COMPUTING DEVICE CHORDING AUTHENTICATION AND CONTROL

• US 20160048668A1
• Filed: 08/13/2014
• Published: 02/18/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/13/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Motorola Mobility LLC (Lenovo Group Ltd.)
• Inventors: Zafiris, John
• Granted Patent: US 9,740,839 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1671 Special purpose buttons or auxiliary keyboards, e.g. retractable mini keypads, keypads or buttons that remain accessible at closed laptop G06F1/1666 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1694 the I/O peripheral being a single or a set of motion sensors for pointer control or gesture input obtained by sensing movements of the portable computer
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/32 using biometric data, e.g. fingerprints, iris scans or voiceprints
• 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 2203/0339 Touch strips, e.g. orthogonal touch strips to control cursor movement or scrolling; single touch strip to adjust parameter or to implement a row of soft keys
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0235 using chord techniques G06F3/0234 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/044 by capacitive means
• CPC Class Codes: H03K 17/9622 using a plurality of detectors, e.g. keyboard

Abstract

Chording techniques are described that may be utilized in a variety of ways to provide inputs to a computing device. The computing device, for instance, may include sensors disposed on a housing of the computing device such that the sensors are configured to detect fingers of a user when grasping the device. Detection of a likely indexed relative position of the fingers of the user'"'"'s hand in relation to each other, and even an amount of pressure used by respective ones of the fingers, may be used to define and input chords that may be used to initiate operations of the computing device.

Claims

1. A computing device comprising:

a housing configured to be grasped by at least one hand of a user;

a display device secured to the housing;

a plurality of sensors secured to the housing and disposed adjacent to a perimeter of the display device; and

one or more modules implemented at least partially in hardware, the one or more modules configured to perform operations comprising;

detecting an orientation of the housing in three dimensional space;

recognizing a plurality of inputs detected using the one or more sensors as one or more chords, each of the chords defining a substantially simultaneous collection of inputs by the plurality of sensors that describe a likely indexed relative position of one or more fingers, one to another, of the at least one hand in grasping the housing; and

responsive to a determination, based at least in part on the detected orientation, that the one or more chords correspond to stored credentials of the user, authenticating the user to access functionality of the computing device.

2. A computing device as described in claim 1, wherein the recognizing of the one or more chords includes identifying from the inputs a likely amount of pressure applied by individual ones of the one or more fingers of the user.

3. A computing device as described in claim 1, wherein the authenticating causes an unlocking of the computing device that permits access to applications of the computing device.

4. A computing device as described in claim 1, wherein the one or more sensors are not part of the display device of the computing device.

6. A computing device as described in claim 1, wherein the one or more modules are further configured to perform operations comprising:

responsive to a determination that the orientation of the housing is in a first orientation, flipping inputs received from the plurality of sensors; and

responsive to a determination that the orientation of the housing is in a second orientation that is different from the first orientation, passing the inputs received from the plurality of sensors unmodified.

7. A computing device as described in claim 6, wherein the first orientation positions the display device to be viewable by the user when grasping the housing and the second orientation positions the display device such that it is not viewable by the user when grasping the housing.

8. A computing device as described in claim 6, wherein:

the first and second orientations position the display device to be viewable by the user;

the first orientation results in a particular side of the housing as being oriented generally upward; and

the second orientation results in the particular side of the housing as not being oriented generally upward.

9. A computing device as described in claim 1, wherein the authenticating includes waking a processing system of the computing device.

10. A computing device as described in claim 1, wherein at least one said chord involves identifying a likelihood that at least one of the fingers of the user'"'"'s hand is not used to grasp the housing.

11. A computing device as described in claim 1, wherein the recognizing of the relative position of the one or more fingers of the user'"'"'s hand is performable such that each said chord is detectable using different combinations of the plurality of sensors.

5. (canceled).

12. A method comprising:

detecting an indexed relative position and likely amount of pressure of one or more fingers of a user'"'"'s hand that are used to grasp a housing of a computing device;

recognizing a sequence of chords by the computing device as corresponding to one or more operations of the computing device based at least in part on the detecting, each of the chords in the sequence recognized based on the indexed relative position and the likely amount of pressures of the one or more fingers of the user'"'"'s hand; and

responsive to the recognizing of the sequence of chords by the computing device, initiating one or more operations of the computing device that correspond to the recognized sequence.

13. A method as described in claim 12, wherein the recognizing of a particular said chord is performed regardless of orientation of the housing.

14. A method as described in claim 13, wherein the recognizing of a particular said chord is performed regardless of the orientation of the housing by:

detecting an orientation of the housing in three dimensional space using a sensor;

responsive to a determination that the orientation of the housing is in a first orientation, flipping inputs received from the plurality of sensors; and

responsive to a determination that the orientation of the housing is in a second orientation that is different from the first orientation, passing the inputs received from the plurality of sensors unmodified.

15. A method as described in claim 14, wherein:

the first orientation positions the display device to be viewable by the user when grasping the housing and the second orientation positions the display device such that it is not viewable by the user when grasping the housing;

or

the first and second orientations position the display device to be viewable by the user, the first orientation results in a particular side of the housing as being oriented generally upward, and the second orientation results in the particular side of the housing as not being oriented generally upward.

16. A method as described in claim 12, wherein the one or more operations include launching an application, unlocking the computing device, or initiating emergency functionality.

17. A computing device comprising:

a housing configured to be grasped by at least one hand of a user;

a plurality of sensors secured to the housing; and

one or more modules implemented at least partially in hardware, the one or more modules configured to perform operations comprising;

recognizing a plurality of inputs detected using the one or more sensors as at least one chord, the at least one chord defining a substantially simultaneous collection of inputs by the plurality of sensors that describe;

an amount of pressure of one or more fingers of the at least one hand in grasping the housing;

or

a likely indexed relative position of the one or more fingers in relation to each other in grasping the housing; and

responsive to a determination that the at least one chord corresponds to emergency functionality of the computing device, initiating the emergency functionality of the computing device.

18. A computing device as described in claim 17, wherein the emergency functionality causes a communication to be initiated by the computing device to emergency services.

20. A computing device as described in claim 17, wherein the at least one chord is recognized based on the amount of pressure and the likely relative position of the one or more fingers of the at least one hand in grasping the housing.

19. A computing device as described in claim 0, wherein the communication is a telephone call or electronic message.