Patent Application
20080316180
1. Field
The disclosure relates generally to touchscreens employed as keyboards and, more particularly, to a touch screen that provides positive tactile feedback responsive to an actuation of a virtual key depicted thereon.
2. Background Information
Numerous forms of user input devices generally classified as keyboards are well known. With the proliferation of personal computers, personal data assistants, cell phones, and other electronic devices enabling various complex applications, keyboards with numerous keys allowing numeric and/or text entry have become commonplace.
Some keyboards have keys that provide tactile feedback to a user which indicates a successful key actuation. Such positive feedback with each key actuation is known to aid users in rapidly using such keyboards to enter data and carry out other functions, since the user is relieved of having to visually observe each key actuation or using other approaches to be assured that each key actuation is successfully completed. Unfortunately, despite the advantages of providing tactile feedback, the majority of such keyboards suffer the limitation of employing printed legends depicting letters and/or graphical symbols printed directly on the keys to denote a function for each of the keys, and the printed nature of these legends often prevents the keys from being dynamically relabeled to accommodate changes in functions.
Some keyboards providing tactile feedback include mechanical keyboards that employ mechanical switches and provide keycap that move in response to being actuated. The keycaps of the mechanical switches transfer to a user a positive tactile feedback as a result of the movement or “travel” of the keycap between an unactuated position and an actuated position. Other keyboards that provide tactile feedback employ as keys an array of soft metal domes that may be covered with a flexible sheet of material on which legends are printed indicating the locations of the keys. The soft metal domes are collapsible between an undeflected position and a deflected position with a “snap” that can be felt through fingertips (and sometimes heard), thereby providing positive feedback. Still other keyboards providing tactile feedback are so-called “rubber” keyboards that employ a flexible sheet of rubber or plastic with bumps or domes formed therein. Not unlike the aforedescribed soft metal domes, the bumps or domes formed in the flexible sheet are deflectable and may or may not do so with some form of “snap” that might be felt through fingertips.
Other keyboards incorporate a display device depicting virtual keys that may be redrawn with different shapes, sizes and legends, thereby permitting dynamic relabeling of each virtual key. Unfortunately, the majority of such keyboards employ a display device with a rigid surface to which any of a variety of different touch sensors are attached. Although the touch sensors respond to the force of a user actuating the virtual keys, the rigid surface provides no tactile feedback indicating that a key was successfully actuated. This lack of tactile feedback often results in an experience that users find unnatural, and both the thought and the sensation of hitting fingertips against a surface that neither moves nor flexes to the touch is distracting and has often caused users to decrease the rate at which they enter data through such keyboards. As a result, keyboards providing tactile feedback are widely favored over those that do not.
One effort to combine the tactile feedback of a mechanical keyboard with some degree of relabeling of the keys was a game console attachment that provided a small keypad with actuatable rubber keys over which could be positioned different cardboard overlay sheets with different combinations of key labels. Although this permitted the functions of the keys to be changed, it required the user of the keypad to go through the cumbersome process of removing one cardboard overlay sheet and installing another.
Another effort to combine the tactile feedback of a mechanical keyboard with some degree of relabeling of the keys is embodied in various proposals to build a miniature graphical display into each keycap of each mechanical key. Each miniature graphical display in each keycap allows an alterable graphical legend to be displayed by each key, thereby overcoming the limitations of printed legends. However, the expense of providing each keycap with a miniature graphical display is considerable, and this approach still lacks the flexibility of redefining the shape and size of each key as is possible with a touchscreen.
A full understanding of the disclosed and claimed concept can be gained from the following Description when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:
a and 4b present edge-on views of a key module and overlying display module in which a virtual key is actuated in accordance with the disclosed and claimed concept;
a and 5b present more edge-on views of a key module and overlying display module in which a virtual key is actuated in accordance with the disclosed and claimed concept;
a and 6b present still more edge-on views of a key module and overlying display module in which a virtual key is actuated in accordance with the disclosed and claimed concept; and
Similar numerals refer to similar parts throughout the specification.
