Patent Application
20140365886
With the advent of computer software, a variety of user interfaces (UI) have been developed for allowing users to interact with software functionality and a variety of documents and other content. A number of UI interaction models have been used including models for allowing users to surface and navigate to interesting content items, notifying users when something is changed in a document, and allowing navigation to a document linearly using vertical or horizontal scrollbars. However, such systems typically make it difficult for a user to see interesting items that are located relative to each other and within a document as a whole. For example, when comments have been added to a document, current user interface interaction models do not allow a user to readily determine who added comments to a document, which comments are new relative to other comments, which pages in a document have comments, where comments are located relative to each other, and how many comments there are on a given page of a document. Thus, there is no way for a user to navigate directly to a particular comment with a single click or other user interaction. Instead, users must scroll until they find a desired comment, or use a next/previous button in a review section of a user interface to iterate through comments one at a time. Similarly, there is often a separate navigation pane for navigating through sections and/or chapters of a document. In general, having separate experiences for locating important places in a document and overall document navigation is inefficient and confusing.
Some software applications may allow for highlighting in a scrollbar to convey information, for example, by placing highlighted marks on a scrollbar to indicate where on a page a search term is found. Other systems may allow a mark or other indication for recognizing when a user has created a “to-do” item, followed by a highlighting of a location in a scrollbar associated with the “to-do” indication. However, such systems are limited because they provide information only about one or two points of interest in a document or other content item, they restrict themselves to vertical scrollbars, and they do not provide rich information, such as a “peek” at the area of interest, at-a-glance summaries, or live information in a collaboration/authoring scenario. In addition, such systems are not easily navigable for quickly navigating to an area in a document at which an interesting item is located. Moreover, such systems are not touch-optimized and are typically limited to a relatively small set of software and development tools.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that embodiments of the present invention have been made.
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 as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.
Embodiments of the present invention solve the above and other problems by providing use of scrollbars as live notification areas. A vertical or horizontal scrollbar or scrollbar-like navigation component may be used as both a navigation tool and as a live notification area in which a variety of valuable, interesting or other information may be presented. According to one embodiment, in-document navigation may be provided wherein a horizontal scrollbar, vertical scrollbar, or scrollbar-like user interface component may allow users to quickly navigate through a document by tapping/clicking on a particular location in the scrollbar or scrollbar-like component (hereafter collectively “scrollbar”) or by dragging the scroll box/button in the scrollbar to a particular location. Marks or other icons and/or indicators may be provided on the scrollbar for conveying information and notifications to a user. Information and/or notification types that may be indicated on a scrollbar may include user-created items, document structure information, live collaboration statistics, all-up summary information, as well as tool tips for providing alerts and peeks or previews of interest to a navigating user. According to another embodiment, cross-document navigation is provided wherein a horizontal or vertical pane (with scroll bar like navigation movement) may be provided for allowing a user to see and navigate graphical representations (e.g., text and/or thumbnails) a variety of documents or other content items, wherein the graphical representations may include summary text or icons for providing a variety of information to the user about associated represented documents and other content items.
The details of one or more embodiments are set forth in the accompanying drawings and description below. Other features and advantages will be apparent from a reading of the following detailed description and a review of the associated drawings. It is to be understood that the following detailed description is explanatory only and is not restrictive of the invention as claimed.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this disclosure, illustrate various embodiments of the present invention.
As briefly described above, embodiments of the present invention are directed to using scrollbars and scrollbar-like user interface components as navigation tools and as live notification areas with which in-document navigation and cross-document navigation may be accomplished and in which may be presented one or more marks, icons, or information previews for providing useful information about various aspects of one or more documents or other content items. The following detailed description refers to the accompanying drawings. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers are used in the drawings and the following description to refer to the same or similar elements. While embodiments of the invention may be described, modifications, adaptations, and other implementations are possible. For example, substitutions, additions, or modifications may be made to the elements illustrated in the drawings, and the methods described may be modified by substituting, reordering, or adding stages to the disclosed methods. Accordingly, the following detailed description does not limit the invention but, instead, the proper scope of the invention is defined by the appended claims.
