Information processing device, information processing method, and information processing program

Abstract

To provide an information processing device, an information processing method, and an information processing program capable of appropriately managing data acquired from a plurality of information providing sources.SOLUTION: A server device 10 includes a target information acquisition unit 131 that acquires target information including a plurality of pieces of target-related information and an information type of each target-related information from a plurality of information providing devices; and a master generating unit 132 that identifies target information about the same target from the target information acquired from the information providing devices, and generates master information about the target based on a plurality of pieces of target information about the identified same target.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 2

Description

[Technical field]

[0001] The present invention relates to an information processing device, an information processing method, and an information processing program for managing a plurality of pieces of information. [Background technology]

[0002] 2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, information processing devices that provide a predetermined service over the Internet are known (see, for example, Patent Document 1). The information processing device described in Patent Document 1 stores location information in a database, and selects, from the database, location information that corresponds to a search word included in content posted by a user. [Prior art documents] [Patent documents]

[0003] [Patent Document 1] Patent No. 6403842 Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0004] Incidentally, in a conventional information processing device, it is common that information required for a service provided by the information processing device is acquired (purchased) from an information provider and stored in a database. Meanwhile, in recent years, service managers who provide a plurality of services have had to set up a database for each of these services, which has resulted in high costs associated with maintaining the databases. In addition, there are cases where multiple services attempt to link information with each other. For example, a store introduction service that introduces restaurants may be linked with a navigation service that provides directions to a location, and content introduced by the store introduction service may be displayed from facilities displayed in the navigation service. However, as described above, if each service obtains information from a different information provider and stores the information in its own database, there may be cases where the information does not match or there are gaps in information.

[0005] An object of the present invention is to provide an information processing device, an information processing method, and an information processing program capable of appropriately managing each piece of data acquired from a plurality of information sources. [Means for solving the problem]

[0006] The information processing device of the present invention comprises a target information acquisition unit that acquires target information including multiple target-related information regarding a target and information types of each target-related information from multiple information sources, and a master generation unit that identifies the target information regarding the same target from the target information acquired from the multiple information sources, and generates master information regarding the target based on the multiple target information for the identified same target. Effect of the Invention

[0007] In the present invention, the target information acquisition unit acquires target information from multiple information providers. Depending on the information provider, this target information may have target-related information for the same information type, or may have target-related information for different information types. The target identification unit then identifies target information for the same target from the target information, and the master generation unit integrates objects for the same target to generate one master information. This makes it possible to generate master information that can be used for various services, and can suppress inconveniences such as information being different for each service or information being missing. In addition, since information provided from multiple information providers is integrated into one, database maintenance is also made easier and maintenance costs can be reduced. [Brief description of the drawings]

[0008] [Figure 1] 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of an information processing system according to an embodiment of the present invention. [Diagram 2] FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a server device according to the embodiment. [Diagram 3] 4 is a flowchart showing an information processing method according to the present embodiment. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0009] Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. [Overall configuration of information processing system] FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of an information processing system according to the present embodiment. As shown in FIG. 1, in the information processing system of this embodiment, a server device 10 which is an information processing device, an information providing device 20, and a service server 30 are communicably connected via a network such as the Internet. The information providing device 20 is an information source that provides various data related to an object, and is managed by an information provider that investigates various information related to an "object" and provides the investigated information. In this embodiment, a "point" is exemplified as an "object". In other words, the information providing device 20 provides information related to a point on a map. The service server 30 is a device that provides services to a user terminal (not shown) operated by a user via the Internet. For example, the services provided by the service server 30 include a restaurant introduction service, a route guidance service, a travel guide service, etc. These service servers 30 provide different information depending on the service they provide.

