JP2008033686A - Electronic book - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an electronic book in which page can be turned by an operation similarly as when reading a paper book. <P>SOLUTION: Each of display parts 12 and 13 comprises a liquid crystal display, a CPU, a memory and the like. The display parts 12 and 13 are rotatably connected with each other by a cylindrical connecting part 14. The connecting part 14 includes a variable resistor. An opening angle between the two display parts 12 and 13 is detected as a resistance value of the variable resistor, and the angle is calculated from the detected resistance value. A page number to be turned is determined based on the calculated angle. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a spread-type electronic book.

  A portable electronic part book that can be used in place of a book by storing book data in a storage device such as a memory and displaying the data stored in the storage device on a display unit has been put into practical use. Since this electronic book can store a large amount of data by increasing the capacity of the storage device, a large number of books that cannot be carried by paper books can be stored in one device.

  In a conventional electronic book, it is necessary to operate the next page key and the previous page key in order to switch the page to be displayed, and the next page key is operated many times when reading a page ahead or a plurality of pages. In addition, it is necessary to operate the numeric key and the next page key or the previous page key, and it is necessary to perform an operation different from the operation of turning the page of the paper book.

  Patent Document 1 describes that in an electronic display device having two spread screens, a page turning operation can be performed with one hand. In the invention of Patent Document 1, a rotary switch is provided in a range where a user's finger of a hinge portion connecting two screens can reach, and the switch is operated with a finger while holding the electronic display device with one hand. So that you can turn.

Patent Document 2 describes that a trackball is provided in an information display device, and a page turning direction and a page turning amount are designated by a rotation direction and a rotation amount of the trackball.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-228561 describes that a sensor for detecting tilt is provided, the screen display is scrolled by tilting the portable information device, and the body is lightly shaken to perform page breaks.

Patent Document 4 describes that in a portable display device that can fold a two-screen display unit back to back, a page switching key is provided on the left and right sides of the two-screen display unit.
Patent Document 5 describes that a numeric keypad is provided separately from an operation switch of an electronic book, and a numeric value can be input from the numeric keypad to move to a desired page.

A method of turning a page by operating a rotary switch described in the above-mentioned patent document, a method of operating a trackball to specify a turning amount of a page, a method of turning a page by shaking the apparatus body, or The method of operating the numeric keypad to specify the number of page breaks is completely different from the operation of turning pages when reading a paper book, and the operation is very uncomfortable.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-196012 JP-A-5-257896 JP 2002-140159 A JP 11-272656 A JP 2005-107467 A

  An object of the present invention is to provide an electronic book in which a page break can be performed with an operation close to that when reading a paper book.

  The electronic book of the present invention has a display device having a structure capable of changing the spread angle of two display units, angle detection means for detecting the spread angle of the two display units, and stores book data in units of pages. Storage means, and the page number of the page break corresponding to the spread angle detected by the angle detection means is acquired, and the data of the page specified by a value obtained by adding or subtracting the acquired page number to the display device Control means for displaying.

  According to the present invention, the number of page breaks can be changed by changing the spread angle between the two display units. As a result, a page break can be performed by an operation close to the operation of turning a page of a paper book.

In the above invention, a connecting portion that rotatably connects the two display portions is provided, and the angle detecting means is provided in the connecting portion.
By comprising in this way, the spread angle of a display part can be detected by detecting the rotation angle of the connection part which connects two display parts, for example.

  In the above invention, the page break number conversion table stores the number of page breaks in association with the spread angle or the angle difference between the spread angle and the reference angle, and the control means is the angle detection means. The number of pages corresponding to the detected spread angle or the angle difference between the spread angle and the reference angle is acquired from the page break number conversion table, and the page specified by the value obtained by adding or subtracting the obtained page break number The data is displayed.

  With this configuration, when the spread angle of the display unit is specified, the number of page breaks corresponding to the spread angle is acquired from the page break number conversion table, and the page of the value obtained by adding or subtracting the page break number Is displayed on the display unit. As a result, the number of page breaks desired by the user can be changed by changing the spread angle between the two display units.

In the above invention, a switch for designating the direction of page break is provided at a position where it can be operated with one hand when the electronic book is held.
With this configuration, the direction of the page break can be arbitrarily switched by operating the switch while holding the electronic book with one hand.

