Touch-typable devices based on ambiguous codes and methods to design such devices
First Claim
1. An apparatus comprising:
- encoding symbols;
decoding symbols;
a keyboard comprising a plurality of keys responsive to user activation to generate sequences of said encoding symbols, said keyboard comprising a plurality of keys;
an output which selectively outputs sequences of said decoding symbols in response to said user activation of said keyboard;
an ambiguous code which maps said sequences of said encoding symbols to said sequences of said decoding symbols, wherein at least one of said sequences of said encoding symbols is mapped to a plurality of said sequences of said decoding symbols, said ambiguous code characterized in that it is strongly touch typable;
a plurality of decoding-symbol-assigned keys formed by an assignment of said decoding symbols to said keys, said assignment characterized in that it is not even-as-possible, given the number of said decoding-symbol-assigned keys.
0 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
The design of typable devices, in particular, touch-typable devices embodying ambiguous codes, presents numerous ergonomic problems. Solutions for these problems are herein disclosed. This invention teaches methods for the selection of ambiguous codes from the classes of strongly-touch-typable ambiguous codes and substantially optimal ambiguous codes for touch-typable devices such as computers, telephones, pagers, personal digital assistants, smart cards, television set-top devices and other information appliances, given design constraints such as the size, shape, and computational capacity of the device, the typical uses of the device, and conventional constraints such as respect of alphabetic ordering or Qwerty ordering.
205 Citations
120 Claims
-
1. An apparatus comprising:
- encoding symbols;
decoding symbols;
a keyboard comprising a plurality of keys responsive to user activation to generate sequences of said encoding symbols, said keyboard comprising a plurality of keys;
an output which selectively outputs sequences of said decoding symbols in response to said user activation of said keyboard;
an ambiguous code which maps said sequences of said encoding symbols to said sequences of said decoding symbols, wherein at least one of said sequences of said encoding symbols is mapped to a plurality of said sequences of said decoding symbols, said ambiguous code characterized in that it is strongly touch typable;
a plurality of decoding-symbol-assigned keys formed by an assignment of said decoding symbols to said keys, said assignment characterized in that it is not even-as-possible, given the number of said decoding-symbol-assigned keys.
- encoding symbols;
-
2. An apparatus comprising:
- encoding symbols;
decoding symbols;
a keyboard comprising a plurality of keys responsive to user activation to generate sequences of said encoding symbols, said keyboard comprising a plurality of keys;
an output which selectively outputs sequences of said decoding symbols in response to said user activation of said keyboard;
an ambiguous code which maps said sequences of said encoding symbols to said sequences of said decoding symbols, wherein at least one of said sequences of said encoding symbols is mapped to a plurality of said sequences of said decoding symbols, said ambiguous code characterized in that it is maximally touch typable in that at least one of the conditions is true of said ambiguous code, said conditions selected from i) its lookup error rate is at least of level C, ii) its query error rate is at least of level B, iii) its effective key number is at least 10, given statistics drawn from a representative corpus of a language.
- encoding symbols;
-
3. An apparatus comprising:
- encoding symbols;
decoding symbols;
a keyboard comprising a plurality of keys responsive to user activation to generate sequences of said encoding symbols, said keyboard comprising a plurality of keys;
an output sequences of said decoding symbols in response to said user activation of said keyboard;
an ambiguous code which maps said sequences of said encoding symbols to said sequences of said decoding symbols;
wherein at least one said sequences of said encoding symbols is mapped to a plurality of said sequences of said decoding symbols, said ambiguous code characterized in that it substantially satisfies at least one constraint selected from the group consisting of anatomic fidelity, conservation of conventional gestures, conservation of convention, cross-platform compatibility, learnability, and scan time;
an assignment of a plurality of said decoding symbols to said keys, said assignment characterized in that it is not even-as-possible.
- encoding symbols;
-
4. An apparatus comprising:
- encoding symbols;
decoding symbols;
a keyboard comprising a plurality of keys responsive to user activation to generate sequences of said encoding symbols, said keyboard comprising a plurality of keys;
an output which selectively outputs sequences of said decoding symbols in response to said user activation of said keyboard;
an ambiguous code which maps said sequences of said encoding symbols to said sequences of said decoding symbols, wherein at least one of said sequences of said encoding symbols is mapped to a plurality of said sequences of said decoding symbols, said ambiguous code characterized in that it is substantially optimal with respect to at least one of lookup error rate and query error rate;
an assignment of said decoding symbols to said keys, said assignment characterized in that it is not even-as-possible, given the number of said keys to which said decoding symbols have been assigned by said assignment.
- encoding symbols;
-
5. An apparatus comprising:
- encoding symbols;
decoding symbols;
a keyboard comprising a plurality of keys responsive to user activation to generate sequences of said encoding symbols;
an output which selectively outputs sequences of said decoding symbols in response to said user activation of said keyboard;
an ambiguous code which maps said sequences of said encoding symbols to said sequences of said decoding symbols, wherein at least one of said sequences of said encoding symbols is mapped to a plurality of said sequences of said decoding symbols, said ambiguous code characterized in that said sequences of said encoding symbols are max-2 sequences of length at most two, comprising at least one max-2 sequence of length 2; and
said sequences of said decoding symbols are max-1 sequences of length 1 whereby said ambiguous code is a mapping between said max-2 sequences of said encoding symbols and subsets of said decoding symbols and whereby input of one of said max-2 sequences of said encoding symbols explictly selects for ambiguous output one of said subsets of said decoding symbols. - View Dependent Claims (6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24)
- encoding symbols;
- 25. The apparatus of claim where said disambiguation software is selected from the set comprising word-based, sequence-based, prefix-based and any combination thereto.
