JP2014010707A - Information processing apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To prevent malfunction of a notebook type personal computer caused by incorrect detection of a touch pad when the computer is closed.SOLUTION: If an upper casing supposed to cover a touch pad so as to put a lid on the touch pad when a note PC is closed is too thin, the touch pad detects a touch on the upper casing. In order to prevent malfunction of the note PC caused by incorrect detection of the touch pad, following configuration is provided: opening/closing detection means 111, and an embedded controller 112 that inputs a predetermined code to an operating system 110 when detecting a closed state. The operating system 110, when receiving the predetermined code, disables a touch pad driver 113.

Description

  The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, and more particularly to control of an input device.

  In the technical field of notebook personal computers (hereinafter referred to as notebook PCs), the demand for weight reduction and thinning is severe, and as much weight reduction and thinning as possible are possible as long as users can provide satisfactory performance. It has been demanded. However, in developing a notebook PC that is relatively thinner than the conventional one, a new problem that has not been made obvious has been found.

  A notebook PC is generally provided with a pointing device as one of input devices in a graphical user interface. When an electrostatic touch pad is used as the pointing device, the touch pad may react even when the upper housing is closed in a notebook PC that is relatively thinner than the conventional one. This happens when the touchpad detects a touch on the upper housing because the upper housing that should be covered so as to cover the touchpad when the notebook PC is closed is too thin. Conceivable.

  Patent Document 1 discloses a technique for preventing erroneous input by touching a keyboard or touch pad with a stylus pen at the time of tablet input in a so-called tablet-type notebook PC.

  Although there is a problem related to the present application in terms of preventing erroneous input, the problem that erroneous input to the touch pad occurs because the upper housing is too thin is disclosed in Patent Document 1. The technical idea cannot solve the above problem.

JP 2007-094808 A

  In many cases, the notebook PC is set to shift to a power saving mode when it is closed. In the power saving mode, it is common to detect the input of the input device in order to wake up to return from the power saving mode. Although the power saving mode can be defined in various ways, in the present embodiment, it refers to the G1 state in the ACPI specification.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object thereof is to prevent malfunction caused by erroneous detection of a touch pad in a state in which a notebook personal computer is closed.

  To achieve the above object, the present invention executes a first casing and a second casing that are supported so as to be openable and closable, and a basic input / output system and application program for performing information processing desired by a user. An information processing apparatus having an arithmetic unit that executes an operating system that is a common software environment for performing the operation, wherein the second casing is padded by being controlled by a driver that is executed by the arithmetic unit A touch pad for inputting a detection result of a surface to the operation system, and when the information processing apparatus is in a closed state, the first casing covers the touch pad and detects opening / closing of the information processing apparatus When the opening / closing detection means detects that the information processing apparatus is closed, a first predetermined code indicating this is issued to the operating system. Has embedded controller to the operating system receives the first predetermined code, characterized by disabling the driver.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to prevent malfunction caused by erroneous detection of the touch pad when the notebook personal computer is closed.

It is an external view of an embodiment of the present invention. It is the figure which looked down from right above in the state which closed PC1 of FIG. It is a block diagram which shows the function structure of this embodiment.

Hereinafter, embodiments according to the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
Referring to FIG. 1, the appearance of this embodiment is shown. The notebook PC 1 according to the present embodiment has a configuration in which an upper housing 101 and a lower housing 102 are connected by a hinge portion 104.

  The upper housing 101 is provided with a display 103. The lower housing 102 is provided with a touch pad 107 on the front side and a keyboard 108 on the back side facing the display 103. The touch pad 107 is an electrostatic method.

  Note that the physical arrangement relationship in the present embodiment is an example, and does not limit the invention.

  The upper housing 101 and the lower housing 102 can rotate around the hinge portion 104. In FIG. 1, the upper housing 101 rotates with an angle of about 135 ° with respect to the lower housing 102 around the hinge portion 104. Such a state is a state in which the PC 1 is open. On the other hand, a typical example of the state in which the PC 1 is closed is shown in FIG.

  FIG. 2 is a view of the PC 1 of FIG. 1 viewed from directly above the upper housing 101 with the PC 1 closed. The top plate of the upper housing 101 can be seen. On the other hand, since the keyboard 108 and the touch pad 107 are located below the upper casing 101, they cannot be seen and cannot be directly touched. When the PC 1 is closed, the upper casing 101 covers the touch pad 107 so as to cover it.

  However, in the notebook PC 1 which is relatively thinner than the conventional one, there is a possibility that the touch pad 107 may react even when the upper housing 101 is closed. This is considered to occur because the upper housing 101 is too thin and the touch pad 107 detects a touch on the upper housing 101. In the present embodiment, such a problem is solved with the configuration described below.

  The definition of “closed state” is, for example, that the open / close detection means 111 provided in the hinge portion 104 detects that the angle formed by the upper housing 101 and the lower housing 102 is 45 ° or less. It is good also as a state. When the notebook PC 1 is closed, the upper housing 101 covers the touch pad 107 so as to cover the touch pad 107.

