Mobile terminal device and program used in mobile terminal device

• US 8,188,976 B2
• Filed: 09/14/2006
• Issued: 05/29/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/14/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: NTT Docomo Incorporated (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation)
• Original Assignee: NTT Docomo Incorporated (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation)
• Inventors: Suzuki, Toshiyuki, Azami, Toshihiro, Inamura, Hiroshi, Kaneda, Toshio
• Primary Examiner(s): Awad, Amr
• Assistant Examiner(s): Bukowski, Kenneth
• Application Number:
  US11/520,650
• Publication Number:
  US 20080227499A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,084 Days
• Field of Search: 345/156, 345/168, 345/169, 345/173, 715700-866
• US Class Current: 345/169
• 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 continuously detect a user touching a key;

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

a display unit configured to sequentially display a plurality of characters one by one in a predetermined sequence, as candidate characters, assigned to the key pressed by the user, whenever the press detector detects the user pressing the key; and

a controller configured to start an untouched time period when the touch detector does not detect touching of the key, and configured to convert the candidate character displayed on the display unit and assigned to a last-touched key to a finalized character, when the untouched time period expires, the candidate character remaining un-finalized and the untouched time period remaining un-started while the touch detector continues to detect touching of the key and the press detector does not detect pressing of the key, the display displaying a candidate character last displayed when the press detector detected pressing of the key,

wherein the controller converts the candidate character display on the display unit to a finalized character, when a corresponding region corresponding to the pressed key is touched, each key having a different corresponding region directly adjacent thereto, each corresponding region including at least a portion of a key corresponding thereto or a region surrounding the key corresponding thereto.

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 a corresponding region provided for the pressed key is touched without waiting for expiration of the predetermined untouched time period.

3. The mobile terminal device according to claim 1, wherein display unit displays the candidate characters in a second display area in rows and columns corresponding to rows and columns of the plurality of keys.

4. The mobile terminal device according to claim 3, wherein the display unit highlights a character in the second display area corresponding to the key touched by the user.

5. The mobile terminal device according to claim 4, wherein the display unit updates the character displayed in the second display area to a subsequent character when a corresponding key is pressed.

6. The mobile terminal device according to claim 1, wherein a character assigned to the key pressed by the user is displayed in a first display region of the display unit, and a character corresponding to another key touched by the user is highlighted in a second display region of the display unit, the character assigned to the other key being displayed on the first region of the display unit when the press detector detects that the other key is pressed by the user.

8. The mobile terminal device according to any one of claims 2 and 7, further comprising:

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

the touch detector detects a touching of the key-arranged surface as well as the touched key, and

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

9. The mobile terminal device according to any one of claims 2 and 7, wherein the corresponding region is a key different from the pressed key.

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

a touch detector configured to detect a touched key;

a press detector configured to detect a pressed key;

a display unit configured to sequentially display characters, as candidate characters, assigned to the pressed key in a first display area, the display unit displaying characters assigned to each of the plurality of keys in a second display area, when the press detector detects the pressed key; and

a controller configured to convert the candidate character displayed on the first display area of the display unit to a finalized character, when a corresponding region corresponding to the pressed key is touched, each key having a different corresponding region directly adjacent thereto, each corresponding region including at least a portion of a key corresponding thereto or a region surrounding the key corresponding thereto.

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

11. The mobile terminal device according to claim 7, further comprising:

a setting unit configured to set a position of the corresponding region, a size of corresponding region, or a number of positions as corresponding regions in accordance with a user input.

12. The mobile terminal device according to claim 7, further comprising:

a key assignment information storage unit configured to store position, size and number of the plurality of contact regions, the position, size and number of the plurality of contact regions being updated by overwriting stored position, size and number values.

13. A mobile terminal device which is provided with a plurality of keys, the plurality of keys being respectively located in a plurality of rows extending in the right-left direction of the mobile terminal device, the plurality of rows being arranged in the vertical direction of the mobile terminal device, the mobile terminal device comprising:

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

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

an upper position specification unit configured to specify an upper representative position as a single position set according to positions of a plurality of upper contact keys;

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

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

wherein when the touch detector detects multiple keys being simultaneously touched on different rows, the key specification unit specifies the effective contact key as a rightmost upper contact key when the upper representative region is right of the lower representative region, and the key specification unit specifies the effective contact key as a leftmost upper contact key when the upper representative region is left of the lower representative region, and

the screen changing unit changes the screen according to a function assigned to a pressed key, when a corresponding region corresponding to the pressed key is touched each key having a different corresponding region directly adjacent thereto, each corresponding region including at least a portion of a key corresponding thereto or a region surrounding the key corresponding thereto.

14. The mobile terminal device according to claim 13, 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 a plurality of upper contact keys as the effective contact key when the upper contact key is single, and the upper contact keys are the plurality of keys touched by the user arranged in the row of uppermost in the vertical direction.

15. The mobile terminal device according to claim 13, 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 aligned in the right-left direction.

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

a touch time storage configured to store information associating the keys touched by the user and a touch time, the touch time being 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 consisting of the key adjacent to one another,

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

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

a barycenter coordinate detector configured to calculate a position of the upper representative region according to positions of uppermost keys of the multiple keys simultaneously touched, and to calculate a position of the lower representative region according to positions of lowermost keys of the multiple keys being touched.

18. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing computer-readable instructions for use in a mobile terminal device including a plurality of keys, the plurality of keys being respectively located in a plurality of rows extending in the right-left direction of the mobile terminal device, the plurality of rows being arranged in the vertical direction of the mobile terminal device, the computer-readable instructions when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform the method comprising:

specifying an upper representative position as a single position set according to positions of a plurality of upper contact keys;

specifying a lower representative position as a single position set according to positions of a plurality of lower contact keys, the lower contact keys being a plurality of keys touched by the user which are arranged in a row lower than an uppermost row;

detecting a user touching the keys;

specifying the key touched by the user as an effective contact key, when simultaneous touching of multiple keys on different rows is detected, on the basis of key specification criteria corresponding to an arrangement of the keys; and

changing a screen related to a function assigned to the effective contact key,

wherein a rightmost upper contact key is specified as the effective contact key when the upper representative position is right of the lower representative position, and a leftmost upper contact key is specified as the effective key when the upper representative region is left of the lower representative region, and

the screen changing unit changes the screen according to a function assigned to a pressed key, when a corresponding region corresponding to the pressed key is touched each key having a different corresponding region directly adjacent thereto, each corresponding region including at least a portion of a key corresponding thereto or a region surrounding the key corresponding thereto.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium to claim 18, further comprising:

a barycenter coordinate detector configured to calculate a position of the upper representative region according to positions of uppermost keys of the multiple keys simultaneously touched, and to calculate a position of the lower representative region according to positions of lowermost keys of the multiple keys being touched.