Patent Application
20080172610
This application relates to user control over electronic devices for various applications, including consumer electronic devices.
Electronic devices for communications, data processing, entertainment and other applications have become an increasingly important part of daily activities and routines for the general population. Examples of such electronic devices include, mobile, wireless devices such as cell phones and personal digital assistant (PDA) devices, electronic game consoles, video devices such as DVD players, and audio players such as CD and MP3 players. Also, new smartphones can be designed to further expand the uses of mobile communications devices to new applications, such as unlocking doors, control of home automation products, monitoring and reporting vital signs, etc. These and other electronic devices often have different user control interfaces with different control keys or buttons, different control menus for various functions. The differences in the user control interfaces can make it difficult for some users to properly operate different devices and may create barriers or resistance in some consumers to new technologies and new devices. As more functions are integrated into one electronic device, the user control interfaces tend to become more complex and more different from one device to another, especially for devices from different manufacturers.
In addition, most electronic devices are designed for people without disabilities and thus may be difficult or even impossible for persons with certain disabilities to operate. For example, the trend toward miniaturization of mobile and other electronic devices has led to reduced sizes of input buttons and thus may present special challenges to users with disabilities.
This application describes, among others, techniques and devices for providing user interfaces for operating electronic devices in ways that can be customized to individual user's preferences. The techniques and devices described may be implemented to allow a customized user control interface, e.g., a set of customized control buttons, to control an electronic device with an original user control interface that is different from the customized user control interface. In operation, a control command of the customized user control interface is encoded according to a selected signal communication protocol and the encoded command is transmitted via a wireless or a wired communication link to an electronic device to be controlled, e.g., a cell phone or a game console. After being transmitted to and received by the device, the encoded command is converted by, e.g., a conversion software installed in the device, into an event code of the operating system of the device. This event code is then executed by the operating system of the device. In this process, the user uses the customized user control interface to operate the device without directly using the user control interface of the device. The customized user control interface can be configured according to the user's preferences and needs.
In one implementation, a method is described to provide a custom software driver in a programmable electronic device to convert a customized command to an event code of an operating system of the programmable electronic device to execute a corresponding function of the programmable electronic device, and to use a custom user interface device, which has a custom user interface different from a user interface of the programmable electronic device, to communicate the customized command from a user to the programmable electronic device. The communication between the custom user interface device and the programmable electronic device may be a wireless communication channel such as an IR or radio link or a wired communication wire such as a USB cable. The custom user interface device provides at least one customized user interface for a user to enter the customized command and a transmitter which generates a signal carrying the customized command.
In another implementation, a method for controlling a game console provides a custom software driver in a game console to convert a customized command to an event code of an operating system of the game console and to cause the operating system to execute a corresponding function of the game console; and to use a custom user interface device, which has a custom user interface different from a user interface of an original game controller for the game console, to transmit the customized command from a user to the game console.
These and other implementations are described in greater detail in the attached drawings, the detailed description and the claims.
Implementations of the custom user interface mechanism for operating an electronic device can include a custom user interface that is customized and is different from the original user control interface of the electronic device, an encoding mechanism to encode a customer command into an encoded command according to a signal communication protocol, a transmitter to transmit to the electronic device a transmission signal that carries the encoded customer command, and a software driver installed in the electronic device to convert the customer command into an event code of the operating system of the electronic device and to cause the event code to be executed by the electronic device. As an example, a user may use the present techniques and devices to provide a custom means of activating phone input functions, such as through an external user joystick, completely different from the default user input mode in the electronic device. Hence, the user's operation of the mobile phone is no longer restricted to the default user interface of the mobile phone and can be adapted to suit the user's preference. In this example, the mobile phone is designed with capabilities for phone programming and interfacing by third-party developers so that the present techniques and devices can be used to provide the user-selected user input mode based on such capabilities of phone programming and interfacing by third-party developers. The software company Symbian, for example, provides the Symbian Operating System (OS) for mobile phones that offer open interfaces to allow developers to access to the phone's operating system and permit certain implementations of the present techniques and devices. See, e.g., Symbian SDK 2.0, Symbian consortium, at www.symbian.com. The present techniques and devices may also be implemented with systems other than Symbian OS.
