Directional Input System with Automatic Correction
First Claim
1. A text entry input system, comprising:
- a direction selector to individually point in a direction of letters to collectively form an intended linguistic object, where each letter comprises a linguistic object subcomponent;
a collection of linguistic objects;
an output device with a text display area;
a processor, comprising;
a difference calculation module configured to output, for each act of pointing, various letters based upon factors including at least a vector difference between an actual direction indicated by the directional selector and pre-assigned directions of said letters;
an object search engine configured to construct at least one predicted linguistic object based on the output letters; and
a selection component to facilitate user selection of a desired linguistic object.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system associated with a text entry application, such as email or instant messaging, comprises an optional onscreen representation of a circular keyboard, a list of potential linguistic object matches, and a message area where the selected words are entered. The circular keyboard is manipulated via a hardware joystick or game-pad with analog joystick or omni-directional rocker switch built therein. The user points the joystick in the general direction of the desired letter, and then continues pointing roughly to each letter in the desired word. Once all letters have been roughly selected, buttons are used to select a specific word from the list of potential matches and send the selected word to the message area.
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Citations
35 Claims
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1. A text entry input system, comprising:
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a direction selector to individually point in a direction of letters to collectively form an intended linguistic object, where each letter comprises a linguistic object subcomponent;
a collection of linguistic objects;
an output device with a text display area;
a processor, comprising;
a difference calculation module configured to output, for each act of pointing, various letters based upon factors including at least a vector difference between an actual direction indicated by the directional selector and pre-assigned directions of said letters;
an object search engine configured to construct at least one predicted linguistic object based on the output letters; and
a selection component to facilitate user selection of a desired linguistic object. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A text input method using a directional input device, wherein each direction entered corresponds, directly or indirectly, to one or more linguistic object subcomponents according to a predetermined mapping, said method comprising the steps of:
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for each user act of pointing the directional input device, preparing an output of candidate linguistic object subcomponents based upon factors including at least a vector difference between directions indicated by the directional input device and pre-assigned directions of said linguistic object subcomponents according to the predetermined mapping;
using the output to predict at least one linguistic object;
facilitating user selection of a desired linguistic object. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26)
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27. A text entry input module for use with user interface components including a direction indicator and a output device with a text display area, the text entry input module comprising:
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a database of linguistic objects;
a predetermined set of linguistic object subcomponents;
where a predetermined relationship exists between said linguistic object subcomponents and different assigned vector values of the direction indicator;
a calculation module to apply the predetermined relationship to each user-submitted direction entered via the direction indicator to provide an output, said output including multiple predicted linguistic object subcomponents including a group of linguistic object subcomponents whose assigned vector values are nearest the user-submitted directions;
an object search engine configured to use the output to retrieve from the database at least one predicted linguistic object potentially representative of the user-submitted directions; and
a selection component to facilitate user selection of a desired linguistic object.
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28. A text entry input module for use with user interface components including a direction indicator and an output device with a display, the text entry input module comprising:
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a vocabulary database of linguistic objects;
a mapping between vector values of the direction indicator and linguistic object subcomponents;
a calculation module to apply the mapping to each user-submitted direction entered via the direction indicator to provide an output including multiple potentially user-intended linguistic object subcomponents;
an object search engine configured to retrieve at least one predicted linguistic object from the vocabulary database based upon said calculation module output; and
a selection component to facilitate user selection of a desired linguistic object.
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29. A computer readable storage medium tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by a digital data processing machine to perform text input operations comprising the steps of:
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receiving machine-readable signals representing a series of user-submitted directional inputs entered via a directional input tool, the series having an order;
where directional inputs of the directional input tool correspond to different linguistic object subcomponents according to a predetermined mapping;
for each user-submitted directional input, based upon that directional input alone, estimating multiple corresponding subcomponents that the user might have intended by such directional input;
assembling the different ones of the estimated subcomponents to construct multiple different proposed linguistic objects that the user might have intended by the series of directional inputs, where each proposed object includes one estimated subcomponent for each user-submitted directional input, the subcomponents occurring in the proposed object in the same order as the series of user-submitted directional inputs;
facilitating selection of a desired one of the proposed objects. - View Dependent Claims (30, 31, 32, 33, 34)
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35. A computer programmed to facilitate operations for text entry, the operations comprising the steps of:
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by using a joystick having predefined mapping between different actual radial directions and different text characters, a user sequentially pointing in an intended radial direction toward intended characters of at least part of an intended word;
the computer determining angular similarity between each actual pointing direction and radial directions of different characters in the mapping, and using the determined angular similarity to compute different possible combinations of intended characters that could form the intended word, and presenting a list of potential matching words to the user, where the presentation favors potential matching words according to factors including an aggregate angular similarity of constituent characters of a potential matching word to the actual pointing directions;
the user selecting the intended word from the list;
the computer displaying the selected word in a human-readable message composition display area.
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Specification