Multi-touch text input

• US 10,126,941 B2
• Filed: 01/12/2015
• Issued: 11/13/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 06/03/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Zhu, Bin Benjamin, Yang, Maowei, Yang, Xuyong, Li, Shipeng
• Primary Examiner(s): Mishler, Robin
• Application Number:
  US14/595,067
• Publication Number:
  US 20150123928A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,401 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04104 Multi-touch detection in digitiser, i.e. details about the simultaneous detection of a plurality of touching locations, e.g. multiple fingers or pen and finger
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04808 Several contacts: gestures triggering a specific function, e.g. scrolling, zooming, right-click, when the user establishes several contacts with the surface simultaneously; e.g. using several fingers or a combination of fingers and pen
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0233 Character input methods
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/041 Digitisers, e.g. for touch screens or touch pads, characterised by the transducing means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04886 by partitioning the display area of the touch-screen or the surface of the digitising tablet into independently controllable areas, e.g. virtual keyboards or menus

Abstract

This document describes tools associated with symbol entry control functions. In some implementations, the tools identify a first finger that is in tactile contact with a touch screen. The first finger can select a subset of symbols from a plurality of symbols that can be entered via the touch screen. The tools can also identify whether one or more other fingers are in concurrent tactile contact with the first finger on the touch screen. The tools can select an individual symbol from the subset based on whether the one or more other fingers are in concurrent tactile contact with the first finger on the touch screen.

Claims

1. A computing system comprising:

a touch screen;

one or more processing devices; and

one or more computer-readable storage media comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processing devices, cause the one or more processing devices to;

provide a set of symbols for entry via the touch screen, the set of symbols including a first subset of symbols and a second subset of symbols, wherein the first subset of symbols is designated by contact of an index finger with the touch screen, the second subset of symbols is designated by contact of a middle finger and not the index finger with the touch screen, and the first subset of symbols does not share symbols with the second subset of symbols;

determine that multiple fingers come into contact with the touch screen simultaneously;

determine whether the multiple fingers that come into contact with the touch screen simultaneously include the index finger;

in a first instance when the multiple fingers that come into contact with the touch screen simultaneously include the index finger, select a first individual symbol from the first subset; and

in a second instance when the multiple fingers that come into contact with the touch screen simultaneously include the middle finger and do not include the index finger, select a second individual symbol from the second subset,

wherein the second subset of symbols designated by contact of the middle finger lacks any symbol selectable by the middle finger and the index finger, and

wherein the first subset of symbols includes different symbols selectable via;

the index finger alone;

the index finger and the middle finger without a ring finger and a little finger;

the index finger and the ring finger without the middle finger and the little finger;

the index finger and the little finger without the middle finger and the ring finger;

the index finger, the middle finger, and the ring finger without the little finger;

the index finger, the ring finger, and the little finger without the middle finger; and

the index finger, the middle finger, the ring finger, and the little finger.

2. The computing system according to claim 1, wherein, in the first instance, the first individual symbol is selected irrespective of a location of at least one of the multiple fingers.

3. The computing system according to claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions cause the one or more processing devices to:

in the first instance;

determine an identity of another finger of the multiple fingers that come into contact with the touch screen simultaneously with the index finger, the identity being selected from a group comprising the middle finger, the ring finger, and the little finger;

select the first individual symbol from the first subset based at least on the identity of the another finger; and

enter the first individual symbol upon removal of the multiple fingers from the touch screen.

4. The computing system according to claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions cause the one or more processing devices to:

in the second instance;

determine an identity of another finger of the multiple fingers that come into contact with the touch screen simultaneously with the middle finger, the identity being selected from a group comprising the ring finger and the little finger, the group excluding the index finger;

select the second individual symbol from the second subset based at least on the identity of the another finger; and

enter the second individual symbol upon removal of the multiple fingers from the touch screen.

5. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions cause the one or more processing devices to:

in the first instance, determine that the index finger is in tactile contact with an upper layer that identifies the first subset;

in a third instance, determine that the index finger is in tactile contact with a lower layer that identifies a third subset, the lower layer being arranged vertically below the upper layer; and

in the third instance, select a third individual symbol from the third subset based at least on an identity of another finger that comes into contact with the touch screen simultaneously with the index finger.

6. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions cause the one or more processing devices to:

determine identities of each of the multiple fingers that come into contact with the touch screen simultaneously, the identities being selected from a group comprising the index finger, the middle finger, the ring finger, and the little finger,

wherein the first individual symbol and the second individual symbol are selected based at least on the identities.

