JP4764454B2 - Pen input type information processing apparatus, warning method thereof, and computer-executable program - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a pen input type information processing apparatus, a warning method thereof, and a computer-executable program, and more particularly, misplacement of a pen accompanying movement of a pen input type information processing apparatus that performs input to a main body using a pen The present invention relates to a pen input type information processing apparatus capable of preventing the above, a warning method thereof, and a computer executable program.

  Among personal computers (hereinafter referred to as PCs), thin computers that can be operated by pen input on a liquid crystal display (hereinafter simply referred to as a display) are called tablet PCs. The tablet PC can operate functions equivalent to those of a notebook PC (hereinafter referred to as a notebook PC) by pen input without using a keyboard. There are two types of tablet PCs: a convertible type and a pure tablet type. The convertible type has a structure that can be used as a tablet PC by changing the display direction of a notebook PC with a built-in keyboard. The pure tablet type does not have a built-in keyboard and has a structure in which only a pen input operation is performed as standard.

  Since such a tablet PC uses a pen as an input means, it has been attracting attention as a technique for extending the bottom of a computer user because of its excellent operability, which can be easily operated even by a person who is not familiar with the keyboard. In particular, since there is no space to use the mouse, the pen is small and excellent in portability when used on the road or in a moving car. It is convenient. Moreover, since the input is performed by directly touching the screen, fine input that is difficult with a mouse such as drawing a picture is possible. In such a tablet PC, a pen storage unit is provided in the main body of the apparatus, and it is common to use the pen storage unit when the pen is not used.

  However, the shape and weight of the pen are not significantly different from those of a general writing pen. For this reason, there is a high possibility that the pen will be lost, and when it is lost, there is a problem that the tablet input operation cannot be performed at all. In particular, when moving the tablet PC main body, the pen is often misplaced and lost.

  As a pen loss prevention method, for example, Patent Document 1 is known. In Patent Document 1, infrared light emitted from an LED in a light emitting unit of a pen is received by a pen input device main body. When the amount of received infrared light is small, the pen is close to the pen storage unit or the main body. It judges that there is not, and sounds a buzzer to prompt the user to store the pen.

JP 7-28584 A

  However, in Patent Document 1, an LED is provided inside the pen, and a light receiving detection unit for receiving infrared light emitted from the pen LED is required on the pen input device main body side, which increases the cost. There is. Further, in Patent Document 1, it is determined that the pen is lost when the infrared ray emitted from the LED inside the pen is not detected on the main body side, but the infrared ray is detected on the main body side even when the pen is normally used. In some cases, a false warning may be issued, that is, there are many false detections of pen loss. Further, in Patent Document 1, no consideration is given to the misplacement of the pen that occurs when the pen input device main body is moved.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above, and a pen input type information processing apparatus capable of preventing a misplacement of a pen that occurs when the pen input type information processing apparatus is moved at low cost and with high accuracy, and its An object is to provide a warning method and a computer-executable program.

  In order to solve the above-described problems and achieve the object, the present invention provides a pen input type information processing apparatus that performs input to a main body using a pen, and a pen storage unit that is provided in the main body and stores the pen. Detecting movement of the main body based on a pen storage detecting means for detecting whether or not the pen is stored in the pen storage portion, an acceleration sensor provided in the main body, and a detection result of the acceleration sensor. A warning that issues a warning when the movement of the main body is detected by the main body movement detection means and the pen storage detection means detects that the pen is not stored in the pen storage unit. Means.

  According to a preferred aspect of the present invention, when the main body is in a power saving state, the warning means detects the movement of the main body by the main body movement detecting means, and the pen storage detecting means It is desirable to issue a warning when it is detected that is not stored in the pen storage unit.

  Further, according to a preferred aspect of the present invention, it is desirable that the power saving state is S1 to S5 of the ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) standard.

  According to a preferred aspect of the present invention, it is desirable that the warning means issues a warning by voice and / or display.