The display module 100 is a flexible graphics display device that is of a generally sheet-like shape, and generally known as “electronic paper” (“E-paper”) based on various technologies such as those developed by either the Palo Alto Research Center (a subsidiary of Xerox Corporation) or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. Described simply, the functionality of E-paper is very much like a liquid crystal display (LCD) with the exception of being flexible, rather than rigid, because each of the various forms of E-paper are made with a flexible plastic structure in place of the inflexible glass structure commonly used with LCD displays. There are other aspects of the operation of E-paper that differ from an LCD, including the manner in which E-paper is controlled to produce graphical images, but for purposes of this disclosure, a particularly significant characteristic of E-paper is its flexibility. The display module 100 has a display surface 110, and graphical images (including the virtual keys to be discussed in greater detail) may be viewed by a user of the electronic device 1000 by viewing the display surface 110.
The exemplary key module 200a is a widely known and used form of flexible keypad employing a sheet 210a of rubber or flexible plastic on which multiple physical keys 215a have been formed, and which overlies a substrate 220a. In some embodiments, each physical key 215a carries a conductive disk (not shown) that is disposed within that is placed into electrical contact with stationary contacts (not shown) disposed on the substrate 220a. However, as those skilled in the art of keypad design will readily recognize, and as will be made more apparent, the key module 200a may be based on any of a wide variety of technologies that provide keys having an extent of travel upon actuation by a finger of a user of the electronic device 1000. Advantageously, a physical key 215a provides a tactually detectable event, i.e., a tactile feedback, to a user when the physical key 215a is moved between an unactuated position and an actuated position. Such a tactile feedback could be in the nature of, for instance, a click or a tap sensation, or a slight acceleration of at least a portion of the electronic device 1000.
The casing 300 may be of any of a wide variety of configurations and materials. As presented in
The electronic circuit 400 interacts with the user of the electronic device 1000 through the combination of the display module 100 and the key module 200a. The electronic circuit 400 incorporates a processor 410, a keyboard interface 420, a display interface 430, and a storage 450. The processor 410 and the storage 450 together comprise a processor apparatus. The electronic circuit 400 may further incorporate a media storage device 490. As those skilled in the art will readily understand, the processor 410, the keyboard interface 420, the display interface 430, and the storage 450 may be interconnected by any of a wide variety of possible bus architectures and interconnection topologies enabling the interchange of addresses, commands and/or data therebetween. In some embodiments of the electronic device 1000, the entirety of the electronic circuit 400 is disposed upon the casing 300, while in other embodiments of the electronic device 1000, at least a portion of the electronic circuit 400 may be disposed upon another housing (not shown).
The processor 410 may be of any of a variety of forms of processing device including, but not limited to, a specialized processor such as a digital signal processor (DSP), a microcontroller, a general purpose microprocessor, or other form of processing device capable of executing a sequence of instructions. The keyboard interface 420 is coupled to a key module, such as the key module 200a, to receive input therefrom and to provide data representative of that input to the processor 410. The display interface 430 is coupled to the display module 100 to enable the outputting of various graphical images, including virtual keys. Given the touchscreen functionality provided by the combination of the display module 100 and the key module 200a, in some embodiments, the keyboard interface 420 and the display interface 430 may be combined in various ways known to those skilled in the art so as to enhance efficiency and/or functionality.
The storage 450 may be based on any of a variety of data storage technologies including, but not limited to, ROM, EPROM, FLASH, SRAM, DRAM, PRAM, magnetic core, etc. Where the processor 410 is a microcontroller or processing portion of a larger integrated circuit, the processor 410 and the storage 450 may be combined in ways that will be familiar to those skilled in the art. The media storage device 490, if present, may be based on any of a variety of data storage technologies including, but not limited to, ROM, EPROM, FLASH, magnetic, optical, magneto-optical, etc., and may employ either a removable form of storage media (e.g., using removable media such as storage media 491) or a nonremovable form of storage media (e.g., a hard disk).
Stored within the storage 450 are a number of routines are executable on the processor 410 and that comprise at least a user interface routine 451 along with one or more of application routines 455 and 456. In some embodiments, the user interface routine 451 either is a component of or provides support for a control program or operating system (not shown) that coordinates the execution of sequences of instructions of the application routines 455 and 456. The application routines 455 and 456 may each be any of a variety of forms of software from a utility such as a photo viewer to a suite of office productivity software including word processor and spreadsheet software. Although it is commonplace for a user interface routine that would support a touchscreen or other similar input and output devices to be a piece of software separate from an application routine, and although the discussion of embodiments that follows presents such a configuration of software, those skilled in the art will readily recognize that one or more application routines (such as the application routines 455 and 456 or other application routines) may incorporate user interface routine functionality in other possible embodiments.
