One-row keyboard and approximate typing

• US 8,147,154 B2
• Filed: 04/18/2008
• Issued: 04/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 08/13/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: 5 examples, Inc.
• Original Assignee: 5 examples, Inc.
• Inventors: Jawerth, Bjorn, Mehta, Viraj
• Primary Examiner(s): Ries, Laurie
• Assistant Examiner(s): AMIN, MUSTAFA A
• Application Number:
  US12/148,539
• Publication Number:
  US 20080270897A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,446 Days
• Field of Search: 715/256
• US Class Current: 400/489
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/162 changing, e.g. reversing, the face orientation of the screen with a two degrees of freedom mechanism, e.g. for folding into tablet PC like position or orienting towards the direction opposite to the user to show to a second user
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1622 with enclosures rotating around an axis perpendicular to the plane they define or with ball-joint coupling, e.g. PDA with display enclosure orientation changeable between portrait and landscape by rotation with respect to a coplanar body enclosure
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1666 Arrangements for reducing the size of the integrated keyboard for transport, e.g. foldable keyboards, keyboards with collapsible keys G06F1/1664 takes precedence
• 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 3/0221 Arrangements for reducing keyboard size for transport or storage, e.g. foldable keyboards, keyboards with collapsible keys G06F3/0216 takes precedence; for keyboards integrated in a laptop computer G06F1/1666
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0237 using prediction or retrieval techniques
• CPC Class Codes: H01H 13/86 characterised by the casing, e.g. sealed casings or casings reducible in size
• CPC Class Codes: H01H 2223/05 composed of hingedly connected sections
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/021 using combined folding and rotation motions combined with translation movement H04M1/0235
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/0214 Foldable telephones, i.e. with body parts pivoting to an open position around an axis parallel to the plane they define in closed position combined with translation movement H04M1/0235
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/0225 Rotatable telephones, i.e. the body parts pivoting to an open position around an axis perpendicular to the plane they define in closed position combined with translation movement H04M1/0235
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/0235 Slidable or telescopic telephones, i.e. with a relative translation movement of the body parts; Telephones using a combination of translation and other relative motions of the body parts
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/0247 comprising more than two body parts
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/23 Construction or mounting of dials or of equivalent devices; Means for facilitating the use thereof by improving visibility H04M1/22
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/18 including more than one keyboard unit

Abstract

In one aspect, the present invention comprises an apparatus for character entry on an electronic device, comprising: a keyboard with one row of keys; and an electronic display device in communication with the keyboard; wherein one or more keys on the keyboard has a correspondence with a plurality of characters, and wherein the correspondence enables QWERTY-based typing. In another aspect, the invention comprises an apparatus for character entry on an electronic device, comprising: a keyboard with a plurality of keys; and an electronic display device in communication with the keyboard; wherein one or more keys on the keyboard has a correspondence with a plurality of characters, and wherein, for each of the one or more keys, the plurality of characters comprises: (a) a home row character associated with a particular finger when touch typing; and (b) a non-home-row character associated with the particular finger when touch typing.

Claims

1. A method for predicting a character sequence based on a signature sequence of equal length to that of said character sequence, said signature sequence generated by a user'"'"'s consecutive selection of keys on a reduced keyboard, comprising:

(i) receiving a sequence of one or more signatures for each key selected by said user, each key-signature pair of said reduced keyboard being unique, each of said one or more signatures associated with at least one dual signature and at least one of said one or more signatures associated with two or more dual signatures, each signature-dual signature pair uniquely associated with a character supported by said reduced keyboard;

(ii) storing in a computer readable memory a plurality of objects, each said objects comprising;

(a) a unique sequence of signature-dual signature pairs derived from at least one set of legal beginning-of-word (BOW) character combinations; and

(b) one or more attributes associated with said unique sequence;

(iii) for each received one or more signatures, predicting at least one of said plurality of objects based on;

(a) the sequence of said one or more signatures, wherein said received one or more signatures are received consecutively from said reduced keyboard; and

(b) said one or more attributes associated with said unique sequence of said objects;

wherein each of said such sequence terminating with a signature predicted as a delimiter;

