Portable Electronic Apparatus and Operating Method Thereof

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED PATENT APPLICATIONS

p-0002This patent application claims priority from Taiwan Patent Application No. 098122331, filed in the Taiwan Patent Office on Jul. 1, 2009, entitled Portable Electronic Apparatus and Operating Method Thereof“, and incorporates the Taiwan patent application in its entirety by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

p-0003The present disclosure relates to wireless communication, and more particularly, to a portable electronic apparatus and an operating method thereof capable of ranking a plurality of contact information according to relative distances between the contact information and a target position, and displaying the contact information in conjunction with a corresponding map image on a screen.

BACKGROUND OF THE PRESENT DISCLOSURE

p-0004As the wireless communication technology continuously develops, various types of portable electronic apparatuses, e.g., smart phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and the like, have become indispensable communication tools in the daily life of modern people. In addition, since the satellite positioning technology is maturing day by day, novel mobile phones with various functions, such as a positioning and navigation function and a map image quest function, for meeting requirements of mobile phone users are now market available.

p-0005Although mobile phones provide more and more powerful functions, when a user operates a mobile phone for map quest, inconveniences and complications may be encountered. For example, as a current position of the mobile phone changes when a user handholding the mobile phone begins moving, a plurality of contact information entries displayed on a phone book of the mobile phone are not changed to rank from near to far according to the position change of the user. Accordingly, the user cannot obtain an order of relative distances between the positions of the contact information entries and a target position, such that great inconveniences are created.

p-0006In addition, when the user wishes to map quest according to his predetermined requirements and purposes, e.g., a supermarket nearest to the target position of the user, the current mobile phone can neither auto-search contact information that matches the predetermined requirements and purposes nor rank and display on a screen the contact information entries from near to far according to the position change of the user. Therefore, as for the user, the map quest function and an interface of the current mobile phone still lack humanization.

p-0007Therefore, one main object of the present disclosure is to provide a portable electronic apparatus and an operating method thereof to solve the foregoing problem.

SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT DISCLOSURE

p-0008According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, a portable electronic apparatus comprises a database, a calculating module, a ranking module, a retrieving module and a display module. The database is used to store a plurality of contact information. The calculating module calculates a plurality of relative distances between the plurality of contact information and a target position, and generates a plurality of marked information by comparing the relative distances with a predetermined distance. The retrieving module retrieves a map image according to the target position and the predetermined distance. The ranking module ranks the marked information according to the relative distances to generate a ranking result. The display module displays the map image and the marked information according to the ranking result simultaneously.

p-0009According to another embodiment of the present disclosure, a portable electronic apparatus comprises a database, a calculating module, a ranking module, a retrieving module and a display module. The database is used to store a plurality of contact information. The calculating module calculates a plurality of relative distances between the plurality of contact information and a target position. The ranking module ranks the plurality of contact information according to the relative distance information, and selecting a plurality of marked information from the ranked contact information. The retrieving module retrieves a corresponding map image according to the target position and the plurality of marked information. The display module displays the map image and the plurality of marked information simultaneously.

p-0010According to another embodiment of the present disclosure, a method for operating a portable electronic apparatus having a database storing a plurality of contact information comprises calculating a plurality of relative distances between the plurality of contact information and a target position; generating a plurality of marked information by comparing the relative distances with a predetermined distance; ranking the marked information according to relative distances; retrieving a map image according to the target position and the predetermined distance; and displaying the map image and the marked information simultaneous.

p-0011According to yet another embodiment of the present disclosure, a method for operating a portable electronic apparatus comprises respectively calculating relative distances between a plurality of connect information and a target position to obtain distance information corresponding to the plurality of connect information; ranking the plurality of connect information according to the predetermined distance to generate a ranking result, and selecting a plurality of marked information from the ranking result; retrieving a corresponding map image according to the target position and the plurality of marked information; and displaying the map image and the plurality of marked information according to the ranking result.