[0010] Here, a conventional information processing system will be described. Conventionally, these service servers 30 provide different information to users depending on the service they provide. Therefore, each service server 30 needs to obtain information corresponding to the service, and obtains the information by purchasing the information from an information provider (information providing device 20) specialized in the information. For this reason, as described above, even if the information is essentially the same, the contents may differ depending on the information provider. In addition, in cases where each service server 30 is operated by an operator of the same series, it is necessary to maintain the information managed by each service server 30, and the costs associated with this maintenance are also significant. Therefore, the server device 10, which is an information processing device of the present invention, acquires information from an information providing device 20 that provides information in various forms, and generates master information related to objects (locations) that is integrated into a form that can be used by each service server 30. The information processing system will be described in detail below, focusing on the server device 10.

[0011] [Schematic configuration of server device 10] FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the server device 10. As shown in FIG. The server device 10 is configured by a computer and functions as the information processing device of the present invention. The server device 10 is configured to include a communication unit 11, a storage unit 12, a control unit 13, and the like. The number of computers that configure the server device 10 is not particularly limited. In this embodiment, for the sake of simplicity of explanation, an example in which the server device 10 is configured by one computer is shown, but the server device 10 may also be a cloud server that is constructed by connecting multiple computers via a network. The communication unit 11 is connected to a network (Internet) via, for example, a LAN, and communicates with an information providing device 20, a service server 30, a user terminal, and the like.

[0012] The storage unit 12 is a data recording device configured, for example, by a memory, a hard disk, etc. The storage unit 12 includes an individual information storage unit 121 that stores information provided by each information providing device 20. The storage unit 12 also includes a master storage unit 122 that stores master information generated based on the information stored in each individual information storage unit 121. Note that, here, an example is shown in which various databases such as an individual information storage unit 121 and a master storage unit 122 are provided in the storage unit 12 of the server device 10, but the configuration may also be such that this information is recorded in other data servers or cloud storage communicatively connected to the server device 10 via a network.

[0013] The individual information storage unit 121 stores the provided information (raw data) provided by the information providing device 20. Each piece of provided information includes object-related information about an object and its type. In this embodiment, the object is a location, and the provided information includes object-related information related to a specific location and the information type of the object-related information. These pieces of provided information may differ depending on the information providing device 20 that provides the information. For example, the provided information acquired from the information providing device 20 that provides information to the restaurant introduction service includes information types such as store location, store name, contact information, food and drink menu, whether or not a reservation is made, payment information, etc., and includes object-related information corresponding to each of these information types. For example, the information type regarding store location includes object-related information regarding the address of the restaurant, and the information type regarding store name includes object-related information regarding the name of the store. Furthermore, the provided information acquired from the information providing device 20 that provides information to the route guidance service includes information types such as a point location, a point address, a point name, a point genre, etc., and includes object-related information corresponding to each of these information types. For example, object-related information of the coordinate position of a point on a map is included in association with the information type of the point location, and object-related information of the address of the point is included in association with the information type of the point address. In this way, the information provided by each information providing device 20 may include substantially the same information type, or may include completely different information types. Even if the information type is the same, the target related information may be different. For example, as information provided about a certain store acquired from an information providing device 20 corresponding to a restaurant introduction service, target related information of "1-2, C town, B city" may be recorded as the information type of the store location, and as information provided about a certain store acquired from an information providing device 20 corresponding to a route guidance service, target related information of "1-2-1, C town, B city, A prefecture" may be recorded as the information type of the location address.

[0014] The master storage unit 122 stores master information generated from various pieces of provided information as described above. The master information includes a plurality of information types and object-related information corresponding to these information types, similar to the provided information.

[0015] [Functional configuration of control unit 13] The control unit 13 is composed of an arithmetic circuit such as a CPU (Central Processing Unit) and a recording circuit such as a RAM (Random Access Memory). The control unit 13 loads an information processing program stored in the storage unit 12 or the like into the RAM, and executes various processes in cooperation with the program loaded into the RAM. The control unit 13 reads and executes the information processing program stored in the storage unit 12, thereby functioning as a target information acquisition unit 131, a master generation unit 132, and a service information provision unit 133, as shown in FIG. 2.