  In order to solve the above-described problems and achieve the object, the present invention provides a detection result of an acceleration sensor provided in the main body in a warning method for a pen input type information processing apparatus that performs input to the main body using a pen. A main body movement detection step for detecting movement of the main body, a pen storage detection step for detecting whether or not the pen is stored in a pen storage portion provided in the main body, and the main body movement detection step. And a warning step of issuing a warning when it is detected that the pen is not stored in the pen storage part in the pen storage detection step.

  In order to solve the above-described problems and achieve the object, the present invention provides a program installed in a pen input type information processing apparatus that performs input to a main body using a pen, and detects an acceleration sensor provided in the main body. Based on the result, a main body movement detecting step for detecting movement of the main body, a pen storage detecting step for detecting whether or not the pen is stored in a pen storage portion provided in the main body, and the main body movement detection Causing the computer to execute a warning step that issues a warning when the movement of the main body is detected in the step and the pen storage detection step detects that the pen is not stored in the pen storage unit. And

  According to the present invention, in a pen input type information processing apparatus that performs input to a main body using a pen, the pen main body is provided in the main body, and the pen is stored in the pen storage portion. Pen storage detecting means for detecting whether the main body is moving, an acceleration sensor provided in the main body, a main body movement detecting means for detecting movement of the main body based on a detection result of the acceleration sensor, and the main body movement detecting means And a warning means for issuing a warning when the pen storage detection means detects that the pen is not stored in the pen storage section. There is an effect that it is possible to provide a pen input type information processing apparatus capable of preventing the misplacement of the pen that occurs when the information processing apparatus is moved at low cost and with high accuracy.

  Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. Note that the present invention is not limited to the embodiments. In addition, constituent elements in the following embodiments include those that can be easily assumed by those skilled in the art or those that are substantially the same.

  FIGS. 1-1 to 1-3 are schematic external views of a tablet PC to which a pen input type information processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied. As illustrated in FIG. 1A, the tablet PC 1 is a convertible type, and includes a main body side casing 14 and a display side casing 15 that are substantially rectangular parallelepipeds. The main body side housing 14 includes an input unit 10 having a keyboard and a track point (pointing device), a pen storage unit 12 for storing the pen 20, and an LED 17 for giving a warning when the pen 20 is misplaced. And a buzzer 18. The pen 20 is a dedicated pen attached to the tablet PC 1. The pen 20 temporarily stores an electromagnetic wave radiated from the digitizer coil in an electromagnetic wave tuning circuit inside the pen and then radiates the digitizer coil again. The pen storage unit 12 is provided with an insertion / removal mechanism (not shown) that removably supports the pen 20 and pen detection means (see FIG. 2) that detects insertion (storage) of the pen 20. Such an insertion / removal mechanism has a structure in which the pen 20 is locked when the pen 20 is inserted into the pen storage unit 12, and the lock is released when the rear end of the locked pen 20 is pressed, so that the pen 20 can be removed. It has become. Since a known mechanism can be used for the insertion / removal mechanism, a detailed description thereof will be omitted.

  The display-side housing 15 includes a liquid crystal display 11 and a digitizer 16 disposed on the back surface of the liquid crystal display 11. The digitizer 16 includes a digitizer coil, and detects electromagnetic wave energy radiated from the electromagnetic wave tuning circuit of the pen 20 to the digitizer coil, thereby detecting the position and locus of the pen tip 20a of the pen 20.

  Furthermore, the main body side case 14 and the display side case 15 are connected to each other by a connecting portion 13 at the center of each end, and the connecting portion 13 can rotate these cases in a direction to open and close each other. ing. Further, the display-side housing 15 can be rotated at least 180 degrees with the display-side housing 15 being opened with respect to the main body-side housing 14. In the PC use mode shown in FIG. 1A, the tablet PC 1 can be used as an ordinary notebook PC by an operation by the input unit 10 and an operation by the digitizer 16 by the pen 20. Further, as shown in FIG. 1B, when the connecting portion 13 is rotated and folded so that the display-side housing 15 is superimposed on the main body-side housing 14, the display 11 faces the front. It becomes the tablet use mode shown in -3. In the tablet use mode, the tablet PC 1 can be used by being held by hand, and the digitizer 16 can be operated by the pen 20 in the same manner as the operation by the input unit 10.

  FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating a configuration of hardware built in the main body side casing 14 and the display side casing 15 of the tablet PC 1. FIG. 3 is a table showing the system state (ACPI state) of tablet PC 1 and its description.

  In the tablet PC 1 shown in FIG. 2, the CPU 111 executes various arithmetic processes by program control and controls the entire tablet PC 1. The CPU 111 includes a system side FSB (Front Side Bus) 112, a PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) bus 120 as a high-speed I / O device bus, and an ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) as a low-speed I / O device bus. Each component is interconnected via a three-stage bus called a bus 140.

  The CPU 111 employs a cache memory that stores a part of the contents of the main memory in, for example, an SRAM, and the processing speed is increased by storing program codes and data in the cache memory. For example, an SRAM of about 128 Kbytes is integrated as a primary cache inside the CPU 111, but in order to compensate for a shortage of storage capacity, for example, 512 K to 2 Mbytes via a BSB (Back Side Bus) 113 which is a dedicated bus A secondary cache 114, which is an external cache of a certain degree, is placed. Note that it is possible to reduce the cost by omitting the BSB 113 and connecting the secondary cache 114 to the FSB 112 to avoid a package having a large number of terminals.

  The FSB 112 and the PCI bus 120 are connected by a CPU bridge (host-PCI bridge) 115 called a memory / PCI chip. The CPU bridge 115 includes a memory controller function for controlling an access operation to the main memory 116, a data buffer for absorbing a difference in data transfer speed between the FSB 112 and the PCI bus 120, and the like. It has become.

  The main memory 116 is a writable memory that is used as a read area for the execution program of the CPU 111 or a work area for writing processing data of the execution program. For example, it is composed of a plurality of DRAM chips. The execution program includes an OS such as Windows XP (R) capable of power control based on ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface), various drivers for hardware operation of peripheral devices, and an application for executing a specific job. Includes programs.

  The video subsystem 117 is a subsystem for realizing functions related to image display, and includes a video controller. The video controller processes a drawing command from the CPU 111, writes the processed drawing information to the video memory, reads the drawing information from the video memory, and outputs the drawing information to the liquid crystal display 11 as drawing data.

  The PCI bus 120 is a bus capable of relatively high-speed data transfer. Connected to the PCI bus 120 are an I / O bridge (also referred to as a south bridge or an I / O hub) 121, a card bus controller 122, an audio subsystem 125, a docking station interface (Dock I / F) 126, and the like.

  The I / O bridge 121 is a control circuit having a bridge function between the PCI bus 120 and the ISA bus 140, and includes a DMA controller function, a programmable interrupt controller (PIC) function, a programmable interval timer (PIT) function, and an IDE ( It has various functions such as an integrated device electronics (USB) interface function, a universal serial bus (USB) function, and a system management bus (SMB) interface function, and has a built-in real-time clock (RTC). The I / O bridge 121 performs management (power management) of power supplied to each device of the tablet PC 1.

  The DMA controller function is a function for executing data transfer between a peripheral device (for example, an FDD (floppy disk (R) drive)) and the main memory 116 without the intervention of the CPU 111. The PIC function is transmitted from the peripheral device. A function for executing a predetermined program (interrupt handler) in response to an interrupt request (IRQ) The PIT function is a function for generating a timer signal in a predetermined cycle, and the generation cycle is programmable. As an interface realized by the IDE interface function, an IDE hard disk drive (HDD) 131 is connected, and a CD-ROM drive 132 is connected by ATAPI (AT Attachment Packet Interface) instead of the CD-ROM drive 132. DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) dry Other types of IDE devices such as the HDD 131 and the CD-ROM drive 132 may be connected to an external storage device such as a “media bay” or “device bay” in the device body of the tablet PC 1. Is stored in a storage place called "."

  The I / O bridge 121 is provided with a USB port and is connected to the USB connector 30. Furthermore, the EEPROM 33 is connected to the I / O bridge 121 via the SM bus. This EEPROM 133 holds information such as a basic input / output system (BIOS), a program for controlling the embedded controller 41, a password registered by the user, a supervisor password, and a product serial number. A memory that is nonvolatile and can be electrically rewritten.

