In the annexed drawings several exemplary embodiments of the invention are illustrated, it being understood that such illustrations are not necessarily to scale.
The present invention will now be described with reference to the drawings, wherein like reference numerals are used to refer to like elements throughout.
The term “electronic equipment” includes portable radio communication equipment. The term “portable radio communication equipment,” which herein after is referred to as a “mobile radio terminal,” “mobile phone,” “mobile device,” or “mobile terminal” and the like, includes all equipment such as mobile telephones, pagers, communicators, i.e., electronic organizers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), smartphones, portable communication apparatus or the like. The term “electronic equipment” also may include portable digital music devices, e.g., iPod devices, mp3 players, etc. A portable radio communication device may also be a portable digital music device.
In the present application, the invention is described primarily in the context of a mobile telephone. However, it will be appreciated that the invention is not intended to be limited to a mobile telephone and can be any type of electronic equipment.
Referring initially to
In the exemplary embodiment illustrated in
From the description summarized above and described in further detail below, it will be appreciated that lock and unlock functions may be performed in response to motion of the mobile phone using motion sensing and comparing functions of the present invention. The lock and unlock functions may be used to lock part or all of a mobile phone from use and to unlock part or all of a mobile phone for use. For example, the mobile phone may be turned on or off; the key pad (e.g., the keys used for dialing) may be turned on or off; dialing or sending a telephone number to initiate a telephone call may be turned on or off while still permitting the mobile phone to receive and to answer an incoming phone call; and/or answer function may be turned on or off. Internet functions and/or other functions of the mobile phone also may be turned on or off. Another function may be to mute or to unmute the mobile phone, e.g., to turn off or to turn on the microphone thereof. These are only examples of functions that may be turned on and off; it will be appreciated that there may be other functions that may be turned on and off. The description below refers to turning on and off keylock; but it will be appreciated that other operational functions or operating functions, e.g., as was described just above, and still others also may be turned on or off based appropriate motion of the mobile phone occurring and being detected. It will be appreciated that the term “function” or “functions” also may be referred to equivalently as “operational function” or “operational functions” of the mobile phone in that a given function may be a characteristic or operational capability of the mobile phone. Further, it will be appreciated that reference to turning on or turning off function(s) or the like may be understood as enabling and disabling, respectively, or activating and disabling (or deactivating), respectively, the function(s). Furthermore, reference to turning on, turning off, enabling, disabling, activating and disabling (or deactivating) may also include the possibility that and may be considered as also defined as the character of a given function is altered from one state to another; for example, altering the function of volume of a speaker, altering the number of keys on a keypad that may be used, e.g., to allow pressed numeric keys to provide a useful functional output signal while precluding any useful outputs from the asterisk (*) or “pound” (sometimes referred to as “number,” “number sign,” or “hash” (#) keys, which sometimes are used particularly to provide some type of computer input signal, etc. These are only several examples of turning on, turning off, and altering functions, and there may be others.
The mobile phone 10 is shown as having a “brick” or “block” design type housing 18, but it will be appreciated that other type housings, such as, for example, claim shell or slide-type housings, may be utilized without departing from the scope of the invention. The mobile phone 10 includes the housing 18 (sometimes referred to as a case), speaker 20, display 22, navigation switch and selection/function keys or switches 24, keypad 26, microphone 28, and volume control slide switch 30; these are illustrative and exemplary of parts of a typical mobile phone, but it will be appreciated that other parts that are similar or different in form and/or function may be included in the mobile phone 10. The mobile phone to which the invention pertains also may be of a type that has more or fewer functions, keys, etc. compared to those illustrated and described in detail herein.
As will be appreciated, the mobile phone 10 may function as a conventional mobile phone. The mobile phone 10 may have additional functions and capabilities that may be developed in the future. From a conventional point of view, the display 22 displays information to a user, such as operating state, time, phone numbers, contact information, various navigational menus, etc. which facilitate and/or enable the user to utilize the various features of the mobile phone. Part or all of the display 22 may be a touch screen type device 22a (
Briefly referring to
The motion may be a shaking motion, an acceleration or some other type of intended motion. Intended motion means that motion intended so as to carry out the functions of the invention as compared to casual motion occurring due to walking, jogging or even riding in a vehicle or as compared to random motion, such as raising a mobile phone to the ear of a user or some other type of motion that may be considered noise or the like.
The mobile phone 10 includes a primary control circuit 42 that is configured to carry out overall control of the functions and operations of the mobile phone 10, e.g., as is represented at block 43. The control circuit 42 may include a CPU 44 (central processor unit), microcontroller, microprocessor, etc., collectively referred to herein simply as CPU 44. The CPU 44 executes code stored in memory within the control circuit 42 (not shown) and/or in a separate memory 46 in order to carry out conventional operation of the mobile phone functions within the mobile phone 10. In addition, the CPU 44 executes code stored in the memory 46, for example, or in some other memory (not shown) in accordance with the present invention in order to perform the various functions of detecting motion based on signals provided by the motion transducer 40, carrying out comparisons of the motion signals or information, e.g., as a comparator, and controlling keylock, e.g., turning keylock on or off, when appropriate motion information has been received.
