Electronic Document Reader

• US 20090109185A1
• Filed: 06/13/2008
• Published: 04/30/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/24/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Plastic Logic Limited (Plastic Logic JSC)
• Original Assignee: Plastic Logic Limited (Plastic Logic JSC)
• Inventors: Barclay, Duncan, Farmer, Steven, Jones, Simon, Merrick, Barry, Nirmalananthan, Anusha, Hayton, Carl, Cain, Paul A.
• Application Number:
  US12/138,748
• Publication Number:
  US 20090109185A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/173
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 1/133388 with constructional differences between the display region and the peripheral region
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/03547 Touch pads, in which fingers can move on a surface
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/041 Digitisers, e.g. for touch screens or touch pads, characterised by the transducing means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/147 using display panels
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2310/0232 Special driving of display border areas
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2340/04 Changes in size, position or resolution of an image
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2340/0407 Resolution change, inclusive of the use of different resolutions for different screen areas
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2380/14 Electronic books and readers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/393 Enlarging or reducing

Abstract

We describe a display device for displaying an electronic document page comprising a central rewritable portion, a non-rewritable border with external lateral physical dimensions defined by the display edges, wherein said border is coloured to substantially match a background colour of said central rewritable portion such that when a foreground part of said document page is displayed on said central rewritable portion the appearance of margins of said document page is provided by said background coloured border whereby in use said displayed electronic document page appears to extend up to said display edges, and wherein the surface of the display is substantially flat over the lateral physical dimensions from the central rewritable portion across the border to the display edges.

Claims

1. A display device for displaying an electronic document page, the display device comprising a central rewritable portion, a non-rewritable border with external lateral physical dimensions defined by the display edges, wherein said border is coloured to substantially match a background colour of said central rewritable portion such that when a foreground part of said document page is displayed on said central rewritable portion the appearance of margins of said document page is provided by said background coloured border whereby in use said displayed electronic document page appears to extend up to said display edges, and wherein the surface of the display is substantially flat over the lateral physical dimensions from the central rewritable portion across the border to the display edges.

2. A display device as claimed in claim 1, wherein said electronic document page has one of a set of predetermined sizes, wherein the information on said page is located in a central portion of the page bordered by said margins, and wherein when said page is displayed on said display device a size of said central portion of said page substantially fits a size of said central rewritable portion of said display device, and wherein a width of said non-rewritable border of said display device substantially matches a width of a said margin of said document page such that, when said document page is displayed, the appearance of said width of said margin of said document page provided by said background coloured border is substantially in proportion to said size of said central portion of said page.

3. A display device as claimed in claim 1 wherein said display device includes non-volatile memory storing data defining said information on said central portion of said page and data identifying a said size of said document page, wherein an aspect ratio of said display device substantially matches an aspect ratio of a said predetermined electronic document page size, and wherein a size of a said border is substantially in proportion to a size of a corresponding said margin.

4. A display device as claimed in claim 1 wherein said lateral physical dimensions of the display device are within 1 cm to that of an international paper size standard, in particular ISO 216 or ANSI/ASME Y14.1.

5. A display device as claimed in claim 1, wherein said foreground part of the document page displayed on said central rewritable portion extends to a distance less than 5 mm away from the non-rewritable border.

6. A display device as claimed in claim 1, wherein no portion of said display extends in front of said display surface.

7. A display device as claimed in claim 1, wherein said central re-writable portion of said display comprises an electrophoretic display element.

8. A display device as claimed in claim 1, wherein said display has a front surface element and wherein said border of front surface element is coloured with said background colour on a rear face of said front surface element.

9. A display device as claimed in claim 8 wherein said border of front surface element is coloured by embedding coloured particles into said rear surface, wherein said electrophoretic display element extends beyond said re-writable portion of said display behind said coloured border, and wherein said electrophoretic display element is substantially flush against said rear surface at an edge of said coloured border around said central re-writable portion of said display.

10. A display device as claimed in claim 9, wherein the optical density of said coloured border reduces gradually towards the central rewritable portion whereby the boundary between said border and said central-rewritable portion is rendered less visible.

11. A display device as claimed in claim 1 wherein said border comprises electrophoretic display material.

12. A display device as claimed in claim 1 wherein said background colour is substantially white, and wherein said display surface has substantially the appearance of a piece of paper.