p-0012Compared to the prior art, regardless of whether a target position is inputted by a user or is calculated via received signals from a satellite positioning system, a portable electronic apparatus according to the present disclosure ranks a plurality of contact information entries in a phone book according to relative distances between positions corresponding to the plurality of contact information entries and the target position from near to far to generate a ranking result, and an image comprising the ranking result and a corresponding map image are displayed on a screen. In addition, the user may map quest with respect to predetermined requirements and purposes (e.g., a restaurant or a bank within a kilometer radius from the target position) via the portable electronic apparatus according to the present disclosure, so that names and phone numbers of restaurants or banks matching with predetermined requirements and purposes are ranked from near to far according to relative distances between the restaurants or the banks and the target position, with the ranking result and a corresponding map image being displayed on the screen.

p-0013Accordingly, according to the present disclosure, a portable electronic apparatus is capable of assisting a user to easily obtain contact information and associated life information of locations near a target position via simple operations. Even if the user is in motion, the portable electronic apparatus still capable of providing real-time and accurate information to the user by updating a ranking result and a map image according to a latest position of the user.

p-0014The advantages and spirit related to the present disclosure can be further understood via the following detailed description and drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

p-0015<figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 1</figref> is a block diagram of a portable electronic apparatus in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

p-0016<figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 2A</figref> to <figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 2F</figref> respectively show different images displayed by a portable electronic apparatus in different operation statuses in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

p-0017<figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 3</figref> is a flow chart of a method for operating a portable electronic apparatus in accordance with another embodiment of the present disclosure.

p-0018<figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 4</figref> and <figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 5</figref> are respectively flow charts of a method for operating a portable electronic apparatus in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

p-0019According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, a portable electronic apparatus may be a common mobile communication apparatus, e.g., a mobile phone, a PDA, or other types of portable electronic apparatuses.

p-0020<figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 1</figref> shows a block diagram of a portable electronic apparatus in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure. A portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b> comprises a calculating module <b>10</b>, a positioning module <b>11</b>, an input module <b>12</b>, a searching module <b>13</b>, a network module <b>14</b>, a database <b>15</b>, a ranking module <b>16</b>, a retrieving module <b>17</b>, and a display module <b>18</b>. The calculating <b>10</b> is respectively coupled to the positioning module <b>11</b>, the input module <b>12</b>, the searching module <b>13</b>, the database <b>15</b>, the ranking module <b>16</b> and the retrieving module <b>17</b>. The network module <b>14</b> is coupled to the searching module <b>13</b>. The ranking module <b>16</b> is respectively coupled to the retrieving module <b>17</b> and the display module <b>18</b>. The retrieving module <b>17</b> is coupled to the display module <b>18</b>. The modules of the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b> are described in detail below.

p-0021In the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b>, the calculating module <b>10</b> respectively calculates a plurality of relative distances between a plurality of connect information and a target position, and compares the relative distances with a predetermined distance to generate at least one marked information. Generally speaking, the target position, the plurality of connect information and the at least one marked information are represented by, for example, name ,addresses, phone number ,longitude and latitude coordinates or other types of coordinates. The predetermined distance may be a range (e.g., 500 meters) from the target position that is regarded as a central point, or a range (e.g., 300 meters) towards a certain direction (e.g., a left upper side) from the target position regarded as a corner (e.g., a lower right corner). The predetermined distance may be defined as a predetermined value according to practical requirements, but it shall not be construed as limiting the present disclosure.

p-0022An approach of how the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b> obtains connect information and a target position is described below. In practical applications, various types of approaches may be applied to obtain the target position by the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b>. For example, when receiving signals transmitted from a plurality of satellites of a Global Positioning System (GPS), the positioning module <b>11</b> calculates the target position according to the signals, and then transmits the target position to the calculating module <b>10</b>. Generally speaking, apart from the GPS, the positioning module may also receive signals from other satellites of the Assisted Global Positioning System (AGPS), the Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) or the Galileo Satellite Navigation Positioning System, and calculates the target position according to the received signals.

p-0023In addition, the user may also directly input via the input module <b>12</b> an address or longitude and latitude coordinates, which are then transmitted to the calculating module <b>10</b>. In practice, the input module <b>12</b> may be a keyboard, a button group, a handwriting pad, a voice control input device or other apparatuses having an input function. For example, supposing that the input module <b>12</b> is a handwriting pad and the user wishes to arrive at the target position having an address “No. 122, M Street, A City”, the user may write the address “No. 122, M Street, A City” on the handwriting pad to complete inputting the target position. It is to be noted that, the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b> is not limited to inputting information via hardware (e.g., buttons); the user may input the target position via an input interface on a screen or a touch control approach instead.