In the above invention, the control means determines the direction of page break according to whether the difference between the detection angle detected by the angle detection means and a predetermined reference angle is positive or negative.
With this configuration, it is possible to specify both the page break direction and the number of page breaks by changing the spread angle without operating the switch for designating the page break direction.

  In the above invention, the control means detects a page break when the angle detecting means detects that the spread angle of the two display units matches the reference angle and then detects that the spread angle has changed. Do.

  With this configuration, it is possible to distinguish between a case where the spread angle of the display unit is simply changed and a case where the spread angle of the display unit is changed for a page break.

  According to the present invention, a page break can be performed by an operation close to the operation of turning a page of a paper book. Further, when it is desired to turn a plurality of pages together, the number of page breaks can be designated by an operation close to turning a book page, so that a more natural operation feeling can be obtained.

Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. 1A and 1B are external side views of an electronic book 11 according to the embodiment.
FIG. 1A is an external side view when the display surfaces of the display units 12 and 13 of the electronic book 11 are folded in a facing state. FIG. 1B is an external side view when the left display unit 12 is leveled and the right display unit 13 is tilted at an angle of 45 degrees with respect to the horizontal direction.

  The display units 12 and 13 include a liquid crystal display device, a CPU, a memory, and the like. The display unit 12 and the display unit 13 are rotatably connected by a cylindrical connecting unit 14. When the electronic book 11 is not used, it is folded so that the display surfaces of the display units 12 and 13 face each other as shown in FIG. When the electronic book 11 is used, the display units 12 and 13 are opened to display book characters on the left and right display units 12 and 13.

  A black portion and a white portion of the connecting portion 14 shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B indicate changes in the resistance value of the rotary variable resistor built in the connecting portion 14. For example, the state where the whole concentric circle is black is when the resistance value of the variable resistor is the maximum value, and the state where the half of the concentric circle is white and the half is black, the resistance value of the variable resistor is 1 / This is when 2.

  That is, as shown in FIG. 1A, the resistance value of the variable resistor is maximized when the display surfaces inside the display units 12 and 13 are folded so that they face each other. Further, as shown in FIG. 1B, in the state where the left display unit 12 is horizontal and the right display unit 13 is inclined at 45 degrees with respect to the horizontal direction, the resistance value of the variable resistor is 1 which is the maximum value. / 2. The resistance value of the variable resistor changes according to the spread angle of the display units 12 and 13. Therefore, the spread angle of the display unit 12 and the display unit 13 can be detected by detecting a change in the resistance value of the variable resistor.

  Next, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a circuit configuration of the electronic book 11. The electronic book 11 includes display units 12 and 13, a communication control device 22 for downloading book data from the personal computer 21, a memory 23 for storing book data in units of pages, and a liquid crystal in the display units 12 and 13. A display control unit 24 that drives the display device, an angle detection unit 25, a variable resistor 14a built in the connection unit 14, a page break control unit 26, a CPU 27, and a battery 28 that supplies power to each unit of the circuit. And a power switch 29. The memory 23, the CPU 27, and the like are mounted on a flexible board or the like built in the display units 12 and 13. In addition, a reverse page break button 30 for inverting the page break direction is provided at the lower right corner of the right display unit 13.

The angle detection unit 25 detects the spread angle of the display unit 12 and the display unit 13 from the resistance value of the variable resistor 14a.
The page break control unit 26 calculates the page break direction and the number of page breaks based on the angle detected by the angle detection unit 25 and whether or not the reverse page break button 30 is operated.

The CPU 27 reads out the page data designated by the page break control unit 26 from the memory 23, outputs the read data to the display control unit 24, and causes the display units 12 and 13 to display the data.
The angle detection unit 25, the page break control unit 26, the display control unit 24, and the like are realized as programs executed by the CPU 27.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of the page break control process according to the first embodiment of the present invention in which the reverse page break button 30 is provided on the display unit 13. The following processing is executed by the CPU 27.
When the power switch 29 is turned on, the page data pointed to by the page pointer is read from the memory 23 and the data is displayed on the display units 12 and 13 (FIG. 3, S11).

  The page pointer is an address pointer that specifies the storage position of the data of each page of the book stored in the memory 23. In the memory 23, page data of each page of the book is sequentially stored in page units, and data of an arbitrary page can be read out by designating an address of the memory 23 with a page pointer.