  FIG. 3 shows a functional configuration of the present embodiment. As shown in FIG. 3, a touch pad driver 113 is installed in an OS (operating system) 110 that is basic software of the notebook PC 1. The touch pad driver 113 controls the touch pad 107.

  Specifically, the touch pad driver 113 calculates the input coordinates, the moving direction and moving amount of the input points, the moving speed, and the like based on the input of the detection signal generated by the touch pad 107. Further, the calculation result is transmitted to the operating system 110 as the amount of movement of the pointer. The detection signal generated by the touch pad 107 is an electrical signal based on the result of sensing the pad surface of the touch pad 107. By the cooperation of the touch pad 107 as hardware and the touch pad driver 113 as software, the coordinates (including the moving direction, moving amount, moving speed, etc. of the input point) according to the positional relationship with the user's body are the operating system 110 is input.

  Here, the operating system 110 is a common software environment for executing an application program for performing information processing desired by the user. Although a touch pad driver may exist as one function of the operating system, in this application, a touch pad driver provided as one function of such an operating system is also regarded as the same as the touch pad driver 113. The operating system includes a virtual machine (such as a virtual OS) that runs on the environment of another operating system.

  As shown in FIG. 3, the notebook PC 1 includes an open / close detection unit 111 and an embedded controller 112. As described above, the open / close detection unit 111 is provided, for example, in the hinge portion 104. The specific method for detecting opening and closing is not particularly limited, and even when detecting the angle formed by the upper casing 101 and the lower casing 102, the notebook PC 1 is closed when the illuminance sensor falls below a predetermined darkness. It may be one that detects being in a state.

  In the present embodiment, the open / close detection unit 111 continues to input a High signal to the embedded controller 112 when detecting that the notebook PC 1 is in an open state. On the other hand, when it is detected that the notebook PC 1 is in a closed state, a Low signal is input to the embedded controller 112.

  The detection result by the open / close detection unit 111 is input to the embedded controller 112. The embedded controller 112 issues a specific code corresponding to the detection result of the open / close detection unit 111 to the operating system 110.

  In particular, when the transition of the input signal from the open / close detection unit 111 from High to Low is detected, the embedded controller 112 issues a predetermined code indicating that the notebook PC 1 is closed to the operating system 110. When a change from Low to High is detected, a predetermined code indicating that the notebook PC 1 is opened is issued.

  The operating system 110 disables the touchpad driver 113 when receiving a predetermined code that means that the notebook PC 1 is closed. By being invalidated, the touch pad driver 113 ignores even a detection signal input from the touch pad 107. Calculations such as the moving direction may be performed, but are not transmitted to the operating system 110.

  As a result, in the state where the notebook PC 1 is closed, it is possible to prevent malfunction caused by the touch pad 107 erroneously detecting a touch due to the upper casing 101 being too thin.

  Further, the operating system 110 enables the touch pad driver 113 when receiving a predetermined code indicating that the notebook PC 1 has been opened. When the touch pad driver 113 becomes valid, the touch pad driver 113 performs a normal calculation based on a detection signal generated by the touch pad 107 and transmits the calculation result to the operating system 110. That is, the touch pad 107 can be used normally.

  As a modification of this embodiment, the technical idea of the present invention may be applied to a so-called tablet-type notebook personal computer. In the tablet notebook PC, the display 103 is another touch pad. Further, in the tablet-type notebook PC, the upper housing 101 can be rotated around the hinge portion 104 and can be rotated around any one point of the hinge portion 104.

  Therefore, in the tablet notebook PC, the upper casing 101 covers the touch pad 107 so that the display 103 is the upper surface, and the notebook PC 1 is closed. Even in such a configuration, by performing the same configuration and operation as in the present embodiment, the same effects as in the present embodiment can be obtained.

1 Notebook PC
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 101 Upper housing | casing 102 Lower housing | casing 103 Display 104 Hinge part 107 Touchpad 108 Keyboard 110 Operating system (OS)
111 Open / close detection means 112 Embedded controller (EC)
113 Touchpad driver

Claims (2)

Arithmetic executed by an operating system, which is a common software environment for executing an application program for performing information processing desired by the user, and the first casing and the second casing that are supported so as to be opened and closed. An information processing apparatus having a unit,
The second casing includes a touch pad that inputs a sensing result of a pad surface to the operation system by being controlled by a driver executed by the arithmetic unit;
When the information processing apparatus is in a closed state, the first housing covers the touch pad,
An embedded controller that issues a first predetermined code indicating this to the operating system when detecting that the information processing device is closed by an open / close detection means that detects opening / closing of the information processing device;
The information processing apparatus, wherein the operating system invalidates the driver when receiving the first predetermined code. When the embedded controller detects that the information processing apparatus has been opened by the open / close detection means, the embedded controller issues a second predetermined code indicating this to the operating system,
The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the operating system validates the driver when receiving the second predetermined code.

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