169,355 filed on Nov. 5, 2002; which is the 35 U.S.C. 371 national stage of International application PCT / FRO0 / 03759 filed on Dec. 29, 2000; which claims priority to French application 9916704 filed on Dec. 20, 1999. The entire contents of each of the above-identified applications are hereby incorporated by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates to a method for accessing information sources and services on the Web. It also relates to a device for implementing said method.[0003]The use of Internet and the Web for accessing information and sources of every kind is presently drastically increasing. To permit access to Web sites providing said information and services, navigation software like Internet Explorer™ or Navigator™ have been widely diffused and nowadays equip every personal computer and workstation connected to Internet. Th...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0007]The aim of the invention is to propose a method for accessing information sources and services on the Web, that is quicker and easier to use than the present methods for accessing information on Internet, notably with a objective of integration within interactive terminals and office automation and communication equipments.

[0012]Thus, by locally implementing preliminary selection steps in pages organized in a tree manner and operating as rolling menus, and by finally emitting on Internet only a complete address for accessing a well-targeted information source, the mean time duration observed for accessing searched information is drastically reduced. Besides, this method provides users poorly accustomed with computer tools and search engines with an efficient guiding to most of the useful information sources or to the most frequently consulted information sources.

[0016]Furthermore, it is particularly advantageous to plan in the welcome page icons for selecting a consulting language among a plurality of proposed languages, for example under the form of flags for States wherein each proposed language is used. For that, several sets of selection pages beforehand stored each corresponding to a proposed language will be provided. This linguistic functionality represents another important advantage for the process according to the invention, since a user can thus locally achieve, in the language according to his choice, a preliminary search in the different themes, sub-themes or sub-categories, while in the conventional situation of a direct search on the Web, the same user would inevitably be confronted to the linguistic bar at one point or another.

Problems solved by technology

It results in a real discomfort felt by a number of Internet surfers, so far as to dissuade some of them from launching an information search that could prove to be long, tedious, and uncertain.

Furthermore, in addition to the above-cited problem of response time and search duration, the question of providing users that are not accustomed to computer tolls and Internet with a quick and easy access to information sources and services, also arises, while said quick and easy access is not properly provided by the generalist portals presently available on the Web.

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