Bi-modal switching for controlling digital TV applications on hand-held video devices

1. A digital television, comprising:

a navigational button arrangement arranged to provide a navigational interface to a user and including first, second, third, and fourth buttons having a bimodal operation; and

including first, second, third, and fourth optical elements for respectively displaying colors of light on the first, second, third, and fourth buttons;

wherein, in one mode of operation, the first, second, third, and fourth buttons provide a navigational mode for traversing a graphical user interface presented on the digital television and, in another mode of operation, the first, second, third, and fourth buttons provide an interactive application mode enabling initiation of different interaction application programs having respective different associated interaction application functions for interacting with a particular digital television application being currently presented to the user on the digital television;

wherein, in the navigational mode, the first, second, third, and fourth optical elements are turned on to emit light of a first color and, in the interactive application mode, if the first, second, third, and fourth optical elements are turned on to emit respective lights, the respective lights are of second, third, fourth, and fifth colors,

wherein the digital television displays up to four different interactive application functions, each different interactive application function associated with a different color selected from the second, third, fourth, and fifth colors and correlated with a respective one the first, second, third and fourth buttons emitting the associated one of the second, third, fourth and fifth colors in the interactive application mode; and

wherein among the optical elements, only those optical elements that emit same colors associated with said displayed interactive application functions are turned on, others of the optical elements are turned off.

2. The digital television of claim 1 , wherein the digital television is a portable digital television.

3. The digital television of claim 1 , further comprising a remote control unit housing the navigational button arrangement.

4. The digital television of claim 1 , wherein the first color is white and the second, third, fourth, and fifth colors are red, yellow, blue and green, respectively.

5. A portable digital television, comprising:

a processor;

at least four buttons, arranged to provide a navigational interface to a user; and

optical elements associated with each of the at least four buttons;

wherein the processor controls the at least four buttons such that in a first mode of operation, the at least four buttons provide the navigational interface to the user and, in a second mode of operation, the at least four buttons provide an interactive application interface to the user enabling initiation of different interactive application programs having respective different associated interactive application functions for interacting with a particular digital television application being currently presented to the user on the portable digital television;

wherein, in the first mode of operation, the processor causes the optical elements associated with the at least four buttons to be turned on to provide light of a first color indicative to the user of the first mode of operation and, in the second mode of operation, the processor causes at least one of the optical elements associated with the at least four buttons to be turned on to provide light of a different color indicative to the user of the second mode of operation, wherein the different color is representative of an interactive application function;

wherein if the optical elements associated with the at least four buttons are turned to provide respective lights, the respective lights are of second, third, fourth, and fifth colors,

wherein the portable digital television displays up to four different interactive application functions, each different interactive application function associated with a different color selected from the second, third, fourth, and fifth colors and correlated with a respective one the first, second, third and fourth buttons emitting the associated one of the second, third, fourth and fifth colors in the interactive application mode; and

wherein among the optical elements, only those optical elements that emit same colors associated with the displayed interactive applications are turned on, others of the optical elements are turned off.

6. The portable digital television of claim 5 , further comprising a mode button that enables the user to cause the processor to switch between the first mode of operation and the second mode of operation.

7. The portable digital television of claim 5 , wherein the optical elements are bicolor light emitting diodes.

8. The portable digital television of claim 5 , wherein any optical elements associated with a particular button are adjacent thereto.

9. The portable digital television of claim 5 , wherein the second, third, fourth, and fifth colors are red, green, blue and yellow, respectively.

10. The portable digital television of claim 5 , wherein the first color is white.

11. A portable television comprising:

a navigational button arrangement for use in traversing a graphical user interface presented on the portable television, the navigational button arrangement comprising at least an:

up button;

down button;

left button;

right button; and

a select button; and

a number of optical elements such that first, second, third, and fourth optical elements are respectively associated with the up, down, left, and right buttons; and

wherein the up, down, left, and right buttons of the navigational button arrangement operates in at least two modes, the at least two modes comprising a navigational mode and a chromatic mode, wherein in the navigational mode, optical elements associated with the up, down, left, and right buttons are turned on to provide light of a first color and, in the chromatic mode, if the optical elements associated with the up, down, left, and right buttons are turned on to provide respective lights, the respective lights are of second, third, fourth, and fifth colors such that four of the buttons are associated with a different one of the four colors

wherein the portable digital television is capable of displaying up to four different interactive application functions, each different interactive application function associated with a different color selected from the second, third, fourth, and fifth colors and correlated with a respective one the first, second, third and fourth buttons emitting the associated one of the second, third, fourth and fifth colors in the interactive application mode; and

wherein among the optical elements, only those optical elements that emit same colors associated with the displayed interactive applications are turned on, others of the optical elements are turned off,

12. The portable television of claim 11 , wherein the second, third, fourth, and fifth colors are red, green, blue and yellow, respectively.

13. The portable television of claim 11 , wherein the first color is white.

14. A method for use in a digital television, the method comprising:

(a) setting a first mode for a navigational button arrangement including a plurality of buttons;

(b) causing a first color to be displayed on the plurality of buttons of the navigational button arrangement, wherein in the first mode, the plurality of buttons of the navigational button arrangement are used to traverse a graphical user interface presented on the digital television;

(c) setting the navigational button arrangement to a second mode; and

(d) causing at least four different colors to be displayed on the plurality of buttons of the navigational button arrangement such that each of the plurality of buttons is associated with a different one of the four colors; wherein in the second mode, the plurality of buttons of the navigational button arrangement is used to initiate different interactive application programs having different associated interactive application functions to interact with interactive applications presented on the digital television, and wherein each of the four different colors are associated with a different interactive function, and correlated with a respective one the plurality of buttons emitting the associated different color in the interactive application mode, and wherein each interactive application simultaneously presented on the digital television has a different color selected from the four colors and if one color is missing in presented interactive applications, said missing color is not displayed on the plurality of buttons.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the digital television comprises a mode button having at least two states, one state associated with the first mode and the second state associated with the second mode and further comprising the step of determining the state of the mode button such that when the state associated with the first mode is detected, steps (a) and (b) are performed and when the state associated with the second mode is detected steps (c) and (d) are performed.

16. The method of claim 14 , further comprising the step of:

(e) returning to step (a) upon selection of a button by a user.

17. The method of claim 14 , wherein the four different colors are red, green, blue and yellow.

18. The method of claim 14 , wherein the first color is white.

19. The digital television of claim 1 , wherein the first, second, third and fourth optical elements emitting lights having respective second, third, fourth and fifth colors in the interactive mode reverts to emitting the light of the first color in the navigation mode after a predefined amount of time.

20. The digital television of claim 1 , wherein in response to selection of one of the first, second, third and fourth optical elements emitting lights of the second, third, fourth and fifth colors, in the interactive application mode, the first, second, third and fourth optical elements automatically caused to revert back to the navigation mode and emit light of the first color.