CN102999300A - Interactive system - Google Patents

Abstract

An interactive system comprises a printing device without any operation interface and a first electronic device with a network connection function, wherein the printing device comprises a webpage server, a storage unit and a network module. The storage unit is used for storing control software corresponding to the printing device. The printing device is connected with a storage server on the internet through a network module so as to periodically update the control software, wherein the storage server is used for storing the control software with the latest version corresponding to the printing device. The first electronic device is used for connecting the webpage server to download and install control software so as to control the operation of the printing device.

Description

interactive system

technical field

The present invention relates to an interactive technology, and in particular to an interactive system of a printing device without any operation interface and an electronic device with a network connection function.

Background technique

With the advent of the information society, office automation equipment such as scanners, copiers or printers will be installed in the office, and users can use these office automation equipment to perform document processing operations. It is worth mentioning that when the above-mentioned kinds of office automation equipment are deployed in the office at the same time, they will occupy a lot of space. Therefore, a multi-function printer (MFP) integrated with functions such as scanning (scan), copying (copy) and printing (print) has been developed.

Most of today's multifunctional business machines are equipped with an operation interface such as a touch screen and a keyboard for users to operate to control the operation of the multifunctional business machine, that is: scanning, Copy and print. Moreover, as the functions of the multi-function business machine become more and more powerful, the size of the configured touch screen is also gradually increased, and the number of keys of the configured keyboard is also gradually increased. As a result, the overall manufacturing cost of the multifunctional business machine will be increased.

Contents of the invention

In view of this, the present invention proposes an interactive system between a printing device without any operation interface and an electronic device with network connection function, and controls the printing device without any operation interface through the electronic device with network connection function The operation mode of the printing device is used to reduce the overall production cost of the printing device.

An embodiment of the present invention provides an interactive system, which includes a printing device without any operation interface and a first electronic device with a network connection function, and the printing device includes a web server, a storage unit, and a network module. The storage unit is used for storing control software corresponding to the printing device. The printing device is connected to the storage server on the Internet through the network module, so as to regularly update the control software, wherein the storage server is used to store the latest version of the control software corresponding to the printing device. The first electronic device is used for connecting to the web server to download and install the control software, so as to control the operation of the printing device.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the interactive system further includes a second electronic device with a network connection function, which is used to connect to a web server to download and install control software, so as to control the operation of the printing device.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the first and second electronic devices can regularly communicate with the printing device to update their respective installed control software.

In another embodiment of the present invention, the first and second electronic devices can regularly connect to a storage server on the Internet to update their respective installed control software.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the first and second electronic devices may be one of a smart phone, a tablet computer, a desktop computer, and a laptop computer, respectively.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the printing device may be a multi-function printer.

Based on the above, the present invention mainly omits all the operation interfaces of the multi-function business machine, and uses an electronic device with a network connection function to connect to the web server of the multi-function business machine to download and install the control software corresponding to the multi-function business machine . In this way, the user can control/manipulate the multi-function business machine through the electronic device installed with the control software of the multi-function business machine. Since all the operation interfaces of the multi-function business machine have been omitted, the overall production cost of the multi-function business machine can be reduced.

It should be understood that the above general description and the following specific embodiments are only illustrative and explanatory, and cannot limit the scope of the present invention.

Description of drawings

The accompanying drawings, which follow and constitute a part of the specification of the invention, illustrate example embodiments of the invention and together with the description explain the principles of the invention.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an interactive system 10 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of the printing device 101 without any operation interface in FIG. 1 .