-
28. An apparatus comprising:
- encoding symbols;
decoding symbols;
a keyboard comprising a plurality of keys responsive to user activation to generate sequences of said encoding symbols;
an output which selectively outputs sequences of said decoding symbols in response to said user activation of said keyboard;
an ambiguous code which maps said sequences of said encoding symbols to said sequences of said decoding symbols, wherein at least one of said sequences of said encoding symbols is mapped to a plurality of said sequences of said decoding symbols;
said ambiguous code characterized in that it is strongly touch typable;
an assignment of said decoding symbols to said keys;
said ambiguous code together with said assignment characterized in that they substantially satisfy at least one constraint selected from the group consisting of anatomic fidelity, conservation of conventional gestures, conservation of convention, cross-platform compatibility, learnability, and scan time. - View Dependent Claims (29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42)
- encoding symbols;
-
43. An ambiguous keyboard disambiguating system for a natural language, comprising:
-
a) encoding symbols and decoding symbols; b) an ambiguous keyboard having at three rows of keys and one to ten columns of keys, both of said three rows and one to ten columns having indicia that denote one or more letters assigned to one or more keys, wherein said one or more letters are used to write common words in said natural language, wherein; each of said one or more keys corresponds to one of said encoding symbols; and each of said one or more letters corresponds to one of said decoding symbols, the total number of said keys having at least one letter assigned to them being less than the number of said one or more letters in an alphabet used to form words in said natural language such that at least one key of said keys must have more than one letter of said alphabet assigned to it; c) said assignment of respective said one or more letters assigned to respective said keys permitting a partial conservation layout of said indicia in that in said partial conservation layout at least a ratio of 18/26 of said indicia are at or adjacent to their respective ordered positions in a letter indicia layout of a conventional typewriter keyboard for said natural language, while respecting said assignment, where said ordered positions are ordered in a conventional presentation order for said conventional typewriter keyboard; wherein said conventional typewriter keyboard layout is a non-alphabetic order for said natural language, wherein said non-alphabetic order includes at least one letter assigned to one or more keys of said ambiguous keyboard violating an alphabetic order for said natural language; wherein said ambiguous keyboard has; 1) a same set of letters, assigned to at least one row or one column of said ambiguous keyboard as are assigned to a corresponding row in a conventional typewriter keyboard; 2) wherein an order of reading of said same set of letters on at least one row or at least one column of said ambiguous keyboard admits an order of reading of said same set of letters on at least one corresponding row or one corresponding column of said conventional typewriter keyboard, wherein said admittance comprises; i) an order of reading of keys of said at least one row or said at least one column of said ambiguous keyboard that is in a same order as a reading of keys of said at least one row or said at least one column of said conventional typewriter keyboard, ii) wherein said ambiguous keyboard could be relabeled with said letter indicia presented in the same order along each row as the corresponding indicia on a corresponding row of said conventional typewriter, without repetition and without violating said assignment of said letters to said keys; d) an output which selectively outputs sequences of said decoding symbols in response to user activation of said ambiguous keyboard; e) an ambiguous code which maps a sequence of said encoding symbols to one or more sequences of said decoding symbols; f) wherein at least one of said sequences of the encoding symbols is mapped to a plurality of said sequences of said decoding symbols. - View Dependent Claims (44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106)
-
-
107. An ambiguous keyboard disambiguating system for a natural language comprising:
-
a) encoding and decoding symbols; b) an ambiguous keyboard having at least three rows of keys and four to ten columns of keys, both of said three rows and four to ten columns having indicia that denote one or more letters assigned to one or more keys, wherein said one or more letters are used to write common words in said natural language, wherein; each of said one or more keys corresponds to one of said encoding symbols; and each of said one or more letters corresponds to one of said decoding symbols, the total number of said keys having at least one letter assigned to them being less than the number of said one or more letters in an alphabet used to form words in said natural language such that at least one key of said keys must have more than one letter of said alphabet assigned to it; wherein said ambiguous keyboard could be relabeled with said letter indicia presented in continuous alphabetic order along each row without repetition and without violating said assignment of said letters to said keys; wherein said indicia may be presented in continuous alphabetic order along each row without violating said assignment of said letters to said keys; d) an output which selectively outputs sequences of said decoding symbols in response to user activation of said ambiguous keyboard; e) an ambiguous code which maps a sequence of said encoding symbols to one or more sequences of decoded symbols; f) at least one of said sequences of the encoding symbols is mapped to a plurality of said sequences of said decoding symbols. - View Dependent Claims (108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 119, 120)
-
-
118. The system of 107, wherein no said key has more than two said letters assigned to it.
Specification