In situ search for active note taking

• US 7,693,842 B2
• Filed: 04/09/2007
• Issued: 04/06/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/09/2007
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Zhao, Shengdong, Shilman, Michael, Hinckley, Kenneth P., Tan, Desney S., Sarin, Raman K., Baudisch, Patrick M., Cutrell, Edward B.
• Primary Examiner(s): Fleurantin; Jean B.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ly; Anh
• Application Number:
  US11/733,113
• Publication Number:
  US 20080250012A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,093 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707 3- 5, 707/10, 707100-102, 707/104.1, 715/541, 715/773, 715/810, 715/840, 715/864, 715/733, 715/768, 715/863, 345/179, 345/864, 345/173, 382/187, 382/306, 382/186
• US Class Current: 707/770
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 18/28 Determining representative reference patterns, e.g. by averaging or distorting; Generating dictionaries
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/1914 Determining representative reference patterns, e.g. averaging or distorting patterns; Generating dictionaries, e.g. user dictionaries
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/387 using human interaction, e.g. selection of the best displayed recognition candidate

Abstract

A system and method that facilitates and effectuates in situ search for active note taking. The system and method includes receiving gestures from a stylus and a tablet associated with the system. Upon recognizing the gesture as belonging to a set of known and recognized gestures, the system creates an embeddable object, initiates a search with terms indicated by the gesture, associates the search results with the created object and inserts the object in close proximity with the terms that instigated the search.

Claims

1. A computer implemented system for facilitating in situ search for active note taking, comprising the following components stored in a computer readable storage medium and executable by a processor:

a gesture discernment component that receives a gesture from an input device identifying at least one inked handwritten script and recognizes the gesture as belonging to a set of previously persisted gestures;

an embeddable object component that associates an embeddable graphical object with the at least one inked handwritten script, the embeddable graphical object being associated with recognized query text and/or a number of results returned in response to the recognized query text and additional embeddable graphical objects, the additional embeddable graphical objects being associated with disparate functions;

a tracking menu comprising;

a scroll ring that receives pseudo-circular motion from the input device and translates the motion into vertical or horizontal scrolling in a focus application of a system manager window;

a capture tool that allows a user to circumscribe an area of a display;

a close box that dismisses the tracking menu; and

a move handle for dragging the tracking menu to a new position, the tracking menu providing cross application functionality between disparate applications;

a handwriting digital conversion component that digitizes and analyzes the at least one inked handwritten script; and

a search component that instantiates a search to return results using the digitized and analyzed at least one inked handwritten script, the results coupled with the embeddable graphical object.

2. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the gesture includes selection of a gesture mode with the system and circumscription of an area on a display.

3. The computer-implemented system of claim 2, wherein the area circumscribed includes zero or more alphanumeric characters.

4. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the gesture includes depression of a button on a stylus and contemporaneous sweeping of the stylus over previously scribed terms.

5. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the at least one inked handwritten script includes at least one alphanumeric character.

6. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the embeddable graphical object is contiguously inserted and coupled with the at least one term identified by the gesture.

7. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the results coupled with the embeddable graphical object is displayed to a deferred time indicated by a user.

8. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the embeddable graphical object is manipulable and subject to one or more of excision, insertion, selection, deletion, movement or storage to permanent media and association with persisted data.

9. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, further comprising a classifier to that transforms scribed content into one or more of a search vector, a set of words, a term, or a filter suitable for information retrieval.

10. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, further comprising a digit situated over the embeddable graphical object displayed on a tablet that causes the embeddable graphical object to disclose information affiliated with the embeddable graphical object.

11. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the search returns results from a storage device associated with the system.

12. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the search returns results from the internet.

13. A machine implemented method for effectuating in situ search for active note taking, comprising:

receiving and recognizing a gesture from an input device identifying at least one inked text;

generating an embeddable graphical object and associating the embeddable graphical object with the at least one handwritten script, the embeddable graphical object being associated with recognized query text and/or a number of results returned in response to the recognized query text and additional embeddable graphical objects, the additional embeddable graphical objects being associated with disparate functions;

employing a tracking menu comprising;

a scroll ring that receives pseudo-circular motion from the input device and translates the motion into vertical or horizontal scrolling in a focus application of a system manager window;

a capture tool that allows a user to circumscribe an area of a display;

a close box that dismisses the tracking menu; and

a move handle for dragging the tracking menu to a new position, the tracking menu providing cross application functionality between disparate applications;

digitizing and analyzing the at least one handwritten script;

initiating a search with the digitized and analyzed at least one handwritten script to return results;

coupling the results with the embeddable graphical object; and

inserting the embeddable graphical object in close proximity to the at least one handwritten script.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising displaying a directional stroke labeled with a short textual description that indicates a permissible gesture.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising animating highlighter hints into or out of an interface control utilized for dismissal and retrieval of the highlighter hints by a user.

16. A computer-implemented system for facilitating in situ search for active note taking, comprising the following components stored in a computer readable storage medium and executable by a processor:

means for receiving and recognizing a gesture identifying at least one handwritten script from an input means;

means for creating an embeddable graphical object and associating the embeddable graphical object with the at least one handwritten script, the embeddable graphical object being associated with recognized query text and/or a number of results returned in response to the recognized query text and additional embeddable graphical objects, the additional embeddable graphical objects being associated with disparate functions;

means for employing a tracking menu comprising;

a scroll ring that receives pseudo-circular motion from the input device and translates the motion into vertical or horizontal scrolling in a focus application of a system manager window;

a capture tool that allows a user to circumscribe an area of a display;

a close box that dismisses the tracking menu; and

a move handle for dragging the tracking menu to a new position, the tracking menu providing cross application functionality between disparate applications;

means for digitizing and analyzing the at least one handwritten script;

means for searching to return results using the digitized and analyzed at least one handwritten script; and

means for inserting the embeddable graphical object in close proximity to the at least one handwritten script on the input means.