[Description of main component symbols]

10: Interactive system

101: printing device without any operation interface

103, 105: Electronic devices with network connection function

107: storage server 201: control module

203: web server 205: storage unit

209: Printing module 211: Scanning module

INT: Internet Network LAN: Local Area Network

OS1～OS2: operating system

Detailed ways

Reference will now be made in detail to the exemplary embodiments of the present invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. In addition, wherever possible, elements/members/symbols with the same reference numerals are used in the drawings and embodiments to represent the same or similar parts.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an interactive system (interactive system) 10 according to an embodiment of the present invention. 1, the interactive system 10 includes a printing device (print device) 101 without any operation interface (operation interface), and electronic devices (electronic devices) 103 and 105 with network connection functions. In this embodiment, the printing device 101 without any operation interface may be a multi-function printer (MFP), but it is not limited thereto.

Based on this, FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of the printing device 101 in FIG. 1 without any operation interface. Please refer to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 together. The printing device (MFP) 101 without any operation interface includes a control module (control module) 201, a web server (web server) 203, and a storage unit (storage unit). ) 205, network module (network module) 207, printing module (print module) 209, and scanning module (scan module) 211.

The control module 201 is used as an operation core of the printing device 101 . The storage unit 205 can be any type of non-volatile memory (non-volatile memory), such as flash memory (flash memory), hard disk drive (hard-disc drive, HDD), etc., but is not limited to this. The storage unit 205 is used for storing control software corresponding to the printing device 101 . The printing module 209 is controlled by the control module 201 to perform printing operations/programs; and the scanning module 209 is also controlled by the control module 201 to perform scanning operations/programs.

In this embodiment, since the storage server (storage server) 107 is used to store the latest version of the control software corresponding to the printing device 101 . Therefore, the printing device 101 can connect to the storage server 107 on the Internet INT through the network module 207, so as to regularly update the control software corresponding to the printing device 101 stored in the storage unit 205 .

On the other hand, the electronic devices 103 and 105 with network connection function can be respectively one of a smart phone (smart phone), a tablet computer (tablet PC), a desktop computer (desktop) and a laptop computer (notebook). , but not limited thereto, as long as any electronic device with a network connection function is fine.

In this embodiment, the electronic devices 103 and 105 with a network connection function can be connected to the web page of the printing device 101 through a wired or wireless connection (such as a wired or wireless local area network LAN, but not limited thereto). The server 203 is used to download and install the control software corresponding to the printing device 101 stored in the storage unit 205 . In this way, the operation interfaces (such as touch screens and/or keyboards) of the electronic devices 103 and 105 with network connection functions can be regarded as the operation interfaces of the printing device 101 . Thus, the user can control/control the operation of the printing device 101 , such as printing, scanning and copying, through the electronic devices 103 and 105 with network connection functions. Obviously, since all the operation interfaces of the printing device 101 (that is, the multifunction business machine) (that is, the touch screen and keyboard originally configured in the multifunction business machine) have been omitted, the printing device 101 (that is, the multifunction business machine) can be reduced. machine) overall production cost.

It is worth mentioning here that the electronic devices 103 and 105 with network connection functions have operating systems (operation system, OS) OS1 and OS2 respectively, such as Microsoft operating system, Android operating system, Linux operating system... etc., but not limited thereto. Moreover, the control software corresponding to the printing device 101 stored in the storage unit 205 must be compatible with the operating systems OS1 and OS2 respectively possessed by the electronic devices 103 and 105 with network connection functions.

Assuming that the electronic device 103 with network connection function has not installed the corresponding control software with the printing device 101, then the user can use the electronic device 103 with network connection function to connect to the web server 203 of the printing device 101, so as to On the webpage displayed by the web server 203, first select the type of the operating system OS1 (such as the Microsoft operating system) that the electronic device 103 with the network connection function has, and then click on the download screen displayed by the web server 203. The control software of the printing device 101 compatible with the Microsoft operating system can be downloaded and installed. In this way, the electronic device 103 installed with the control software of the printing device 101 compatible with the Microsoft operating system can control/operate the printing device 101 .

