Priority application no.4451/CHE/2011 dated 19/12/2011

FIELD OF INVENTION:

The invention relates to a mobile device with built-in projector. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION:

Mobile phones with built-in projectors are known in the prior arts. The US patent application, 20090303449 discloses a method to operate such a mobile device with a projector. The prior art mentioned above discloses a method wherein the projection device determines a current context and then associates the context and the display parameters.

OBJECT OF THE INVENTION:

It is an object of the invention to provide a method to operate a mobile device with a built- in projector. The invention proposes a method wherein the projection of information to be displayed is either enabled or disabled depending upon the location of the mobile device and the received message, email or call.

ADVANTAGES OF THE INVENTION:

The proposed method enables the user to avoid projection of information associated to a particular category, depending upon the location of the mobile phone, for example, projecting personal messages/calls/emails while in office. ^The mobile device makes use of the built-in GPS receiver to detect its location and uses the location information to either enable the projection or disable the projection of incoming information in the phone.

The method stops the projection of information at unwanted places thereby avoiding user distraction from his current task at a particular place.

Further, this method ensures privacy to the user, as projection of private information at unwanted places is prevented.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS:-

FIG. 1 shows a schematic of the invention.

Table 1 shows the entries for which the projection of information is enabled from the mobile device.

DETAILED DESGRITPION OF THE INVENTION:

The present invention is described in the preferred embodiment as follows:- Shown in Fig. 1 is a schematic of a mobile device according to the invention. Only the relevant parts of the mobile device are shown and the other parts which are commonly known are not shown. The mobile device comprises a first receiving module 10, one or more second receiving modules 12, 14 a storage means 16 to store details of the contacts, a location finding means 18, a display means 20 and a projection module 22. The first receiving module 10 may be a wireless receiver. The second receiving modules 12, 14 may be a microphone and/or a camera. A control means 24 controls all the parts named above. The mobile device can be a mobile phone, personal digital assistant (PDA), portable terminal, etc.

The first receiving module 10 comprises all the circuitry required to communicate with the communication network. The first receiving module 10 is responsible to receive the calls, ^receive and send messages like SMS, MMS, eMail and other kind of information that is sent over the phone network. Whenever a call, message or email is received, the first receiving module 10 essentially retrieves the first parameter. The first parameter is at least a category of a contact. The categories of the contacts may include, for example, 'Personal', 'Official', 'Family', 'Friend', 'Confidential', etc. The category of a contact may be a customized category as per user preference.

The storage means 16 contains the details of the contacts. The details of the contacts may include the name, home phone number, mobile device number, category of the contacts etc. The details of the contacts listed here are onl as a reference and do not limit to the examples given herein. The storage means 14 may also be referred as contacts list.

In an embodiment of the invention, the first receiving module 10 retrieves a number identifying a calling device. The control means 24 determines the category corresponding to this number from the storage means 16.

The location finding means 18 may comprise a GPS receiver. The GPS receiver receives the data from the GPS satellites. The location finding means 18 analyses the GPS data and determines the location of the GPS receiver in terms of latitudes and longitudes. A map means 26 contains the digitized map of a defined geographical area and provides the map information to control means 24 and also to display means 20 for displaying the map. The control means 24 is capable of locating the location of the GPS receiver on the map when the map is being displayed. Use of GPS data is one of the methods for location finding. There may be other methods like using triangulation of mobile device towers etc.

The display means 20 displays various menu options/information to the user. In addition, the display means 20 also displays the map from the map means 26 for the user.

The projection module 22 projects an information on a suitable area on which the image can be seen by the user. The information may be an image of the calling person, a message or email received by the mobile device, or an indication like a symbol/an icon for indicating the ^/reception of a message or email, etc. The projection module 22 may modify the settings of the image, for example brightness, color, orientation, and resolution etc. to suit to the area where it is projected. Also the projection module 22 may check whether there is a suitable area for projection. If the projection module 22 determines that there is no suitable area for projection, it may disable the projection of the information. The control means 24 controls all the above means so that the mobile device along with the projection means 22 works in a coordinated manner.

The control means 24, according to the invention provides an option for the user to enable or disable the projection of the information received by the mobile device depending upon where the mobile device is located presently and the category to which the received information is associated. The steps to achieve this are explained below.

As a factory setting, the control means 24 of the mobile device disables the projection of information irrespective of the location of the mobile device and irrespective of the category of the received information.

