Patent Application
20060015662
The present invention relates to computer controlled consumer electronics devices or instruments, such as digital cameras, and specifically to the storage of digital pictures directly onto a USB storage key inserted into the USB connection slot in said camera. This invention also relates to the transfer of the stored data on the USB storage key to a computer controlled instrument, such as a PDA, camcorder, personal computer, or a second digital camera without the use of a cable.
The past decade has been marked by a technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry with the consumer electronics industry. The effect has, in turn, driven technologies that have been known and available but relatively quiescent over the years to now come into great demand in the marketplace.
The rapid expansion in the capacity of computers to perform support functions, the greater and greater miniaturization of computers, as well as reduction in costs to perform memory and computer operations has opened the door for computer controlled instrumentation. A key aspect of this expansion has been lower and lower cost memory. In recent years, this has been manifested in flash memory cards and sticks. At the current technology stage, these memory cards and sticks are detachably inserted into the computer controlled electronic instruments to provide an extra memory capacity of from one half to four to five gigabytes.
Memory cards use a flash memory that is based upon EEPROM (electrically erasable programmable read only memory) grid chips. Flash memory EEPROM works much faster than conventional EEPROM. Instead of erasing one byte at a time, it erases an entire block or an entire chip at a time and then rewrites. Smartmedia and Compactflash provide the “electronic film” for digital cameras while the Sony memory stick is quite popular in digital cameras and for computer controlled video games. These high capacity memory cards and sticks have been performing hard drive storage functions for the above-described computer controlled electronic instruments. In this connection, the SSFDC (solid state floppy disc card) developed by Toshiba, Inc. may function as the above-described Smartmedia card. Similarly, the above CompactFlash is a small circuit board with at least one flash memory chip and a dedicated controller chip encased in a housing or shell.
With this rapid expansion of the use of detachable memory cards for an increasing variety of computer controlled electronic instruments, the cards themselves are becoming relatively ubiquitous. The memory cards may be in or on the desks and cabinets of their users. The current use of memory cards requires the attachment of a USB cable between the camera and the personal computer or other computer controlled instrument, or that the personal computer or other computer controlled instrument be equipped with a media reader that can handle the specific types of storage the camera uses.
The present invention involves the Universal Serial Bus (USB), which was originally developed in 1995 by Intel, Compaq, DEC, IBM, Microsoft, NEC, and Northern Telecom, to define an external expansion bus that simplified adding peripherals to a PC with low cost to the user. The USB, version 1.1, has a data transfer rate of 12 megabits per second (Mbps) for connecting peripherals to a microcomputer. USB can connect up to 127 peripherals, such as external CD-ROM drives, printers, modems, mice, and keyboards to the system through a single, general purpose port, which is accomplished by daisy chaining peripherals together. USB is designed to add such devices without having to shut down and restart the system. Currently, USB enjoys tremendous success in the marketplace, and most peripheral vendors are developing products to this specification. Virtually all new PCs have one or more USB ports included thereon. USB, version 2.0, offers its users an additional range of higher performance peripherals, such as video-conferencing cameras, and increases data throughput by a factor of 40, since it has a higher bandwidth. USB 2.0 has 480 Mbps bandwidth.
To better understand USB, an understanding of the roles of each of its major elements is necessary, which is described in greater detail in the article “Understanding Universal Serial Bus Part 1: USB Basics”, Embedded Systems Programming, John Canosa, Miller Freeman, San Francisco, Calif., USA, June 1997. These major elements are the host PC hardware and software, the hub, and the peripheral. The role of the system software is to provide a uniform view of I/O systems for all applications software. The system software hides hardware implementation details causing the application software to be more portable. For the USB I/O subsystem, the system software manages the dynamic attach and detach of peripherals. This phase is called enumeration, and involves communicating with the peripheral to discover the identity of a device driver that should be loaded if it has not been loaded yet. A unique address is assigned to each peripheral during enumeration to be used for run-time data transfers. During run-time, the host PC initiates transactions to specific peripherals, and each peripheral accepts its transactions and responds accordingly. The host PC software incorporates the peripheral into the system power management scheme and can manage overall system power without user interaction.
The role of the hub is to provide managed power to attached peripherals, in addition to its obvious role of providing additional connectivity for USB peripherals. The hub recognizes dynamic attachment of a peripheral and provides at least 0.5 W of power per peripheral during initialization. Under control of the host PC software, the hub may provide more device power, up to a maximum of 2.5 W, for peripheral operation. A newly attached hub will be assigned its unique address, and hubs may be cascaded up to five levels deep. During run-time, a hub operates as a bi-directional repeater and will repeat USB signals as required on upstream (towards the host) and downstream (towards the device) cables. The hub also monitors these signals and handles transactions addressed to itself. All other transactions are repeated to attached devices. A hub supports both 12 Mbps (full-speed) and 1.5 Mbps (low-speed) peripherals.
All USB peripherals must react to request transactions sent from the host PC. The peripheral responds to control request transactions sent from the host PC. The peripheral responds to control transactions that, for example, request detailed information about the device and its configuration. The peripheral sends and receives data to/from the host using a standard USB data format. This standardized data movement to/from the PC host and interpretation by the peripheral gives USB its enormous flexibility with little PC host software changes. USB peripherals can operate at 12 Mbps or 1.5 Mbps. Presently, computer systems and cameras sold in the marketplace include integrated USB ports as a general feature.
The present invention provides a solution to the problems related to the inflexibility or inconvenience of storing digital photographs and transferring said stored data to another computer controlled instrument. Accordingly, the present invention provides a digital camera having a USB key drive, wherein the digital camera has a slot for operatively receiving a memory card for storage of digital photographs taken by said camera. The digital camera also has a USB connection slot formed in the body of the camera adapted to receive a USB storage key. It should be understood that in order to practice the present invention, the camera manufacturers would have to build a USB port into the camera, provide an adapter for use, or manufacture a USB memory key with a non-standard plug end to fit a current camera's port. A typical port is illustrated on
The present invention will be better understood and its numerous objects and advantages will become more apparent to those skilled in the art by reference to the following drawings, in conjunction with the accompanying specification, in which:
Referring to
There is also shown a bus branch to a power supply. Where the USB storage key is functioning already operatively inserted into the computer controlled instrument, the power supply of the instrument itself may be used for this function. By use of the present invention, the user is able to transfer stored data from a digital camera to a computer controlled instrument, e.g. a laptop computer, camcorder, personal computer, or a second digital camera.
The running of the process set up in
Referring now to
Although certain preferred embodiments have been shown and described, it will be understood that many changes and modifications may be made therein without departing from the scope and intent of the appended claims.
