Macsimum News - Apple patents display leap frog concepts for touch sensitive displays

Apple patents display leap frog concepts for touch sensitive displays

Posted by Dennis Sellers Apple ico Feb 3, 2006 at 7:21am

On Feb. 2, the US Patent & Trademark Office revealed Apple’s patent number 20060026536 titled “Gestures for touch sensitive input devices.” Apple’s heavy hitters such as Jonathan Ive, Duncan Robert Kerr and Steve Hotelling of the famed Chameleon patent are listed on this patent. The touch sensitive system will apply to a number of devices such as a tablet, the iPod, cell phones, PDA’s and other “consumer electronic devices.

This new series of patents support the breaking news that Macsimum first posted last week on the tablet patent titled “Methods and apparatuses for operating a portable device based on an accelerometer.” The patents present a great number of great new-to-market virtual object concepts that are like interactive widgets. The patent officially defines them as “Touch Images” and provides an explanation for such.

Virtual Touch images

Each image represents a profile of the fingers in contact with the touch screen at a particular instant in time. These images can also be referred to as touch images. It will be understood that the term “image” does not mean that the profile is displayed on the screen 178 (but rather imaged by the touch sensing device). It should also be noted that although the term “image” is used, the data may be in other forms representative of the touch plane at various times.

In Figures 6A-6G Apple presents a number of available virtual touch images such a volume knob. The patent states that “The virtual control knob may already be displayed, or the particular number, orientation or profile of the fingers at set down, or the movement of the fingers immediately thereafter, or some combination of these and other characteristics of the user’s interaction may invoke the virtual control knob to be displayed. In either case, the computing system associates a finger group to the virtual control knob and makes a determination that the user intends to use the virtual volume knob. This association may also be based in part on the mode or current state of the computing device at the time of the input. For example, the same gesture may be interpreted alternatively as a volume know gesture if a song is currently playing on the computing device, or as a rotate command if an object editing application is being executed. Other user feedback may be provided, including for example audible or tactile feedback.

The patent notes object 175 (above) of the tablet PC is a Haptics unit that “may provide a certain amount of vibration or other tactile feedback for each click thereby simulating an actual knob. Object 194 (above) is an audio-unit of the tablet PC that may provide a clicking sound for each unit of rotation, e.g., provide five clicks based on rotation of five degrees.

The Virtual Scroll Wheel: Patent Figures 26 & 27B present the virtual scroll wheel. The patent states that “In some cases, the virtual scroll wheel may include a virtual button at its center. The virtual scroll wheel is configured to implement scrolling as for example through a list and the button is configured to implement selections as for example items stored in the list.

The patent goes on to state that “In some cases, the principals of inertia … can be applied to the virtual scroll wheel. In cases such as these, the virtual scroll wheel continues to rotate when the fingers (or one of the fingers) are lifted off of the virtual scroll wheel and slowly comes to a stop via virtual friction.” The patent notes that “the display may be an LCD and the touch screen may be a multipoint touch screen.

The Virtual Keyboard: Figures 25A-25D of the patent illustrates a keyboard sequence. Figure 25A illustrates a display presenting a GUI object 730 in the form of a keyboard. As shown in FIG. 25B, a user positions their fingers 576 over the multipoint touch screen 520 over the keyboard 730 to enter data into a word processing program. By way of example, the user may place one of their fingers 576A on the Q key in order to produce a lower case “q” in the word processing program. As shown in FIG. 25C, when the user decides that a letter should be in upper case, the user places one finger 576B on the shift key and another finger 576A on the desired letter (as indicated by the arrows).

Apple’s iTMS example

In figure 23B Apple presents their iTunes Music Store example. The patent states that “when the user slides their finger or fingers 576 over the touch screen 520, vertical scrolling, which moves media items up or down through the window, is implemented. The direction of scrolling may follow the same direction as finger movement (as shown), or it may go in the reverse direction. In one particular embodiment, a single finger is used for selecting the media items from the list, and two fingers are used to scroll through the list.  
Scrolling generally pertains to moving displayed data or images (e.g., media items 681) across a viewing area on a display screen so that a new set of data (e.g., media items 681) is brought into view in the viewing area. In most cases, once the viewing area is full, each new set of data appears at the edge of the viewing area and all other sets of data move over one position. That is, the new set of data appears for each set of data that moves out of the viewing area. In essence, these functions allow a user to view consecutive sets of data currently outside of the viewing area. In most cases, the user is able to accelerate their traversal through the data sets by moving his or her finger at greater speeds. Examples of scrolling through lists can be found in U.S. Patent Publication Nos.: 2003/0076303A1, 2003/0076301A1, 2003/0095096A1, which are herein incorporated by reference.

Zoom feature: map example

Patent FIG. 10 is a diagram of a zoom gesture method 350, in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention. The zoom gesture may be performed on a multipoint touch screen. The zoom gesture method 350 generally begins at block 352 where the presence of at least a first finger and a second finger are detected on a touch sensitive surface at the same time. The presence of at least two fingers is configured to indicate that the touch is a gestural touch rather than a tracking touch based on one finger. In some cases, the presence of only two fingers indicates that the touch is a gestural touch. In other cases, any number of more than two fingers indicates that the touch is a gestural touch. In fact, the gestural touch may be configured to operate whether two, three, four or more fingers are touching, and even if the numbers change during the gesture, i.e., only need a minimum of two fingers at any time during the gesture.