[0016] The target information acquisition unit 131 acquires provided information from each information providing device 20 and stores it in the individual information storage unit 121 . The master generation unit 132 generates master information by integrating the acquired plurality of pieces of provided information. Specifically, the master generation unit 132 functions as an object identification unit 132A and an information generation unit 132B. The target identification unit 132A identifies information related to the same target (location) in the provided information obtained from the multiple information providing devices 20. The information is identified based on the degree of agreement of various target related information recorded in the provided information. For example, when the target related information indicating the location of the location is the same, it is determined that the provided information is related to the same location. The information generating unit 132B generates master information by identifying and integrating the information types of the target related information included in each of the provided information items for the same target. The method of generating the master information will be described in detail above.

[0017] The service information providing unit 133 receives an information request from each service server 30, and transmits to the service server 30 information to be provided that includes object-related information corresponding to the request.

[0018] [Configuration of information providing device 20 and service server 30] The information providing device 20 is a computer managed by an information provider who sells the provided information. Although the specific configuration of the information providing device 20 is not illustrated, the information providing device 20 has a basic hardware configuration that a general computer has. That is, the information providing device 20 is equipped with an input operation unit that accepts operations by an operator, a display that displays image information, a recording device that records various information, and an arithmetic circuit (CPU, etc.) that processes various information. The information providing device 20 also includes a positioning sensor that measures a position, which is configured by a GPS device, etc., and a motion sensor that measures the operation of the information providing device 20, such as acceleration.

[0019] The service server 30 is a computer that provides a predetermined service to a user. The service server 30 may be configured as a single computer, similar to the server device 10, or may be configured as a cloud server by a plurality of computers. Although the specific configuration of the service server 30 is not illustrated, the service server 30 has the basic hardware configuration of a general computer, and is equipped with, for example, a communication unit that communicates with other devices on the Internet, a storage device that stores distribution request information, an arithmetic circuit that processes various information, etc.

[0020] [Information processing method] Next, a method for generating master information (information processing method) in the information processing system of this embodiment will be described. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the information processing method of this embodiment. In this embodiment, the server device 10 transmits request information to the information providing device 20 to request the provision of information, whereby the information providing device 20 transmits the provided information to the server device 10, and the target information acquisition unit 131 stores the acquired provided information in the memory unit 12 (step S1: target information acquisition step). In the present embodiment, the target information acquisition unit 131 receives the provided information from the information providing device 20 via the Internet, but is not limited to this. For example, the target information acquisition unit 131 may read and acquire the provided information stored in a recording medium such as a memory card provided by the information provider.

[0021] Thereafter, the master generation unit 132 executes a master generation step of generating master information that integrates the provided information transmitted from the multiple information providing devices 20. Specifically, first, the target identification unit 132A extracts provided information for the same target from the provided information stored in the individual information storage unit 121 of the storage unit 12 (step S2). For example, the target identification unit 132A identifies provided information for the same location based on the degree of match of the target related information indicating the location (address or longitude and latitude) of the location as the location type. Note that the condition for the degree of match of the location is not limited to a perfect match, and a match may be considered when one target related information is entirely included in the other target related information. For example, provided information in which an address of "10-20 D Town, B City, A Prefecture" is recorded and provided information in which an address of "10-20 D Town, B City" is recorded may be extracted as the same provided information.

[0022] Next, the information generating unit 132B extracts provided information having the same information type from each piece of object-related information including the extracted provided information related to the same location (step S3). Then, the target related information to be registered in the master information is determined from the target related information for the information type of the extracted provided information (step S4). For example, provided information having "place name" as the information type is extracted, and the target related information to be recorded as the information type of "place name" in the master information is determined from the provided information. In addition, if there is no other target related information with the same information type, that is, if there is a unique information type among the multiple provided information for one location that is not included in the other provided information, the information generation unit 132B determines the target related information of that information type to be the one target related information included in the master information.

[0023] When there are a plurality of pieces of target related information with the same information type, the information generating unit 132B determines the target related information to be registered in the master information from among the identified pieces of target related information, based on a predetermined condition. For example, in this embodiment, a priority of an information provider who provides provided information is set for each information type, and is stored in advance in the storage unit 12. Then, the information generating unit 132B determines the target related information of the provided information provided by the information provider who has the highest priority corresponding to the information type as one piece of target related information included in the master information.

