INPUT PROCESSING APPARATUS

• US 20130181941A1
• Filed: 12/26/2012
• Published: 07/18/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/30/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: OKUNO, Takayoshi
• Granted Patent: US 9,753,560 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/174
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04108 Touchless 2D- digitiser, i.e. digitiser detecting the X/Y position of the input means, finger or stylus, also when it does not touch, but is proximate to the digitiser's interaction surface without distance measurement in the Z direction
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/038 Control and interface arrangements therefor, e.g. drivers or device-embedded control circuitry
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/041 Digitisers, e.g. for touch screens or touch pads, characterised by the transducing means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0416 Control or interface arrangements specially adapted for digitisers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/044 by capacitive means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/048 Interaction techniques based on graphical user interfaces [GUI]

Abstract

An input processing apparatus, including a consecutive input operation interval detector that detects a time interval between consecutive input operations received at the input processing apparatus; and an information processing unit that conducts information processing based on the detected time interval.

Claims

1. An input processing apparatus, comprising:

a consecutive input operation interval detector that detects a time interval between consecutive input operations received at the input processing apparatus; and

an information processing unit that conducts information processing based on the detected time interval.

2. The input processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a touch panel display device; and

a detection unit configured to detect a touch or tap operation by an object received at the touch panel display device as the input operations.

3. The input processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the information processing unit determines that the consecutive input operations constitute a double tap operation combined to correspond to a single type of information processing when the time interval is within a predetermined threshold, and the information processing unit determines that each of the consecutive input operations constitute a separate single tap operation which are not to be combined to correspond to a single type of information processing when the time interval is longer than the predetermined threshold.

4. The input processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the touch panel display device is configured to display at least one icon corresponding to an application, and the information processing unit conducts information processing corresponding to the application based on the touch or tap operation being received at the displayed icon.

5. The input processing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the information processing unit conducts one of different types of information processing corresponding to the application based on a time interval between the input operations received at the displayed icon.

6. The input processing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the application is one of a camera program, a mail program, a music player program, and a map program.

7. The input processing apparatus according to claim 4, further comprising:

a position detector configured to detect a position of each of the consecutive input operations received at the input processing apparatus relative to the displayed icon,

wherein the information processing unit conducts information processing based on the detected position of each of the consecutive input operations received at the displayed icon.

8. The input processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the information processing unit conducts a different type of information processing based on the detected position of each of the consecutive input operations being received at different portions of the displayed icon.

9. The input processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a sensor configured to detect an object that is within a proximity of the input processing apparatus without contacting the input processing apparatus,

wherein the information processing unit conducts information processing based on the detected proximal position of the object relative to the input processing apparatus.

10. The input processing apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the sensor is capacitance sensor.

11. The input processing apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the information processing unit conducts information processing based on the detected proximal position of the object relative to the input processing apparatus being between a first threshold distance and a second threshold distance away from the input processing apparatus.

12. The input processing apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the sensor is capacitance sensor, the second threshold distance is closer to the input processing apparatus than the first threshold distance, and the information processing unit changes a capacitance detection sensitivity of the sensor when the object is between a surface of the input processing apparatus and the second threshold distance.

13. The input processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a storage unit configured to store a plurality of threshold time intervals each corresponding to a different type of information processing executed on the input processing apparatus, and the information processing unit conducts one of the types of information processing based on the detected time interval being within one of the respective plurality of threshold time intervals.

14. A method, implemented on an input processing apparatus, comprising:

detecting a time interval between consecutive input operations received at the input processing apparatus; and

conducting information processing based on the detected time interval.