p-0024Various types of approaches may be applied to obtain the plurality of connect information by the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b>. For example, the calculating module <b>10</b> may directly obtain the plurality of connect information from a phone book (or an address list) stored in the database <b>15</b> of the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b>, or from a phone book (or an address list) stored in an external apparatus. In practice, since the phone book (or the address list) is stored with a plurality of contact information entries each comprising a name, a phone number, an address and the like, the calculating module <b>10</b> regards all addresses of the plurality of contact information entries in the phone book (or the address list) as the plurality of connect information. Alternatively, the calculating module <b>10</b> may only retrieve addresses from partial contact information that matches predetermined conditions (e.g., only contact information comprising address within A City or under a relatives category is retrieved) to serve as the plurality of candidate connect information.

p-0025In addition, the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b> may obtain the plurality of connect information via a network searching approach. In this embodiment, being connected to the Internet via the network module <b>14</b>, the searching module <b>13</b> of the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b> searches for the plurality of connect information that match a predetermined condition of a search instruction according to the search instruction.

p-0026In practice, the predetermined condition of the search instruction may be associated with a range covered by a map image displayed by the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b>, types of locations corresponding to the plurality of connect information, and user purposes or requirements. Further, the predetermined condition may be a predetermined value or may be selected or defined according to practical requirements of the user.

p-0027For example, the searching module <b>13</b> searches the Internet via the network module <b>14</b>, and searches for addresses of the plurality of connect information that match the predetermined condition and contact information, such as names and phone numbers corresponding to the plurality of connect information from webpage contexts near keywords that match the predetermined condition, so as to perform subsequent calculation of the calculation module <b>10</b>.

p-0028In practical applications, for example, the predetermined conditions are that the radius of a displayed map image is 500 meters, the type of location is a restaurant, or the purpose of a user is to withdraw money. For example, supposing a user, who is carrying no cash while walking along a street, wishes to find a cash machine but cannot find an Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) or a bank in the vicinity. The user may then operate the mobile phone to define the predetermined condition as that the range covered by the map image has a 300-meter radius, and the purpose is to withdraw money, such that the mobile phone searches for banks or superstores having cash machine that match the predetermined conditions.

p-0029After the plurality of the connect information and the target position are obtained, the calculating module <b>10</b> respectively calculates relative distances between the plurality of connect information and the target position, and compares the relative distances with the predetermined distance to generate a plurality of marked information. The ranking module <b>16</b> ranks the plurality of marked information according to relative distances between each of the marked information and the target position to generate a ranking result. Generally speaking, a ranking approach applied by the ranking module <b>16</b> is to rank the connect information from near to far according to the relative distances between the connect information and the target positions, so as to satisfy user requirements and habits.

p-0030The retrieving module <b>17</b> retrieves a corresponding map image according to the target position and the predetermined distance. It is to be noted that, in this embodiment, the retrieving module <b>17</b> does not retrieve a map image according to the ranking result generated by the ranking module <b>16</b>, meaning that operations of the retrieving module <b>17</b> and the ranking module <b>16</b> are independent from each other.

p-0031When the ranking module <b>16</b> and the retrieving module <b>17</b> respectively generate the ranking result and retrieve the map image, the display module <b>18</b> displays the map image and the at least one marked information simultaneously according to the ranking result. In practical applications, each of the marked information comprises, e.g., a name and a phone number.

p-0032Practical applications are discussed below. For example, referring to <figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 2A</figref>, supposing that five contact information entries originally displayed on the phone book of the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b> are “no.1, Michael's House, 035349531”, “no.2, City Municipal, 035943562”, “no.3, Grandmother's House, 035683456”, “no.4, D Restaurant, 035478964”, and “no.5, K Clinic, 035834767”. After the calculation module <b>10</b> respectively calculates relative distances between coordinates corresponding to addresses of the contact information entries and a coordinate corresponding to the target position, the relative distance between “Michael's House” and the target position is 800 meters, the relative distance between “City Municipal” and the target position is 200 meters, the relative distance between “Grandmother's House” and the target position is 1500 meters, the relative distance between “D Restaurant” and the target position is 100 meters, and the relative distance between “K Clinic” and the target position is 500 meters.