7. The computing system of claim 6, wherein the computer-executable instructions cause the one or more processing devices to:

update an expected location of the index finger based at least on previous contact locations of the index finger.

8. The computing system of claim 7, wherein the expected location is updated using a weighted average of the previous contact locations.

9. The computing system according to claim 1, embodied as a smart phone, tablet, or laptop.

10. A method performed by a computing device, the method comprising:

identifying a finger that comes into contact with a touch screen of the computing device simultaneously with another finger, the finger being identified as either an index finger or a middle finger;

when the finger is identified as the index finger, designating a first group of symbols that is associated with the index finger as a currently-designated group of symbols for entry, the first group including different first symbols selectable by;

the index finger only;

the index finger and the middle finger without a ring finger and a little finger;

the index finger and the ring finger without the middle finger and the little finger;

the index finger and the little finger without the middle finger and the ring finger;

the index finger, the middle finger, and the ring finger without the little finger;

the index finger, the ring finger, and the little finger without the middle finger; and

the index finger, the middle finger, the ring finger, and the little finger;

when the finger is identified as the middle finger, designating a second group of symbols that is associated with the middle finger as the currently-designated group of symbols for entry, the second group of symbols associated with the middle finger being different than the first group of symbols associated with the index finger, the second group including different second symbols selectable by the middle finger and the middle finger and the ring finger, the second group lacking a symbol selectable by the middle finger and the index finger; and

based at least on another identity of the another finger that comes into contact with the touch screen simultaneously with the finger, selecting an individual symbol from the currently-designated group of symbols for entry to the computing device and displaying the individual symbol on the computing device.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the finger and the another finger come into contact with the touch screen within a threshold amount of time of one another.

12. The method of claim 11, the threshold amount of time being 50 milliseconds.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the second group of symbols associated with the middle finger is only designated as the currently-designated group when the finger and the another finger do not include the index finger.

14. A computing system comprising:

a touch screen;

one or more processing devices; and

one or more computer-readable storage media comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processing devices, cause the one or more processing devices to;

provide an index-finger selectable group of symbols including at least a first symbol selectable via an index finger alone, a second symbol selectable via the index finger and a middle finger without a ring finger and a little finger, and other symbols selectable via;

the index finger and the ring finger without the middle finger and the little finger;

the index finger and the little finger without the middle finger and the ring finger;

the index finger, the middle finger, and the ring finger without the little finger;

the index finger, the ring finger, and the little finger without the middle finger; and

the index finger, the middle finger, the ring finger, and the little finger;

provide a middle-finger selectable group of symbols including at least a third symbol selectable via the middle finger and a fourth symbol selectable via the middle finger and the ring finger, the middle-finger selectable group of symbols lacking any symbol selectable via the middle finger and the index finger;

determine identities of different fingers contacting the touch screen simultaneously;

when the identities of the different fingers contacting the touch screen simultaneously include the index finger, select different symbols from the index-finger selectable group for entry to the computing system; and

when the identities of the different fingers contacting the touch screen simultaneously include the middle finger and not the index finger, select different other symbols from the middle-finger selectable group for entry to the computing system.

15. The computing system of claim 14, wherein the computer-executable instructions cause the one or more processing devices to:

enter the different symbols and the different other symbols responsive to removal of the different fingers from the touch screen.

16. The computing system of claim 14, wherein the computer-executable instructions cause the one or more processing devices to:

provide a ring-finger selectable group of symbols including at least a fifth symbol selectable via the ring finger and a sixth symbol selectable via the ring finger and the little finger, the ring-finger selectable group of symbols lacking any symbol selectable via the ring finger and the index finger.

17. The computing system of claim 16, the ring-finger selectable group of symbols lacking any symbol selectable via the ring finger and the middle finger.

18. The computing system of claim 16, wherein the computer-executable instructions cause the one or more processing devices to:

detect simultaneous contact of both the ring finger and the little finger, without the index finger and the middle finger, with the touch screen; and

responsive to the simultaneous contact of the ring finger and the little finger, designate the ring-finger selectable group of symbols as a currently-designated group of symbols for entry; and

enter a particular symbol from the ring-finger selectable group on the computing system in response to removal of the ring finger and the little finger from the touch screen.

19. The computing system of claim 14, the middle-finger selectable group of symbols including another symbol selectable by the middle finger, the ring finger, and the little finger.

20. The computing system of claim 14, wherein the index-finger selectable group of symbols comprises at least seven lower-case letters and the middle-finger selectable group of symbols comprises at least three lower-case letters.

21. The computing system of claim 14, embodied as a smart phone, tablet, or laptop.