Patent ID: 7629959

Claim:
A controller for controlling an electronic appliance having a display, comprising: an image pickup unit configured to photograph an operator who is in front of the display; a mirror image converter configured to convert an image of the operator photographed by the image pickup unit into a mirror image and output a mirror image signal representative of the mirror image; an operational image generator configured to generate an operational image signal representative of an operational image that is displayed on the display and is used by the operator to make the electronic appliance perform a desired operation; a mixer configured to mix the mirror image signal with the operational image signal; a detector configured to detect that the operator displayed on the display has pointed to the operational image displayed on the display, the operator and operational image being displayed on the display according to the mixed signals from the mixer; and a controlling unit configured to detect whether or not the operator has carried out an operation with respect to the displayed operational image while the detector is indicating that the operator has pointed to the displayed operational image, and if detecting that the operator has carried out an operation with respect to the displayed operational image, control the electronic appliance according to an operation that is determined from a position of the operational image where the operator has pointed to, wherein the detector comprises: an extractor configured to extract an area from the mirror image, the area corresponding to a hand of the operator pointing to the displayed operational image; and a characteristics detector configured to detect data showing changes of an image signal of the hand corresponding area to the operational image signal, wherein the controlling unit generates a waveform based on the data detected by the characteristics detector and calculates a degree of matching between the waveform and a predetermined waveform, thereby determining whether or not the operator has carried out an operation with respect to the operational image.