p-0033The calculating module <b>10</b> respectively computes the five relative distances between the five connect information and the target position and compares the five relative distances with a predetermined distance to determine at least one marked information. Supposing that the predetermined distance is defined as being within a 2000-meter range from the target position, the five connect information that match the limitation of the predetermined distance are regarded as the marked information.

p-0034Therefore, the ranking module <b>16</b> of the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b> ranks the five marked information from near to far according to the forgoing calculating result, and the ranking result is “no.1, D Restaurant, 100 meters”, “no.2, City Municipal, 200 meters”, “no.3, K Clinic, 500 meters”, “no.4, Michael's House, 800 meters”, and “no.5, Grandmother' House 1500 meters”. The ranking result is displayed on the display module <b>18</b> of the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b> as shown in <figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 2B</figref>.

p-0035In practical applications, in addition to only displaying the ranking result as a list on the display mode <b>18</b> of the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b>, the retrieving module <b>17</b> of the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b> further retrieves a corresponding map image from a map database of the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b> or on the Internet according to the target position and the predetermined distance, and displays the map image and the ranking result within a same image frame simultaneously, such that the user can obtain the relative distances between the marked information and the target position more instinctively and rapidly from the image frame displayed on the display module <b>18</b>.

p-0036In practice, since the map image retrieved by the retrieving module <b>17</b> is determined according to the predetermined distance, a range covered by the map image supposedly matches the predetermined distance of the 2000-meter range from the target position, i.e., the map image displayed by the display module comprises the five marked information. In this embodiment, the target position, the marked information, and the relative distances between the marked information and the target position are marked on the map image to be browsed by the user.

p-0037Referring to <figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 2C</figref>, except for the target position ⋆ and the marked information comprising D Restaurant {circle around (<b>1</b>)}, City Municipal {circle around (<b>2</b>)}, K Clinic <b>3</b>, Michael's House {circle around (<b>4</b>)}, and Grandmother's House {circle around (<b>5</b>)}, relative distances between D Restaurant {circle around (<b>1</b>)}, City Municipal {circle around (<b>2</b>)}, K Clinic {circle around (<b>3</b>)}, Michael's House {circle around (<b>4</b>)} and Grandmother's House {circle around (<b>5</b>)} and the target position ⋆ are marked on the map image displayed on the display module <b>18</b>, such that the user can easily find the positions of the marked information and the relative distances between the marked information and the target position on the map image. An image frame displayed on the display module <b>18</b> in <figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 2D</figref> further comprises the listed ranking result at the lower right corner to provide a reference to the user.

p-0038However, it is possible that not all of the forgoing five connect information match the predetermined distance condition. For example, supposing that the predetermined distance is defined as being within a 600-meter range from the target position, only partial connect information that match the predetermined distance condition are regarded as the marked information. <figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 2E</figref> shows a schematic diagram of limiting a range covered by a map image displayed on the display module according to the predetermined distance.

p-0039Referring to <figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 2E</figref>, supposing that the user only wishes to browse locations within a 600-meter range from the target position, the user operates the portable electric apparatus to define the predetermined condition. When the relative distances between the coordinates corresponding to the addresses of the contact information and the coordinate corresponding to the target position are calculated, the calculating module <b>10</b> respectively calculates the relative distances between the five connect information and the target position within the 600-meter range from the target position. The ranking module <b>16</b> first excludes Michael's House and Grandmother's House having relative distances greater than 600 meters, and then selects D Restaurant, City Municipal and K Clinic from near to far as the marked information. The ranking module <b>16</b> then ranks the marked information of D Restaurant, City Municipal and K Clinic from near to far. Thus, the retrieving module <b>17</b> only retrieves a map image covering the 600-meter range from the target position according to the target position and the predetermined distance.

p-0040Therefore, in <figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 2E</figref>, the target position ⋆, and the marked information comprising D Restaurant {circle around (<b>1</b>)}, City Municipal {circle around (<b>2</b>)} and K Clinic {circle around (<b>3</b>)} that match the predetermined distance condition are marked on the map image displayed on the display module <b>18</b>, and Michael's House {circle around (<b>4</b>)} and Grandmother's House {circle around (<b>5</b>)} in <figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 2C</figref> and <figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 2D</figref>, which are out of the 600-meter range from the target position, do not match the predetermined distance condition and are hence not displayed in the map image displayed on the display module <b>18</b> in <figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 2E</figref>. In practice, in addition to defining the range covered by the map image displayed on the display module <b>18</b> by the user, the range may also be a predetermined value or may be automatically adjusted to be suitable for the user.

