Mobile terminal device and program used in mobile terminal device

• US 20080227499A1
• Filed: 09/14/2006
• Published: 09/18/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/14/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NTT Docomo Incorporated (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation)
• Original Assignee: NTT Docomo Incorporated (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation)
• Inventors: Suzuki, Toshiyuki, Inamura, Hiroshi, Kaneda, Toshio, Azami, Toshihiro
• Granted Patent: US 8,188,976 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/566
• 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 1/1662 Details related to the integrated keyboard
• 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 3/0233 Character input methods

Abstract

A mobile terminal device provided with a plurality of keys includes: a touch pad and a touch detection interface which detect a user touching a key; a press detection interface which detects the user pressing the key; a display unit which sequentially displays characters, as candidate characters, assigned to the key pressed by the user, when the press detection interface detects the user pressing the key; and a controller which converts the candidate character displayed on the display unit to a finalized character, when an untouched time period during the user does not touch the pressed key reaches a predetermined judging time after the press detection interface detects the user pressing the key.

Claims

1. A mobile terminal device provided with a plurality of keys, comprising:

a touch detector configured to detect a user touching the key;

a press detector configured to detect the user pressing the key;

a display unit configured to sequentially display characters, as candidate characters, assigned to the key pressed by the user, when the press detector detects the user pressing the key; and

a controller configured to convert the candidate character displayed on the display unit to a finalized character, when an untouched time period during which the user does not touch the pressed key reaches a predetermined judging time after the press detector detects the user pressing the key.

2. The mobile terminal device according to claim 1, wherein the controller converts the candidate character displayed on the display unit to a finalized character, when the user touches a corresponding region provided for the pressed key even before the untouched time period reaches a predetermined judging time.

4. The mobile terminal device according to any one of claims 2 and 3, further comprising:

a key-arranged surface on which the a plurality of keys are arranged, wherein,

the touch detector detects the user touching the key-arranged surface as well as the user touching the key, and

the corresponding region is an area on the key-arranged surface except for the pressed key.

5. The mobile terminal device according to any one of claims 2 and 3, wherein the corresponding region is a key different from the pressed key.

6. The mobile terminal device according to any one of claims 2 and 3, wherein the corresponding region is a particular region including at least a part of the pressed key.

7. The mobile terminal device according to claim 6, wherein the controller converts the candidate character displayed on the display unit to a finalized character, when the user touches the particular corresponding region of the pressed key while the pressed key is pressed.

8. The mobile terminal device according to claim 6, further comprising:

a setting unit configured to serve for the user to set the position of the particular region, the size of the position of the particular region, or the number of the positions of the particular regions.

3. A mobile terminal device provided with a plurality of keys, comprising:

a touch detector configured to detect a user touching the key;

a press detector configured to detect the user pressing the key;

a display unit configured to sequentially display characters, as candidate characters, assigned to the key pressed by the user, when the press detector detects the user pressing the key; and

a controller configured to convert the candidate character displayed on the display unit to a finalized character, when the user touches a corresponding region provided for the pressed key.

9. A mobile terminal device which is provided with a plurality of keys, comprising:

a touch detector configured to detect a user touching the key;

a key specification unit configured to specify the key touched by the user as an effective contact key, when the user touching the key is detected; and

a screen changing unit configured to change a screen related to a function which is assigned to the effective contact key specified by the key specification unit, wherein,

the touch detector detects the user touching the plurality of keys, and

the key specification unit specifies the key touched by the user as the effective contact key, on the bases of key specification criteria set according to arrangement of the keys, when the user touching the plurality of keys is detected.

10. The mobile terminal device according to claim 9, wherein, the plurality of keys are arranged in a plurality of rows extending in the right-left direction of the mobile terminal device,

the plurality of rows are arranged in the vertical direction of the mobile terminal device, and

the key specification unit specifies one of upper contact keys as the effective contact key when the upper contact key is single, the upper contact keys are the plurality of keys touched by the user arranged in the row of uppermost in the vertical direction.

11. The mobile terminal device according to claim 10, further comprising:

an upper position specification unit configured to specify an upper representative position which is a single position set according to positions of the plurality of the upper contact keys; and

a lower position specification unit configured to specify a lower representative position which is a single position set according to positions of a plurality of lower contact keys, the lower contact keys are the plurality of keys touched by the user arranged in the row lower than the row of uppermost,

wherein, the key specification unit specifies one of the upper contact keys as the effective contact key according to a positional relationship in the right-left direction between the upper representative position and the lower representative position.

12. The mobile terminal device according to claim 11, further comprising:

a specification result storage configured to store a specification history result, the specification history is a history of specifying the effective contact key according to the positional relationship,

wherein, the key specification unit specifies the effective contact key by referring to the specification history result, when the upper representative position and the lower representative position are identical in the right-left direction.

13. The mobile terminal device according to claim 9, further comprising:

a touch time storage configured to store information associating the keys touched by the user and a touch time, the touch time is a time when the user touching the keys is detected; and

a grouping unit configured to form key groups from the plurality of keys touched by the user when the user touches the plurality of keys, the key groups respectively consist of the key adjacent to one another,

wherein, the key specification unit identifies the key group including a key having the latest touch time, and specifies the effective contact key from the keys included in the key group identified.

14. A program used in a mobile terminal device provided with a plurality of keys, the program causing a computer to execute the steps of:

detecting a user touching the keys;

specifying the key touched by the user as an effective contact key, when the user touching the key is detected, on the bases of key specification criteria set according to arrangement of the keys; and

changing a screen related to a function which is assigned to the effective contact key.