System and method for an internet television remote control

• US 8,237,871 B2
• Filed: 08/29/2008
• Issued: 08/07/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 08/29/2008
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Verismo Networks, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Verismo Networks, Inc.
• Inventors: Saifee, Huzefa, Lad, Amol
• Primary Examiner(s): Harold, Jefferey
• Assistant Examiner(s): HAIEM, SEAN N
• Application Number:
  US12/200,932
• Publication Number:
  US 20100053461A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,439 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 348/734
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/41265 having a remote control device for bidirectional communication between the remote control device and client device unidirectional remote control device H04N21/42204
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42206 characterized by hardware details
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42212 Specific keyboard arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42214 using alphanumerical characters
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4222 Remote control device emulator integrated into a non-television apparatus, e.g. a PDA, media center or smart toy remote control device for a television receiver integrated into a mobile phone H04M1/72415
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42222 Additional components integrated in the remote control device, e.g. timer, speaker, sensors for detecting position, direction or movement of the remote control, microphone or battery charging device
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42224 Touch pad or touch panel provided on the remote control
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/426 Internal components of the client ; Characteristics thereof H04N5/44 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64322 IP

Abstract

A handheld electronic apparatus for communicatively coupling a user and a display device is disclosed. In one embodiment, the handheld electronic apparatus includes a user interface configured to accept an user input, the user interface further includes a first interface configured to accept the user input via a keypad, and a second interface configured to accept the user input via a touchpad. The handheld electronic apparatus also includes a processor configured to generate a signal by processing the user input, and a transmitter adapted to transmit the signal generated by the processor to the display device.

Claims

1. An Internet Television remote control device that can be held in one hand and communicatively coupling a user and an Internet Television, the Internet Television remote control device comprising:

a QWERTY®

keypad and a touchpad configured to accept a user input to navigate through the Internet via the Internet Television to locate multimedia content;

a display area to display the user input;

a processor configured to generate a custom pulse by processing the user input, wherein the custom pulse comprises a plurality of frames and each frame includes a plurality of bits encoded in a bi-phase encoding, and the plurality of bits comprises a preamble field, a remote identifier field, a toggle field, a data control field, a data field and an inter-frame gap between consecutive frames,

a keypad controller and a touchpad controller communicatively coupled with the processor and configured to control the QWERTY®

keypad and touchpad respectively; and

a transmitter configured to transmit the custom pulse to a display device of the Internet Television, wherein a receiver of the display device of the Internet Television is adapted to receive the custom pulse transmitted by the transmitter.

2. The Internet Television remote control device of claim 1, wherein the QWERTY®

keypad comprises keys selected from a group consisting of a set of QWERTY®

keypad keys, a set of multiplex keys, and a set of alteration keys configured to perform a dual mode function, and wherein a first key press on an alteration key enables a secondary mode for the alteration key, and a second key press on the same alteration key enables a primary mode for the alteration key.

3. The Internet Television remote control device of claim 2, wherein the set of multiplex keys is configured to perform a set of navigation functions when the receiver of the display device is in a browse mode and to perform a set of trickmode functions when the receiver of the display device is in a playback mode.

4. The Internet Television remote control device of claim 1 wherein the keypad controller is adapted to generate a keypad interrupt to the processor upon receiving a key press, and the keypad controller comprises a keypad scanner configured to identify a keypad scan code corresponding to the key press on the QWERTY®

keypad in a keypad scan code matrix.

5. The Internet Television remote control device of claim 4, wherein the keypad scan code matrix is a m×

n matrix including n bits of column lines and m bits of row lines that are connected to (m+n) input/output (I/O) lines of the processor, and wherein the keypad scan code matrix includes a set of regular keypad scan codes, a set of capital alphabet keypad scan codes, a set of numeric keypad scan codes and a set of symbolic keypad scan codes.

6. The Internet Television remote control device of claim 4, wherein the processor comprises a keypad custom pulse generator configured to generate the custom pulse to transmit the keypad scan code.