As described above, embodiments of the present invention provide for use of scrollbars (vertical and horizontal) and scrollbar-like user interface components for providing useful navigation inside a given document or content item and between a plurality of documents or content items, and for providing live notification to a navigating user of information associated with various positions or locations within a given document or content item or across one or more of a plurality of documents or content items. According to embodiments, navigation may be linear (e.g., scrolling right/left and up/down), or navigation may be nonlinear where selection of a given point on a scrollbar (e.g., touching a touch-optimized scrollbar, clicking a scrollbar, etc.) causes an automatic navigation to the corresponding point in a document or other content item. Such linear and nonlinear navigation is described in further detail below. Navigation components, such as horizontal or vertical scrollbars, scrollbar-like components, or navigable horizontal or vertical arrays of document or other content item representations may be used both as in-document and cross-document navigation tools and as live notification areas in which a variety of valuable information may be presented.
According to embodiments, in-document navigation and notification may be provided via one or more marks and/or icons of various shapes and colors which may be displayed on a scrollbar (vertical or horizontal) or scrollbar-like user interface component (hereafter “scrollbar”) for conveying such information as presence of user-created items in or associated with a document or other content item. For example, a mark and/or icon may be displayed on a variety of different scrollbar types, as described above, for indicating a location in a document or other content item of a bookmark, a flag, a personal “to-do” or task item, one or more user-created comments, footnotes, ideas including collaborative brainstorming commentaries, research items, editing timeline information, research information, edits, formatting information, and the like. As should be appreciated, these are but examples of a great number of attributes, properties, changes, structures, and the like that may be applied to a given content item, for example, a document, for which a mark and/or icon or other information providing user interface element may be placed on a scrollbar for indicating to a user the location of the user-created item in the associated content item.
The marks and/or icons presented on or in association with different types of scrollbars may also provide information about the structure of a document or other content item. For example, one or more marks and/or icons may be presented on a variety of scrollbar types for providing locations of individual pages, sections, or chapters, including identifications of chapters and/or sections such as names and titles or other identifying information. Other document structure that may be indicated by marks or icons presented in a scrollbar include locations and information associated with document headings, tables of contents, bibliographies, or other sections of a document or content item. In addition, marks and/or icons may be presented in a scrollbar for indicating the locations of found search items, placeholder locations, last page visited, and the like.
In addition, marks and/or icons or other user interface components presented in various types of scrollbars may provide locations in a document or other content item and information for live collaboration associated with a document or content item. For example, marks and/or icons may be presented in a scrollbar for providing information on the identities and presence for those persons collaborating on (creating, editing, otherwise utilizing) a given document or content item. For example, information may be provided in the scrollbar to show the identities of users who have joined a document at a given location, for example, information showing those users who are reviewing and/or editing a given page in a document or other content item. Information may be provided for showing the identities and locations of users associated with changes in a document or other content item, information may be provided for identifying users who have added comments, tasks, “to-do” items in association with a particular location of a document or content item; information may be provided for showing whether one or more collaborating users are currently engaged in a chatting session in association with a given location of a given document or content item; and information may also be provided for indicating whether one or more users have shared content, for example, a page of a given document or content item with other users. A variety of other collaboration information, for example, a number of page views that are presently being presented for a given page or other location of a given document or content item may also be presented.
In addition to the foregoing, marks and/or icons may be presented on or in association with a scrollbar for providing all-up summary information, for example, a number of comments, bookmarks, flags, “to-dos,” tasks, and the like that may be associated with or included in a given page or other section of a document or content item. Summary information may also be provided regarding a number of users collaborating on a given page or location of a document or content item. Information may be provided for summarizing a number of changes, a number of spelling and/or grammar notifications, a number of formatting variations, and the like associated with a given location, page, section, or other component of a document or content item.
