Patent Application
20100281268
Adaptive input devices include input devices that can change their appearance based on an operating context. One example of an adaptive input device is a touch screen. Touch screens and other adaptive input devices for computers have become increasingly popular for their data input flexibility. This flexibility enables a user to set a personalized configuration for the touch screen, which may uniquely suit a user in a particular operating environment.
However, one drawback with making such a personalized configuration for a touch screen is that the personalized configuration is difficult to transfer to a second adaptive input device, especially when a first and second touch screen are different types. Users of multiple touch screens are forced to laboriously configure each touch screen separately, which can be time-consuming and tiresome. The user may be forced to remember numerous settings that were inputted in the distant past. Further, the manner of making the settings may differ from device to device, further complicating the task. As a result a user may erroneously input personalized configuration settings for a second adaptive input device, or may give up on personalizing the second adaptive input device entirely.
Methods and systems for personalizing an adaptive input device having a dynamically updateable display region are provided herein. One exemplary method includes sending an identity data query from a server to a computing device operatively coupled to an adaptive input device. The method further includes receiving identity data at the server from the computing device. The identity data includes one or more of a user identifier, a role identifier, a device identifier and a content identifier. The method further includes retrieving profile data from a profile storage module of the server, the profile data being based on the identity data, and the profile data including one or more of device-specific settings, application-specific settings, and user-specific settings for the adaptive input device. The method further includes sending the profile data to the computing device to update the visual appearance of the display region.
This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter. Furthermore, the claimed subject matter is not limited to implementations that solve any or all disadvantages noted in any part of this disclosure.
The present disclosure is related to an adaptive input device that can provide input to a variety of different computing systems. The adaptive input device may include one or more physical or virtual controls that a user can activate to effectuate a desired user input. The adaptive input device is capable of dynamically changing its visual appearance to facilitate user input. As an example, the adaptive input device may dynamically change the appearance of one or more depressible buttons (e.g., keys of a keyboard). The visual appearance of the adaptive input device may be dynamically changed according to user-specific settings (e.g., user preferences), application scenarios, system scenarios, etc., as described in more detail below.
As explained with reference to
Computing system 10 may further include a monitor, such as monitor 16a and monitor 16b. While computing system 10 is shown including two monitors, it is to be understood that computing systems including fewer or more monitors are within the scope of this disclosure. The monitor(s) may be used to visually present visual information to a user, via an active desktop managed by an operating system of the computing device.
Computing system 10 may further include a peripheral input device 18 configured to receive input via a stylus 20. Computing device 14 may process an input received from the peripheral input device 18 and display a corresponding visual output 19 on the monitor(s) via the active desktop, while the input received from the peripheral input device 18 may not affect the appearance of the adaptive input device 12, which may be managed by a hidden desktop. While a drawing tablet is shown as an exemplary peripheral input device, it is to be understood that the present disclosure is compatible with virtually any type of peripheral input device (e.g., keyboard, number pad, mouse, track pad, trackball, touch pad, etc.).
In the illustrated embodiment, adaptive input device 12 includes a plurality of depressible buttons, such as depressible button 22, and touch controls, such as touch control 24. The adaptive input device may be configured to recognize when a button is pressed or otherwise actuated. The adaptive input device may also be configured to recognize touch input directed to a portion of touch control 24. In this way, the adaptive input device may recognize user input. Touch input may be detectable, for example, by electrical sensors, such as a capacitive sensor, and/or optical sensors, such as infrared cameras. In some embodiments, one or more depressible buttons may also be configured to recognize user input via touch input at one or more touch-sensitive input regions of the depressible button.
Depressible buttons and touch controls may have dynamically changeable, or updateable, visual appearances. In particular, a button image 26 may be presented on a button, and such a button image may be adaptively updated. A button image may be changed to visually signal a changing functionality of the button, for example. Furthermore, the computing device 14 may display an image across more than one buttons.
Similarly, the touch control 24 may have a dynamically changeable visual appearance. In particular, various types of touch images 25 may be presented by the touch control, and such touch images 25 may be adaptively updated. As an example, the touch control 24 may be used to visually present one or more different touch images 25 that serve as virtual controls (e.g., virtual buttons, virtual dials, virtual sliders, etc.), each of which may be activated responsive to a touch input directed to that touch image. The number, size, shape, color, and/or other aspects of the touch images 25 can be changed to visually signal changing functionality of the touch controls.
The adaptive input device may also present a background image 28 in an area that is not occupied by button images or touch images. The visual appearance of the background image 28 also may be dynamically updated. The visual appearance of the background may be set to create a desired contrast with the button images and/or the touch images, to create a desired ambiance, to signal a mode of operation, or for virtually any other purpose.
