Portable communication terminal, information display device, control input device and control input method

• US 20020140667A1
• Filed: 04/02/2001
• Published: 10/03/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 04/02/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Horiki, Toshio
• Granted Patent: US 6,943,774 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/156
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1616 with folding flat displays, e.g. laptop computers or notebooks having a clamshell configuration, with body parts pivoting to an open position around an axis parallel to the plane they define in closed position
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1626 with a single-body enclosure integrating a flat display, e.g. Personal Digital Assistants [PDAs]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1647 including at least an additional display G06F1/1692 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1686 the I/O peripheral being an integrated camera
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/169 the I/O peripheral being an integrated pointing device, e.g. trackball in the palm rest area, mini-joystick integrated between keyboard keys, touch pads or touch stripes G06F1/1643 takes precedence; constructional details of pointing devices G06F3/033
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2200/1614 Image rotation following screen orientation, e.g. switching from landscape to portrait mode
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/011 Arrangements for interaction with the human body, e.g. for user immersion in virtual reality blind teaching G09B21/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/017 Gesture based interaction, e.g. based on a set of recognized hand gestures interaction based on gestures traced on a digitiser G06F3/04883
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0304 Detection arrangements using opto-electronic means constructional details of pointing devices not related to the detection arrangement using opto-electronic means G06F3/033; optical digitisers G06F3/042
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0346 with detection of the device orientation or free movement in a 3D space, e.g. 3D mice, 6-DOF [six degrees of freedom] pointers using gyroscopes, accelerometers or tilt-sensors
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2330/021 Power management, e.g. power saving
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2340/0492 Change of orientation of the displayed image, e.g. upside-down, mirrored
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/00 Control arrangements or circuits for visual indicators common to cathode-ray tube indicators and other visual indicators image data processing or generation, in general G06T
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/0214 Foldable telephones, i.e. with body parts pivoting to an open position around an axis parallel to the plane they define in closed position combined with translation movement H04M1/0235
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/0218 The hinge comprising input and/or output user interface means
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/0247 comprising more than two body parts
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/233 including a pointing device, e.g. roller key, track ball, rocker switch or joystick constructional details of pointing devices per se G06F3/033
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/12 including a sensor for measuring a physical value, e.g. temperature or motion telephones including GPS signal receivers H04M2250/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/16 including more than one display unit
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2007/145 Handheld terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/142 : Constructional details of the terminal equipment, e.g. arrangements of the camera and the display

Abstract

A portable communications terminal has

display part having a display surface for displaying an image;

main body having at least an antenna for transmitting and receiving radio waves for wireless communications, a speaker for outputting voice, and a pointing device for controlling at least a cursor displayed on said display surface; and

joining part for joining said display part to said main body in an angularly movable fashion, and wherein:

said speaker is disposed on one main surface of said main body, and

said pointing device is disposed on the other main surface of said main body opposite from said one main surface.

Claims

1. A portable communications terminal comprising:

display part having a display surface for displaying an image;

main body having at least an antenna for transmitting and receiving radio waves for wireless communications, a speaker for outputting voice, and a pointing device for controlling at least a cursor displayed on said display surface; and

joining part for joining said display part to said main body in an angularly movable fashion, and wherein;

said speaker is disposed on one main surface of said main body, and

said pointing device is disposed on the other main surface of said main body opposite from said one main surface.

2. The portable communications terminal according to claim 1, further comprising an auxiliary display, mounted in said main body, for displaying at least textual information.

3. The portable communications terminal according to claim 1, wherein said display part includes a first member where said display surface is provided, and a second member joined to said first member in an angularly movable fashion.

4. The portable communications terminal according to claim 1, wherein an answer button is provided to answer an incoming call with the display surface of said display part covered by said main body.

5. The portable communications terminal according to claim 1, wherein said joining part joins said display part to said main body in a detachable fashion.

13. A portable communications terminal according to claim 1 or 12, further comprising a detection switch for detecting said main body being held by a user, said detection switch being mounted on said other main surface or a side face of said main body, and wherein:

said display part is activated when said detection switch detects said main body being held by a user, and

said display part is deactivated when said detection switch no longer detects said main body being held.

6. An information display device comprising:

imaging means of capturing an image;

image processing means of processing the image captured by said imaging means;

position detecting means of detecting from said processed image the position of said image on a screen;

display means of displaying prescribed information on a display surface;

control means of displaying a designated pointer on said display surface in accordance with the position detected by said position detecting means;

antenna for transmitting and receiving radio waves for wireless communications;

transmit processing means of processing a signal to be transmitted in the form of said radio waves; and

receive processing means of processing the radio waves received by said antenna as a signal.

7. The information display device according to claim 6, wherein the display surface of said display means is chosen to be equal in size to a region within which said imaging means captures said image, or to be smaller than said capture region.

8. The information display device according to claim 6, wherein said image processing means extracts a contour of said image, and

said position detecting means detects said designated position from said extracted contour.

9. The information display device according to claim 6, wherein said image processing means performs processing on portions of said image that are designated by a specific color and/or a specific temperature, and/or on portions of said image that lie within a focal length of said imaging means.

10. The control input device comprising:

the information display device according to any one of claims 6 to 9; and

input means of carrying out a control input on an object pointed to by said pointer on said display surface.

11. The control input device according to claim 10, further comprising image pattern registering means in which are registered one or a plurality of image patterns associated with one or a plurality of said control inputs respectively, and wherein:

said input means compares the image captured by said imaging means or the image extracted by said image processing means with the image patterns stored in said image pattern registering means and, if said extracted image matches any one of said image patterns, carries out a control input that corresponds to said matching image pattern.

12. The portable communications terminal comprising:

control input device according to claim 10;

main body containing at least said imaging means and said antenna;

display part containing at least said display means; and

joining part for joining said main body to said display part in an angularly movable fashion.

15. The portable communications terminal according to claim 14, wherein said attitude detecting means detects the attitude of said main body by using a mercury switch.

16. The portable communications terminal according to claim 14, wherein said orientation detecting means detects the attitude of said main body by using a gyro.

17. A control input method using a control input device according to claim 11, comprising the step of performing a prescribed gesture so as to be captured by said imaging means, wherein

said control output is produced by said prescribed gesture.

18. A program for causing a computer to function as all or part of the means of the information display device described in claim 6, said means consisting of imaging means of capturing an image, image processing means of processing the image captured by said imaging means, position detecting means of detecting from said processed image the position of said image on a screen, and display means of displaying prescribed information on a display surface.

19. A program for causing a computer to function as all or part of the input means of the control input device described in claim 10, said input means carrying out a control input on an object pointed to by said pointer on said display surface.

20. A program for causing a computer to function as all or part of the means of the portable communications terminal described in claim 14, said means consisting of attitude detecting means of detecting the attitude of said main body, and display orientation switching means of switching the orientation of said image displayed on said display part, based on a detection result output from said attitude detecting means.

14. A portable communications terminal comprising:

display part having a display surface for displaying an image;

main body having at least an antenna for transmitting or receiving radio waves for wireless communications, and speaker for outputting voice;

joining part for joining said display part to said main body in an angularly movable fashion;

attitude detecting means of detecting the attitude of said main body; and

display orientation switching means of switching the orientation of said image displayed on said display part, based on a detection result output from said attitude detecting means.