摘要 |
A telephone speed-dialer (2 of fig. 1) for use with a personal digital assistant or other mobile device (figs. 6a and 6b) has an infrared transceiver for communication therewith. The dialer unit (dialer 2 of fig. 1, step 60 of fig. 2A) is connected to a land-based phone line, and remains next to a phone. When a user desires to make a phone call to a number on his or her PDA's address book, the user selects the phone number in the address book and sends the number via infrared link to the dialer. After the dialer receives the number from the PDA, the dialer senses when the user picks up the receiver of the adjacent phone, and automatically dials the phone number with proper area code and any predialing digits. Preferably, the dialer emulates another PDA receiving an electronic business card from the user's PDA, so that no special software need be installed on the user's PDA other than the existing operating system. To conserve battery power when not in use, the dialer remains in a "sleep mode" until it senses infrared activity. In an alternative embodiment, the dialer communicates with the PDA with a short range radio frequency link, such as that specified in the emerging Bluetooth Standard, instead of with the infrared link.
|