JP2002297284A - Mobile terminal device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide portable terminal equipment capable of controlling the scroll of screen display while holding a portable terminal in one hand. SOLUTION: An acceleration sensor is arranged in portable terminal equipment, and the scroll, zoom-up, and switching of a screen are operated according to the output of the acceleration sensor. It is desired that one chip three- dimensional semiconductor is arranged as the acceleration sensor.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a portable terminal used for personal information management, and more particularly to a portable terminal device which can be operated with one hand.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As conventional portable terminals, so-called mobile terminals, there are a PDA, a palmtop PC, an i-mode terminal, and the like. As displays for these mobile terminals, liquid crystal display elements are often used because of their relatively low cost and excellent resolution. Usually, these portable terminal devices are often used in trains or walking while commuting, and the user often holds the portable terminal in one hand and looks at the screen thereof. By the way, in a liquid crystal display device used in such a portable terminal device, portability is sacrificed when a large display element is used. Therefore, a so-called VGA screen having a screen dot number of about 640 × 400 dots is usually used. Those that can be displayed are used.

FIG. 4 shows an example of such a conventional portable terminal device. In FIG. 2, reference numeral 21 denotes a housing of the mobile terminal device;
Reference numeral 22 denotes a display element such as a liquid crystal display element. Also, 23
Is a joystick type lever switch, which can be displaced up, down, left and right.
When the operation mode of the joystick type lever switch is set to the scroll mode and the joystick type lever switch is displaced downward, the screen display scrolls upward and the information following the screen display portion can be viewed. It has become. In the Internet, etc., jumping to the next screen or the previous screen is frequently performed. In this case, set the operation mode of the joystick type lever switch to the cursor movement mode, and use the joystick type lever switch to move the cursor to an appropriate position. , And by pressing a button 24 such as a selection button, the screen is switched as instructed.

[0004] By the way, when a portable terminal having such a limited number of display pixels refers to an Internet homepage with a large amount of display information, the screen display section is moved to read information such as characters that are not accommodated on the screen. That is, a so-called scroll operation is frequently performed. For example, in a scroll operation in a conventional portable terminal, a scroll operation is performed by instructing a scroll direction using a joystick type lever switch or pressing an arrow key.

[0005] In order to perform these operations with one hand, it is necessary to operate the joystick lever or press a key, for example, with the thumb while holding the housing of the portable terminal with one hand. Also, there was a danger that the mobile terminal would be dropped.

A portable terminal using a touch sensor instead of the joystick type lever switch as described above is also known. In this technique, a transparent electrode is provided on the surface of a display device to constitute a sensor, and an instruction is input by a user's finger or a pointing tool. According to this, the user's instruction can be transmitted to the controller more easily and more easily than with a joystick type lever switch, but it is extremely difficult to perform this operation with one hand.

[0007] Further, a method of communicating the user's intention by voice is also known, but voice recognition technology is in the process of being developed.
The recognition rate has not yet been put to practical use. Furthermore, when the portable terminal is used outdoors, the recognition rate is further reduced due to the noise outside, and it has not reached a practical level.

[0008]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems of the conventional portable terminal, and appropriately transmits the intention of the user of the portable terminal to the control unit of the portable terminal. It is an object of the present invention to realize a portable terminal device that can perform operations such as scrolling the screen of the portable terminal, changing to another screen, or zooming in with one hand with one hand. .

[0009]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is a portable terminal comprising a housing, a character image display device arranged on the surface of the housing, and an acceleration sensor arranged in the housing.

Further, the present invention is a portable terminal device comprising means for switching a display screen based on an output signal from the acceleration sensor. Further, the acceleration sensor is
This is a portable terminal device which is a one-chip semiconductor three-dimensional sensor.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A portable terminal device according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is an external view showing an example of the portable terminal device of the present invention. In the figure, reference numeral 1 denotes a housing of a mobile terminal device, on which a display screen 2, a button switch 3, a speaker 4, and the like are arranged. As shown in the device block diagram of FIG. 2, the portable terminal of the present invention includes a power supply device 9, a central control circuit 5, a communication circuit 6, a memory 7, an input circuit 10, a button switch 11, a display circuit 12, and a display element 13. , An acoustic circuit 14, a speaker 15 and the like, and an acceleration sensor 8 is connected to the central control circuit 8.