[0024] By repeating the above process, object-related information of a plurality of information types is determined for one location (object), and master information for the location is generated. Furthermore, the master generation unit 132 generates master information for all points included in the provided information, and stores the generated master information in the master storage unit 122.

[0025] Furthermore, when the service information providing unit 133 of the server device 10 receives an information request from the service server 30, it provides the service server 30 with master information. This unifies information about a certain location in the services provided by each service server 30. Each service server 30 may perform information analysis for a specific location based on its own database, and obtain information from the master information of the server device 10 when there is no information about the location in the database.

[0026] [Effects of this embodiment] In this embodiment, the server device 10 includes a storage unit 12 and a control unit 13, and the control unit 13 functions as a target information acquisition unit 131 and a master generation unit 132 by reading and executing an information processing program stored in the storage unit 12. The target information acquisition unit 131 acquires target information including a plurality of target-related information related to targets (locations) and information types of each of the target-related information from a plurality of information providing devices 20. The master generation unit 132 identifies target information related to the same location from the target information acquired from the plurality of information providing devices 20, and generates master information related to the location based on the plurality of target information related to the identified same location. As a result, the information provided to each service server 30 is based on the same master information, and it is no longer the case that only some services present different information. Also, it is no longer necessary for each service server 30 to have its own database, and data maintenance is no longer necessary in each service server 30, which reduces the costs associated with operating the service servers 30.

[0027] In the server device 10 of this embodiment, the master generation unit 132 extracts target information having the same information type from all target information for the same location, and determines target related information for that information type based on specified conditions to be used as master information. This makes it possible to unify the information in the master information.

[0028] Here, in this embodiment, the target related information to be registered in the master information is determined from multiple pieces of target related information.The target related information to be included in the master information is determined based on the priority of the information provider, which is set in advance for each information type, as the condition. This makes it possible to generate highly reliable master information. In other words, the type of information that an information provider is good at (the type of information that the information provider can provide is reliable) differs. For example, information provided by an information provider who provides information on various restaurants to a restaurant introduction service that introduces restaurants can be set to have a high priority in terms of the information type related to the menu offered by the restaurant, and highly reliable information can be registered in the master information.

[0029] [Variations] The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, but includes the following modifications within the scope of the invention.

[0030] [Variation 1] In the above-described embodiment, the master generation unit 132 determines one piece of target related information from a plurality of pieces of target related information for the same information type based on the priority of the information provider (information provider) as a predetermined condition. In contrast, the master generation unit 132 may determine the target related information using machine learning. For example, the server device 10 performs the processes of steps S1 to S3 of the first embodiment to extract information to be provided for a predetermined location from a plurality of pieces of provided information, and extracts a plurality of pieces of target related information for the same information type from the extracted provided information. Then, in step S4, the information generation unit 132B performs machine learning on the extracted target related information to determine the target related information to be registered as master information. An example of machine learning is clustering, and the target related information of the cluster to which the number of data belonging is the largest can be determined as the information to be registered in the master information.

[0031] [Variation 2] In addition, in step S4, the information generating unit 132B may determine the target related information based on the similarity (degree of agreement) among a plurality of target related information for a predetermined information type at a predetermined location. In this case, the master generating unit 132 counts the number of identical target related information, and registers the target related information with the largest count in the master information.

[0032] [Variation 3] In the above embodiment, the target identification unit 132A extracts provided information having the same target-related information indicating the location of a point as provided information for the same target in step S2, but is not limited to this. For example, a model may be generated in which the provided information is input and the target (point) is output by performing machine learning on a large number of provided information as unsupervised data. In this case, even if there is no consistency in the description of the location included in the provided information and different information is recorded in multiple provided information, the point corresponding to the provided information can be identified based on other target-related information.