In addition to the various scrollbar notification types, described above, additional information may be provided on or in association with a scrollbar via a tool tip, bubble, or other information providing user interface component that may be displayed in association with a scrollbar for providing information associated with a given location in a document or content item. For example, a tool tip may be presented upon hover-over or other focus associated with a mark or icon presented in a scrollbar, and information such as alerts and previews may be provided in the presented tool tip.
In addition to the in-document navigation and notification, described above, cross-document navigation may also be provided. For example, a horizontal or vertical navigable user interface component (scrollbar-like component) may include a graphical representation (e.g., text component, thumbnail, or combination) for each of one or more documents or other content items available to a user from a given repository of documents or content items. For example, a thumbnail representation may be provided for each document contained in a given folder of user documents for allowing a user to navigate through the various represented documents for selecting a given document for display in an application user interface for reviewing, editing, or otherwise utilizing the selected document. According to embodiments, live notification marks or icons may be presented in association with each graphical representation of each document or content item for providing a user a quick and efficient notification of information that may be associated with each document being presented in the scrollbar-like user interface component that may be of interest to the user.
According to embodiments, a scrollbar notification module 115 is illustrative of a software application having sufficient computer executable instructions for providing use of scrollbars and scrollbar-like user interface components as live notification areas, as described herein. According to one embodiment, the scrollbar notification module 115 may reside as a client application on a given computing device 105, 110 as a freestanding application that may be called on by one or more other software applications for providing scrollbar live notification, as described herein. Alternatively, the scrollbar notification module 115 may be a software module of each of a number of software applications for providing use of scrollbars as live notification areas in association with the functionality of each individual software application, for example, a word processing application.
Referring still to
According to embodiments of the present invention, one or more marks 250, 255, 260 may be presented in the scrollbar 240 for providing a variety of information, as described above, associated with the document 210 and for illustrating the relative positions in the document 210 of associated information. As illustrated in
As described herein, the marks and/or icons 250, 255, 260 may provide a variety of useful information in addition to the relative positions in a document or other content item associated with the marks and/or icons. According to embodiments, one or more display characteristics of the marks or icons may be provided and may be varied for conveying information contained in or about corresponding locations in the electronic document or content item. For example, as illustrated in
As will be described below, a number of other presentation attributes may be applied to marks and/or icons 250, 255, 260 to convey information to the user. For example, a text item may be displayed on each mark to indicate a numerical value associated with the indicated notification. For example, a number “3” may be displayed over the mark 250, and a number “8” may be displayed over the mark 260. If the marks 250, 255, 260 are being utilized to indicate numbers of comments made to a document or content item at locations in the document or content item relative to the marks 250, 255, 260, then text components such as numbers may be utilized for indicating the number of comments that may be provided in the document or content item at the respective locations. According to other embodiments, different color schemes may be applied to different marks and/or icons 250, 255, 260 for indicating different types of notifications. For example, a blue mark or icon may indicate the presence of a bookmark, a red mark or icon may indicate the presence of a flag, a yellow mark or icon may indicate the presence of a comment, a green mark or icon may indicate the presence of a footnote, a black mark or icon may indicate the location of a research item, and the like.
As should be appreciated, these are but examples of the numerous ways in which a mark or icon 250, 255, 260 may be displayed on or in association with a scrollbar or scrollbar-like user interface component 240 for notifying a user of a type of information available to the user at a given location in a document or other content item. For example, a mark 250, 255, 260 may be positioned at the beginning of each chapter of a multi-chapter document, and the relative sizes of the marks 250, 255, 260 may be utilized for indicating the relative lengths of each of the chapters. In addition, text components may be displayed on each of the marks, for example, page numbers at which each of the example chapters begin, and the like.
