Panasonic Corporation

Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Sako Asayama

Hiroshi Kase

Mitsuteru Kataoka

Keisuke Matsuo

Masazumi Yamada

Masahiko Mizoguchi

Toshiki Murakami

Akihiro Mitani

Ian Cameron Mercer

Brian James Walker

Kevin Leigh LaChapelle

Mitsuharu Matsuo

A first control unit outputs, to a lighting control unit, a lighting signal that causes a plurality of light-emitting units provided for each of a plurality of keys for operating to be sequentially lighted for each of groups determined in advance. Based on a signal for selecting a group outputted from a first selection unit and an output signal from the first control unit, a first comparison/judgment unit outputs a group whose light-emitting unit had been lighted upon selection as a finalized group. A second control unit outputs a lighting signal that causes light-emitting units included in the finalized group to be respectively sequentially lighted, and based on the output signal and a signal for selecting a key outputted from a second selection unit, a second comparison/judgment unit judges that a key corresponding to a light-emitting unit that had been lighted upon selection as a finalized key.

Key input device for remote control apparatus, key input method of key input device for remote control apparatus, program, and recording medium

A device linkage apparatus, which reduces the operating load on a user and causes a television and an amplifier to be appropriately linked, includes: a correspondence table storage unit in which is stored a mode correspondence table indicating, for each TV-program genre, the audio output mode corresponding to the genre; an attribute obtainment unit which obtains the genre of a TV-program to be reproduced; a mode identification unit which identifies, from among the audio output modes indicated in the mode correspondence table, the audio output mode that corresponds to the genre obtained by the attribute obtainment unit; and a linkage execution unit which causes the operations of a television and an amplifier to be linked accordance to the audio output mode identified by the mode identification unit.

Device linkage apparatus

A television set includes: an internal speaker which outputs sound; a memory which holds information; a remote controller receiver which receives an instruction from the outside of the television set; a microcomputer which causes, based on a mode specifying instruction for specifying a sound output mode received by the remote controller receiver, the memory to hold any one of (a) information that indicates a first sound output mode in which sound is outputted from the internal speaker and (b) information that indicates a second sound output mode in which sound is outputted from an external speaker that is a speaker outside the television set; and an HDMI/CEC communication unit which outputs the information that indicates the sound output mode and that is held by the memory, to an amplifier which controls to operate or not operate the speaker outside the television set.

Video/sound output device and external speaker control device

An external speaker control apparatus causes only one of an internal speaker and an external speaker to output audio when a power supply of the external speaker control apparatus which controls the external speaker changes from an off state to an on state, the external speaker being a speaker outside a video and audio output apparatus. The external speaker control apparatus includes a microcomputer for detecting the change of the power supply of an amplifier from an off state to an on state and a HDMI/CEC communication unit or outputting an instruction requesting output of information which indicates the audio output mode to the video and audio output apparatus while at the same time receiving the information indicating the audio detects the change of the power supply from an off state to an on state, wherein the microcomputer controls the output of the audio from the external speaker according to the information indicating the audio output mode.

Video/audio output device and external speaker control apparatus

Updating automatically generated playlists in response to media content being edited. Aspects of the invention associate a playlist type or other code with each playlist to define the structure of the playlist. When media content is added to or deleted from a collection of media files, one or more playlist types corresponding to the media content are identified. The playlists with the identified playlist types are updated to reflect the addition or deletion of the media content.

Growing community of inventors

Nara, Japan

Sako Asayama