The central control circuit 5 in FIG. 2 is a circuit for controlling the entire portable terminal device, and can use a microprocessor. A communication circuit 6 is connected to the central control circuit 5, and performs communication by means of a wireless communication such as a portable telephone currently in practical use, or a LAN connection interface. Although not an essential circuit in the present invention, it is desirable to provide it as a portable terminal device. The power supply device 9 supplies electric power to all the electronic components of the portable terminal device, and supplies electric power with a battery. The memory 7 temporarily or permanently stores all information input to and output from the terminal device, and uses a semiconductor memory.
Further, a hard disk drive may be provided as a larger capacity storage device. The input circuit 10 has a button switch 11 connected thereto, a power on / off button, a selection button,
The mobile terminal can be operated by appropriately set buttons such as a cancel button and a function selection button. The display circuit 12 controls a display element of the portable terminal device, and controls a display element 13 such as a liquid crystal display element by a control signal from the central control circuit 6,
Switch the screen display and perform display screen operations such as zoom up, zoom out, and scroll. Next, the acoustic circuit 14 is used to play music by voice, melody, sound, vibration, and the like, and to transmit information to the holder. A sounding body such as a speaker 15 or a piezoelectric vibrator is connected to the acoustic circuit 14. An acceleration sensor 8 is connected to the central control circuit 5 to detect displacement information of the portable terminal.

[0013] The acceleration sensor 8 includes a portable terminal,
When it is moved spatially from the held state and displaced, the acceleration of the displacement is detected. Currently, one-dimensional, two-dimensional, and three-dimensional sensors have been put into practical use as acceleration sensors, and when one-dimensional sensors are used,
The three sensors can be arranged in a three-dimensional direction so that their detection directions are orthogonal to each other. However, in the present invention, it is preferable to use a one-chip three-dimensional semiconductor acceleration sensor in order to cope with various displacements of the housing and to fit in a limited volume of the housing.

Next, the operation of the portable terminal device will be described. First, the portable terminal holder obtains necessary information using the communication circuit 6 or the like, and temporarily or permanently stores the information in the memory 7. The information stored in the memory 7 is called by the central control circuit 5, transmitted to the display element 13 via the display circuit 12, and displayed. The information that could not be displayed in the display area of the display element 13 is continuously stored in the memory 7, and a mark indicating that there is undisplayed information is displayed on the display element 13.

[0015] The portable terminal holder knows that there is undisplayed information, and scrolls the current screen upward to browse the remaining information. It is displaced upward, that is, in the positive direction of the Y axis in FIG. Then, the acceleration sensor 8 built in the mobile terminal device detects the acceleration in the downward direction at the beginning of the displacement, that is, the acceleration in the minus direction of the Y-axis, and can detect that the mobile terminal has been displaced in the upward direction. Therefore, when such displacement information is detected by the acceleration sensor, the screen is scrolled upward to display information following the display screen. Since the acceleration sensor can detect the magnitude of the acceleration simultaneously with the displacement information, the information on the magnitude of the acceleration can be used as the information on the scroll amount or the scroll speed. That is, when there is a displacement with a large acceleration, the scroll speed can be increased or the scroll amount can be increased.

On the contrary, when the display screen is displaced downward, that is, in the minus direction of the Y axis, the display screen scrolls downward. Similarly, scrolling is performed in the right direction when displaced in the right direction, that is, in the plus direction of the X axis, and scrolling in the left direction when displaced in the left direction, that is, in the minus direction of the X axis.

When the entire portable terminal is moved in front of the portable terminal, that is, when the portable terminal is moved in a parallel direction (the positive direction of the Z-axis), the display screen is zoomed up, and when the mobile terminal is moved away from the portable terminal (the Z-axis). (Minus direction) zooms out.
Thus, it is possible to instruct the user to scroll and zoom the screen only by moving the mobile terminal.