As described above, any number of document structure attributes may be indicated by the presence and positions of one or more marks 250, 255, 260, for example, the locations of document headings, tables of contents, bibliographies, search term locations, placeholder locations, last page visited, and the like. And, as described above, different attributes may be applied to marks of different types, for example colors, size, etc. for distinguishing one notification type from another. For example, one color mark or icon may be used for indicating chapter beginnings, another color or size of mark or icon may be used for indicating locations of found search terms, and the like.
According to embodiments, the marks and/or icons represent and convey both static and dynamic information. That is, a mark or icon may be present indicating presence of a comment that was added to a document 5 days ago. If the comment is deleted, the mark or icon indicating presence of the comment will be dynamically deleted from the scrollbar. Likewise, if a first user is reviewing a document, and a second user makes a change to the document for which a mark or icon may be presented in the scrollbar, then the mark or icon will be dynamically displayed as a live notification of the change so that the first user is immediately notified. According to one embodiment, a mark or icon may be dynamically deleted if a predetermined duration of time elapses since the corresponding information was added to or annotated in the document after all users have had the predetermined duration of time to review the information. In addition, the physical attributes of the marks or icons may dynamically vary or change based on changes to the underlying information. For example, a mark or icon representing a number of comments that is displayed according to a first display size (e.g., mark 260) may dynamically change to a second display size (e.g., mark 250) if the associated number of comments is decreased or increased.
Referring now to
A mark or icon 320 is illustrated in the horizontal scrollbar 300 for indicating a notification of some type of information, as described above, available to the user at a position in the document 305 relative to a position in the scrollbar 300 as compared to the current position indicator 310. Thus, movement of the position indicator 310 horizontally to the right toward the mark 320 will cause a navigation of the document 305 to the left until a position in the document associated with the mark 320 is located. As should be appreciated, navigation may be performed by clicking and dragging the position indicator 310 toward the mark 320, or as illustrated in
Referring to
As described herein, according to embodiments, the mark 320 may be color-coded to indicate a comment, or the mark 320 may be in the form of a shaped icon or may include text for indicating association with a hand-written comment. In addition, if the example handwritten circle around the chart 515 is made by a first user, and the handwritten word “See” is made by a second user, the mark 320 may also provide information, for example, on hover-over or focus (via a tooltip of balloon) as to the identities and other information for the two users responsible for the handwritten notations.
Referring now to
For example, when the position indicator 310 is moved to the position of both the lined mark 605 and the unlined mark 610 either by moving the position indicator 310 by touch, keyboard control, mouse control, and the like, or by tapping the two marks 605, 610 by touch or other gesture, a position in the document 210 is automatically navigated to for allowing a user to review edits, annotations, or other attributes of the document associated with the two example marks 605, 610. At the position navigated to by selection of the mark 605, a comment 620 is present along with a comment indicator bar 622 for showing a position of the comment in the document 210. Likewise, because the mark 610 was presented in the scrollbar 300 at the same position as the mark 605, the user may expect to see an edit, comment, or other annotation in the document at the same location associated with the second mark 610. As illustrated in
Referring now to
As illustrated in
According to one embodiment, a “stickyness” attribute may be applied to the scrollbar 300, the scrollbar box or button 710, and/or the breadcrumb/historical navigation icon 715 such that movement of the scrollbar box or button 710 in the direction of the breadcrumb or historical navigation icon 715 results in a snapping or magnetic attraction of the scrollbar box or button 710 to the position of the breadcrumb or historical navigation icon to create a user experience of being able to quickly snap back and forth between two or more positions in a given document. Thus, as the user moves the scrollbar box or button 710 toward the position of a breadcrumb or historical navigation icon 715, the scrollbar box or button 710 eventually snaps into position over the displayed breadcrumb or historical navigation icon 715, and the displayed text or other objects of the document snaps into position along with the movement of the scrollbar box or button onto the position of the breadcrumb or historical navigation icon 715. Simultaneously, the breadcrumb or historical navigation icon 715 is then displayed in the scrollbar 300 relative to the immediate past position of document navigation, as illustrated in
As should be appreciated, the horizontal scrollbar or scrollbar-like user interface components 300 illustrated and described above with reference to
As described above, marks or icons presented in a vertical or horizontal scrollbar may be used for providing indications of the presence of one or more information items associated with a given location in a document or other content item relative to the position of the mark or icon in the vertical or horizontal scrollbar. As illustrated in
An icon 955 is illustrative of a mark or icon for presenting information about document collaboration in association with the relevant location of the document to which the icon is related. For example, the collaboration icon 955 may indicate a source of information applied to a document or that one or more persons are associated with reviewing, editing, or otherwise utilizing a portion of the document located relevant to the location of the icon 955 in the scrollbar 900. According to one embodiment, a mouse-over or other focus event applied to the icon 955 may cause the presentation of a tool tip, balloon, or other user interface component 970 for providing information, for example, the identities of one or more users providing comments, the number of comments, the dates the comments were applied, and the like.