By adjusting one or more of the button images (e.g., button image 26), the touch images 25, and/or the background image 28, the visual appearance of the adaptive input device 12 may be dynamically adjusted and customized. As an example,
The visual appearance of different regions of the adaptive input device 12, as well as input methods and input modalities of the adaptive input device 12 may be customized based on a large variety of parameters. As further elaborated with reference to
In one example, if a user selects a word processing application, the button images may be automatically updated to display a familiar QWERTY keyboard layout. Button images also may be automatically updated with icons, menu items, etc. from the selected application. For example, when using a word processing application, one or more button images may be used to present frequently used word processing operations such as “cut,” “paste,” “underline,” “bold,” etc. Furthermore, the touch control 24 may be automatically updated to display touch images 25 for virtual controls tailored to controlling the word processing application.
As an example, at t0,
In another example, if a user selects a gaming application, the depressible buttons and/or touch control may be automatically updated to display frequently used gaming controls. For example, at t2,
As illustrated in
In an alternate embodiment, an adaptive input device may include touch controls and no depressible keys, such as a touch screen user input device 40 (e.g., a handheld computing device) shown in
It may be appreciated that a user may customize the visual appearance of an adaptive input device based on user-specific settings. For example, the user may adjust which button images and/or touch images are presented in different scenarios.
Turning now to
The adaptive input device 210 may also include a plurality of non-depressible touch controls 262, where one or more touch controls 262 may each include a display region 264 and a touch-sensitive input region 266. The display regions and/or touch-sensitive input regions of the non-depressible touch controls 262 may be understood to operate similarly to the display regions and/or touch-sensitive input regions of the depressible buttons as described herein. That is, display regions may be dynamically updateable to change the visual appearance of the display region and touch-sensitive input regions may be sensitive to touch input.
The system 200 includes a computing device 208 operatively coupled to the adaptive input device 210. The use of “operatively coupled” herein may include coupling via a wired configuration, or a wireless configuration as in some examples. The computing device 208 may have an identity module 214 containing identity data 216 identifying a user of the computing device (e.g., user identifier 218), a desired role of the user (e.g., role identifier 220), the type of adaptive input device (e.g., device identifier 222), and components and/or capabilities of the computing device 208 interoperable with the adaptive input device 210 (e.g., content identifier 224).
The identity module 214 of the computing device 208 may be configured to receive the user identifier 218 via user input 226 at the adaptive input device 210. The user identifier 218 may include, or be related to, a user name used by a user to login to a user-created account. As will be discussed later, it is desirable for the computing device 208 to have knowledge of the user identifier so that the adaptive input device 210 can be configured according to the associated user's preferences. Furthermore, the computing device 208 may include code to receive an authentication or authorization identifier, such as a password 228 via the adaptive input device 210, and to authenticate the user identifier 218 based on the password 228.
The role identifier 220 may also be received at the identity module 214 via user input 226 received from the adaptive input device 210, and included in the identity data 216 at the computing device 208. In such a case, the user input 226 may specify a role (e.g., at home, at work, travelling, gaming, communications, media editing, etc.) the user wishes to employ with respect to the configuration of the user's current adaptive input device. In another case, the role identifier 220 may be automatically updated and/or retrieved based on the geographic location of the adaptive input device 210. For example, a global positioning system, or other localizing technique or system, may detect the location of an adaptive input device 210 and send a role identifier, based on the detected location, to the computing device 208. In this way, a role identifier may be associated with a particular location, and/or a geographic location may be associated with a role identifier. Thus, a first adaptive keyboard device may be identified as having a “home” role identifier when the adaptive input device 210 is located at a user's home address, and the same adaptive input device 210 may be associated with the “travelling” role identifier when it is located at an airport or on a train, as some examples. Further, it may be appreciated that each user identifier and each device identifier may be associated with one or more role identifiers, enabling a particular user or adaptive input device to be identified with a particular role.
Accordingly, the identity data 216 includes the device identifier 222 indicating an adaptive input device type, such as the make, model and/or version of a particular adaptive input device. The device identifier 222 may also be associated with a location and/or a role identifier, if a particular device is consistently used in a particular location or in conjunction with a particular role identifier.
The identity data 216 also includes the content identifier 224 indicating one or more components of the computing device 208 accessible to, or interoperable with, the adaptive input device 210. For a first user identifier, first role identifier, and first device identifier (e.g., a “home computer”), a first content identifier may indicate that audio content, video content, and photographic content are interoperable with the adaptive input device. That is, aspects of the respective content can be representatively displayed on display regions of an adaptive input device, and/or aspects of the respective content can be functionally associated with depressible buttons of the adaptive input device 210. In contrast, for the first user identifier, first role identifier, and a second device identifier (e.g., a “work computer”), a content identifier may indicate that the content interoperable with the adaptive input device includes a documents folder, an email account, and a personal schedule, for example.
