EP-4738215-A1 - MANAGEMENT APPARATUS AND METHOD, SYSTEM, PROGRAM, AND STORAGE MEDIUM

EP4738215A1EP 4738215 A1EP4738215 A1EP 4738215A1EP-4738215-A1

Abstract

A management apparatus receives, from each of a plurality of terminal apparatuses, dynamic information that changes regardless of user operation of each of one or more of image capturing apparatuses managed by the respective terminal apparatus, first settings indicating a disclosure destination of the dynamic information, and implementation information regarding each image capturing apparatus currently implementing an image capture plan or not; receives, from each of a plurality of image capture planning apparatuses, an image capture plan that uses any of the image capturing apparatuses, and second settings indicating a disclosure destination of the dynamic information of the image capturing apparatus used in the image capture plan; determines the disclosure destination of the dynamic information based on the implementation information, the first settings, and the second settings; and controls to disclose the dynamic information to the determined disclosure destination.

Inventors

SUZUKI, KIWAMU

Assignees

Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Dates

Publication Date: 20260506
Application Date: 20251028

Claims (17)

A management apparatus comprising: first receiving means configured to receive, from each of a plurality of terminal apparatuses, dynamic information that changes regardless of user operation of each of one or more of image capturing apparatuses managed by the respective terminal apparatus, first settings indicating a disclosure destination of the dynamic information of the respective image capturing apparatus, and information regarding whether or not the respective image capturing apparatus is currently implementing an image capture plan; second receiving means configured to receive, from each of a plurality of image capture planning apparatuses, an image capture plan that uses an image capturing apparatus that is permitted to be used among the one or more of the image capturing apparatuses, and second settings indicating a disclosure destination of the dynamic information of the image capturing apparatus used in the image capture plan; determination means configured to determine the disclosure destination of the dynamic information of the respective image capturing apparatus based on the information regarding whether or not there is an image capture plan currently being implemented, the first settings, and the second settings; and control means configured to control to disclose the dynamic information of the respective image capturing apparatus to the disclosure destination determined by the determination means.
The management apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the dynamic information includes at least one of location information indicating a location of the respective image capturing apparatus, power information, and a network connection status.
The management apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the respective terminal apparatus permits one or more of the plurality of image capture planning apparatuses to use the respective image capturing apparatus managed by the respective terminal apparatus.
The management apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the first settings are, for the respective image capture planning apparatuses permitted to use the respective image capturing apparatus, either to disclose the dynamic information, not to disclose the dynamic information, or to disclose the dynamic information only to a specified image capture planning apparatuses.
The management apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein in a case where there is no image capture plan currently being implemented, the determination means determines the disclosure destination of the dynamic information of the respective image capturing apparatus based on the first settings.
The management apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein in a case where there is an image capture plan currently being implemented, the determination means determines for the respective image capturing apparatus the disclosure destination of the dynamic information based on the second settings received from the image capture planning apparatus that created the image capture plan.
The management apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein, in a case where there is an image capture plan currently being implemented, the determination means determines for the respective image capturing apparatus to disclose the dynamic information to the image capture planning apparatus that created the image capture plan regardless of the first settings.
The management apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein the second settings indicate either to disclose or not to disclose the dynamic information during implementation of the image capture plan.
The management apparatus according to claim 8, wherein, if there is an image capture plan currently being implemented and the second settings received from the image capture planning apparatus that created the image capture plan indicate to disclose, the determination means determines for the respective image capturing apparatus the disclosure destination of the dynamic information based on the first settings.
The management apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 9, wherein the first receiving means continuously receives the first settings and information on whether or not there is an image capture plan currently being implemented from the respective terminal apparatus.
The management apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 9, wherein the first receiving means receives the first settings and information on whether or not there is an image capture plan currently being implemented from the respective terminal apparatus at timings independent of each other.
The management apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 11, wherein the control means notifies, with respect to the respective image capturing apparatus, the dynamic information of a disclosure destination determined by the determination means via communication means.
A system comprising: a plurality of terminal apparatuses, each of which manages one or more image capturing apparatuses; a plurality of image capture planning apparatuses configured to create image capture plans that use any of the one or more image capturing apparatuses permitted to be used; and a management apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 12.
The system according to claim 13, wherein the plurality of terminal apparatuses, the plurality of image capture planning apparatuses, and the management apparatus are connected via communication.