Next, when browsing the Internet home page, in addition to displaying the browse page, the user often returns to the previous page or jumps to the next page. When returning to the previous page, the hand holding the mobile terminal device has a displacement that rotates the wrist as a center to the opposite side of the holder (ie, a displacement that rotates around the X axis in FIG. 2). In such a case, it is possible to return to the previous page, and conversely, when there is a displacement to rotate the holder, the next page can be displayed.

In the above, the displacement of the portable terminal device and the change of the display screen have been described. However, this is based on the relationship between the motion intuitively accepted by the portable terminal owner and the screen control, and can be set freely. Of course you can.

The relationship between the displacement of the housing and the screen change has been described above. Next, a method of detecting the displacement of the housing will be described. The schematic diagram shown in FIG. 3 is a drawing for explaining the displacement direction of the mobile terminal housing of the present invention. As shown in the figure, an acceleration sensor that detects displacement in each of X, Y, and Z axes, which are three-dimensional directions of the housing, is arranged in the housing. In such a case, the detection of the upward displacement is as follows.
It can be detected by monitoring the output of the acceleration sensor that detects the Y direction. Similarly, a downward displacement can be determined to be a downward displacement if the output of the Y-direction detecting acceleration sensor is negative. Also, the displacement that rotates the housing forward is
This is an operation of rotating around the X axis. If the output of the Y-direction detection acceleration sensor is negative and the output of the Z-direction detection acceleration sensor is positive, it can be determined that the displacement is to rotate forward. Conversely, if the output of the Y-direction detection acceleration sensor is negative and the output of the Z-direction detection acceleration sensor is also negative, it can be determined that the displacement moves the upper part of the housing away from the holder. Also, after a person moves the housing, an operation of returning the housing to the original state is often performed. If the screen display is changed by detecting all of them, the screen display changed by the first displacement will return to its original state, which is inconvenient. In this case, if there is a displacement in a direction that completely cancels it within a predetermined time following a displacement in a certain direction, it is possible to avoid such inconvenience by ignoring the subsequent displacement. it can.

In the Internet, as described above, the operation of moving the cursor on the screen is frequently performed. Therefore, this cursor operation can also be performed by the displacement of the mobile terminal. However, in this case, it is necessary to perform a button operation for identifying whether the displacement of the mobile terminal is a change of the screen display or a movement of the cursor. That is, when the cursor movement button is provided on the surface of the mobile terminal, and the mobile terminal is displaced while pressing the button, the cursor may be moved.
In this case, if the operation of moving the mobile terminal in parallel to the holder indicates a decision, and the operation of moving the mobile terminal away from the holder indicates a cancellation, the convenience is further improved.

[0022]

According to the present invention, since the screen of the portable terminal can be changed by the displacement of the portable terminal, the operation of the portable terminal can be operated with one hand, and the convenience is greatly improved. I do.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic perspective view of a portable terminal of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a circuit block diagram of the portable terminal of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view for explaining displacement of the portable terminal of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing an example of a conventional portable terminal.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1, 21 ... housing 2, 22 ... display element 3, 24 ... button switch 4, 25 ... speaker 5 ... central control circuit 6 ... communication circuit 7 ... memory 8 ... Acceleration sensor 9 ... Power supply circuit 10 ... Input circuit 11 ... Button switch 12 ... Display circuit 13 ... Display element 14 ... Acoustic circuit 15 ... Speaker

──────────────────────────────────────────────────の Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) G09G 3/20 680 G09G 3/20 680T 5/00 550 5/00 550C F-term (Reference) 5B019 DB10 HD03 5C080 AA10 BB05 DD13 EE21 EE22 FF09 GG02 JJ02 JJ06 KK07 5C082 AA00 BA02 BB25 CA33 CA34 CA72 CA76 CB01 DA61 MM09

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A portable terminal device comprising: a housing; a character image display element disposed on a surface of the housing; and an acceleration sensor disposed in the housing. 2. The portable terminal device according to claim 1, further comprising means for switching a display screen based on an output signal from said acceleration sensor. 3. The portable terminal device according to claim 1, wherein the acceleration sensor is a three-dimensional sensor or includes three one-dimensional sensors.