Also, the content identifier indicating the documents folder, email account, and personal schedule may be available for a second user identifier, second role identifier, and the first device identifier (e.g., “home computer”), and so on. Thus, it may be appreciated that each content identifier can be associated with one or more device identifiers, user identifiers, and/or role identifiers. Content identifiers may also indicate that a particular component is to be enabled upon detection of the component by the computing device.
As may be appreciated by the description herein, any change to one of the identifiers of the identity data 216 (e.g., user identifier 218, role identifier 220, device identifier 222, content identifier 224, etc.) may trigger a change in another identifier of the identity data 216. For example, when a user identifier is changed, it may trigger a change of role identifier and content identifier, and may not trigger a change of device identifier. However, a change to a content identifier, for example, may not trigger a change to any of the other identifiers.
The identity module 214 of computing device 208 may receive an identity data query 230 at the computing device 208 from a server 232. The identity data query 230 may be a query to at least one library of the computing device 208. In one example, the queried libraries may be standard libraries of an adaptive input software client, or adaptive input service hosted on the computing device 208. In other examples, an identity data query may be a query to an identity authentication input device, an identity brokerage service, or any other input mechanism that is configured for authentication of an adaptive input device. Thus, the identity data query 230 may be recognized at the computing device 208 if the computing device 208 includes the adaptive input software client or adaptive input service configured to communicate with the server 232 in the ways described herein, or if the computing device is otherwise authenticated, for example, by a third party source. An adaptive input device may include a public/private key pair, password, or another type of identity, authentication, or authorization technology in order to authenticate an adaptive input device to software and/or services on a computing device. Such a key pair, or password, may be input by a user and/or downloaded from an authentication server, as some examples, in order to authenticate the device.
For exemplary system 200, it may be assumed that any software clients for recognizing identity data queries, for sending identity data and receiving profile data, as will be described, are installed. Thus, in the exemplary system 200, the identity module 214 may send the identity data 216 (including the user identifier 218, role identifier 220, device identifier 222 and content identifier 224) to the server 232 responsive to the receipt of the identity data query 230.
When the server 232 receives the identity data 216, it may retrieve related profile data 234 from a profile storage module 236. That is, the profile data 234 is related to the identity data 216 received at the server 232. Each combination of identifiers in the identity data 216 may be associated with a distinct set of profile data 234 for configuration of adaptive input device 210. As another example, more than one combination of identifiers may be associated with a same set of profile data for configuration of the adaptive input device 210.
The profile data 234 may include device-specific settings 238, application-specific settings 240, and/or user-specific settings 242 for the configuration of the adaptive input device 210. For example, device-specific settings 238 may include a data transport protocol type (e.g., wired USB, wireless USB, BLUETOOTH, TCP/IP, etc.), data transport protocol capabilities (e.g., data throughput), graphics hardware capabilities, general processing capabilities, operating system type and/or the capabilities of the operating system. Application-specific settings 240 may include settings specified by applications (e.g., application programs) running on the computing device 208 during the use of the adaptive input device 210. For example, applications running and having access to the adaptive input device 210 may specify a desired layout and/or touch-sensitivity threshold of the adaptive input device 210 for a particular application. User-specific settings 242 may include, for example, an adaptive keyboard device theme or background image, RSS feeds to display on the adaptive input device 210, functional key remapping for accessibility, and other preferences specified by a user via user input 226.
The computing device 208 may accordingly include a configuration module 244 for receiving profile data 234 from the server 232. A configuration message 246 including instructions to change a visual appearance of one or more depressible buttons 212 and/or instructions to change a functionality of one or more depressible buttons 212 may be sent to the adaptive input device 210. More specifically, the configuration message 246 may be sent to change a visual appearance of one or more display regions and/or to change a functionality of one or more touch-sensitive input regions based on the profile data 234. The configuration message 246 may be sent responsive to the sending of profile data 234 to the computing device 208, or may be sent at predetermined time intervals so that the adaptive input device 210 receives configuration updates in the configuration message 246.
The server 232 described in this example may be a distributed network of a plurality of servers, collectively configured to operate as the described server 232. Similarly, the computing device 208 can be a distributed network of a plurality of computing devices, collectively configured to perform as the computing device 208.
It will be appreciated that the profile storage module 236, and/or some clients and various respective software components described above may be stored in a mass storage 248 and executed on a processor 250 using portions of memory 252 and may further be configured to communicate with software on other computing devices across one or more computer networks 254, via input/output module 256. It will further be appreciated that the server 232 may be a single server, or multiple distributed servers interoperating across one or more computer networks 254 (e.g., Local area network, Internet, etc.), and the components of profile storage module 236, and/or some clients may be implemented on these distributed devices. In alternate examples, several different computer networks may be used for transmission of identity data queries, identity data, and profile data, etc.