As an example, the customized user interface 120 is illustrated as multiple customized buttons operated by the user. Alternatively, the customized user interface 120 may be implemented in other forms, such as a touch screen, a voice interface which receives voice input commands based on speech recognition, or a combination of two or more different input modes. In one implementation, the button-based user interface may be used to activate the voice recognition feature of the phone.
Examples for the device 101 in
The user interface device 110 is a microcontroller based device. The button-based user interface 120 may include eight push button inputs and an infrared output. In the illustrated example, the inputs are jacks into which user-selectable buttons can be plugged. A joystick port enabling a standard joystick may be further included to complement the button array. The embedded program developed for the microcontroller 112 monitors the states of the array of input buttons. Upon detecting a button press, the user interface device 110 sends the corresponding infrared code to the phone using the IrDA protocol which is a standard for data transmission under Infrared Data Association. Implementations of the present system may use commodity hardware in the form of infrared LEDs and commodity microcontrollers to keep the cost low. This selection of hardware also permits power requirements to be kept to a minimum. The specific choices for the signal communications between the user interface device 110 and the phone 101 may be configured according to the specific needs and other considerations of the applications. As an example, the infrared link illustrated in
In the example where the phone 101 is based on a Symbia OS, the custom software driver 130 can be designed as a native Symbian OS application. In operation, the driver 130 monitors the infrared port 102 on the phone 101. Upon receiving a code, it determines the corresponding user input event (i.e. joystick left, main menu button press, etc). The driver 130 then determines the appropriate event code and forwards this to the OS. This combination of hardware and software permits complete control of all functions of a Symbian phone running the widely used Series 60 user interface for mobile phones. The software driver 130 may be designed to support the UIQ interface which is a pen-based graphical user interface for Symbian OS found on various phones.
The above example of the user interface mechanism can be used by a phone, accessory, or assistive device manufacturer to enable phone control by individuals with motor impairments. This includes those with developmental conditions such as cerebral palsy or autism, as well as those suffering from the effects of aging, such as arthritis. In order to enable more than the standard phone functionality, the installation of custom software coupled with supplementary hardware could enable many more mobile applications for users that support accessibility and independent living. For example, a mobile phone may be used to control door lock and home automation interfaces and the present custom user interface allows such functions to be accessible by person with disabilities. When implemented with a similar infrared code set to that used by existing commercial wireless IrDA keyboards, the present customized system may work out of the box with existing PDA keyboard drivers.
In addition to enabling control of mobile phones, PDAs and other hand-held devices, the present system may also be used for general control of a wide range of microprocessor-based electronic devices such as a desktop or laptop computer via button/switch access. In the absence of built-in infrared, an inexpensive IrDA USB dongle may be used. Also, depending on the control application being used on the host computer some software configuration (and possibly driver modification) may be required.
The user interface device 110 may be specifically designed to allow for cell phone access for people with motor impairments, in particular those who find it difficult or impossible to press the phone's numeric and menu buttons or operate the small joystick or arrow buttons commonly used in cellphone user interfaces. The user interface device 110 may be configured in different configurations to provide access for people with motor impairments. Voice command features based on voice recognition allow a motor impaired person to operate certain phone functions by simply speaking the commands in lieu of pressing buttons or operating the joystick. For example, instead of the key sequence “menu-button,” “right arrow,” “right arrow,” (to navigate to the “address book” application), and “joystick press” (to launch the address book application), the user would simply activate the voice command feature, and say “contacts” to launch the contacts application. The voice command implementation may be not suitable for some users. For example, the voice recognition system may not have adequate speech recognition capabilities in various situations such as dysarthric users or users with accents. As another example, the voice recognition configuration does not provide the level of privacy for some users. Also, many phones with voice command features require the user to press a button to activate the speech recognition and thus limit the accessibility of this feature to certain users with motor impairments. In addition, many phones with voice command features provide only a limited number of functions with voice commands. In particular, many new applications for downloads are typically not linked to voice commands. This can significantly limit the accessibility of various functions by users with motor impairments, such as control of lights, appliances, and door locks.
The user interface device 110 in
As a specific example, an 8-button user interface 120 was built as a prototype user interface device 110. Research indicates that eight push buttons are sufficient to activate most phone applications and functional features in mobile phones. Among the eight large buttons, four buttons are used to replace the 4 joystick directions. The 5th button is to replace the selection function (pressing the joystick/joypad). The 6th and 7th buttons are used replace the two soft-menu buttons which are present in a majority of cellphones. The 8th button is used to replace the menu button for accessing the application selection screen of a phone.
