Abstract: A protection film is formed on a silicon oxide film 6 formed on the surface of a semiconductor substrate, a silicon oxide film is removed from a region where a thin gate-insulating film is to be formed by using, as a mask, a photoresist pattern that covers a region where a thick gate-insulating film is to be formed, and, then, the photoresist pattern is removed followed by washing. Then, the semiconductor substrate is heat-oxidized or a film is deposited thereon to form gate-insulating films having different thicknesses.

Abstract: A communication robot includes a speaker. By generating a sound or voice through the speaker, the human is requested to cause a robot to make a certain action. When the human makes an action to the robot, the movement of the robot head or arm assists for the action.

Abstract: Color information of a color image is represented by the Lab color space. A user can change hue by moving the position of a reference circle displayed on the a*b* plane in the Lab color space and change saturation by changing the size of the reference circle. The color information of the color image is changed with changes in the reference circle, allowing the user to conjecture changes in the color image visually and make color corrections easily and quickly.

Abstract: In compressing a static image, image data is displayed in the window on the display unit, and the operator specifies a segmented rectangle. The specific coordinates of the segmented rectangle are stored as positional coordinate information, and are amended in an amending process so that the segmented rectangle may not destroy the basic blocks used in the compressing process. The image segmented by the amended and segmented rectangle is an image formed by basic blocks, and the data is not rounded in the recompressing process, thereby successfully maintaining the quality of the image.