25. The Internet Television remote control device of claim 1, wherein the keypad controller and the touchpad controller are communicatively coupled with the processor via an input/output (I/O) lines of the processor and a universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART) link respectively.

26. The Internet Television remote control device of claim 1, further comprising a receiver to receive feedback from the Internet Television.

27. The Internet Television remote control device of claim 1, wherein the preamble field comprises a leader bit and a start bit, wherein the leader bit enables detection of a start of a frame in noisy radio frequency (RF) environments, and wherein noise at the receiver of the display device is filtered by setting the leader bit low for a period of 4T after setting the leader bit high for a period of 10T to authenticate the RF frames, and wherein data transmission with the receiver is synchronized by setting the start bit to one and setting a bit duration of the start bit to 2T.

7. An Internet Television remote control device that can be held in one hand and communicatively coupling a user and an Internet Television, the Internet Television remote control device comprising:

a QWERTY®

keypad, a touchpad, and a trackball configured to accept a user input, wherein the user input comprises a request to navigate through the Internet via the Internet Television to locate a multimedia content;

a display area to display the user input;

a processor configured to generate a custom pulse by processing the user input, wherein the custom pulse comprises a plurality of frames and each frame includes a plurality of bits encoded in a bi-phase encoding, and the plurality of bits comprises a preamble field, a remote identifier field, a toggle field, a data control field, a data field and an inter-frame gap between consecutive frames,

a keypad controller, a touchpad controller, and a trackball controller communicatively coupled with the processor via input/output (I/O) lines of the processor, an universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART) link, and a set of input/output (I/O) lines respectively and configured to control the QWERTY®

keypad, the touchpad, and the trackball respectively; and

a transmitter configured to transmit the custom pulse to a display device of the Internet Television, wherein a receiver of the display device of the Internet Television is adapted to receive the custom pulse transmitted by the transmitter.

8. The Internet Television remote control device of claim 7, wherein the touchpad to accept the user input comprises a touchpad activity indicated by an activation of the touchpad in a control mode or in a navigation mode.

9. The Internet Television remote control device of claim 8, wherein the touchpad controller is adapted to generate a touchpad interrupt to the processor upon detecting the touchpad activity, the touchpad controller comprises:

a touchpad coordinate identifier configured to determine a set of coordinates on the second interface indicated by the touchpad activity; and

a touchpad scanner configured to locate a touchpad scan code for the set of coordinates on the second interface in a touchpad scan code matrix.

10. The Internet Television remote control device of claim 9, wherein the processor comprises a touchpad custom pulse generator configured to generate the custom pulse to transmit the touchpad scan code.

11. An Internet Television remote control device that can be held in one hand and communicatively coupling a user and an Internet Television, the Internet Television remote control device comprising:

a QWERTY®

keypad and a trackball configured to accept a user input;

a display area to display the user input;

a processor configured to generate a custom pulse by processing the user input, wherein the custom pulse comprises a plurality of frames and each frame includes a plurality of bits encoded in a bi-phase encoding, and the plurality of bits comprises a preamble field, a remote identifier field, a toggle field, a data control field, a data field and an inter-frame gap between consecutive frames,

a keypad controller and a trackball controller communicatively coupled with the processor via input/output (I/O) lines and configured to control the QWERTY®

keypad and the trackball respectively; and

a transmitter configured to transmit the custom pulse to a display device of the Internet Television, wherein a receiver of the display device of the Internet Television is adapted to receive the custom pulse transmitted by the transmitter.

12. The Internet Television remote control device of claim 11, wherein the trackball to accept the user input comprises a trackball activity indicated by an activation of the trackball in a control mode or in a navigation mode.

13. The Internet Television remote control device of claim 12, wherein the trackball controller is adapted to generate a trackball interrupt to the processor upon detecting the trackball activity, the trackball controller comprises:

a trackball coordinate identifier configured to determine a set of coordinates on the third interface indicated by the trackball activity; and

a trackball scanner configured to locate a trackball scan code for the set of coordinates on the third interface in a trackball scan code matrix.

