Handheld tilt-text computing system and method

• US 20070103431A1
• Filed: 10/24/2005
• Published: 05/10/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/24/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Benjamin Tabatowski-Bush
• Original Assignee: Benjamin Tabatowski-Bush
• Inventors: Tabatowski-Bush, Benjamin
• Application Number:
  US11/256,702
• Publication Number:
  US 20070103431A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/156
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1613 for portable computers cooling arrangements therefor G06F1/203; constructional details or arrangements for pocket calculators, electronic agendas or books G06F15/0216; constructional details of portable telephone sets: with several bodies H04M1/0202
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1656 Details related to functional adaptations of the enclosure, e.g. to provide protection against EMI, shock, water, or to host detachable peripherals like a mouse or removable expansions units like PCMCIA cards, or to provide access to internal components for maintenance or to removable storage supports like CDs or DVDs, or to mechanically mount accessories mounting of accessories to a computer display G06F1/1607; display hoods G06F1/1603; cooling arrangements for portable computers G06F1/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1694 the I/O peripheral being a single or a set of motion sensors for pointer control or gesture input obtained by sensing movements of the portable computer
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1698 the I/O peripheral being a sending/receiving arrangement to establish a cordless communication link, e.g. radio or infrared link, integrated cellular phone details of antennas disposed inside a computer H01Q1/2266
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2200/1637 Sensing arrangement for detection of housing movement or orientation, e.g. for controlling scrolling or cursor movement on the display of an handheld computer
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/017 Gesture based interaction, e.g. based on a set of recognized hand gestures interaction based on gestures traced on a digitiser G06F3/04883

Abstract

A handheld device serves as a general purpose computer with Tilt-Text input and Text-To-Speech (TTS) feedback to the operator. The device can be operated with one hand and accommodates “eyes-free” operation. The Select button is used in conjunction with the X-Y accelerometer to implement a unistroke, Tilt-Text character set for data input with which the user enters letters, numbers, and other symbols into the computer device. Other buttons on the housing are used to implement commands and user functions. Other feature support text input using the accelerometer, including the Virtual Button and Pointer Text approaches.

Claims

1. A handheld computing device, comprising:

a motion sensing circuit that measures device motion and generates corresponding output signals which include a signals representative of a character gesture;

a bounding circuit which includes a bounding signal; and

a processor, in communication with said motion sensing circuit and said bounding circuit, which implements a recognition algorithm which processes the bounding signal and said character gesture to resolve a predetermined symbol.

2. The device of claim 1 wherein the bounding circuit includes recognition of “

Virtual Button Gesture”

in the motion sensing circuit signal as a delimiting operator to demarcate the start or end of said character gesture.

3. The device of claim 1 wherein the bounding circuit includes a user-operated switch and said bounding circuit recognizes an input from said switch as a delimiting operator to demarcate the start or end of said character gesture.

4. The device of claim 1 further comprising a circuit for Text-To-Speech (TTS) conversion, which circuit includes Voice Chip.

5. The device of claim 1 further comprising one or more physical buttons, in addition to said user actuated delimiting switch, each button having a programmable function.

6. The device of claim 1 further comprising an expansion interface, which allows additional computing resources to be added to the system, which could consist of one or more additional processors connected to the expansion interface.

7. The device of claim 1 further comprising circuits to support wired networking.

8. The device of claim 7 wherein the wired networking circuit includes a Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter (UART) port, with circuits to implement the EIA/RS232 standard, for the purpose of networking with other computing devices.

9. The device of claim 1 further comprising circuits for wireless networking.

10. The device of claim 9 wherein the wireless networking circuit includes a Bluetooth for the purpose of networking with other computing devices.

11. The device of claim 1 further comprising circuits and a connector to support connection to a wired handsfree unit.

12. The device of claim 1 further comprising circuits and a radio interface to support the connection to a wireless handsfree unit.

13. The device of claim 1 further comprising a power supply.

14. The device of claim 13 wherein said power supply includes batteries to power the device.

15. The device of claim 14 wherein said power supply includes circuits to recharge the batteries for the case of batteries which are rechargeable.

16. The device of claim 13 wherein said power supply includes a circuit and connector for the power to be provided from an external power supply.

17. The device of claim 1 wherein the motion sensing circuit includes a tilt sensor, whose sensitivity is adequate to measure the acceleration from the gravity vector.

18. The device of claim 1 wherein the motion sensing circuit is a mechanism comprising:

a platform which is affixed in some way to a person while they are using the computing device, and

a plurality of sensors, such as potentiometers or the like, which are used to measure the tilt in one or more dimensions, which measure the position of the computing device with respect to the aforementioned platform.

19. A method of gesture recognition, comprising the steps of:

measuring motion in 3 dimensional space;

generating output signals corresponding to said measured motion which include signals representative of a character gesture;

generating a bounding signal; and

processing the bounding signal and said character gesture to resolve a predetermined symbol.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the step of generating the bounding signal includes recognition of “

Virtual Button Gesture”

in the measured motion signal as a delimiting operator to demarcate the start or end of said character gesture.

21. The device of claim 19 wherein the step of generating the bounding signal comprises use of a user-operated switch to provide a delimiting operation to demarcate the start or end of said character gesture.

22. A computer readable medium programmed with an algorithm to implement the method of claim 19.

23. A computer readable medium programmed with an algorithm to implement the method of claim 20.

24. A computer readable medium programmed with an algorithm to implement the method of claim 21.