INPUT DEVICES AND METHODS

• US 20150138089A1
• Filed: 11/12/2014
• Published: 05/21/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/15/2013
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Tabitop, LLC
• Original Assignee: Tabitop, LLC
• Inventors: Angerbauer, Spencer, Riskin, David, Sorensen, Severin, Le, Phong
• Application Number:
  US14/539,451
• Publication Number:
  US 20150138089A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/158
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1626 with a single-body enclosure integrating a flat display, e.g. Personal Digital Assistants [PDAs]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/169 the I/O peripheral being an integrated pointing device, e.g. trackball in the palm rest area, mini-joystick integrated between keyboard keys, touch pads or touch stripes G06F1/1643 takes precedence; constructional details of pointing devices G06F3/033
• 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 2203/0384 Wireless input, i.e. hardware and software details of wireless interface arrangements for pointing devices
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0317 in co-operation with a patterned surface, e.g. absolute position or relative movement detection for an optical mouse or pen positioned with respect to a coded surface
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/033 Pointing devices displaced or positioned by the user , e.g. mice, trackballs, pens or joysticks; Accessories therefor digitisers characterised by the transducing means G06F3/041
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0346 with detection of the device orientation or free movement in a 3D space, e.g. 3D mice, 6-DOF [six degrees of freedom] pointers using gyroscopes, accelerometers or tilt-sensors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/03543 Mice or pucks G06F3/03541 takes precedence
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/452 Remote windowing, e.g. X-Window System, desktop virtualisation protocols for virtual reality H04L67/131
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72403 with means for local support of applications that increase the functionality
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication

Abstract

Devices and methods for providing an interface to a computing device are disclosed herein. The disclosed embodiments allow a user to utilize a first computing device, such as a smartphone or other mobile computing device, as a mouse-like peripheral input device for an associated second computing device, such as a tablet computing device. A user can utilize the first computing device as a fully functional touchpad, movement, and/or accelerometer mouse input device. Manipulation of the first computing device is translated into mouse control inputs and movements to be displayed on the associated second computing device. The first computing device may be manipulated in order to fully control movements, gestures, and various touch inputs as well as click inputs on a display, and functionality of applications executing on the second computing device.

Claims

1. A portable computing device for providing input to another computing device, the portable computing device comprising:

an application processor to execute user interactive applications;

a memory in communication with the application processor, the memory comprising one or more applications that are executable by the application processor;

an input module to receive user input to the portable computing device that indicates a mouse gesture, the mouse gesture interpretable by a receiver module of a receiving computing device to emulate touch input on the receiving computing device to perform an action within an application on the receiving computing device; and

a wireless communication interface to communicate received user input to the receiving computing device.

2. The portable computing device of claim 1, wherein the input module further comprises a touchscreen display to receive the user input as one or more touch gestures.

3. The portable computing device of claim 2, wherein the touchscreen display is configured to present a user interface generated by user interactive applications executed by the application processor of the portable computing device.

4. The portable computing device of claim 1, wherein the input module further comprises one or more of a camera and an infrared sensor to receive the user input as surface movement of the portable computing device along a flat surface.

5. The portable computing device of claim 1, wherein the input module further comprises one or more accelerometers to receive the user input as multi-dimensional movement of the portable computing device.

6. The portable computing device of claim 1, wherein the wireless communication interface comprises Bluetooth®

technology.

7. The portable computing device of claim 1, further comprising a transmitter-receiver configured to communicate with a wireless telephone communication network.

8. The portable computing device of claim 7, further comprising a baseband processor to execute operations that enable communication with the wireless telephone communication network.

9. The portable computing device of claim 1, wherein the mouse gesture is presentable on a display screen of the receiving computing device as a movement of a mouse pointer.

10. The portable computing device of claim 9, wherein the action, when performed by the receiving computing device, is presented on the display screen of the receiving computing device.

11. A method for providing input to another computing device, comprising:

establishing a wireless communication connection between an input computing device and a receiving computing device;

receiving on the input computing device user input that indicates a mouse gesture intended for the receiving computing device, the mouse gesture interpretable by the receiving computing device to perform an action within an application on the receiving computing device; and

transmitting the mouse gesture from the input computing device to the receiving computing device.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein receiving the user input comprises receiving the user input via a touchscreen display as touch gestures.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the touchscreen display is configured to present a user interface generated by user interactive applications executed by an application processor of the input computing device.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

executing a user application on an application processor of the input computing device; and

presenting, on the touchscreen, a user interface generated by the user application.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein receiving the user input comprises detecting surface movement of the input computing device along a flat surface using one or more of a camera and an infrared sensor.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein receiving the user input comprises detecting multi-dimensional movement of the input computing device using one or more accelerometers of the input computing device.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein transmitting the mouse gesture comprises transmitting via Bluetooth technology.

18. The method of claim 11, further comprising establishing a communication link between the input computing device and a wireless telephone communication network.

19. The method of claim 11, wherein transmitting the mouse gesture to the receiving computing device includes transmitting the user input that indicates the mouse gesture.

20. A computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions that, when executed by one or more computing devices, cause the one or more computing devices to perform operations comprising:

establishing a wireless communication connection between an input computing device and a receiving computing device;

receiving on the input computing device user input that indicates a mouse gesture intended for the receiving computing device, the mouse gesture interpretable to perform an action to interface with an application on the receiving computing device; and

transmitting the mouse gesture from the input computing device to the receiving computing device.