  Next, the spread angle of the display unit 12 and the display unit 13 is detected by the angle sensor (S12). In the process of step S12, for example, the angle is calculated from the resistance value of the variable resistor 14a provided in the connecting portion 14.

  Next, it is determined whether or not the detected angle is a basic angle (S13). In the first embodiment, an angle at which both the display units 12 and 13 are horizontal, that is, an angle when the spread angle is 180 degrees is set as a basic angle.

When the detected angle does not coincide with the basic angle (S13, NO), the process returns to step S12 and the detection of the angle is repeated.
On the other hand, when the detected angle coincides with the basic angle (S13, YES), the process proceeds to step S14, and the spread angles of the display unit 12 and the display unit 13 are detected again. Then, in the next step S15, it is determined whether or not the detected angle is 0 degree.

When the detected angle is 0 degree (S15, YES), the process proceeds to step S16 to set the power off state.
On the other hand, when the detected angle is other than 0 degree (S15, NO), the process proceeds to step S17, where the absolute value of the detected angle is subtracted from the basic angle to calculate the turning angle.

  The turning angle is a value obtained by subtracting a detection angle, which is a spread angle of the display unit 12 and the display unit 13, from a basic angle of 180 degrees as shown in FIG. Therefore, the turning angle indicates the counterclockwise tilt angle of the right display unit 13 with respect to the horizontal direction.

  Next, it is determined whether or not the calculated turning angle satisfies the condition “setting angle−α <turning angle <setting angle + α” (S18). Here, the set angle refers to the turning angle of the page break number conversion table 41 shown in FIG. 6A, in which the turning angle is associated with the page turning amount. Since the page turning number conversion table 41 in which the turning angle and the page turning amount are associated with each other is stored in the memory 23, the calculated turning angle and the turning angle of the page turning number conversion table 41 are compared, and the set angle -α A page turning angle satisfying the condition of <turning angle <set angle + α can be found from the page break conversion table 41, and the page turning amount corresponding to the turning angle can be acquired.

If there is no set angle that satisfies the condition “set angle−α <turn angle <set angle + α” (S18, NO), the process returns to step S14.
On the other hand, when a set angle satisfying the condition of “set angle−α <turning angle <set angle + α” exists in the page break number conversion table 41, the page turning amount corresponding to the set angle is acquired (S18, YES). The process proceeds to step S19. In step S19, it is determined whether or not the reverse page break button 30 has been pressed.

When the reverse page break button 30 is pressed (S19, YES), the process proceeds to step S20, and the number of page turning corresponding to the set angle is subtracted from the page pointer.
On the other hand, when the reverse page break button 30 is not operated (S19, NO), the process proceeds to step S21, and the number of page turning corresponding to the set angle is added to the page pointer.

  By the processing in steps S12 to S22, the display units 12 and 13 are opened until the spread angle of the display unit 12 and the display unit 13 coincides with the basic angle (180 degrees), and then displayed so as to have a desired turning angle. When the section 13 is tilted, the spread angle detected by the angle sensor at that time is subtracted from the basic angle to calculate the turning angle. Then, the page turning amount corresponding to the calculated page turning angle is acquired from the page turning number conversion table 41, and it is further determined whether or not the reverse page turning button 30 is operated, and the reverse page turning button 30 is operated. If not, the number of page breaks acquired is added to the page pointer to specify the page to which the page breaks. At this time, when the reverse page break button 30 is operated, the number of page breaks acquired from the page pointer is subtracted to designate the page to which the page breaks.

As described above, when the page ahead of the predetermined number of pages or the previous page is set in the page pointer, the data of the page specified by the page pointer is displayed on the display units 12 and 13 in step S22.
According to the embodiment described above, the user can set the number of page breaks to a desired value by changing the spread angle after the user sets the spread angle of the electronic book 11 to the reference angle (180 degrees). it can. In other words, a page break can be performed by performing an operation close to a sense like turning a page of a paper book. At this time, if the turning angle is increased, the number of page breaks increases, and if the turning angle is decreased, the number of page breaks decreases, so that the electronic book 11 has the same feeling as turning a page of a paper book. Page break operation can be performed.

  Next, FIG. 7 is a flowchart of a page break control process according to the second embodiment. In the second embodiment, the page break direction is switched by setting the turning angle to be positive or negative without providing the reverse page break button 30.

