ELECTRONIC DEVICE INCLUDING FLEXIBLE DISPLAY

• US 20130215088A1
• Filed: 02/17/2012
• Published: 08/22/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 02/17/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Original Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Inventors: SON, Howon, Park, Hyorim, Choe, Dami
• Granted Patent: US 9,672,796 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1652 the display being flexible, e.g. mimicking a sheet of paper, or rollable
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04102 Flexible digitiser, i.e. constructional details for allowing the whole digitising part of a device to be flexed or rolled like a sheet of paper
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04804 Transparency, e.g. transparent or translucent windows
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0487 using specific features provided by the input device, e.g. functions controlled by the rotation of a mouse with dual sensing arrangements, or of the nature of the input device, e.g. tap gestures based on pressure sensed by a digitiser
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04897 Special input arrangements or commands for improving display capability
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2340/045 Zooming at least part of an image, i.e. enlarging it or shrinking it
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2380/02 Flexible displays
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/08 Cursor circuits
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/40 characterised by the way in which both a pattern determined by character code and another pattern are displayed simultaneously, or either pattern is displayed selectively, e.g. with character code memory and APA, i.e. all-points-addressable, memory

Abstract

An electronic device includes a flexible display, a sensing unit configured to obtain bending information including at least one of a bending degree, the number of times of bending, a bending maintaining duration, and a bending speed of the display, and a controller configured to additionally display a second image on the display when the display is bent in a state in which a first image is displayed, and complementarily change transparency of the first image and that of the second image to reflect the bending information obtained by the sensing unit.

Claims

1. An electronic device comprising:

a flexible display;

a sensing unit configured to obtain bending information including at least one of a bending degree, the number of times of bending, a bending maintaining duration, and a bending speed of the display; and

a controller configured to additionally display a second image on the display when the display is bent in a state in which a first image is displayed, and complementarily change transparency of the first image and that of the second image to reflect the bending information obtained by the sensing unit.

2. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein when a bending degree of the display is increased the controller decreases transparency of the second image while increasing transparency of the first image, and when the bending degree of the display is decreased the controller increase transparency of the second image while decreasing transparency of the first image.

3. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the controller complementarily changes transparency of the first image and that of the second image according to the number of times of bending of the display.

4. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein as a bending maintaining duration of the display is lengthened, the controller gradually increases transparency of the first image and gradually decreases transparency of the second image.

5. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the controller controls a change speed of transparency of the first image and the second image according to a bending speed of the display.

6. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the controller selectively activates a function related to the first image and a function related to the second image based on transparency of the first image.

7. The electronic device of claim 6, wherein the first image is an executed screen image of a first application and the second image is an executed screen image of a second application, and the controller selectively activates the executed screen image of the first application and the executed screen image of the second application based on transparency of the executed screen image of the first application.

8. The electronic device of claim 6, wherein the first image is an executed screen image of the first application, the second image is an image including one or more icons for executing a different application, the controller selectively activates the executed screen image of the first application and the image, and when any of the one or more icons is selected in a state in which the image is activated, the controller executes an application corresponding to the selected icon.

9. The electronic device of claim 6, wherein the first image is an executed screen image of the first application, the second image is an image including one or more items for executing a function corresponding to each of the items, the controller selectively activates the executed screen image of the first application and the image, and when any of the one or more items is selected in a state in which the image is activated, the controller executes a particular function corresponding to the selected item.

10. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the image is a first executed screen image of the first application, and the second image is a second executed screen image of the first application.

11. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the first image is an executed screen image of a particular application, and the second image is a particular menu of the particular application corresponding to the bending information.

12. The electronic device of claim 11, wherein the controller complementarily changes transparency of the executed screen image of the particular application and transparency of the particular menu of the particular application based on a bending degree of the display.

13. The electronic device of claim 12, wherein the controller changes the particular menu of the particular application based on a bending maintaining duration at the particular bending degree of the display.

14. The electronic device of claim 11, wherein the controller complementarily changes transparency of the executed screen image of the particular application and transparency of the particular menu of the particular application based on a bending maintaining duration at a particular bending degree of the display.

15. The electronic device of claim 11, wherein when a bending degree of the display is changed, the controller changes the particular menu of the particular application displayed on the display.

16. The electronic device of claim 11, wherein the controller controls whether to activate a function corresponding to the particular menu of the particular application based on transparency of the executed screen image of the particular application.

17. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the first image is the executed screen image of the particular application, and the second image is an image showing execution results of the particular function of the particular application with respect to the executed screen image of the particular application.

18. The electronic device of claim 17, wherein the controller complementarily changes the transparency of the executed screen image of the particular application and transparency of the image showing execution results of the particular function of the particular application based on a bending degree of the display.

19. The electronic device of claim 18, wherein the controller changes a parameter applied to the particular function of the particular application based on a bending maintaining duration at the particular bending degree of the display.

20. The electronic device of claim 17, wherein the controller complementarily changes the transparency of the executed screen image of the particular application and transparency of the image showing execution results of the particular function of the particular application based on a bending maintaining duration at the particular bending degree of the display.

21. The electronic device of claim 11, wherein when a bending degree of the display is changed, the controller changes the parameter applied to the particular function of the particular application.