In embodiments that incorporate the media storage device 490, the storage medium 491 may contain a copy of or an update to the user interface routine 451, one or both of the application routines 455 and 456, or another piece of software incorporating a sequence of instructions which, when executed on the processor 410, control the depiction of virtual keys and the receipt of input from a user of the electronic device 1000 that will shortly be described. The storage medium 491 may be provided by a manufacturer or supplier of the electronic device 1000 as a backup copy of at least a portion of the contents of the storage 450. Alternatively, the storage media 491 may be employed by a user to archive a version of at least a portion of the contents of the storage 450.
The processor 410 accesses the memory 450 to read and then execute a sequence of instructions of the user interface routine 451. In executing such a sequence of instructions, the processor 410 is caused to operate the display interface 430 to produce one or more graphical images on the display module 100, including a graphical image that represents a virtual key that overlies at least one of the physical keys 215a of the key module 200a. Then, the processor 410 is caused to await receipt of an input from the key module 200a through the keyboard interface 420 indicating that a physical key 215a underlying the virtual key has been actuated, thereby indicating that a user of the electronic device has actuated the virtual key.
In some embodiments, one or more data structures (not shown) that are stored within the storage 450 and that specify the graphical images and/or relative placement of the virtual keys 115 are retrieved and employed by the processor 410 to produce and position the virtual keys 115 on the display module 100. In some of these embodiments, the user interface routine 451 may incorporate one or more such data structures which are employed when virtual keys related to the functionality of the user interface routine 451 are to be displayed, while one or more of the application routines 455 and 456 each separately incorporate similar or different data structures for virtual keys related to their functionality. In others of these embodiments, the installation of one or both of the application routines 455 and 456 may entail providing such data structures related to each of the application routines 455 and 456 to the user interface routine 451 for storage in a predetermined portion of the storage 450 that is reserved for such data structures. Such data structures may also be used by the processor 410 and/or the keyboard interface 420 to map an indication of an actuation of a physical key 215a with the corresponding virtual key 115 in determining which of the virtual keys 115 is being actuated by a user of the electronic device 1000.
a and 4b depict the physical act of a user of the electronic device 1000 actuating a virtual key. Two edge-on views of a portion of the key module 200a overlain with a portion of the display module 100 are presented.
As has been described, and as is shown in
a and 5b depict the physical act of a user of the electronic device 1000 having the display module 100 and an alternate key module 200b actuating a virtual key. Two edge-on views of a portion of the key module 200b overlain with a portion of the display module 100 are presented.
When the actuation force is removed from the indicated portion of the key module 200b, the indicated physical keys 215b move from their actuated positions back to their unactuated positions. Movement of either or both of the physical keys 215b between the unactuated and actuated positions provides to a user a tactually detectable event, i.e., a tactile feedback. That is, the physical keys 215b may be advantageously configured such that only a single physical key 215b of each adjacent plurality thereof provides a tactile feedback in moving between its unactuated and actuated positions. This would enable an actuation force applied to or removed from an adjacent plurality of physical keys 215b to result in a single tactile feedback rather than a plurality of tactile feedback sensations. Such a configuration would provide a consistent tactile feedback, i.e., a single tactile feedback sensation, regardless of whether a single physical key 215b is moved between its actuated and unactuated positions, or whether an adjacent plurality of such physical keys 215b are moved between their actuated and unactuated positions.
a and 6b depict the physical act of a user of the electronic device 1000 having the display module 100 and another alternate key module 200c actuating a virtual key. Two edge-on views of a portion of the key module 200c overlain with a portion of the display module 100 are presented.
A comparison of
While specific embodiments of the disclosed and claimed concept have been described in detail, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that various modifications and alternatives to those details could be developed in light of the overall teachings of the disclosure. Accordingly, the particular arrangements disclosed are meant to be illustrative only and not limiting as to the scope of the disclosed and claimed concept which is to be given the full breadth of the claims appended and any and all equivalents thereof. Moreover, it is noted that the elements described herein can be assembled or arranged in any combination without departing from the present concept.