(iv) outputting a unique BOW character combination associated with said at least one predicted object.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of said signature-dual signature pairs is associated with a letter character and at least one different signature-dual signature pair with the same signature is associated with a non-letter character.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising combining two or more of said sets of legal BOW character combinations to create an extended set of legal BOW character combinations.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein said extended set of legal BOW character combinations includes punctuation characters.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising predicting at least one of said objects based on specific rules of disambiguation.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said rules of disambiguation are rules for punctuation.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein for each of plurality of objects at least one of said one or more attributes associated with said unique sequence of said objects is path frequency.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising outputting said predicted objects in an order based on said one or more attributes associated with said unique sequence of said objects.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein said one or more attributes associated with said unique sequence of said objects includes at least path frequency and said predicted objects output order is based, at least in part, on said path frequency.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said prediction is based, at least in part, on dual signature selections resulting from a Display Optimization process.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising locking said dual signature associated with at least one of said signature-dual signature pairs in said sequence of said one or more signatures, and further basing said prediction, at least in part, on said at least one locked dual signature.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein for each of said plurality of objects at least one of said object sequence attributes is associated with at least one context tag, and said at least one context tag is used, at least in part, to predict at least one of said objects.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein at least one of said context tags is associated with a part-of-speech tag.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein said memory contains only objects whose sequence of signature-dual signature pairs is either (a) a delimiter-terminated sequence of signatures or (b) a sequence of signatures less than or equal to some fixed length.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein, on an as needed basis, objects comprising sequences of signatures greater than said fixed length are derived from at least one object containing a delimiter-terminated sequence of signatures comprising the same initial sequence of signatures.

16. The method of claim 3, further comprising rules to generate valid delimiter-terminated character combinations from other valid delimiter-terminated character combinations in said set of legal BOW character combinations.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein said rules include rules for generating standard modifications, endings, and punctuation of basic words within a specific context in said set of legal BOW character combinations.

18. The method of claim 3, wherein at least one of said sets of legal character combinations is derived from an address book or list of email addresses.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein said legal BOW character combinations are defined from terms or symbols used within one or more specific contexts.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein said received one or more signature comprises one or more, but less than ‘

n’

, signatures of an n-tuple signature, each n-tuple signature uniquely associated with a character supported by said reduced keyboard; and

wherein each of said objects comprises a unique sequence of n-tuple signatures derived from said at least one set of legal BOW character combinations.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more of said received signatures are generated by two or more keys being simultaneously selected by said user.

22. A method for predicting a character sequence based on a signature sequence generated by a user'"'"'s consecutive selection of keys on a reduced keyboard, wherein said signature sequence is an approximation to a character signature sequence associated with said character sequence, comprising

(i) receiving a sequence of one or more signatures for each key selected by said user, each key-signature pair of said reduced keyboard being unique, each of said one or more signatures associated with at least one dual signature and at least one of said one or more signatures associated with two or more dual signatures, each signature-dual signature pair uniquely associated with a character supported by said reduced keyboard;

(ii) storing in a computer readable memory a plurality of objects, each said objects comprising;

(a) a unique sequence of signature-dual signature pairs derived from at least one set of legal character combinations; and

(b) one or more attributes associated with said unique sequence;

(iii) predicting at least one approximate signature sequence based on the sequence of one or more signatures consecutively received from said reduced keyboard;

(iv) for each of said approximate signature sequences, predicting at least one of said plurality of objects based on said approximate signature sequence and on said attributes associated with said unique sequence of said objects, terminating each such approximate signature sequence when said approximate signature sequence terminates with a signature predicted as a delimiter; and

(v) outputting a character combination associated with at least one of said predicted plurality of objects.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein said prediction of said approximate signature sequence is based on, at least in part, one or more similarity measures or typing models.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein at least one of said one or more similarity measures or typing models is based on, at least in part, observed user key selection behaviors.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein said observed user key selection behaviors are adjusted to account for behaviors of a specific user.

26. The method of claim 24, wherein said observed user key selection behaviors are adjusted to account for a specific context or environment.

