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An information providing system, apparatus, and method, and a data recording medium wherein a user can frequently communicate with an imaginary electronic pet that virtually lives in a piece of electric equipment so that the user can operate the electric equipment with increased interest and happine

An information providing system, apparatus, and method, and a data recording medium wherein a user can frequently communicate with an imaginary electronic pet that virtually lives in a piece of electric equipment so that the user can operate the electric equipment with increased interest and happiness. The system includes a plurality of interconnected pieces of electric equipment for transmitting and receiving character data. Each piece of equipment includes a character system for processing the character data, a representation system for representing a character to indicate a representation to a user of the electric equipment, and a connection system for establishing a connection to another piece of equipment. The character system rocesses the character data based on character representation data for providing the character with a predetermined representation, and the representation system provides information from the character to the user.

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What is claimed is: 1. An information providing system, comprising: a plurality of pieces of interconnected electric equipment for transmitting and receiving character data, each of said plurality of pieces of electric equipment including: a character system for processing the character data; repre

What is claimed is: 1. An information providing system, comprising: a plurality of pieces of interconnected electric equipment for transmitting and receiving character data, each of said plurality of pieces of electric equipment including: a character system for processing the character data; representation means for representing a character to a user of the piece of electric equipment; and connection means for establishing a connection to an other of the plurality of pieces of electric equipment; a user attribute information storage section for storing user attribute information including a user profile, wherein the character system processes the character data based on character representation data to provide the character with a predetermined representation, the character representation data includes the user attribute information readout from the user attribute storage section; the character data and the character representation data are transmitted and received between each of the plurality of pieces of electric equipment through the connection means; and said representation means provides information in accordance with the user attribute information to the user through the character. 2. The information providing system according to claim 1, wherein the representation means of each of the plurality of pieces of electronic equipment includes one of a display section for visually displaying the character to the user and a sound generation section for causing the user to audibly recognize the character. 3. The information providing system according to claim 2, wherein the character is one represented by the display section in a visual overlapping relationship with other image data and represented by the sound generation section in an audible overlapping relationship with other sound data. 4. The information providing system according to claim 1, wherein the connection means includes an interface formed to be hot plug compliant with one of an IEEE 1394 standard and a USB standard. 5. The information providing system according to claim 1, wherein the character representation data include: character rule data for determining a manner of the character; the user attribute information including the user profile; and information to be provided to the user, and wherein the character system further includes a character rule storage section and an information storage section. 6. The information providing system according to claim 5, wherein the character representation data further include a keyword indicative of an object of interest of the user and the character system further includes a keyword storage section. 7. The information providing system according to claim 6, wherein the user attribute information is obtained by collecting data based on answers inputted by the user in response to questioning items provided from the character to the user. 8. The information providing system according to claim 7, wherein the keyword is produced based on the user attribute information. 9. The information providing system according to claim 1, wherein the character representation data are stored in a storage medium together with the character data such that the character representation data can be outputted by disconnecting the storage medium from one of the plurality of pieces of electric equipment and connecting the storage medium to the other of the plurality of pieces of electric equipment. 10. The information providing system according to claim 1, wherein the character representation data are transmitted from one of the plurality of pieces of electric equipment to the other of the plurality of pieces of electric equipment using a communication network includes an Internet. 11. The information providing system according to claim 1, wherein desired information such as information of a television broadcast is selected from media information based on a keyword and is provided to the user through the character. 12. An information providing apparatus for causing a representation section of a piece of electric equipment to display a character to provide information to a user corresponding to the piece of electric equipment, the apparatus comprising: connection means for establishing a connection to an other piece of electric equipment to one of transmit and receive character data indicative of the character; and a character system for processing the character data, and including a user attribute information storage section for storing user attribute information including a user profile, wherein the character system processes the character data based on character representation data to provide the character with a predetermined representation, and wherein the character representation data includes the user attribute information; wherein the character data and the character representation data are transmitted and received between each piece of electric equipment; and the representation section provides information in accordance with the user attribute information to the user through the character. 13. The information providing apparatus according to claim 12, wherein the connection means comprises an interface that is hot plug compliant with one of an IEEE 1394 standard and USB standard. 14. The information providing apparatus according to claim 12, wherein the character representation data include: character rule data for determining a manner of the character; the user attribute information including the user profile; and providing information to be provided to the user; and wherein the character system includes a character rule storage section and a providing information storage section. 15. An information providing method for allowing character data to be one of transmitted and received between a plurality of pieces of interconnected electric equipment, the method comprising the steps of: one of transmitting the character data to one of the plurality of pieces of electric equipment from an other of the plurality of pieces of electric equipment, and receiving the character from one of the plurality of pieces of electric equipment using connection means for connecting each of the plurality of pieces of electric equipment; processing the character data based on character representation data to provide the character with a predetermined representation by a character system that processes the character data; storing user attribute information including a user profile, processing the character data based on character representation data to provide the character with a predetermined representation, and wherein the character representation data includes the user attribute information; and providing information in accordance with the user attribute information to a user of the electric equipment through the character. 16. The information providing method according to claim 15, wherein the step of providing information to the user through the character is performed using one of a display section for visually displaying the character to the user or a sound generation section for causing the user to audibly recognize the character. 17. The information providing method according to claim 16, wherein the character is represented by one of visually overlapping the character with other image data and by audibly overlapping a sound with other sound data. 18. The information providing method according to claim 15, wherein when the information is provided to the user through the character, information searched out using a keyword produced based on individual information of the user is provided. 19. The information providing method according to claim 18, wherein the individual information of the user is user attribute information obtained by collecting data based on answers inputted by the user in response to questioning items provided from the character to the user. 20. The information providing method according to claim 15, wherein the character representation data are stored in a storage medium carried together with the character data such that the character representation data are outputted by disconnecting the storage medium from one of the plurality of pieces of electric equipment and connecting the storage medium to an other one of the plurality of pieces of electric equipment. 21. The information providing method according to claim 15, wherein the character representation data are transmitted from one of the plurality of pieces of electric equipment to an other of the plurality of pieces of electric equipment using a communication network including an Internet. 22. A data recording medium on which a program to be executed by a computer is recorded, the program comprising the steps of: collecting user attribute information and information searched for and obtained based on the user attribute information from a piece of electric equipment; determining a mode of representation of a character based on the user attribute information and the searched information; storing user attribute information including a user profile, processing the character data based on character representation data to provide the character with a predetermined representation, and wherein the character representation data includes the user attribute information; and presenting the searched information in accordance with the attribute information to a user of the electric equipment through the character. 23. The data recording medium according to claim 22, wherein the program further comprises the step of producing a keyword unique to the user based on the user attribute information. 24. The data recording medium according claim 23, wherein the keyword production step includes the sub steps of: issuing a question to the user through the character; collecting data of an answer inputted by the user in response to the question; and producing the keyword based on the collected answer data. 25. The data recording medium according to claim 23, wherein the keyword production step includes the sub steps of: collecting information selected based on the user attribute information; and producing the keyword based on the collected information.