System for and method of emulating electronic input devices

• US 20070061126A1
• Filed: 09/01/2005
• Published: 03/15/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/01/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Atrua Technologies Incorporated (Apple Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Atrua Technologies Incorporated (Apple Inc.)
• Inventors: Russo, Anthony, Tsuchiya, Marcia, Chen, Frank, Howell, Mark, Weigand, David, Ngo, Hung
• Application Number:
  US11/219,100
• Publication Number:
  US 20070061126A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 703/24
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/03547 Touch pads, in which fingers can move on a surface
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text

Abstract

The system and method of the present invention is directed to emulating and configuring any of a plurality of electronic input devices. A system in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention comprises an interface and an emulator. The interface is for selecting and configuring an electronic input device from a plurality of electronic input devices, and the emulator is for emulating the electronic input device. Preferably, the plurality of electronic input devices comprise any two or more of a scroll wheel, a mouse, a joy stick, a steering wheel, an analog button, and a touch bar. Also in a preferred embodiment, the interface is an Application Programming Interface (API) and the emulator comprises a finger swipe sensor for receiving user input.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a. an interface for selecting an electronic input device from a plurality of electronic input devices; and

b. an emulator coupled to the interface for emulating the electronic input device.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the interface comprises an application program interface to a set of functions.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the set of functions includes a function for selecting a device type corresponding to the electronic input device.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the device type is any one of a mouse, a scroll wheel, a joystick, a steering wheel, an analog button, a pressure sensor, and a touch bar.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein the device type is any one of an enroll type, a verify type, and an identify type.

6. The system of claim 2, wherein the set of functions includes a function for setting a characteristic of the electronic input device.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the characteristic of the electronic input device comprises any one of a type of motion, a set of capabilities, a mapping of an input of a physical device to an output of the electronic input device, and a setting for tuning a parameter of the electronic input device.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the type of motion comprises any one or more of a motion in a linear direction only, a motion in a predetermined number of linear directions only, and a motion corresponding to one of a geometric shape and a pre-determined arbitrary shape.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the geometric shape is any one of a circle, a rectangle, a square, a triangle, and a periodic shape.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the arbitrary shape is a character in a standard alphabet.

11. The system of claim 7, wherein the set of capabilities comprises any one or more of a mouse button operation, a drag-and-drop operation, a pressure, a rotation, a rate mode in a linear direction, and a rate mode in an angular direction.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the input to the physical device is any one of a motion in a first linear direction and a gesture, and further wherein the output of the electronic input device is any one of a motion in a second linear direction, a motion in an angular direction, and a mouse button operation.

13. The system of claim 1, further comprising a physical device coupled to the interface, the physical device for generating an output.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the physical device comprises a finger sensor.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the finger sensor is a finger swipe sensor.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the finger swipe sensor is any one of a capacitive sensor, a thermal sensor, and an optical sensor.

17. The system of claim 14, wherein the finger sensor is a finger placement sensor.

18. The system of claim 13, wherein the physical device is any one of a track ball, a joystick, and a mouse.

19. The system of claim 13, wherein the physical device is configured to receive a gesture, whereby the generated output corresponds to any one of a change to a device type, a change to a freedom of motion, a character, and a control signal for operating a host device coupled to the emulator.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein operating the host device comprises launching a software program on the host device.

21. The system of claim 7, wherein the parameter of the electronic device is any one of a scaling in a linear direction and a scaling in an angular direction.

22. The system of claim 2, wherein the interface further comprises a graphical user interface for invoking the set of functions.

23. The system of claim 2, wherein the interface comprises a command line interface.

24. The system of claim 1, further comprising a host device for receiving an output of the electronic input device.

25. The system of claim 24, wherein the host device is one of a personal computer, a personal digital assistant, a digital camera, an electronic game, a printer, a photo copier, a cell phone, a digital video disc player, and a digital audio player.

26. A system comprising:

a. means for selecting an electronic input device from a plurality of electronic input devices; and

b. means for emulating the electronic input device.

27. The system of claim 26, wherein the plurality of electronic input devices comprise any two or more of a mouse, a scroll wheel, a joy stick, a steering wheel, an analog button, a pressure sensor, and a touch bar.