  Further, the I / O bridge 121 is connected to the power supply circuit 150. The power supply circuit 150 includes an AC adapter, an intelligent battery, a charger for charging the intelligent battery, and a DC / DC converter. On the other hand, the core chip constituting the I / O bridge 121 includes an internal register for managing the power state of the tablet PC 1 and a logic (state machine for managing the power state of the tablet PC 1 including operations of the internal register. ) Is provided.

  The logic sends / receives various signals to / from the power supply circuit 150, and the transmission / reception of these signals recognizes the actual power supply state of the tablet PC 1 from the power supply circuit 150. The power supply circuit 150 responds to an instruction from the logic. Controls power supply to the tablet PC 1. The transition of the system state (ACPI state) of the tablet PC 1 is executed by the I / O bridge 121. Further, the I / O bridge 121 outputs information indicating the current system state of the tablet PC 1 to the embedded controller 141. As shown in FIG. 3, the system state (ACPI state) is defined as six states S0 to S5, where S0 is a full operation state and S1 is a low power consumption state (however, both the processor and the chipset are powered on). , S2 indicates a low power consumption state (where the processor and cache are powered off, and the chipset is powered on), S3 indicates a standby state, S4 indicates a hibernation state, and S5 indicates a software power-off state. Here, S0 is referred to as a normal operation state, and S1 to S5 are referred to as a power saving state.

  The card bus controller 122 is a dedicated controller for directly connecting the bus signal of the PCI bus 120 to the interface connector (card bus) of the card bus slot 23. The card bus slot 123 can be loaded with a PC card. It is. The docking station interface 126 is hardware for connecting a docking station (not shown), which is a function expansion device when the tablet PC 1 is a notebook personal computer.

  The ISA bus 140 is a bus having a lower data transfer rate than the PCI bus 120. An embedded controller 141, a flash ROM 144, and a super I / O controller 145 are connected to the ISA bus 140. The Super I / O controller 145 is connected to an I / O port 146, which drives FDD, inputs / outputs parallel data via the parallel port (PIO), and inputs / outputs serial data via the serial port (SIO). ) Is controlling. A digitizer 16 is connected to the Super I / O controller 145 to control the digitizer 16.

  The embedded controller 141 is a one-chip microcomputer that monitors and controls various devices (peripheral devices, sensors, power supply circuit 150, etc.) regardless of the system state of the tablet PC 1, and has a built-in power. A management controller (PMC: Power Management Controller) plays a part of the power management function together with the I / O bridge 121. The one-chip microcomputer stores a program for executing a pen misplacement prevention control which will be described later. The embedded controller 141 is connected to the input unit 110, the power supply circuit 150, the acceleration sensor 151, the pen detection unit 152, the LED 17, the buzzer 18, and the like used in the PC use mode. The embedded controller 141 controls operations of the input unit 10, the LED 17, the buzzer 18, and the like.

  Furthermore, the embedded controller 141 detects the movement of the main body of the tablet PC 1 based on the acceleration information sent from the acceleration sensor (G sensor) 151. The acceleration sensor 151 detects accelerations in a plurality of axial directions (X, Y, Z, etc.) and outputs the acceleration information to the embedded controller 141 as acceleration information. The pen detection unit 152 detects whether or not the pen 20 is stored in the pen storage unit 12 (see FIG. 1), and a pen detection signal (for example, indicating whether or not the pen 20 is stored in the pen storage unit 12). , “H” is output when the pen 20 is stored, and “L” is output when the pen 20 is not stored. Examples of the pen detection unit 152 include a mechanical switch that is turned ON / OFF according to insertion / removal of the pen 20 with respect to the pen storage unit 12, a sensor that optically detects storage in the pen storage unit 12, and the pen 20 A communication means for performing communication and confirming the storage can be used.

