Patent Application
20060277377
This application is related to and claims the benefit of priority from European Patent Application No. 05 300 430.5, filed on May 30, 2005, the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention concerns a method for personalizing the working of a portable communication device of the type comprising an internal memory and at least a removable memory.
It is already known for portable communication devices, such as mobile phones or personal digital assistants, to provide the device with means enabling a user to give a personal touch to his device. For instance in the case of a mobile phone, a user can choose the ringing tone between several tones or melodies which have been pre stored in the mobile phone, eventually in association with the identity of the calling party in case this party has been stored in the phone directory of the mobile phone. More recently, it has also been proposed to display an image in association with the identity of the caller, such as but not limited to a photography of this caller. Other possibilities of mobile phone's personalization do exist, such as the choice of the image which can be displayed as screen saver, or the way for alerting a user of different events (incoming SMS, incoming E-mail, timer functionalities . . . ).
In view of this personalization, more and more data with multimedia content (music, image and video) have to be stored in a memory of the device in order to be linked to a particular event according to the user's choice.
However, the internal memory of a portable communication device is generally not large enough to store a great amount of data with multimedia content.
Some devices have already been proposed including both an internal memory and a removable memory of greater size for enabling the storage of a greater amount of data. However, problem exists when this external memory is used for storage of data for personalization purpose because the device cannot perform the personalized actions in case the removable memory is actually removed.
The aim of the invention is to remedy the above drawback and limitation by providing a way to keep personalization whatever the objects used for personalization are stored on internal or external memory, and even in case external memory is removed. To this aim, an object of the present invention is a method for personalizing the working of a portable communication device, characterized in that it comprises the following steps:
Another object of the invention is a portable communication device for implementing a method according to anyone of the preceding claims, characterized in that it comprises:
The advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following description made with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
Among the different programs stored in internal memory 7, dedicated programs exist which, when executed under the control of microprocessor 5, enable the control of peripherals (display, loudspeaker . . . ) to perform some particular actions (like displaying of a given image or video, or playing of a particular melody). Data with multimedia contents (images or videos and/or music) used for these particular actions must be first stored in a memory which can be read when needed by the dedicated programs. According to the invention, in order to offer to the user a large possibility of storage, an additional removable memory 18 is provided. In
Different steps of the method according to a preferred embodiment of the invention will now be described in reference with
During an initialization step A0, a first sub step A01 consists in storing multimedia content data files in the removable memory 18. This can be done via the mobile phone, for instance by downloading said data files from provider's websites or communication network, or by linking said mobile phone equipped with said internal memory to a PC via any existing known wired or wireless link. The wording “multimedia content” relates to audio files, and/or video, and/or images. Then, in sub step A02, personalization parameters for controlling peripherals like display 2 and/or loudspeaker 17, are set, and associated software links to at least some of said data files are created. This is performed for instance via a specific menu by which a user will select, by way of example, which melody must be played by loudspeaker 17 when receiving an incoming call, eventually depending on caller's identity, and/or which image must be displayed on display 2 when a particular event occurs. The user's choices are transformed inside the software of the mobile phone into software links which correspond to the addresses at which the different programs controlling peripherals such as display 2 or loudspeaker 17 will find the associated data files inside removable memory 18.
Then, at any time, but at least prior to removal of said removable memory 18, a step A03 is performed for creating a table including said software links.
In order that personalization parameters still work even in case of removal of memory 18, the method according to the invention preferably comprises a step A1 for detecting automatically that said removable memory is going to be removed. This can be done by providing the portable device with a dedicated key (not shown) which can be activated by a user for ejecting said removable memory. Alternatively, in case removable memory 18 is inserted inside housing 1, either in a dedicated trap, or in a slot, mechanical means such as a trapdoor can be provided in said device in order to mechanically detect that memory 18 is going to be ejected. Detection of memory's removal at step A1 controls performing of a step A2 for copying data files for which software links exist (or at least a transformation of said data files as will be explained hereinafter), from said removable memory 18 to internal memory 7 of the portable communication device. Step A2 is performed either automatically, or eventually after a user's confirmation. New links to new location of data files inside internal memory 7 can then be created in step A3.
Since internal memory 7 is normally of smaller size than removable memory 18, it might be not possible to copy all data files stored in memory 18 into internal memory 7. Consequently, a priority order is preferably associated to each software link of table created at step A03. In this case, step A2 consists in copying said data files or at least a transformation of said data files according to the priority order.
Another way to accommodate with the different sizse between memory 18 and memory 7 is to copy, at step A2, not directly the data files, but at least a transformation of said data files. The purpose of this transformation is to reduce the size of the copied data to the necessary. By way of example, in case concerned data file is a music file associated for instance to a ringing tone of an incoming call, it is not necessary to keep the whole file and the transformation might consist in shortening the length of the music file (for instance just keeping the first 20 seconds of the file, possibly with a low bitrate). In case said data file is an image, said transformation might consist in miniaturizing said image in order to reduce the size of the file before copy. More generally, transformation can be all types of filtering which reduce the total size of the data before copy.
Alternative embodiments of the method described above can be done:
For instance, instead of checking in step A1 that removable memory 18 is going to be removed, it is possible to trigger step A2 for copying data or transformed data on the user's request.
Moreover, although step A03 for generating table including software links has been shown on
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 05 300 430.5 | May 2005 | EP | regional |
