Patent Application
20120056823
This invention relates to remotely controllable electronic devices and more particularly to wireless touch-screen devices for remotely controlling electronic devices.
Today's homes and offices often include a wide variety of electronic devices, such as televisions (TVs), DVD players/recorders, digital video recorders (DVRs), set-top boxes (STBs), and various audio receivers and players. Such electronic devices often can be operated by remote controls that transmit optical or radio frequency (RF) signals to complementary receivers in the electronic devices. Of course, a user having a wide variety of electronic devices also has a wide variety of remote controls, which clutter the user's environment and which can be difficult for the user to remember how to use.
So-called universal remote controls have been developed that can be configured by a user such that one remote control can operate all of the user's devices. Besides the dedicated devices that are commercially available, the increasing popularity of netbook and tablet computers and “smart” phones that include capable programmable digital signal processors suggests them as candidates for universal remote controls.
Although universal remote controls can reduce clutter, they are unavoidably complex devices because of the wide variety of non-standard commands employed by the wide variety of electronic devices. Thus, setting up a universal remote control can be a complicated process that is difficult for even a motivated user. For example, the user may have to arrange the remote control to provide a series of trial signals to each of a user's electronic devices in turn, so that each device's responses train the remote control on which signals belong to which function of which electronic device. Even after being set up, a user can still find it difficult to remember how to use the remote control to operate the user's electronic devices.
Touch-screen devices and more recent multi-touch-screen devices, such as the iPad available from Apple Computer and many other tablet, netbook, and other computers available from many manufacturers, have become increasingly popular and are beginning to be configured as remote controls for user's electronic devices.
User gestures have been used to control electronic devices. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,340,077 to Gokturk et al. states that three-dimensional position information obtained with a camera is used to identify the gesture created by a user's body part of interest. At one or more instances of an interval, the posture of a body part is recognized based on the part's shape, position, and orientation. The posture of the body part over the instances is recognized as a combined gesture, and the gesture is classified for determining an input into a related electronic device.
For another example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,191,773 to Maruno et al. states that it relates to an interface apparatus for making input and output of appliances. The interface apparatus includes means for recognizing the shape or move of the hand of an operator, means for displaying the features of the shape or move of the hand recognized as a special shape on a screen, and means for controlling the information displayed on the screen by the special shape. Different user hand shapes or moves can select different user electronic devices.
For another example, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2010/0180298 by Kim et al. states that it relates to a terminal device coupled to a broadcasting receiving apparatus. The terminal device includes a communication unit which receives electronic program guide (EPG) information from the Internet, a display unit that displays EPG information, and a control unit that controls the broadcasting receiving apparatus to perform an operation corresponding to a selection.
A Touch Gesture Reference Guide by C. Villamor et al., available at www.lukew.com, describes gestures used for most touch commands, using gestures to support user actions, visual representations of gestures, and outlines of how popular software platforms support touch gestures.
If a user wants to control a device with gestures, the user first needs to identify the intended device to the remote control, which is to say that the user first has to select the remote control's address context. A user usually selects the address context by pressing a button or icon on a display in the remote control. This can be awkward because the user needs to know or be informed of the address context that the remote control is in, i.e., is the TV or the radio selected now when I want to use the “channel up gesture”?
In accordance with aspects of this invention, there is provided a method of selecting and controlling an electronic device by gestures on a remote control. The method includes determining a number of fingers touching a screen of the remote control; based on the number determined, setting an address context corresponding to the electronic device; identifying a gesture made by the fingers on the screen; and based on the gesture identified, generating a corresponding command to be sent to the electronic device corresponding to the set address context.
Also in accordance with aspects of this invention, there is provided a remote control for selecting and controlling an electronic device. The remote control includes a touch-sensitive screen, a programmable digital signal processor in communication with the touch-sensitive screen, and a transmitter in communication with the programmable digital signal processor. The processor is configured to determine a number of fingers touching the touch-sensitive screen, to set based on the number determined an address context corresponding to the electronic device, to identify a gesture made by the fingers on the screen, and to generate based on the gesture identified a corresponding command to be transmitted to the electronic device corresponding to the set address context.