Referring to the tool tip 970, a text statement of “Joe joined the document and added three comments” is displayed in response to a mouse-over, single click, or other focus event on the icon 955 for providing the user information about what the user may find in the associated location in the document 210 without actually navigating to that location in the document. For example, if the user is in a different location in the document performing various edits to the document, and the user sees the dynamic addition of an icon 955 at a lower portion of the scrollbar 900, the user may perform a mouse-over or other focus event on the newly added icon 955 to cause the tool tip or balloon 970 to be displayed to provide information to the first user so that the user will be notified that the second user has joined the document in a collaborative work session at a different location in the document. If the first user wishes to actually navigate to that portion of the document to see changes, comments, bookmarks, flags, or other annotations to the document by the second user, the first user may quickly navigate to the position in the document being edited by the second user by selecting the icon 955, or moving the scrollbar box or button 960 to the location of the icon 955. As described above, information may also be provided as text items on the icons 955 for providing summary information, for example, a number of collaborating users associated with the document at the portion of the document corresponding to the icon.
Referring still to
According to another embodiment, cross-document navigation and live notification may be provided. As illustrated in
According to embodiments, one or more marks and/or icons 1045, 1050 may be displayed on one or more of the textual 215 or graphical 220,225 representations of documents or other content items for providing live notifications to the user of one or more attributes associated with one or more of the available documents or of interesting or valuable information that may be associated with one or more of the available documents. That is, any of the marks or icons illustrated and described above for in-document navigation with reference to
If the user selects the corresponding document, an application associated with the corresponding document, for example, a word processing application, a slide presentation application, and the like, may be used for launching an instance of the document, and then, a horizontal or vertical scrollbar as described above with reference to
Having described an example operating environment and various aspects of embodiments to the present invention above with reference to
At operation 1125, the displayed scrollbar is populated with one or more marks and/or icons for notifying a user of the presence of interesting, valuable, or other information associated with the document at various locations in the document relative to the positioning of the marks and/or icons displayed in the vertical or horizontal scrollbars. At operation 1130, information may be provided to the user via the display of the one or more marks and/or icons, as described above. For example, display sizes, display shapes, and/or textual information may be provided on or in association with the displayed marks and/or icons for providing information to a reviewing user without requiring the user to actually select the icons and navigate to the corresponding position in the document. For example, the shape of a given icon may indicate to the user that the icon is associated with one or more comments applied to the document at the corresponding document position. If the user is not interested in reading the comments at the present time, the user may avoid navigating to that portion of the document until a later time.
