Method for input of text by selection of letters using a cursor and device for carrying out said method

• US 20050116927A1
• Filed: 01/11/2003
• Published: 06/02/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 01/14/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oliver Voelckers
• Original Assignee: Oliver Voelckers
• Inventors: Voelckers, Oliver
• Granted Patent: US 7,336,257 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/157
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0236 using selection techniques to select from displayed items

Abstract

The aim of the invention is development of a method for input of text by selection with a cursor from a list of letters which operates with various operating elements for control of the cursor and a device for carrying out said method. Said aim is achieved, whereby the text input by letter selection, weighted by the method of a frequency distribution of letter sequences, is carried out with a controlled graphical and/or acoustic cursor. Furthermore, a cursor control unit is connected to a micro-controller by means of a software interface, said micro-controller is connected to a ROM serving the request and a RWM buffering the input characters and a display for display of the data provided by the micro-controller. Said method for the input of text by selection of letters with a cursor on a screen is applicable in electronic devices not provided with a normal typewriter keyboard.

Claims

1. Method for input of text by selecting of letters using a cursor, wherein the text input is performed as a selection of letters which are weighted according to a method of frequency statistics of letter sequences by means of a graphical and/or audible cursor.

2. Method for input of according to claim 1, wherein the frequencies of the occurrences of all possible letter combinations are derived once from a representative sample text and for every input a probability for the following letter is calculated from these frequencies in conjunction with the preceding input letter sequence, whereas the size of the displayed cursor is proportional to the calculated probability of the associated letter at this position of the input sequence.

3. Method according to claim 1, wherein an indicator shaped like a dot is displayed at the bottom of a rectangular cursor that can be moved with a constant speed horizontally or vertically along letters of a letter repertoire shown with a variable size and the direction of the indicator movement depends on the activation of a cursor control unit by a user.

4. Method according to claim 1, wherein the difference between the display of the largest and the smallest letter can be selected by the user in several steps, allowing to select either a constant size of all letters or gradually a growing diversity.

5. Method according to claim 1, wherein a moving cursor is moved across a displayed letter set on a display connected to a micro controller, and the cursor highlights exactly one of the letters of the letter set and the size of the cursor is adjusted proportionally to the probability of the occurrence of this specific letter, this probability being computed on the basis of the preceding letter sequence stored in an input buffer as well as on the basis of a frequency table that is read from a non-volatile memory by the micro controller.

6. Device for carrying out said method according to claim 1, wherein a cursor control unit 11 is connected via a software interface with a micro controller 12 that interprets data supplied by the cursor control unit, and the micro controller 12 is connected to a read only memory 17 and with an input buffer random access memory 18 and the micro controller 12 delivers data shown on a display 13.