The user needs to create a table as shown in table 1. The table 1 is stored in the storage means 20. The table 1 has two columns and a plurality of rows. The first column contains different categories like personal, official, etc., which are used to assign to the contacts, while storing the contacts in the contacts list or address book. The second column contains the location information at which the projection of information is enabled. The location information may be stored internally in terms of geographical co-ordinates, but the user enters the location information using a map. In an example, for the category "personal", the respective location information entry in the table is "home". This means, the projection of the received information is enabled if the user is at home, if it belongs to the category "personal". Here the received information refers to a message like SMS, MMS or an email or an incoming call.

A menu is provided for the user to create the table 1. Using the menu, the user enters the category and the location where the projection is to be enabled for the associated category. Jlhe location may be entered by touching the point on the map if the display is a touch screen. If the display is not touch screen, the keys or joystick may be used to point at a particular location on the map and the location can be saved in the table 1. Alternatively, the user can input the current location of the mobile device as the location information. In this case, the current location is stored in the table 1 with the associated category.

The information to be projected for above cases may comprise a message, an email, an icon indicating the reception of a message or email, a picture or a phone number from the contacts list for an incoming call, actual message or email, etc.

In another embodiment of the invention, a category from the first column of table 1 can be attached as a tag to an outgoing message/email before sending them to another mobile device by a calling/messaging person. For this purpose, the calling or messaging person enters the text to be sent and then selects the category to be attached as tag. The mobile device sends the message/email along with the tag embedded. The tag can be even attached when making a call to indicate the category of the call.

In such case, at the receiving mobile device, the category can be retrieved from the tag attached to the received message, email or call. When the tag is not attached with the received message, email or call, the category can be retrieved using the first parameter like number of the calling/messaging person. This is explained in detail in the following paragraphs.

Once the mobile device receives a message, or an email, the control means 24 checks whether a tag is present in the message/email. If the tag is present, the control means 24 reads the tag. The read tag is compared with the entries in the first column of the table 1. If a match is found, the corresponding entry from the second column from table 1 is read. The entry from second column indicates the location where the projection needs to be enabled. Then the control means 24 reads the current location of the device and compares with the location entry from the table 1. If both of them match, then the control means 24 ^commands the projection module 22 to project information like message, email or an image.

If the control means 24 finds that there is no tag in the incoming message/email, then the control means 24 determines the current location of the mobile device and checks whether the current location of the mobile device has an entry in the table 1. If the table 1 has an entry for the current location of the mobile device, then the control means 24 fetches the category of the contacts from the table 1 corresponding to the current location. Also the control means 24 cheeks whether the email/message has an entry in the contacts list. If the entry is found in the contacts list, then the category from the contacts list is compared with the category fetched from the table 1. If both the categories match, then the control means 24 commands the projection module 22 to project the information.

For any incoming call/message/email without any tag, if there is no entry in the contacts list associated with the incoming call/message/email, then the control means 24 disables the projection of the information. This is to avoid projection of information from unknown sources.

Also, for any current location, if there is no entry in the table, then the control means 20 disables the projection of the information irrespective of category of the received information. This is to avoid projection of information at unwanted locations.

In an another embodiment of the invention, projection of information is controlled based on the first parameter received by the first receiving module 10, one or more second parameters received by one or more second receiving modules 12, 14 and the current location of the mobile device. '

In an example, the second receiving module 12 is a microphone. The microphone captures the noise or voice information at the ambience of the mobile device. Projection of information is enabled or disabled based on the current location of the mobile device, the first parameter e.g. category of the contact and the voice information captured by the microphone. /For example, when the current location of the mobile device is "office" and the category of a^contact corresponding to a received call/message/email is "private", then projection of information is normally not allowed. However, if the user is detected to be alone (not in meeting with others, etc), then the projection of information corresponding to a "private" call/message/email may be allowed even in the office, when the user has opted for such settings.

When a call/message/email is received, the microphone captures the voice in the ambience of the mobile device. The control means 24 receives the information captured by the microphone. If the ambience is silent or no voice except the user's voice or user specified voice patterns is recognized, then it indicates the user is alone. Therefore, projection of the information may be allowed. Various voice recognition algorithms are already known in the art to identify the user's voice, or user specified voice patterns. The second parameter may be just a noise instead of specific voice patterns.

In another embodiment of the invention, the second receiving module 14 is a camera. The second parameter is the image captured by the camera. Projection information is enabled or disabled based on the current location of the mobile device, the first parameter like the category of the contact and the image captured by the camera.

For example, when the current location of the mobile device is "office" and an email/message/call corresponding to a private category is received, the control means 24 checks whether any other person except the user is present in the surroundings of the mobile device based on the image captured by the camera. Image or facial recognition algorithms may be used to determine whether specific person is present in the vicinity of the mobile device.

If some other person image other than the user's image or user specified image is recognized by the control means 24, the projection of information is disabled the control means 24.