At operation 1135, a selection of one or more of the marks or icons is received. At operation 1140, if a tool tip, balloon, or other user interface component is operative for displaying information about the selected or focused-on mark or icon, then such a user interface component may be displayed, as illustrated above with reference to
At operation 1145, an automatic navigation to a portion of the document associated with the selected mark or icon may be performed for displaying that portion of the document for allowing the user to review content and/or one or more annotations or other notification types associated with the selected mark or icon. That is, once the user navigates to a position in the document associated with the selected mark or icon, the user may see information for which the notification is provided, as illustrated in
At operation 1150, a breadcrumb or historical navigation icon may be displayed in the horizontal or vertical scrollbar at the immediate past navigation position for allowing the user to readily see the location in the document from which he/she just navigated, as illustrated in
At operation 1155, if the user desires to navigate through a number of different available documents, the cross-navigation scrollbar or scroll pane, illustrated in
While the invention has been described in the general context of program modules that execute in conjunction with an application program that runs on an operating system on a computer, those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention may also be implemented in combination with other program modules. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, components, data structures, and other types of structures that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types.
The embodiments and functionalities described herein may operate via a multitude of computing systems including, without limitation, desktop computer systems, wired and wireless computing systems, mobile computing systems (e.g., mobile telephones, netbooks, tablet or slate type computers, notebook computers, and laptop computers), hand-held devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, minicomputers, and mainframe computers.
In addition, the embodiments and functionalities described herein may operate over distributed systems (e.g., cloud-based computing systems), where application functionality, memory, data storage and retrieval and various processing functions may be operated remotely from each other over a distributed computing network, such as the Internet or an intranet. User interfaces and information of various types may be displayed via on-board computing device displays or via remote display units associated with one or more computing devices. For example user interfaces and information of various types may be displayed and interacted with on a wall surface onto which user interfaces and information of various types are projected. Interaction with the multitude of computing systems with which embodiments of the invention may be practiced include, keystroke entry, touch screen entry, voice or other audio entry, gesture entry where an associated computing device is equipped with detection (e.g., camera) functionality for capturing and interpreting user gestures for controlling the functionality of the computing device, and the like.
As stated above, a number of program modules and data files may be stored in the system memory 1204. While executing on the processing unit 1202, the program modules 1206 may perform processes including, but not limited to, one or more of the stages of the method 1100 illustrated in
Furthermore, embodiments of the invention may be practiced in an electrical circuit comprising discrete electronic elements, packaged or integrated electronic chips containing logic gates, a circuit utilizing a microprocessor, or on a single chip containing electronic elements or microprocessors. For example, embodiments of the invention may be practiced via a system-on-a-chip (SOC) where each or many of the components illustrated in
The computing device 1200 may also have one or more input device(s) 1212 such as a keyboard, a mouse, a pen, a sound input device, a touch input device, etc. The output device(s) 1214 such as a display, speakers, a printer, etc. may also be included. The aforementioned devices are examples and others may be used. The computing device 1200 may include one or more communication connections 1216 allowing communications with other computing devices 1218. Examples of suitable communication connections 1216 include, but are not limited to, RF transmitter, receiver, and/or transceiver circuitry; universal serial bus (USB), parallel, and/or serial ports.
The term computer readable media as used herein may include computer storage media. Computer storage media may include volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information, such as computer readable instructions, data structures, or program modules. The system memory 1204, the removable storage device 1209, and the non-removable storage device 1210 are all computer storage media examples (i.e., memory storage.) Computer storage media may include RAM, ROM, electrically erasable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other article of manufacture which can be used to store information and which can be accessed by the computing device 1200. Any such computer storage media may be part of the computing device 1200.
One or more application programs may be loaded into the memory 1362 and run on or in association with the operating system 1364. Examples of the application programs include phone dialer applications, e-mail applications, personal information management (PIM) applications, word processing applications, spreadsheet applications, Internet browser applications, notes applications, messaging applications, and so forth. The system 1302 also includes a non-volatile storage area 1368 within the memory 1362. The non-volatile storage area 1368 may be used to store persistent information that should not be lost if the system 1302 is powered down. The application programs may use and store information in the non-volatile storage area 1368, such as e-mail or other messages used by an e-mail application, and the like. A synchronization application (not shown) also resides on the system 1302 and is programmed to interact with a corresponding synchronization application resident on a host computer to keep the information stored in the non-volatile storage area 1368 synchronized with corresponding information stored at the host computer. As should be appreciated, other applications may be loaded into the memory 1362 and run on the mobile computing device 1300.