13. A display device system including a display device as claimed in claim 1, the system further comprising processor control code to input data defining said electronic document page, said processor control code cropping the margins of said electronic document page, and writing data for said cropped document page to said central re-writeable portion of said display such that an appearance of said margin of said document page is provided by the background coloured border of said display device.

14. A display device as claimed in claim 1, further comprising one or more touch sensitive elements for controlling said display device, wherein at least one of said touch sensitive elements is disposed in one or more portions of said border region and said touch sensitive elements being arranged to generate a signal in response to a user touching said display surface in a region of said border to control said display device.

15. A display device as claimed in claim 14, wherein said touch sensitive elements are disposed beneath said display surface and said border.

16. A display device as claimed in claim 14, wherein further touch sensitive elements are disposed in a region of said central rewriteable portion.

17. A display device as claimed in claim 14, wherein at least one of said touch-sensitive elements disposed in said border region is operable by the touch of a finger.

18. A display device as claimed in claim 15 wherein no portion of said display extends in front of said display surface, and wherein said touch sensor is a capacitive touch sensor and at least one of its electrodes is deposited onto a rear face of said front surface element.

19. A display device as claimed in claim 1, wherein said display device is bendable, conformable to adopt a non-planar shape and/or rollable.

20. A method of displaying an electronic document page with a predetermined size using a display device having edges defining lateral dimensions not substantially larger than said predetermined size, said document page comprising a central, foreground portion bearing one or both of text and graphics, a background having a background colour and at least one margin having said background colour, the method comprising providing said display device with a display surface comprising a central re-writeable display portion and a non-re-writeable border;

colouring said border to match said background colour; and

displaying said foreground portion of said document page on said re-writeable display portion such that said non-re-writeable border gives the appearance of said margin, and wherein said document page appears to extend up to said edges of said display.

21. A method as claimed in claim 20 wherein said display surface is flat to said edges.

22. A method as claimed in claim 20 wherein said at least one margin comprises four margins framing said central, foreground portion of said document page and wherein said border frames said central re-writeable display portion of said display.

23. A method as claimed in claim 20 wherein said colouring comprises dye sublimation.

24. A method as claimed in claim 20 further comprising inputting page data defining said document page, processing said page data to crop said document page to provide cropped page data, and outputting said cropped page data to said display device for display.

25. A method as claimed in claim 20, wherein said background colour is white.

26. A method as claimed in claim 20, wherein said central re-writeable display portion comprises an electrophoretic display element.

27. A method as claimed in claim 20, wherein said display device is bendable, conformable to adopt a non-planar shape and/or rollable.

28. A display device for displaying a document page of a predetermined size at 1:

1 scale, said display device having substantially the same lateral physical dimensions as said 1;

1 scale document page, said lateral physical dimensions of said display device being defined by display edges, said display device having a display surface flat to said edges, said display surface having a central rewritable portion surrounded by a border, and wherein said border is coloured to substantially match a background colour of said display surface such that when a foreground part of said document page is displayed on said central rewritable portion of said display surface at 1;

1 scale the appearance of margins of said displayed page is provided by said background coloured border whereby in use said displayed document page appears to extend up to said display edges.

29. A method of displaying an electronic document page with a predetermined size at substantially 1:

1 scale using a display device having edges defining lateral dimensions not substantially larger than said predetermined size, said document page comprising a central, foreground portion bearing one or both of text and graphics, a background having a background colour and at least one margin having said background colour, the method comprising providing said display device with a display surface comprising a central re-writeable display portion and a non-re-writeable border;

colouring said border to match said background colour; and

displaying said foreground portion of said document page on said re-writeable display portion such that said non-re-writeable border gives the appearance of said margin, and wherein said document page appears to extend up to said edges of said display.

30. A display device for displaying an electronic document page comprising a central rewritable portion, a non-rewritable border with external lateral physical dimensions defined by the display edges, further comprising touch sensitive elements for controlling said display device disposed in said border to generate a signal in response to a user touching said display surface in a region of said border to control said display device and arranged such that location agnostic gestures are enabled, wherein a user may perform the same gesture at a variety of prints around the border to produce substantially the same result independent of orientation of the display device.