Similarly, assuming that the control software corresponding to the printing device 101 has not been installed in the electronic device 105 with the network connection function, the user can use the electronic device 105 with the network connection function to connect to the web server of the printing device 101 203, so that on the webpage displayed by the web server 203, first select the type of the operating system OS2 (such as the Android operating system) that the electronic device 105 with the network connection function has, and then on the download screen displayed by the web server 203 Click and select the control software of the printing device 101 compatible with the Android operating system to download and install. In this way, the electronic device 105 installed with the control software of the printing device 101 compatible with the Android operating system can control/operate the printing device 101 .

On the other hand, once the control software corresponding to the printing device 101 has been installed in the electronic devices 103 and 105 with the network connection function, the electronic devices 103 and 105 with the network connection function can regularly communicate with the printing device. The devices 101 communicate to update their respective installed control software, or regularly connect to the storage server 107 on the Internet INT to update their respective installed control software.

Certainly, the above-mentioned embodiment is described by taking two electronic devices 103 and 105 with network connection functions as an example, but the present invention is not limited thereto. More clearly, two or more electronic devices with network connection function (such as all computers in the same local area network) can also be connected to the web server 203 of the printing device 101 to download and install the corresponding control software of the printing device 101 . In this way, all computers in the same LAN can control/manipulate the printing device 101 through their respective operation interfaces.

To sum up, the present invention mainly omits all the operation interfaces of the multi-function business machine, and uses an electronic device with a network connection function to connect to the web server of the multi-function business machine to download and install the corresponding webpage server of the multi-function business machine. controlling software. In this way, the user can control/manipulate the multi-function business machine through the electronic device installed with the control software of the multi-function business machine. Since all the operation interfaces of the multi-function business machine have been omitted, the overall production cost of the multi-function business machine can be reduced.

But the above-mentioned ones are only preferred embodiments of the present invention, and should not limit the scope of the present invention with this, that is, all simple equivalent changes and modifications made according to the claims of the present invention and the content of the description of the invention are all Still belong to the scope that the patent of the present invention covers. In addition, any embodiment or claim of the present invention does not need to achieve all the objects or advantages or features disclosed in the present invention. In addition, the abstract and titles are only used to aid in searching patent documents, and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention.

Claims (10)

1. interactive system comprises:

One does not have the printing equipment of any operation-interface, comprising:

One web page server;

One storage element is in order to store a control software corresponding with this printing equipment; And

One mixed-media network modules mixed-media, this printing equipment connects a storage server on the world-wide web by this mixed-media network modules mixed-media, uses this control software of regular update, and wherein this storage server is in order to store a control software with latest edition corresponding with this printing equipment; And

One has the first electronic installation of network connectivity function, in order to connecting this web page server downloading and this control software is installed, thereby controls the running of this printing equipment.

2. interactive system as claimed in claim 1 is characterized in that, more comprises:

One has the second electronic device of network connectivity function, in order to connecting this web page server downloading and this control software is installed, thereby controls the running of this printing equipment.

3. interactive system as claimed in claim 2 is characterized in that, this first with this second electronic device respectively an or radio connecting mode wired by to be connected this web page server.

4. interactive system as claimed in claim 2 is characterized in that, this first electronic installation has an operating system, and it is compatible with this operating system to control software.

5. interactive system as claimed in claim 2 is characterized in that, this second electronic device has an operating system, and it is compatible with this operating system to control software.

6. interactive system as claimed in claim 2 is characterized in that, this first regularly passes to its control software of installing out of the ordinary of renewal with this printing equipment ditch with this second electronic device.

7. interactive system as claimed in claim 2 is characterized in that, this first regularly is connected this storage server on this world-wide web to upgrade its control software of being installed out of the ordinary with this second electronic device.

8. interactive system as claimed in claim 2 is characterized in that, this first with this second electronic device be respectively a smart mobile phone, a panel computer, a desktop computer and a kneetop computer one of them.

9. interactive system as claimed in claim 1 is characterized in that, this storage element comprises a nonvolatile memory.

10. interactive system as claimed in claim 1 is characterized in that, this printing equipment comprises a multifunctional paper feeding machine.

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