Turning now to
At 310, the method 300 includes receiving at least a user identifier, and/or a role identifier, at a computing device via an adaptive input device. As described with respect to
The method may include, at 312 receiving a password via the adaptive input device, and authenticating the user identifier based on the password.
At 314, the method 300 includes sending an identity data query from a server to a computing device operatively coupled to an adaptive input device. The method 300 accordingly includes receiving the identity data query at the computing device from the server at 316, and sending identity data (including the user identifier) to the server from the computing device at 318, responsive to the identity data query.
Thus, at 320, the method 300 includes receiving identity data at the server from the computing device, the identity data including one or more of a user identifier, a role identifier, a device identifier and a content identifier as described above. Thus, the method 300 may include retrieving profile data from a profile storage module of the server at 322, the profile data being based on the identity data.
Profile data, as described with respect to the systems and methods described herein, may include one or more preferences (i.e. settings) included in one or more of the device-specific settings, application-specific settings, and/or user-specific settings for the adaptive input device. In some examples, a preference may be set as a device-specific setting or application-specific setting, an then may be re-set by a user to be an overriding user-specific setting, and vice versa.
One example of a preference is a peripheral device preference. Peripheral device preferences may include a camera preference indicating how to configure the adaptive keyboard layout based on a camera plug-in, and/or during camera use. Another type of peripheral device preference may be a display preference indicating how to configure an adaptive input device layout based on a display layout, and/or how to interoperate a display and adaptive input device.
Input method preferences are another example of preferences stored in profile data. Input method preferences may include gesture-detection thresholds, such as a technique for detecting gestures (e.g., touch-sensitive capacitive sensors, camera-based technique). Furthermore, input method preferences may include a proximity threshold, indicating the closeness of a gesture to the keyboard for detection. Further still, input method preferences may include specifications for computing functions associated with particular buttons or groups of buttons. A capacitive threshold for detecting a touch may also be included in the profile data, indicating the capacitive difference threshold between two points on the adaptive input device.
Other types of profile data may include a security preference, such as a time to adaptive input device inactivation threshold, and a sharing preference indicating whether other users can view profile data of a first user, and/or whether other users can use the profile data of a first user, etc. Further, profile data may include a performance preference, such as a graphical processing unit performance, a data throughput rate, and a preferred performance level. In one example, a user may select a performance level for a particular gaming software application to interact with an adaptive input device with “highest possible performance”, regardless of other software applications running on the computing device. In another example, the performance level for a gaming software application on an adaptive input device may be set to “auto throttle” (i.e. to automatically select) the performance level based on the computing power of the computing device and other software applications running on the computing device. Even further, profile data may include a scenario preference for one of a plurality of adaptive input device scenarios, a graphical layout preference (e.g., QWERTY keyboard, Dvorak keyboard, etc.), and a language preference (e.g., English, Spanish, etc.). It will be appreciated that the scenario preference may be for one of a plurality of predefined or user defined adaptive input device scenarios that are managed by an optimization tool for the hidden desktop of the adaptive input device. The scenarios may be workflow or location-based, for example. Examples of such scenarios include office worker, mobile worker, task worker, contract or offshore worker, and access from home. Each scenario has associated preferences that are used by the optimization tool to organize and specify the behavior of the hidden desktop.
Profile data may also include access to other user identifiers associated with a first user identifier. For example, receiving profile data at a computing device may include receiving other user identifiers associated with the first user identifier and other passwords for the other identifiers, such that a user may, for example, be allowed access to his/her email. In this way, information sources associated with the first user identifier can be leveraged with the systems and methods described herein to quickly and easily gain access to information sources, such as email, a user may desire access to. In one example, access to these other user identifiers associated with the first user identifier may be a user-specific setting, such that a user of the first user identifier may opt-in or opt-out of this setting.
Returning to
It will be appreciated that the computing devices described herein may be any suitable computing device configured to execute the programs described herein. For example, the computing devices may be a mainframe computer, personal computer, laptop computer, portable data assistant (PDA), mobile internet device (MID), networked computing device, or other suitable computing device, and may be connected to each other via computer networks, such as the Internet. These computing devices typically include a processor and associated volatile and non-volatile memory, and are configured to execute programs stored in non-volatile memory using portions of volatile memory and the processor. As used herein, the term “program” refers to software or firmware components that may be executed by, or utilized by, one or more computing devices described herein, and is meant to encompass individual or groups of executable files, data files, libraries, drivers, scripts, database records, markup languages, etc. It will be appreciated that computer-readable media may be provided having program instructions stored thereon, which upon execution by a computing device, cause the computing device to execute the methods described above and cause operation of the systems described above.
It should be understood that the embodiments herein are illustrative and not restrictive, since the scope of the invention is defined by the appended claims rather than by the description preceding them, and all changes that fall within metes and bounds of the claims, or equivalence of such metes and bounds thereof are therefore intended to be embraced by the claims.