A management method for information received from a plurality of teminal apparatuses comprising: a step of receiving, from each of the plurality of terminal apparatuses, dynamic information that changes regardless of user operation of each of one or more of image capturing apparatuses managed by the respective terminal apparatus; a step of receiving, from each of the plurality of terminal apparatuses, first settings indicating a disclosure destination of the dynamic information of the respective image capturing apparatus; a step of receiving, from each of the plurality of terminal apparatuses, information regarding whether or not the respective image capturing apparatus is currently implementing an image capture plan; a step of receiving, from each of a plurality of image capture planning apparatuses, an image capture plan that uses an image capturing apparatus that is permitted to be used among the one or more of the image capturing apparatuses a step of receiving, from each of a plurality of image capture planning apparatuses, second settings indicating a disclosure destination of the dynamic information of the image capturing apparatus used in the image capture plan; a step of determining the disclosure destination of the dynamic information of the respective image capturing apparatus based on the information regarding whether or not there is an image capture plan currently being implemented, the first settings, and the second settings; a step of controlling to disclose the dynamic information of the respective image capturing apparatus to the determined disclosure destination.
A computer program comprising instructions which, when the programis executed by a computer, cause the computer to carry out the management method of claim 15.
A computer-readable storage medium storing the computer program of claim 16.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present disclosure relates to a management apparatus and method, system, program, and storage medium. BACKGROUND Conventionally, a news-gathering activity support system is provided for performing news-gathering activities, a planner makes a plan and prepares in advance equipment for the news-gathering activities such as a camera, a reporter, the location of news-gathering activities, date and time, contents, etc., and the planner and the reporter share the plan, thereby enabling the news-gathering activities to be conducted efficiently. Such a news-gathering activity support system allows seamless collaboration between the planner and the reporter. For example, when requesting an interview using the news-gathering activity support system, the planner first creates a news-gathering activity plan on the news-gathering activity support system, including a camera, a photographer, a location of news-gathering activities, date and time, contents of the interview, etc. Then, the reporter receives the news-gathering activity plan via an application on a smartphone, PC, etc. Here, in order for reporters (photographers) to use the news-gathering activity support system, they must register the camera and the photographer themselves in the news-gathering activity support system. If the photographer belongs to a company, he or she registers the camera and the photographer himself/herself with the company they belong to in the news-gathering activity support system, while if the photographer is freelance, he or she registers the camera and the photographer himself/herself with all companies from which the photographer wants to receive the orders for news-gathering activities via the news-gathering activity support system. The planner looks at the information on the cameras and photographers registered in the system, finds a camera and photographer suitable for the news-gathering activity plan, and creates a news-gathering activity plan. In addition, dynamic information that changes regardless of user operations, such as the location information, power information, and network connection status of a camera, is updated periodically by obtaining information from the camera. As a technique for collecting the dynamic information, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2014-521160 discloses a technique for periodically collecting location information of photographers in a cloud, and when an incident occurs, calculating the shortest times for photographers to reach the location of the incident, and finding a photographer to whom it is easy to order to report the incident. In addition, as a technique for determining the disclosure destination of collected information, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2015-111406 discloses a technique for controlling the disclosure destination of information by changing conditions for disclosing the information or issuing a warning in a case where the conditions for disclosing the information differ between a smartphone and a server. SUMMARY The news-gathering activity support system collects dynamic information on a regular basis, but if the same camera is registered with a plurality of companies on the news gathering activity support system, as is the case with freelance photographers, the dynamic information will be disclosed to companies other than a company that requested the news-gathering activities during the news-gathering activities. In that case, the company that requested the news-gathering activities may be disadvantaged, as the location of news-gathering activities will become known to companies other than the company that requested the news-gathering activities. On the other hand, in order for freelance photographers to receive more requests for news-gathering activities, it is preferable for them to disclose dynamic information to as many companies as possible when they are not conducting news-gathering activities. As a technology for controlling disclosure destination, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2015-111406 describes a technology for restricting the disclosure destination of information based on the strictest information disclosure conditions of smartphones and servers. However, this technology restricts the disclosure destination of dynamic information based on the strictest information disclosure conditions set by a photographer and companies. Therefore, for example, even if a photographer sets the dynamic information to be disclosed, if a company sets the dynamic information of the camera not to be disclosed, the dynamic information will not be disclosed to other companies even if the photographer has not received a request from that company. The present disclosure has been made in consideration of the above situation, and makes it possible to disclose dynamic information of an image capturing apparatus in consideration of benefits of both a user of the image capturing apparatus and a person requesting image capture job using the image capturing apparatus. The pres