  By the way, since the pen 20 is not much different in shape and weight from a general writing pen, there is a high possibility that it will be lost. If it is lost, the tablet 20 cannot be operated at all using the pen 20. End up. In particular, when the tablet PC 1 is moved to another location, the pen 20 may be misplaced. The user stores the pen 20 in the pen storage unit 12, holds the tablet PC 1 and moves to another location. The state of the tablet PC 1 at that time is in a power saving mode (other than S0) in order to suppress battery consumption, and is in a state such as S3 or S4, for example. Even if it is other than S0, power is supplied to the embedded controller 141, the acceleration sensor 151, the pen detection means 152, the LED 17, and the buzzer 18. Since power consumption in these circuits is small, battery consumption is low. In the present embodiment, the acceleration information acquired by the acceleration sensor 151 is processed by the embedded controller 141 to detect the movement of the apparatus main body. That is, the embedded controller 141 can determine that the apparatus main body has moved when the instantaneous value of acceleration information or the average value within a predetermined time is equal to or greater than the threshold th. In the present embodiment, in order to prevent the pen 20 from being left behind due to the movement of the apparatus main body, the embedded controller 141 detects the movement of the apparatus main body and the pen 20 is not stored in the pen storage unit 12. Performs lighting of the LED 17 and sound emission by the buzzer 18 as a warning that the pen 20 is left behind.

  FIG. 4 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the embedded controller 141 in the pen misplacement prevention control by the tablet PC 1. In the figure, the embedded controller 141 executes normal processing to be executed in the current system state and obtains information indicating the current system state of the tablet PC 1 sent from the I / O bridge 121 to the embedded controller 141. Thus, the system state is monitored (steps T1 and T2).

  When the system state becomes S1 to S5 (“Yes” in step T2), the embedded controller 141 determines whether or not the time count value Tw ≧ the threshold th (step T3). If the time count value Tw ≧ th (“Yes” in step T3), the embedded controller 141 stops the warning (step T7) and then returns to step T1. The embedded controller 141 performs necessary control by monitoring acceleration information and the like even when the tablet PC 1 is in the state of S1 to S5 and power is not supplied to main components.

  If the time count value Tw ≧ th is not satisfied (“No” in step T3), the embedded controller 141 takes acceleration information from the acceleration sensor 151 and detects whether or not the apparatus main body has moved based on the acceleration information. (Step T4). Here, since the user moves the tablet PC 1 to another location in the power saving states S1 to S5 in many cases, not the normal operation state S0, the tablet PC 1 is moved in the power saving states S1 to S5. I am going to detect it.

  If the embedded controller 141 has not detected the movement of the apparatus main body (“No” in step T4), the embedded controller 141 returns to step T1, while if the movement of the apparatus main body is detected (“Yes” in step T4). Then, a pen detection signal is taken from the pen detection means 152, and it is determined whether or not the pen 20 is stored in the pen storage unit 12 based on the pen detection signal (step T5).

  If the embedded controller 141 determines that the pen 20 is stored in the pen storage unit 12 (“Yes” in step T5), the embedded controller 141 returns to step T1, while the pen 20 is stored in the pen storage unit 12. If it is determined that there is not (“No” in step T5), the LED 17 is turned on and the buzzer 18 starts sounding as a warning that the pen 20 has been left behind (step T6), and the process returns to step T1. When the embedded controller 141 starts a warning, the embedded controller 141 starts counting up the time count value Tw. Thus, the LED 17 is turned on and the buzzer 18 is sounded for a predetermined time (steps T3 and T7).

  As described above, the tablet PC 1 according to this embodiment includes the pen detection unit 152 that detects whether or not the pen 20 is stored in the pen storage unit 12, the acceleration sensor 152 provided in the main body, and the acceleration sensor. And embedded controller 141 that detects the movement of the main body based on the detection result of 152. The embedded controller 141 detects the movement of the main body and warns when the pen 20 is not stored in the pen storage unit 12. Since the lighting of the LED 17 and the sound emission of the buzzer 18 are performed, the misplacement of the pen 20 that occurs when the tablet PC 1 is moved can be prevented at low cost and with high accuracy. In other words, since the operation of taking away the tablet PC 1 and the loss condition (the pen 20 is not accommodated in the pen accommodation unit 12) are linked, the loss of the pen 20 can be prevented accurately. .