Since the processing of steps S31 to S36 in FIG. 7 is the same as the processing of steps S11 to S16 in FIG. 3, their description is omitted.
In step S37, the detection angle is subtracted from the basic angle to calculate the turning angle. Next, it is determined whether or not a set angle satisfying the condition of “set angle−α <turning angle <set angle + α” exists in the page break number conversion table 42 (see FIG. 6B) (S38).

  When there is no reverse page break button, the page break number conversion table 42 has a configuration as shown in FIG. In the page break number conversion table 42, a negative angle is registered as a turning angle, and a negative page turning amount is registered in association with the negative turning angle.

  As shown in FIG. 6B, in the page break conversion table 42, for example, the page turning amount “10 pages” is registered in association with the page turning angle “45 degrees”, and the page turning angle “−45 degrees” is registered. ”And the page turning amount“ −10 pages ”is registered.

Therefore, the page turning amount can be negative by increasing the spread angle of the electronic book 11 to more than 180 degrees.
Next, the number of turned pages acquired from the page break number conversion table 42 is added to the page pointer (S39). Then, the page data indicated by the page pointer is displayed on the display units 12 and 13 (S40).

  According to the second embodiment described above, even when there is no reverse page break button 30 for designating the page break direction, the turning angle (basic angle-detection angle) of the display units 12 and 13 is set with respect to the reference angle. By setting the angle to be positive or negative, the direction of page break can be specified, and the page turning amount can be specified at the same time. Thus, both the direction of page break and the number of pages to be turned can be designated by changing the spread angle of the electronic book 11 without operating the button for designating the direction of page break. At this time, since the number of pages to be turned can be specified by changing the spread angle of the electronic book 11, a page break can be performed by an operation close to the operation of turning a page of a paper book.

The present invention is not limited to the embodiment described above, and may be configured as follows, for example.
(1) In the embodiment, two display units 12 and 13 made of a liquid crystal display device or the like are connected by a connecting unit 14 so as to be rotatable. The invention is applicable. For example, the display unit 12 and the display unit 13 are configured by a single sheet of electronic paper, the bending angle of the display unit 12 and the display unit 13 is detected by a sensor, and the page is turned according to the detected bending angle (spreading angle). An amount may be specified.
(2) The sensor that detects the angle is not limited to the sensor that detects the change in the resistance value, but may be any sensor that detects the angle change optically or that detects the angle change magnetically (3 ) The number of page breaks (page turning amount) may be registered in the page break number conversion tables 41 and 42 in association with the spread angles of the two display units 12 and 13. In this case, it may be determined whether the spread angle detected by the angle sensor satisfies the condition “set angle−α <spread angle <set angle + α”.

1 is an external view of an electronic book according to an embodiment. It is a block diagram of the electronic book of an embodiment. It is a flowchart of a page break control process. It is explanatory drawing of a page pointer. It is explanatory drawing of a turning angle. It is a figure which shows a page break number conversion table. It is a flowchart of a page break control process when there is no reverse page break button.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 11 Electronic book 12, 13 Display part 14 Connection part 23 Memory 24 Display control part 25 Angle detection part 26 Page break control part

Claims (6)

A display device having a structure capable of changing a spread angle between two display units;
Angle detection means for detecting a spread angle between the two display units;
Storage means for storing book data in units of pages;
Control means for acquiring the number of page breaks according to the spread angle detected by the angle detection means, and causing the display device to display page data specified by a value obtained by adding or subtracting the acquired page number; E-book with.   The electronic book according to claim 1, further comprising a connecting portion that rotatably connects the two display portions, wherein the angle detecting means is provided in the connecting portion. A page number conversion table that stores the number of page breaks in association with the spread angle or the angle difference between the spread angle and the reference angle;
The control means obtains the number of pages corresponding to the spread angle detected by the angle detection means or the angle difference between the spread angle and the reference angle from the page break number conversion table, and adds the obtained number of page breaks. 3. The electronic book according to claim 1, wherein the data of the page designated by the subtracted value is displayed.   2. The electronic book according to claim 1, wherein a switch for designating a page break direction is provided at a position where the switch can be operated with one hand when the electronic book is held.   2. The electronic book according to claim 1, wherein the control unit determines a page break direction based on whether a difference between a detection angle detected by the angle detection unit and a predetermined reference angle is positive or negative.   2. The control unit performs a page break when it is detected by the angle detection unit that the spread angle of the two display units coincides with a reference angle and then the change of the spread angle is detected. Ebook.

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