Continuing to refer to
The mobile phone 10 may include the display device 22, keypad 24, 26 (including the navigation device mentioned above), and the capability of a touch screen 22a, which may be part or all of the display device 22, as is conventional; and these are coupled to the control circuit 42 for operation in conventional manner.
As was mentioned above, the mobile phone 10 includes a memory 46. The memory 46 may include a phone book for the mobile phone, and in the phone book, for example, are contacts or information pertaining to contacts. Sometimes such information is in the form of a VCARD. In using the mobile phone 10, a user may use the keys and navigation device 24, 26 and/or touch screen 22a to provide inputs to the control circuit 42 to access contacts in the memory 46 and/or to add or to delete contacts, to add, delete or change information pertaining to a contact, and/or to select a contact to cause the mobile phone to dial the telephone number of the contact, to send an email to the contact, to display an image of the contact, or for some other purpose. One of the contacts may be a personal contact, which includes information pertaining to the owner of the mobile phone, e.g., the owner's name, address(es), telephone number, email address(es), etc. The mobile phone may be used in conventional ways to make and to receive telephone calls.
As is illustrated in
Turning to
It will be appreciated that a motion transducer may be any device, circuit or other mechanism or combination thereof that provides an indication that motion has been sensed and/or provides an indication of the character of the motion, such as, for example, acceleration, velocity, direction, directional change or any other characterization of the motion. An example, as is mentioned above, is an accelerometer that provides an electrical output (or some other output) in response to acceleration. Another example is a velocimeter that provides an output representative of velocity. Still another example is a signal detector that responds to changes in electrical signals, radio frequency signals, or some other signals, such as amplitude or frequency or changes therein, Doppler shift, or some other discernible change that occurs due to motion.
Another example of a motion transducer is a small generator, e.g., an electric generator. An example of such a generator is the type currently used in Seiko Kinetic wrist watches and chronometers. Such a generator may generate an electrical output in response to motion. The character of the electrical output from a small generator, e.g., duration, amplitude, frequency, or some other character, may be used to represent motion of the mobile phone.
Still another motion detection embodiment may use a Bluetooth system (or some other system) to detect signal variations or relationships. For example, with the Bluetooth radio turned on for the mobile phone 10, the radio and associated circuitry, e.g., motion signal processing circuitry 62, may be used to detect variations (or lack thereof) in the signals of one mobile phone and received from another Bluetooth radio, e.g., a radio in another mobile phone, in a hands-free earpiece that is a speaker and/or microphone, or in another device. Examples of signal variations may be Doppler shift, amplitude changes, frequency changes, etc., or lack thereof. The foregoing uses of signal variations as just described may be used with or without a separate motion transducer device to indicate occurrence and character of motion.
The motion transducer 40, as is shown in respective embodiments of
With the above in mind, then, each of the motion signal processing circuits 62a, 62b, 62c shown in
As another example of motion signal processing circuit 62b, there is illustrated in
Still another example of motion signal processing circuit 62c is illustrated in
It is noted here that a mobile phone is but one non-limiting example of an electronic equipment, which is more broadly defined above. In response to detecting intended motion the mobile phone turns on keylock if keylock was off and turns off keylock if keylock is on. According to another embodiment, one or more different functions of the mobile phone other than keylock or in addition to keylock may be turned on or off in response to detecting intended motion. According to still another embodiment in response to detecting different respective motions, e.g., different respective frequencies, different respective directions, such as generally linearly compared to twisting or rotating the mobile phone, different respective functions of the mobile phone may be turned on and turned off, etc.
A person having ordinary skill in the art of computer programming and applications of programming for mobile phones would be able in view of the description provided herein to program a mobile phone 10 to operate and to carry out the functions described herein. Accordingly, details as to the specific programming code have been omitted for the sake of brevity. Also, while software in the memory 46 or in some other memory of the mobile phone may be used to allow the mobile phone to carry out the functions and features described herein in accordance with the embodiments of the invention, such functions and features also could be carried out via dedicated hardware, firmware, software, or combinations thereof, without departing from the scope of the invention.
At block 82 the method starts. Starting may include turning on the cell phone 10, and pressing an appropriate key to indicate that the motion responsive information transfer function(s) is(are) to be carried out. At block 84 an inquiry is made whether an initiate signal has been input, e.g., whether a key has been pressed, the mobile phone has been turned on, etc. If not, then the flow chart loops back to the input to block 84 until such initiate input is received.