Patent FIG. 11B illustrates a user positioning their fingers 366 over a region of North America 368, particularly the United States 370 and more particularly California 372. In order to zoom in on California 372, the user starts to spread their fingers 366 apart as shown in FIG. 11C. As the fingers 366 spread apart further (distance increases), the map zooms in further on Northern California 374, then to a particular region of Northern California 374, then to the Bay area 376, then to the peninsula 378 (e.g., the area between San Francisco and San Jose Area), and then to the city of San Carlos 380 located between San Francisco and San Jose as illustrated in FIGS. 11D-11H. In order to zoom out of San Carlos 380 and back to North America 368, the fingers 366 are closed back together following the sequence described above, but in reverse.

The patent’s touch sensing technology overview

Excerpts of Patent Point # 56: The input device 70 may include a touch sensing device configured to receive input from a user’s touch and to send this information to the processor 56. By way of example, the touch-sensing device may correspond to a touchpad or a touch screen. In many cases, the touch-sensing device recognizes touches, as well as the position and magnitude of touches on a touch sensitive surface. The touch sensing means reports the touches to the processor 56 and the processor 56 interprets the touches in accordance with its programming. For example, the processor 56 may initiate a task in accordance with a particular touch. A dedicated processor can be used to process touches locally and reduce demand for the main processor of the computer system. The touch sensing device may be based on sensing technologies including but not limited to capacitive sensing, resistive sensing, surface acoustic wave sensing, pressure sensing, optical sensing and/or the like. Furthermore, the touch sensing means may be based on single point sensing or multipoint sensing. Single point sensing is capable of only distinguishing a single touch, while multipoint sensing is capable of distinguishing multiple touches that occur at the same time.

Key points on the virtual touchpad

The input device may be a touch screen that is positioned over or in front of the display. The touch screen may be integrated with the display device or it may be a separate component. The touch screen has several advantages over other input technologies such as touchpads, mice, etc. For one, the touch screen 70 is positioned in front of the display 68 and therefore the user can manipulate the GUI 69 directly. For example, the user can simply place their finger over an object to be controlled. In touch pads, there is no one-to-one relationship such as this. With touchpads, the touchpad is placed away from the display typically in a different plane. For example, the display is typically located in a vertical plane and the touchpad is typically located in a horizontal plane. This makes its use less intuitive, and therefore more difficult when compared to touch screens. In addition to being a touch screen, the input device 70 can be a multipoint input device. Multipoint input devices have advantages over conventional singlepoint devices in that they can distinguish more than one object (finger). Singlepoint devices are simply incapable of distinguishing multiple objects. By way of example, a multipoint touch screen, which can be used herein, is shown and described in greater detail in copending and commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/840,862, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference.

NOTICE

Macsimum News presents only a brief summary of patents with associated graphic(s) for journalistic news purposes as each such patent application and/or grant is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trade Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any patent applications and/or grants should be read in its entirety for further details.

The Inventors listed on the patent are Steve Hotelling, Joshua Stickton, Brian Q. Huppi; Brian Q, Imran Chaudhri, Greg Christi, Bas Ording, Duncan Robert Kerr and Jonathan P. Ive for serial number 048264 originally filed Jan. 31, 2005.

Neo’s Notes

In conjunction with last week’s patents, exclusively covered by Macsimum News, Apple’s new series of patents regarding Tablet PC’s and other devices like a cell phone and the iPod using touch sensitive technologies, proves that Apple is preparing to take the market by storm on several new fronts.

A wireless tablet PC is definitely interesting, because it has a history via an Apple Euro filing. This was first reported on as far back as the second chapter of the “Next Wave” series. It was there that I first made the connection that Apple could use this display in a vehicle as the in-vehicle Micro Dashboard-Display from Vision Joy of Korea. So now that Apple’s new patents now reveal a series of new touch sensitive technologies and virtual Touch Items, we could envision that a key application will include a method of using in your vehicle. This is also where Apple’s “Voice-activated media management system for the iPod” patent could come into play.

The introduction of a touch screen for the iPod means that it will eventually take on PDA characteristics that will also likely involve a Safari micro browser. The ability to zoom is just one method required in such a browser. Apple’s map example provides us with at least one unique example of how Apple intends on applying this feature. In combination with Apple’s Widgets, we could see how Apple is building a body of features that could easily extend to cell phones from Apple or their allies.

In respect to touch sensitive technology applied in notebooks, Apple’s new patent covers the virtual touchpad. This goes back to Apple’s famous 2004 Chameleon patent. Steve Hotelling that is listed on this patent is also only one of two inventors on the Chameleon patent. So yes, there’s history behind today’s patent that’s very important. As you could see in the illustration above, the keyboard and the touchpad are both LED based. Apple’s new patent stated that “It will be understood that the term “image” does not mean that the profile is displayed on the screen (but rather imaged by the touch sensing device).” So the image in the example above confirms just what that could entail. The “image” doesn’t just mean a widget on a screen and could therefore take on functionality that could appear as that of a keyboard and touchpad – and yet disappear to become yet a second display. The example above illustrates how the notebook transforms, like a chameleon, to that of a two sided ebook for subscribing to magazines and newspapers via iTMS no less! And yes, Apple’s FIG. 25B illustrates just this concept is in place!

So today’s patent isn’t a lone wolf in the wilderness. It’s simply another part of Apple’s long standing vision to take us all to “The Next Wave of the Internet! “

neo@macsimumnews.com

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Contributor

Dennis Sellers

Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.