p-0041It is to be noted that, in the foregoing embodiments, the range covered by the map image displayed on the display module <b>18</b> is adjusted by the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b> according to the predetermined distance. However, in practical applications, the range covered by the map image displayed on the display module <b>18</b> may also be adjusted by the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b> by other approaches.

p-0042For example, the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b> can adjust the range covered by the map image by controlling the number of the marked information contained in the map image displayed by the display module <b>18</b>. Referring to <figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 2F</figref>, supposing that the user, instead of being informed on that many marked information from the map image displayed by the display module <b>18</b>, only wishes to know two marked information that are nearest to the target position, the user can operate the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b> to define a predetermined number to 2. When the calculating module <b>10</b> respectively calculates the relative distances between the coordinates corresponding to the addresses of the five contact information entries and the coordinate corresponding to the target position, the relative distances of the five connect information are obtained. The ranking module <b>16</b> ranks the five contact information entries from near to far according to the foregoing calculating result, and the ranking result is “no.1, D Restaurant, 100 meters”, “no.2, City Municipal, 200 meters”, “no.3, K Clinic, 500 meters”, “no.4, Michael's House, 800 meters”, and “no., Grandmother's House, 1500 meters”.

p-0043The ranking module <b>16</b> selects the first two connect information, which are “no.1, D Restaurant” and “no.2, City Municipal” from the ranking result, as the marked information. The retrieving module <b>17</b> retrieves a corresponding map image according to the target position and the two marked information “no.1, D Restaurant” and “no.2, City Municipal”. The display module <b>18</b> displays the map image and the two marked information only.

p-0044It is to be noted that, when the user handholding the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b> begins moving, the foregoing target position changes and the relative distances between the connect information and the target position change as well, which may cause lost of accuracy of the original ranking result. In order to solve this problem, when detecting that the target position changes, the positioning module <b>11</b> transmits an update signal to (or triggers) the calculating module <b>10</b> to activate the calculating module <b>10</b> to re-calculate the relative distances between the connect information and the target position, and the ranking module <b>16</b> re-ranks the connect information to obtain an updated ranking result.

p-0045Other than the foregoing approaches, the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b> also provides an update frequency according to practical requirements of the user. For example, the user can define the portable electronic apparatus <b>1</b> as that the map image displayed on display module <b>18</b> and the ranking result are updated every 5 seconds.

p-0046According to another embodiment, a method for operating a portable electronic apparatus is provided. <figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 3</figref> shows a flow chart of the method. In Step S<b>10</b>, the portable electronic apparatus calculates a plurality of relative distances between a plurality of connect information and a target position, and compares the relative distances with a predetermined distance to generate at least one marked information.

p-0047In practice, the portable electronic apparatus can receive signals transmitted from a plurality of satellites of a satellite positioning system to calculate the target position, or the target position is directly inputted into the portable electronic apparatus by a user. In addition, the portable electronic apparatus may directly obtain the plurality of connect information from a phone book stored in a database of the portable electronic apparatus, or obtain the plurality of connect information via the Internet.

p-0048In Step S<b>11</b>, the portable electronic apparatus ranks the at least one marked information according to the relative distances between the at least one marked information and the target position to generate a ranking result. In practical applications, the portable electronic apparatus ranks the at least one marked information from near to far according to relative distances between the at least one marked information and the target position.

p-0049In Step S<b>12</b>, the portable electronic apparatus retrieves a corresponding map image according to the target position and the predetermined distance. It is to be noted that, in this embodiment, Step S<b>11</b> and S<b>12</b> need not be performed in a specific order, i.e., Step <b>11</b> and Step <b>12</b> may be simultaneously performed, Step S<b>11</b> is first performed and followed by Step <b>1</b>, or Step S<b>12</b> is first performed and followed by Step <b>11</b>.

