Patent ID: 8587530

Claim:
An information processing apparatus within a housing comprising: a tap operation detecting unit including a vibration sensor to detect vibrations caused by tapping directly on a housing and representing a tap operation, said tap operation detecting unit configured to detect both (a) the number of tap operations for tapping directly on a position corresponding to upper, lower, left and right parts of the housing, and (b) the tapped position on the housing at which the housing part is tapped; a storage unit storing a plurality of application programs; an activated application table storing an application program to be activated as determined by both the tapped position part on the housing and the number of tap operations; and a control unit configured to recognize an application program corresponding to (i) the tapped position part and (ii) the number of tap operations with reference to the activated application table on the basis of the tapped position part and the number of tap operations detected by the tap operation detecting unit, to read out the recognized application program from the storage unit, and to activate the recognized application program.