At block 86 an inquiry is made to determine whether motion, e.g., shaking or other prescribed type of motion, for example, of the types described above or some other intended type, is occurring. If not, then a loop is followed back to block 84. It is noted here that the looping back as described here and with respect to other loops mentioned below, may be back to a beginning portion of the flow chart 80, e.g., to the input to block 84, or the loop may be back upstream in the flow chart to some other location. For example, the negative loop followed from block 86 may be back to the input of block 86 rather than to the input to block 84.
If shaking of the intended motion type is occurring as detected at block 86, then at block 88 the threshold detector 66, amplitude detector 68 and/or frequency detector 70 determines whether such motion is intended motion. If it is not, then a loop is followed back to block 84; but if intended motion is detected, then at block 88 the output from the threshold, amplitude and/or frequency detector is provided to the control circuit 42 to turn on keylock, to turn off keylock, or to perform one or more functions in addition to or instead of keylock.
At block 90 an inquiry is made whether keylock is turned on; this inquiry is made if shaking is occurring and the shaking is the intended motion. If keylock is turned on (a yes “Y” at block 90), then at block 92 keylock will be turned off. If keylock is turned off (a no “N” at block 90), then at block 94 keylock will be turned on. Similar operation may occur if the shaking or motion were to turn on or to turn off other mobile phone functions. After turning on or off the keylock function, the program logic routine 80 returns to block 84 or elsewhere as may be programmed in the mobile phone.
Briefly referring to
At block 112 the mobile phone 10 is initialized. For example, power is turned on and other initialization steps of the mobile phone 10 may be carried out automatically or according to selections made on various menus, e.g., from the menu 100 (
However, if at block 114 keylock shake function is to be set up, then at block 118 the keylock shake function is set up. Setting up keylock shake function may include one or several steps. As one example, the mobile phone is moved relatively rapidly in a vertical direction up and then down a number of times, the number being determined by the user. For example, the user may rapidly move the mobile phone up and down three times to establish a setup condition whereby each time the mobile phone is moved rapidly up and down three times the keylock function would be turned on or would be turned off, respectively, depending on the condition existing just prior to the shaking, as was described above. As another example of a setup operation, the user may move the mobile phone rapidly up and down three times, then pause for several seconds, e.g., two to five seconds (or any other time period determined by the user), and then move the mobile phone rapidly up and down two more times; although this routine is more complex, it minimizes the possibility of accidentally turning on or off the keylock shake function. Still other examples may include shaking the mobile phone rapidly a determined number of times followed by shaking the phone slowly a determined number of times. Another example may include holding the mobile phone in the hand and twisting the wrist a determined number of times or moving the mobile phone in an arc.
At block 120 an inquiry is made whether the keylock shake function setup has been completed, e.g., has that function been properly programmed for the mobile phone 10. If keylock shake function setup programming has been completed, then the routine follows to block 116 for normal mobile phone functions to be carried out. If keylock shake function setup has not been completed, as is inquired at block 120, then the routine would follow back to block 118 to set up keylock shake function or, alternatively to the input to the inquiry block 114, as is represented by the dash broken line 122 in
Briefly referring back to
Sometimes the intended motion or shaking may be defined as determined motion or even as predetermined motion, etc., as it may be determined during setup of the mobile phone by a user, during manufacturing of the mobile phone, during changing of the determined motion or at some other time, etc.
In
It will be appreciated that the flow charts 80, 110 are exemplary of operation of the invention and carrying out the method of the invention. Accordingly, various other steps, procedures, etc. may be used instead of or in addition to the steps and processes that are described above to achieve turning on or of keylock function and/or other functions of a mobile phone or other electronic equipment.
As will be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art, computer program elements and/or circuitry elements of the invention may be embodied in hardware and/or in software (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.). The invention may take the form of a computer program product, which can be embodied by a computer-usable or computer-readable storage medium having computer-usable or computer-readable program instructions, “code” or a “computer program” embodied in the medium for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system. In the context of this document, a computer-usable or computer-readable medium may be any medium that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. The computer-usable or computer-readable medium may be, for example but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, device, or propagation medium such as the Internet. Note that the computer-usable or computer-readable medium could even be paper or another suitable medium upon which the program is printed, as the program can be electronically captured, via, for instance, optical scanning of the paper or other medium, then compiled, interpreted, or otherwise processed in a suitable manner. The computer program product and any software and hardware described herein form the various means for carrying out the functions of the invention in the example embodiments.
Although the invention has been shown and described with respect to certain preferred embodiments, it is obvious that equivalents and modifications will occur to others skilled in the art upon the reading and understanding of the specification. The present invention includes all such equivalents and modifications, and is limited only by the scope of the following claims.
Number | Date | Country | |
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60746683 | May 2006 | US |