  The embedded controller 114 detects a movement of the main body when the main body is in the power saving states S1 to S5, and if the pen 20 is not stored in the pen storage unit 12, the warning (LED 17 18), the pen misplacement prevention control is executed only when the possibility of moving the tablet PC is high, and unnecessary processing can be prevented.

  In the above embodiment, the tablet PC is exemplified as the pen input type information processing apparatus. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and can be applied to other pen input type computers such as PDAs. is there. In this embodiment, an electromagnetic tablet has been described. However, the present invention can also be applied to a pressurizing or optical tablet. Further, although the lighting of the LED 17 and the sound emission of the buzzer 18 are performed as warnings, only one of them may be performed, or the warning may be performed by other means.

  The input-type information processing apparatus, the warning method thereof, and the computer-executable program according to the present invention are useful for preventing misplacement of the pen accompanying movement of the pen-input type information processing apparatus.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS It is the external appearance block diagram (the 1) of the outline of tablet PC to which the pen input type information processing apparatus which concerns on the Example of this invention is applied. It is the outline external appearance block diagram (the 2) of the tablet PC to which the pen input type information processing apparatus which concerns on the Example of this invention is applied. It is a schematic external appearance block diagram (the 3) of the tablet PC to which the pen input type information processing apparatus which concerns on the Example of this invention is applied. It is a block diagram which shows schematic structure of the hardware of tablet PC. It is a table | surface which shows the system state (ACPI state) of tablet PC, and its description. It is a flowchart explaining operation | movement of the embedded controller in the pen misplacement prevention control by tablet PC.

Explanation of symbols

1 Tablet PC
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Input part 11 Liquid crystal display 12 Pen accommodating part 13 Connection part 14 Main body side housing | casing 15 Display side housing | casing 16 Digitizer 17 LED
18 Buzzer 20 Pen 20a Nib 111 CPU
112 FSB
113 BSB
114 Secondary cache 115 CPU bridge (host-PCI bridge)
116 Main Memory 117 Video Subsystem 120 PCI Bus 121 I / O Bridge 122 Card Bus Controller 126 Docking Station Interface (Dock I / F)
130 USB connector 131 IDE hard disk drive (HDD)
132 CD-ROM drive 133 EEPROM
140 ISA bus 141 embedded controller 144 flash ROM
145 Super I / O controller 146 I / O port 150 Power supply circuit 151 Acceleration sensor 152 Pen detection means

Claims (5)

In a pen input type information processing apparatus that inputs to the main body using a pen,
A pen storage unit provided in the main body for storing the pen;
Pen storage detection means for detecting whether or not the pen is stored in the pen storage unit;
An acceleration sensor provided in the main body;
Body movement detection means for detecting movement of the body based on the detection result of the acceleration sensor;
When the main body is in a power saving state, the main body movement detecting means detects the movement of the main body, and the pen storage detecting means detects that the pen is not stored in the pen storage section. And warning means for issuing a warning,
A pen input type information processing apparatus comprising: The pen input type information processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the power saving state is S1 to S5 of the ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) standard. The pen input type information processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the warning unit issues a warning by voice and / or display. In a warning method of a pen input type information processing apparatus that inputs to the apparatus main body using a pen,
A main body movement detecting step for detecting movement of the main body based on a detection result of an acceleration sensor provided in the main body;
A pen storage detection step for detecting whether or not the pen is stored in a pen storage section provided in the main body;
In the case where the main body is in a power saving state, when the movement of the main body is detected in the main body movement detection step, and it is detected that the pen is not stored in the pen storage portion in the pen storage detection step, A warning process for issuing a warning;
A warning method for a pen input type information processing apparatus, comprising: In a program installed in a pen input type information processing device that inputs to the main body using a pen,
A main body movement detecting step for detecting movement of the main body based on a detection result of an acceleration sensor provided in the main body;
A pen storage detection step for detecting whether or not the pen is stored in a pen storage section provided in the main body;
In the case where the main body is in a power saving state, when the movement of the main body is detected in the main body movement detection step, and it is detected that the pen is not stored in the pen storage portion in the pen storage detection step, A warning process for issuing a warning;
A computer-executable program characterized by causing a computer to execute.

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