[0033] [Variation 4] In step S3 of the above embodiment, the master generation unit 132 extracts information to be provided that has the same information type, but the information type is not necessarily the same for all pieces of information to be provided. In this case, dictionary data related to the information type may be stored in the storage unit 12 in advance. For example, the information type "facility name" and the information type "location name" may be registered in the dictionary data as being the same information type. This allows the same processing as in the above embodiment to be performed even if the information type differs depending on the provided information.

[0034] [Variation 5] Furthermore, in step S3, the master generation unit 132 may identify an information type corresponding to the target related information by machine learning. For example, in a large amount of provided information, similar target related information may be machine-learned to identify a common information type. This makes it possible to identify the information type of each target related information without creating dictionary data as described above.

[0035] [Variation 6] In the above embodiment, a location is exemplified as the target, but the target is not limited to this. For example, the "target" may be a product. In this case, master information can be generated with product name, model number, release date, etc. as information types, and common data can be provided to service servers 30 such as online shopping services, secondhand shopping services, and auction services. For example, by linking the online shopping service and the auction service, information related to products can be shared between the online shopping service and the auction service, and it becomes easy to search the auction service for the same auction product as a product sold in the online shopping service.

[0036] In addition, the "target" in the present invention may be a user. In other words, in recent years, various services tend to provide services according to the characteristics of the user, and each service has user information specialized for the service content. For example, in a navigation system, not only is the user's home, workplace, frequently visited facilities, etc. registered, but the user's travel route selection tendency, etc. may also be acquired. On the other hand, in a search service on the Internet, information such as the user's search query history and viewed content is recorded as user information. Furthermore, when user information is the target, the service server 30 may be the information provider, and the user information acquired by each service server 30 may be transmitted to the server device 10 as provided information. In this way, by acquiring user information from various service servers 30 and information providing devices 20 and integrating the acquired information to generate master information for each user, it is possible to generate master information with more complete data than the user information acquired by each service server 30. This allows each service server 30 to provide more suitable services to users. For example, when sending recommendations to a user, it is possible to perform user analysis based on more complete information, and to send more appropriate recommendations to the user. [Explanation of symbols]

[0037] 10...server device (information processing device), 12...memory unit, 13...control unit, 20...information providing device, 30...service server, 121...individual information memory unit, 122...master memory unit, 131...target information acquisition unit, 132...master generation unit, 132A...target identification unit, 132B...information generation unit, 133...service information providing unit.

Claims

1. a target information acquisition unit that acquires target information including a plurality of target-related information related to a target and information types of each target-related information from a plurality of information sources; a master generation unit that identifies target information related to the same target from the target information acquired from a plurality of the information providing sources, and generates master information related to the target based on the plurality of target information related to the identified same target; Equipped with The master generation unit extracts target information having the same information type from all the target information for the same target, selects the target related information for that information type based on specified conditions, and sets the target related information for that information type in the master information.

2. the master generation unit determines, as the condition, the target related information for the information type to be included in the master information based on a priority of the information source preset for the information type. The information processing device according to claim 1 .

3. The master generation unit determines, as the condition, the target related information for the information type to be included in the master information based on a degree of coincidence of the target related information for the information type. The information processing device according to claim 1 .

4. The master generation unit performs machine learning on the target-related information included in the target information, and identifies the target information for the same target from a plurality of pieces of target information. The information processing device according to claim 1 .

5. An information processing method for generating master information about an object by a computer, comprising the steps of: The computer includes a target information acquisition unit and a master generation unit, a target information acquisition step in which the target information acquisition unit acquires target information including a plurality of target-related information related to the target and information types of each target-related information from a plurality of information providing sources; a master generation step in which the master generation unit identifies the target information related to the same target from the target information acquired from the multiple information providing sources, and generates master information related to the target based on the multiple target information related to the identified same target; Implemented the following: An information processing method in which, in the master generation step, target information having the same information type is extracted from all target information for the same target, and the target related information for that information type is selected based on specified conditions, and this is used as the target related information for that information type of the master information.

6. An information processing program readable and executable by a computer, An information processing program that causes the computer to function as the information processing device according to any one of claims 1 to 4.

Images