The present invention relates to a portable terminal device.
A device is conventionally known that transmits a safety confirmation e-mail for notifying a specific person specified in advance when a disaster occurred, when a specific operation has been performed for the device within a certain period of time after reception of an emergency disaster report, as described in Patent Literature 1, for example.
Patent Literature 1: Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2009-182395
However, the above conventional technique has the following problems. In a case where terminals that have received the emergency disaster report transmit notifications such as e-mails notifying of the safety at the same time, network congestion or system down may occur. This causes a situation where outgoing calls are restricted and communication is difficult.
Further, a battery is depleted because of consecutive key operations by a user such as dialing in the situation where the communication is difficult, or because of waiting for recovery from the network congestion or the like while a cell phone terminal is left in a waiting state. In particular, in a case where the user has been affected by a disaster outside the user's home or a blackout has occurred in an area affected by the disaster, the battery cannot be charged. Therefore, a situation is caused where the user cannot perform communication because of the battery depletion when the user would like to perform communication.
In view of the above problems, the present invention provides a portable terminal device that can guarantee a battery remaining amount for a longer time even in an emergency such as a disaster.
The summary of a typical one of inventions disclosed in the present application is briefly described below.
According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a cell phone device that can guarantee a remaining amount of a battery for a longer time even in an emergency such as a disaster.
Examples of an embodiment are described below with reference to drawings.
An example in which the device 100 is a smartphone is described here. The portable terminal device 100 is configured by using a control unit 101, a memory 102, a storage 103, a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver unit 104, a geomagnetism sensor unit 105, an acceleration sensor unit 106, a gyro sensor unit 107, an imaging unit 108, an image processing unit 109, a power switch 110, a power-source control unit 111, a battery 112, a microphone 113, an audio processing unit 114, a speaker 115, an external audio output unit 116, an operation input unit 117, a display 118, a backlight 119, an input/output I/F 120, a base station communication unit 121, and a wireless communication unit 122 as appropriate. Those are mutually connected via a bus 150.
The control unit 101 is configured by a CPU (Central Processing Unit) and the like. The control unit 101 executes a program stored in the memory 102 to control each of the components and perform various processes.
The memory 102 is a flash memory, for example, and stores a program and data used by the control unit 101. Data of user information such as a telephone number, an e-mail address to which an e-mail is to be transmitted in an emergency, and positional information of a user's home is stored in a predetermined region 102a of the memory 102. The portable terminal device 100 is further provided with the storage 103 such as a memory card. Also in the storage 103, data such as music, videos, and photos can be stored.
The GPS receiver unit 104 receives a signal from a GPS satellite in the sky. This enables detection of a current position of the portable terminal device 100. The geomagnetism sensor unit 105 is a sensor that detects a direction toward which the portable terminal device 100 faces. The acceleration sensor unit 106 is a sensor detecting an acceleration of the portable terminal device 100. The gyro sensor unit 107 is a sensor detecting an angular velocity of the portable terminal device 100. With these sensors, the inclination and the movement of the portable terminal device 100 can be detected in detail.
The imaging unit 108 is a camera, for example. A video displayed on the display 118 and a video input from the imaging unit 108 are processed in the image processing unit 109.
The microphone 113 inputs an audio in the outside thereto. The speaker 115 outputs an audio to the outside. The external audio output unit 116 outputs an audio while connected to an earphone 200, for example. The input/output audio is subjected to audio processing in the audio processing unit 114.
The operation input unit 117 is a touch-pad input device such as a capacitive touch pad, which detects a touch operation (hereinafter, referred to as a touch) by a finger, a touch pen, or the like, as an operation input. The display 118 is an LCD, for example, for displaying a video and an image and includes the operation input unit 117 in a display surface of the display 118. The backlight 119 controls the brightness of the display 118.
The input/output I/F 120 is a USB (Universal Serial Bus), for example, and is an interface that transmits/receives data to/from an external device 300.
The base station communication unit 121 is a communication interface that performs long-range wireless communication with a base station 400 for W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) or GSM (registered trademark) (Global System for Mobile communications), for example. The wireless communication unit 122 is a communication interface that performs wireless communication with a wireless router 500 by a wireless LAN, such as IEEE802.11a/b/n. With these units, connection with an external network 600 via the base station 400 or the wireless router 500 is achieved, so that information can be transmitted/received.
The program or the data stored in the memory 102 or the storage 103 can be updated and added at any time by being downloaded from an external server (not shown) or the like through connection of the base station communication unit 121 or the wireless communication unit 122 with the external network 600 via the base station 400 or the wireless router 500. Also, data, a program, or the like can be updated and added through connection with the external device 300 such as a personal computer via the input/output I/F 120.
The power switch 110 is a switch that turns on and off the portable terminal device 100. When the power switch 110 has been pressed in a state where the portable terminal device is off, electric power supply from the power-source control unit 111 to each of the components is started. When the power switch has been pressed in a state where the portable terminal device 100 is on, the control unit 101 detects this pressing and controls the power-source control unit 111 to stop the electric power supply to each of the components. The battery 112 is a power source of the portable terminal device 100. The battery 112 supplies electric power to each of the components via a power line (not shown) after conversion to a voltage suitable for each of the components in the power-source control unit 111. The power-source control unit 111 is controlled by the control unit 101 to turn on and off the electric power supply to each of the components in accordance with an electric power saving setting. Further, the power-source control unit 111 monitors the state of the electric power supply from the battery 112, so that the power-source control unit 111 can detect a battery remaining amount.
