Palm Check of a Touchpad

• US 20140267052A1
• Filed: 04/22/2011
• Published: 09/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 04/22/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Chow, John W.
• Granted Patent: US 9,092,085 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/168
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/02 Input arrangements using manually operated switches, e.g. using keyboards or dials
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/03547 Touch pads, in which fingers can move on a surface
• 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

Abstract

A device to identify an active application in focus, determine a genre of the active application with metadata of the active application, and modify a palm check setting for a touchpad of the device based on the genre of the active application.

Claims

1. A method for managing a touchpad comprising:

identifying an active application on a device;

determining a genre of the active application with metadata of the active application; and

modifying a palm check setting for a touchpad of the device based on the genre of the active application.

2. The method for managing a touchpad of claim 1 wherein identifying an active application includes determining whether a user has accessed an application with an input component of the device.

3. The method for managing a touchpad of claim 1 wherein determining the genre of an application includes determining whether the application is at least one of a word processing application, a spread sheet application, a searching application, a social networking application, a presentation application, a game application, a sports application, and a multimedia application.

4. The method for managing a touchpad of claim 1 further comprising determining whether the genre of the active application is associated with receiving a high amount of inputs from a keyboard component.

5. The method for managing a touchpad of claim 1 further comprising determining whether the genre of the active application is associated with receiving a low amount of inputs from a keyboard component.

6. The method for managing a touchpad of claim 1 wherein modifying a palm check setting for the touchpad includes increasing a sensitivity of the touchpad.

7. The method for managing a touchpad of claim 1 wherein modifying a palm check setting for the touchpad includes decreasing a sensitivity of the touchpad.

8. A device comprising:

a touchpad to detect inputs for the device; and

a controller to identify an active application and identify a genre of the application;

wherein the controller additionally modifies a palm check setting of the touchpad based on the genre of the active application.

9. The device of claim 8 further comprising an input component to detecting inputs for the device, wherein the input component includes at least one of a keyboard, an image capture component, and a microphone.

10. The device of claim 8 further comprising a display component to render the active application.

11. The device of claim 8 wherein an application is identified by the controller to be an active application if a user interface of the active application is displayed on a display component.

12. The device of claim 8 wherein the active application is identified to be in focus if a cursor of a user interface of the device hovers over the application.

13. The device of claim 8 wherein modifying the palm check setting includes disabling the touchpad.

14. The device of claim 8 wherein modifying the palm check setting includes disabling a portion of the touchpad.

15. A computer readable medium comprising instructions that if executed cause a controller to:

identify an active application of a device in response to detecting the user accessing an input component of the device;

determine a genre of the active application with metadata of the active application; and

modify a palm check setting for a touchpad of the device based on the genre of the active application.

16. The computer readable medium comprising instructions of claim 15 wherein the controller determines from the genre of the active application whether the active application receives input from both the touchpad and a keyboard component of the device.

17. The computer readable medium comprising instructions of claim 16 wherein the controller determines from the genre of the active application whether the active application receives more input from the touchpad or the keyboard component.

18. The computer readable medium comprising instructions of claim 17 wherein the controller increases the palm check setting for the touchpad to ignore a palm of the user resting on or brushing against the touchpad if the active application receives more input from the keyboard component.

19. The computer readable medium comprising instructions of claim 17 wherein the controller decreases the palm check setting for the touchpad if the application receives more input from the touchpad.

20. The computer readable medium comprising instructions of claim 15 wherein the controller restores the palm check setting for the touchpad if the active application is no longer determined to be in focus.