27. The method of claim 22, wherein said prediction of at least one of said plurality of objects is based on, at least in part, a reduced keyboard disambiguation method and said approximate signature sequence.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein said reduced keyboard disambiguation method comprises:

(vi) receiving at least one of said approximate signature sequence;

(vii) storing in a computer readable memory a plurality of objects, each of said objects comprising;

(a) the unique sequence of signature-dual signature pairs derived from at least one set of legal beginning-of-word (BOW) character combinations; and

(b) the one or more attributes associated with said unique sequence;

(viii) for each said received approximation signature sequence, predicting at least one of said plurality of objects based on said approximation signature sequence and on said one or more attributes associated with said unique sequence of said objects; and

(ix) outputting a unique BOW character combination associated with said at least one predicted object.

29. The method of claim 27, wherein said object predicting step is performed for only delimiter-terminated approximate signature sequences.

30. The method of claim 27, wherein each sequence of signature-dual signature pairs corresponding to each of said plurality of objects is a delimiter-terminated sequence.

31. The method of claim 22, further comprising outputting said predicted objects in an order based on said one or more attributes associated with said unique sequence of said objects.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein at least one of said one or more attributes associated with said unique sequence of said objects is frequency-of-use.

33. The method of claim 32, wherein said frequency-of-use is based on a path-frequency.

34. The method of claim 22, further comprising applying a cost function which assigns a cost to each of said approximate signature sequences.

35. The method of claim 34, wherein said cost function is based on one or more edit distances, pseudo-distances, or sequence transformations.

36. The method of claim 34, further comprising outputting said predicted objects in an order based on, at least in part, one or more of said cost function and said object sequence attributes.

37. The method of claim 34, wherein:

(a) said cost is less than some fixed value;

(b) at least one of said one or more attributes associated with said unique sequence of said objects is a path-frequency; and

(c) said path-frequency is greater than some minimum value greater than zero.

38. The method of claim 22, wherein one or more of said signatures in an approximate signature sequence is locked to a value and the corresponding one or more signatures in each approximate signature sequence is locked to the same value.

39. The method of claim 38, wherein said one or more locked signatures and corresponding values are determined, at least in part, by a display optimization process, and further comprising basing said prediction, at least in part, on said locked signatures.

40. The method of claim 38, further comprising locking a dual signature associated with at least one of said one or more locked signatures, and further basing said prediction, at least in part, on said locked dual signature.

41. The method of claim 22, wherein at least one of said one or more attributes associated with said unique sequence of said objects is associated with at least one context tag, and said at least one context tag is used, at least in part, to predict at least one of said objects.

42. The method of claim 41, wherein at least one of said context tags is associated with a part-of-speech.

43. The method of claim 22, wherein said memory contains only objects whose sequence of signature-dual signature pairs is either (a) a delimiter-terminated sequence of signatures, or (b) a sequence of signatures less than or equal to some fixed length.

44. The method of claim 43, wherein, on an as needed basis, objects comprising sequences of signatures greater than said fixed length are derived from at least one object containing a delimiter-terminated sequence of signatures comprising the same initial sequence of signatures.

45. The method of claim 22, further comprising rules to generate valid delimiter-terminated character combinations from other valid delimiter-terminated character combinations in said set of legal character combinations.

46. The method of claim 45, wherein said rules include rules for generating standard modifications, endings, and punctuation of basic words within a specific context in said set of legal character combinations.

47. The method of claim 22, wherein said legal character combinations are defined from terms or symbols used within one or more specific contexts.

48. The method of claim 47, wherein said specific contexts comprise an address book or email addresses.

49. The method of claim 22, wherein said received signature comprises one or more, but less than ‘

n’

, signatures of an n-tuple signature, each n-tuple signature uniquely associated with a character supported by said reduced keyboard; and

wherein each of said objects comprise a unique sequence of n-tuple signatures derived from said at least one set of legal character combinations.

50. The method of claim 22, wherein one or more of said received signatures are generated by two or more keys being simultaneously selected by a user of said reduced keyboard.