Next, an operation example of the control unit 101 of the portable terminal device 100 is described, with reference to a flowchart in
In
In
In
In general, the positional information acquired by GPS has better position accuracy than that acquired by the wireless LAN and the base station. However, the positional information by GPS cannot be acquired inside a building, for example. The above method uses a plurality of positional-information acquisition units, and it is therefore possible to surely acquire the positional information.
Further, the accuracy of the acquired positional information is different between the positional-information acquisition units. Therefore, when the content of the positional-information flag is transmitted in the notification e-mail transmission process S404, a range of searching the user can be estimated by checking the acquisition unit of the positional information transmitted from the portable terminal device of the user, in a case where it is impossible to contact the user of the portable terminal device who has been affected by a disaster, for example.
Next,
In
The determination whether or not the current position is at the home is performed based on whether or not the distance from the position of the stored user's home to the current position is within a predetermined range (for example, 100 m). In a case where it has been determined that the current position is the user's home (Yes), the electric power saving mode is set to “emergency L” (S608) and the process is ended. In a case where it has been determined that the current position is not at the user's home (No), the flow branches to S609 where it is checked whether or not the battery remaining amount is a predetermined value (30% in this example) or more. In a case where the remaining amount of the battery is the predetermined value or less (No), the electric power saving mode is set to “emergency H” (S613), the setting of each of the components is changed so that the electric power consumption is the minimum, and the process is ended. In a case where the remaining amount of the battery is the predetermined value or higher (Yes), the electric power saving mode is set to “emergency M” (S612), and the process is ended.
By the above process, the setting in the electric power saving mode is changed in accordance with the positional information of the user's home stored as the user information, the current positional information, and the battery remaining amount when the emergency disaster report has been received.
By the above process, the electric power saving is enhanced in a place other than the user's home where it is highly likely that the charging is impossible, and the electric power consumption is set to the minimum when the battery remaining amount is the predetermined value or less. Therefore, the operation time of the portable terminal device can be extended.
The process in
In
By the above process, the electric power saving is enhanced when the current position is within the blackout area, because it is highly likely that the charging is impossible. Further, the electric power consumption is set to the minimum when the battery remaining amount is the predetermined value or less. Therefore, the operation time of the portable terminal device can be extended. Furthermore, the charging of the battery is promoted before the blackout based on the information on the rolling blackout. Therefore, it is possible to sufficiently charge the battery before the blackout.
The process in
In
By the above process, the setting in the electric power saving mode is changed in accordance with the positional information of the user's home stored as the user information, the current positional information, the blackout information, and the battery remaining amount when the emergency disaster report has been received.
By the above process, the electric power saving is enhanced when the current position is not at the user's home or the user's home is within the blackout area, and the electric power consumption is set to the minimum when the battery remaining amount is the predetermined value or less. Therefore, the operation time of the portable terminal device is extended.
In this example, the second display 124 is added in the configuration example of
The second display 124 is a reflective liquid crystal or an electric paper, for example, and is not suitable for displaying a movie. However, the second display 124 can have reduced electric power consumption, as compared with the first display 118.
In the above examples, the electric power saving mode is switched in accordance with the current position and the battery remaining amount when the emergency disaster report has been received. However, this switching can be applied to a case where no emergency disaster report has been received. This can prevent the portable terminal device from being inoperative while the user is out for a long time, for example. Further,
Although three levels of “emergency H”, “emergency M”, and “emergency L” are set as the electric power saving mode in emergency, the setting of the electric power saving mode is not limited thereto. For example, the electric power saving mode may be set to “emergency H” in a place other than the user's home or in a case where the user's home is within the blackout area, and be set to “emergency L” in other cases.
Further, the content of the emergency disaster report may be any information. For example, it may be an emergency earthquake report, an emergency lightning report, an emergency fire report, an emergency tsunami report, an emergency typhoon report, an emergency heavy rain report, an emergency river flood report, and an emergency eruption report.
Acquiring the blackout information can be achieved in various ways, for example, from information posted on a website of an electric power company, information sent by e-mail, and the like.
In the above examples, the setting of the electric power saving mode is performed based on the determination whether or not the current position is in the user's home. However, the setting is not limited thereto. The setting of the electric power saving mode may be performed based on determination of whether or not the current position is in a place registered in advance where the battery can be charged, for example, a school or an office.
Furthermore, as the content transmitted to a preset destination, information on the battery remaining amount may be transmitted in addition to the positional information, so that the destination is notified of the possibility of losing contact with the user because of battery run-out in the future.
The above-described examples are described in detail for intelligible description of the present invention, but are not intended to limit the present invention to include all the described components. Further, to a portion of the configuration of each example, an addition of another configuration and a replacement with another configuration can be performed. Also, a portion of the configuration of each component can be deleted. In addition, each of the above-described configurations, functions, processing units, processing means, and the like can be partly or entirely implemented by hardware by being designed by an integrated circuit, for example. Further, each of the aforementioned configurations, functions, and the like can be implemented by software by interpretation and execution of a program that achieve each function by a processor. Information such as a program, a table, and a file for achieving each function can be stored in the memory 102 or the storage 103.
Control lines and information lines that are considered as necessary for description are shown, but all control lines and all information lines in a product are not necessarily shown. It can be considered that almost all components are mutually connected actually.
100: portable terminal device, 101: control unit, 102: memory, 103: storage, 104; GPS receiver unit, 110: power switch, 111: power-source control unit, 112, battery, 117: operation input unit, 118: display, 119: backlight, 121: base station communication unit, 122: wireless communication unit, 123: operation input unit, 124: display, 400: base station, 500: wireless router, 600: external network
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/JP2013/070689 | 7/31/2013 | WO | 00 |