Also in accordance with aspects of this invention, there is provided a computer-readable medium having stored instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to carry out a method of selecting and controlling an electronic device by gestures on a remote control. The method includes (a) determining a number of fingers touching a screen of the remote control; (b) based on the number determined, setting an address context corresponding to the electronic device; (c) identifying a gesture made by the fingers on the screen; and (d) based on the gesture identified, generating a corresponding command to be sent to the electronic device corresponding to the set address context.
The several features, objects, and advantages of this invention will be understood by reading this description in conjunction with the drawings, in which like reference characters indicate like parts and:
In this description, the term “remote control” means any kind of device that has a touch-sensitive screen and programmable digital signal processor and that is used to control the operation of an other electronic device by sending one or more appropriate commands directly, e.g., by line-of-sight or RF signals, or indirectly, e.g., by wired or wireless Ethernet or other network signals, to the other electronic device.
For example, the remote control can be configured such that a user's touching the screen 110 with the tip or tips of one or more fingers and flicking, or quickly sliding or swiping, the finger or fingers to the left or right are gestures that change the selected channel on an electronic device 104, 106. A finger flick to the right can be called a “channel up” gesture, and a finger flick to the left can be called a “channel down” gesture. In a similar way, a finger flick upwardly on the screen 110 can be a “volume up” gesture, and a finger flick downwardly on the screen 110 can be a “volume down” gesture. Other finger-tip movements can correspond to other electronic device actions, and the artisan will understand that the actions corresponding to particular finger-tip movements can be varied.
The inventors have recognized that the number of finger tips touching the screen 110 can select the electronic device 104, 106 that the remote control 102 should interact with, enabling the same basic gestures to control the same basic operational functions of any selected device. For example, as depicted in
The artisan will understand that correspondences between the numbers of fingers and the remote control and electronic devices can be predetermined or chosen by a user during set up of the arrangement 100. Using a touch-sensitive or equivalent screen and the number of fingers in accordance with this invention is advantageous in that a user can interact with multiple devices via a single remote control using gestures without knowing the remote control's addressing context in advance.
A user inputs a gesture on the touch screen 110 that causes the processor 404, using information in the memories 406, 408, to generate the appropriate control command(s) and transmit the command(s) via the transmitter 402 to the appropriate electronic device 104, 106. Thus, as depicted in
It will be appreciated that procedures described above are carried out repetitively as necessary, for example, to respond to the time-varying nature of communication signals exchanged by transmitters and receivers. Assemblies implementing this invention can be included in, for example, computers, servers, wireless communication network base stations, and the like.
To facilitate understanding, many aspects of this invention are described in terms of sequences of actions that can be performed by, for example, elements of a programmable computer system. It will be recognized that various actions could be performed by specialized circuits (e.g., discrete logic gates interconnected to perform a specialized function or application-specific integrated circuits), by program instructions executed by one or more processors, or by a combination of both.
Moreover, this invention can additionally be considered to be embodied entirely within any form of computer-readable storage medium having stored therein an appropriate set of instructions for use by or in connection with an instruction-execution system, apparatus, or device, such as a computer-based system, processor-containing system, or other system that can fetch instructions from a medium and execute the instructions. As used here, a “computer-readable medium” can be any means that can contain, store, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction-execution system, apparatus, or device. The computer-readable medium can be, for example but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer-readable medium include an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a random-access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), and an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory).
Thus, the invention may be embodied in many different forms, not all of which are described above, and all such forms are contemplated to be within the scope of the invention.
It is emphasized that the terms “comprises” and “comprising”, when used in this application, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, or components and do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, components, or groups thereof.
The particular embodiments described above are merely illustrative and should not be considered restrictive in any way. The scope of the invention is determined by the following claims, and all variations and equivalents that fall within the range of the claims are intended to be embraced therein.