14. The Internet Television remote control device of claim 11, wherein the processor comprises a trackball custom pulse generator configured to generate the custom pulse to transmit the trackball scan code.

15. The Internet Television remote control device of claim 11, wherein the user input comprises a request to navigate the Internet via the Internet Television to locate multimedia contents.

16. A method of communicatively coupling a user and a display device of an Internet Television using an Internet Television remote control device that can be held in one hand, the method comprising:

accepting a user input via a QWERTY®

keypad and touchpad of the Internet Television remote control device;

displaying the user input in a display area of the Internet Television remote control device;

generating a signal by processing the user input by a processor of the Internet Television remote control device; and

transmitting the signal by a transmitter of the Internet Television remote control device to the display device of the Internet Television, wherein the user input comprises a request to navigate the Internet via the Internet Television to locate a multimedia content, wherein generating the signal by processing the user input by the processor comprises;

generating a custom pulse for the generated signal; and

transmitting the custom pulse via the transmitter to a receiver attached to the display device, wherein the custom pulse comprises a plurality of frames and each frame comprises a plurality of bits encoded in a bi-phase encoding, and the plurality of bits comprises a preamble field, a remote identifier field, a toggle field, a data control field, a data field and an inter-frame gap between consecutive frames.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein, the QWERTY®

keypad comprises a set of keys selected from a group comprising QWERTY®

keypad keys, a set of navigation keys, and a set of alteration keys to perform a dual mode function, and wherein a first key press on an alteration key enables a secondary mode for the alteration key, and a second key press on the same alteration key enables a primary mode for the alteration key.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein accepting the user input via the touchpad further comprises:

generating a touchpad interrupt to the processor upon detecting a touchpad activity;

determining a set of coordinates on the touchpad indicated by the touchpad activity; and

locating a touchpad scan code for the set of coordinates in a touchpad scan code matrix.

19. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

programming a remote identifier in the receiver attached to the display device; and

for each of the plurality of frames transmitted by the transmitter,

processing the transmitted frame if a remote identifier indicated in the remote identifier field of the frame matches with the remote identifier programmed in the receiver or if the transmitter is a master remote control device.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the toggle field occupies a bit and each bit is approximately about 800 microseconds in duration, wherein the bit is configured to distinguish between a single key press on a key and multiple key press on the same key.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the data control field enables different transmitters to use a common frame format while sending data in multiple data formats.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein a value zero in data control field notifies the receiver that data bits indicate a fixed length keypad scan code of a key on a regular keypad, while a value one notifies the receiver that the data bits indicate x and y coordinates of the touchpad.

23. The method of claim 16, wherein the preamble field detects a start of the frame, the detecting comprises:

filtering noise at the receiver by setting a leader bit low for a period of 4T after setting the leader bit high for a period of 10T, wherein filtering enables the receiver to authenticate radio frequency (RF) frames; and

synchronizing data transmission with the receiver by setting a start bit to one and setting a bit duration of the start bit to 2T.

24. A non-transitory machine-readable medium embodying a set of instructions that, when executed by a machine, causes the machine to perform the method of communicatively coupling a user and a display device of an Internet Television using an Internet Television remote control device that can be held in one hand, the method comprising:

accepting a user input via a QWERTY®

keypad and touchpad of the Internet Television remote control device;

displaying the user input in a display area of the Internet Television remote control device;

generating a signal by processing the user input by a processor of the Internet Television remote control device; and

transmitting the signal by a transmitter of the Internet Television remote control device to the display device of the Internet Television, wherein the user input comprises a request to navigate the Internet via the Internet Television to locate a multimedia content, wherein generating the signal by processing the user input by the processor comprises;

generating a custom pulse for the generated signal; and

transmitting the custom pulse via the transmitter to a receiver attached to the display device, wherein the custom pulse comprises a plurality of frames and each frame comprises a plurality of bits encoded in a bi-phase encoding, and the plurality of bits comprises a preamble field, a remote identifier field, a toggle field, a data control field, a data field and an inter-frame gap between consecutive frames.