p-0050In Step S<b>13</b>, the portable electronic apparatus displays the map image and the at least one marked information according to the ranking result. In practice, the map image and the ranking result are integrated to a same image frame, including the target position, the at least one marked information and the relative distances, displayed on a screen of the portable electronic apparatus.

p-0051In practical applications, in addition to adjusting a range covered by the map image according to the predetermined distance, the portable electronic apparatus can adjust the range covered by the map image by controlling the number of the marked information contained in the map image.

p-0052In such a situation, a method for operating the portable electronic apparatus is slightly different from the foregoing steps. When relative distances between a plurality of connect information and a target position are calculated to obtain the relative distances corresponding to the plurality of connect information, the portable electronic apparatus ranks the plurality of connect information according to the relative distances to generate a ranking result, and selects a predetermined numbers of the plurality of marked information. After that, the portable electronic apparatus retrieves a corresponding map image according to the target position and the plurality of marked information. The portable electronic apparatus displays the map image and the plurality of marked information according to the ranking result.

p-0053A practical example is to be described to illustrate detailed steps of the method for operating a portable electronic apparatus. Referring to <figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 4</figref>, in Step S<b>20</b>, the portable electronic apparatus receives signals from a positioning system and calculates a target position of the portable electronic apparatus according to the received signals. In Step S<b>21</b>, the portable electronic apparatus obtains a plurality of connect information from a database. In Step S<b>22</b> and S<b>23</b>, the portable electronic apparatus respectively calculates a plurality of relative distances between the plurality of connect information and the target position, and determines whether the relative distances between the plurality of connect information and the target position match a predetermined distance condition to generate a plurality of marked information.

p-0054In Step S<b>24</b>, the portable electronic apparatus ranks the plurality of marked information from near to far according to the relative distances to generate a ranking result. In Step S<b>25</b>, the portable electronic apparatus retrieves a corresponding map image from the database according to the target position and the predetermined distance, and marks the target position and the plurality of marked information on the map image. In Step S<b>26</b>, the portable electronic apparatus displays the marked map image and the plurality of marked information.

p-0055<figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 5</figref> shows a flow chart of another example of a method for operating a portable electronic apparatus. Referring to <figref idrefs="DRAWINGS">FIG. 5</figref>, in Step S<b>30</b>, the portable electronic apparatus receives a target position inputted by a user. In Step S<b>31</b>, the portable electronic apparatus receives a search instruction comprising a first condition (i.e., a restaurant) and a second condition (i.e., displaying two nearest locations). In Step S<b>32</b>, the portable electronic apparatus searches on the Internet for a plurality of connect information matching the first condition according to the search instruction. In Step S<b>33</b>, the portable electronic apparatus respectively calculates a plurality of relative distances between the plurality of connect information and the target position.

p-0056In Step S<b>34</b>, the portable electronic apparatus ranks the plurality of connect information from near to far according to relative distances between the plurality of connect information and the target position, and selects two nearest connect information as two marked information. In Step S<b>35</b>, the portable electronic apparatus retrieves a corresponding map image from a database, and marks the target position and the two marked information on the map image. In Step S<b>36</b>, the portable electronic apparatus displays the marked map image and the two marked information.

p-0057In conclusion, regardless of whether a target position is inputted by a user or is calculated via received signals from a satellite positioning system, a portable electronic apparatus according to the present disclosure ranks contact information entries stored in a phone book from near to far according to relative distances between positions corresponding to the contact information entries and the target position to generate a ranking result, and displays an image frame comprising the ranking result and the corresponding map image on a screen. In addition, the user is allowed to search with additional options, e.g., predetermined requirements and purposes (e.g., a restaurant or a bank is searched for). The portable electronic apparatus ranks names or phone numbers of restaurants or banks from near to far according to the relative distances, and displays the ranking result and the corresponding map image on the screen.

p-0058Accordingly, according to the present disclosure, a portable electronic apparatus is capable of assisting a user to easily obtain contact information and associated life information of various locations near a target position. Even if the user is in motion, the portable electronic apparatus according to the present disclosure can still update a ranking result and a map image according to a latest position of the user to provide real-time and accurate information to the user.

p-0059While the present disclosure has been described in terms of what is presently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiments, it is to be understood that the present disclosure needs not to be limited to the above embodiments. On the contrary, it is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims which are to be accorded with the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar structures.