28. The system of claim 26, further comprising a physical input device.

29. The system of claim 28, wherein the physical input device comprises a finger swipe sensor.

30. A system comprising:

a. a physical device for receiving a gesture; and

b. a translator coupled to the physical device, the translator for translating the gesture into a selectable one of an output of an electronic input device and a defined entry.

31. The system of claim 30, wherein the entry corresponds to launching an application executing on a host device.

32. The system of claim 30, wherein the electronic input device is selectable from a plurality of electronic input devices.

33. The system of claim 32, wherein the plurality of electronic input devices comprise any two of a mouse, a scroll wheel, a joy stick, a steering wheel, an analog button, a pressure sensor, and a touch bar.

34. The system of claim 30, wherein the entry corresponds to a change to any one or more of a type of the electronic input device, a change to a freedom of motion of the electronic input device, and a generation of a pre-determined character by the electronic input device.

35. The system of claim 30, wherein the physical device comprises a finger sensor.

36. The system of claim 35, wherein the finger sensor is a swipe sensor.

37. The system of claim 30, wherein the physical device is one of a track ball and a mouse.

38. The system of claim 30, wherein the entry corresponds to any one of a character and a punctuation mark.

39. The system of claim 30, wherein entry corresponds to an input to operate a host device.

40. The system of claim 39, wherein the input to operate the host device corresponds to any one of powering on and powering off the host device.

41. The system of claim 39, wherein the host device is any one of a personal computer, a personal digital assistant, a digital camera, an electronic game, a photo copier, a cell phone, a digital video player, and a digital audio player.

42. The system of claim 39, wherein the application is a media application coupled to a medium and the input to operate the host device corresponds to any one of fast forwarding the medium, rewinding the medium, playing the medium, stopping the medium, and skipping tracks on the medium.

43. A method of generating an input for an electronic device comprising:

a. performing a gesture on a physical device; and

b. translating the gesture into a selectable one of an output of an electronic input device and a defined entry.

44. The method of claim 43, wherein the entry corresponds to one of a punctuation mark, a character, a command, changes in a type of a device emulated by the physical device, changes in a feature of a device emulated by the physical device.

45. The method of claim 43, wherein the physical device comprises a finger sensor.

46. The method of claim 45, wherein the finger sensor is a swipe sensor.

47. The method of claim 43, wherein the physical device is one of a track ball and a mouse.

48. The method of claim 44, wherein the command is used to operate a host device.

49. The method of claim 48, wherein operating the host device comprises controlling power to the host device.

50. The method of claim 48, wherein the host device is one of a personal computer, a personal digital assistant, a digital camera, an electronic game, a printer, a photo copier, a cell phone, a digital video player, and a digital audio player.

51. The method of claim 48, wherein the host device comprises a medium and operating the host device comprises one of fast forwarding the medium, rewinding the medium, and skipping to a track on the medium.

52. A method of emulating an electronic input device comprising:

a. selecting an electronic input device to be emulated from a plurality of electronic input devices;

b. receiving an input on a physical device; and

c. translating the input from the physical device to an output corresponding to the electronic input device, thereby emulating the electronic input device.

53. The method of claim 52, wherein the plurality of electronic input devices comprise any two or more of a mouse, a scroll wheel, a joy stick, a steering wheel, an analog button, and a touch bar.

54. The method of claim 52, wherein receiving the input on the physical device comprises contacting a finger sensor.

55. The method of claim 54, wherein contacting the finger sensor comprises swiping a patterned object along a surface of the finger sensor.

56. The method of claim 52, further comprising selecting a characteristic of the electronic input device.

57. The method of claim 56, wherein the characteristic corresponds to a mapping between a user input and an output used for emulating the electronic input device.

58. The method of claim 52, wherein the output corresponding to the electronic input device is for operating a host device.

59. The method of claim 52, wherein the input comprises a gesture.

60. The method of claim 58, wherein the host device is one of a personal computer, a personal digital assistant, a digital camera, an electronic game, a printer, a photo copier, a cell phone, a digital video disc player, and a digital audio player.