The prototype user interface device was designed without built-in buttons. Rather, the device had 8 input ports, to which a user can connect 8 buttons of their preference (large, small, different colors, etc.). When a particular button is pressed, the user interface device detects the press and converts the user command associated with the press action into an encoded code which is an 8-bit code. This code is then transmitted to the mobile phone via a selected transmission link (infrared, Bluetooth, cable, etc.) between the user interface device and the phone. Additional bits may be added to the encoded command depending on the transmission methodology used at the physical layer. The software driver for the user interface device installed on the phone receives the code, decodes the received code to determine which button function on the phone is requested by the user, and then sends the operating system an appropriate event code for the phone. Sending 8 bit codes for the eight control buttons used in the prototype user interface device is more than necessary, but it minimizes the probability of erroneous code reception. A full qwerty keyboard may have 104 buttons and thus 208 codes for controlling the buttons when two control codes are used for each button for releasing and pressing of the button. Consequently, using 8-bit codes allows for many more input functions to be used in alternative implementations of the present user interface mechanism.
As an example, consider the case when the user presses the left-arrow button of the eight buttons in the prototype device. The microcontroller in the user interface device detects this press, looks up the code for left-arrow press (which is 0x08 in hexadecimal notation), and then proceeds to send this code to the phone. In this example the IrDA protocol is used to send the code over the infrared at 9600 baud and the microcontroller is AT90S8515 controller. Consequently, the code is framed with the appropriate IrDA stop and stop bytes (0xc0 and 0xc1, respectively), so that the transmitted data is 0xc008c1. Start and stop bits are also added to each byte, so that 30 bits of data in total are transmitted to the phone. The 16-bit timer/counter of the AT90S8515 microcontroller is used to precisely control the timing of the bit intervals for flashing of the infrared LED at the proper rate required for 9600 baud.
The driver on the cellphone was written in C++ in the prototype user interface device but may be written in another high-level language. Referring to
Using such a system of 8 buttons, many phone functions can be activated “as is” with nothing more running on the phone than the driver program. However, for some functionality, such as inputting numerical numbers, another custom software application may be used to facilitate the entry of numerical numbers. This custom software is installed on the phone to be controlled and generates an on-screen numeric keypad on the phone's display screen. In operation, this custom software allows the user to select numbers from the on-screen numeric keypad on the phone's screen. The user uses the 4 direction control buttons in the user interface device to move a selection cursor among the numbers, highlighting the desired number. The 5th button for the selection function is then pressed to select the desired number on the screen. By following this process repeatedly, the user is able to key in a phone number, and through a soft-menu button, to dial the phone number.
Because each numerical number on a phone keypad represents several letters, the user can also input text in the same manner, and the application can also send text messages. Another function of the software, is to display an on-screen qwerty keyboard. In a manner similar to inputting numerical numbers, the user is also able to input text directly, i.e., instead of pressing the “7” button four times for the letter “s”, the user can move the selection field once down and once right to access the letter “s” on the qwerty keyboard. Alternate keyboard layouts are possible, half-keyboards, or even an elimination selection model of letter selection. In this last case, the user “eliminates” certain sections of the keyboard repeatedly, until the smaller area containing the desired letter is present. Again with the letter “s” example, the user selects “up” to highlight the “a” row of the keyboard. Then the select ‘left’ to indicate the desired letter is one of {“a,” “s,” “d,” “f”}, finally the user selects “up” to indicate it is the second of the remaining options. Such alternative text input interfaces are easily implemented in software on the phone.
The above implementations of the custom user interface may be configured to allow a user to use a customized user interface device to control an electronic device with a different user control interface. For example, different electronic game consoles may have different game controllers. Some game players may prefer certain customized game control interface arrangements that are different from a particular game control interface provided by the game console manufacturer. When the operating system of a game console allows for access by a third party software driver like the software driver 130 in the example in
The customized user interface design in
Only a few examples are described. Other variations and enhancements may be made based on what is described here.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/660,787 entitled “CUSTOMIZABLE USER INTERFACE FOR ELECTRONIC DEVICES” and filed Mar. 11, 2006, which is incorporated by reference as part of the specification of this application.
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/US06/09098 | 3/13/2006 | WO | 00 | 11/30/2007 |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60660787 | Mar 2005 | US |
