In recent years, a data carrier system is attracting attention in which a data carrier (e.g., radio frequency identification (RFID)) capable of storing a certain amount of data is carried by a user or mounted to an object, and a reader device reads identification information of the data carrier, whereby a service of identifying an object and other services and information can be provided.
Patent Document 1 discloses an example of an information providing system using the data carrier system as described above. In the information providing system disclosed in Patent Document 1, an information providing device stores in advance carrier identification information for identifying a data carrier and user identification information for identifying a user in correlation with each other. The information providing device reads the carrier identification information of the data carrier when the data carrier comes in the vicinity of the information providing device, and provides information based on the user identification information stored in correlation with the read carrier identification information.
In addition, Patent Document 2 discloses a navigation service using a position at which a data carrier is set. Hereinafter, a description will be given of an example of this navigation service.
First, data carriers each storing location information indicating a location at which a data carrier is attached are attached to various places in town (e.g., bus stops and stores). When a user walks around the town while carrying a reader device (e.g., cellular phone equipped with a data carrier reading function), the reader device acquires the location information from the data carrier located within a radio wave-reachable range.
The reader device that has acquired the location information acquires provided information (e.g., bus approach information and information on products on sale) corresponding to a location indicated by the acquired location information. Specifically, information is acquired by acquiring information stored in the reader device in advance or by connecting to the network each time. Thus the reader device acquires the provided information corresponding to the location at which the data carrier is attached, to thereby provide the acquired provided information to the user.
[Patent Document 1] JP 2004-362489 A
[Patent Document 2] JP2004-206590A (paragraph No. 0004)