The system 1302 has a power supply 1370, which may be implemented as one or more batteries. The power supply 1370 might further include an external power source, such as an AC adapter or a powered docking cradle that supplements or recharges the batteries.
The system 1302 may also include a radio 1372 that performs the function of transmitting and receiving radio frequency communications. The radio 1372 facilitates wireless connectivity between the system 1302 and the “outside world,” via a communications carrier or service provider. Transmissions to and from the radio 1372 are conducted under control of the operating system 1364. In other words, communications received by the radio 1372 may be disseminated to the application programs 120 via the operating system 1364, and vice versa.
The visual indicator 1320 may be used to provide visual notifications and/or an audio interface 1374 may be used for producing audible notifications via the audio transducer 1325. In the illustrated embodiment, the visual indicator 1320 is a light emitting diode (LED) and the audio transducer 1325 is a speaker. These devices may be directly coupled to the power supply 1370 so that when activated, they remain on for a duration dictated by the notification mechanism even though the processor 1360 and other components might shut down for conserving battery power. The LED may be programmed to remain on indefinitely until the user takes action to indicate the powered-on status of the device. The audio interface 1374 is used to provide audible signals to and receive audible signals from the user. For example, in addition to being coupled to the audio transducer 1325, the audio interface 1374 may also be coupled to a microphone to receive audible input, such as to facilitate a telephone conversation. In accordance with embodiments of the present invention, the microphone may also serve as an audio sensor to facilitate control of notifications, as will be described below. The system 1302 may further include a video interface 1376 that enables an operation of an on-board camera 1330 to record still images, video stream, and the like.
A mobile computing device 1300 implementing the system 1302 may have additional features or functionality. For example, the mobile computing device 1300 may also include additional data storage devices (removable and/or non-removable) such as, magnetic disks, optical disks, or tape. Such additional storage is illustrated in
Data/information generated or captured by the mobile computing device 1300 and stored via the system 1302 may be stored locally on the mobile computing device 1300, as described above, or the data may be stored on any number of storage media that may be accessed by the device via the radio 1372 or via a wired connection between the mobile computing device 1300 and a separate computing device associated with the mobile computing device 1300, for example, a server computer in a distributed computing network, such as the Internet. As should be appreciated such data/information may be accessed via the mobile computing device 1300 via the radio 1372 or via a distributed computing network. Similarly, such data/information may be readily transferred between computing devices for storage and use according to well-known data/information transfer and storage means, including electronic mail and collaborative data/information sharing systems.
Embodiments of the present invention, for example, are described above with reference to block diagrams and/or operational illustrations of methods, systems, and computer program products according to embodiments of the invention. The functions/acts noted in the blocks may occur out of the order as shown in any flowchart. For example, two blocks shown in succession may in fact be executed substantially concurrently or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality/acts involved.
The description and illustration of one or more embodiments provided in this application are not intended to limit or restrict the scope of the invention as claimed in any way. The embodiments, examples, and details provided in this application are considered sufficient to convey possession and enable others to make and use the best mode of claimed invention. The claimed invention should not be construed as being limited to any embodiment, example, or detail provided in this application. Regardless of whether shown and described in combination or separately, the various features (both structural and methodological) are intended to be selectively included or omitted to produce an embodiment with a particular set of features. Having been provided with the description and illustration of the present application, one skilled in the art may envision variations, modifications, and alternate embodiments falling within the spirit of the broader aspects of the general inventive concept embodied in this application that do not depart from the broader scope of the claimed invention.
