One-row keyboard and approximate typing

• US 7,387,457 B2
• Filed: 08/15/2005
• Issued: 06/17/2008
• 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): Evanisko; Leslie J
• Application Number:
  US11/204,940
• Publication Number:
  US 20060088356A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,037 Days
• Field of Search: 400/472, 400/486, 400/485, 400/489, 345/168, 345/169, 341/22
• 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, an apparatus for character entry on an electronic device, comprising: a keyboard with one row of keys; and an electronic device in communication with the keyboard; wherein one or more keys on the keyboard has a correspondence with a plurality of characters, wherein the plurality of characters on at least one of said keys includes at least one letter character and one non-letter character, and wherein the correspondence enables touch typing.

Claims

1. An apparatus for character entry comprising:

(i) a reduced keyboard comprising one row of keys, wherein

(a) each of one or more keys on said one row of keys has a correspondence with a plurality of characters,

(b) at least one of said one or more keys corresponds to at least one letter character and at least one non-letter character,

(c) each of said plurality of characters is associated with a signature/dual signature pair, and

(d) a unique signal is associated with the signature of all characters corresponding to said key, said unique signal being generated when said key is selected by a user;

(ii) a memory storing a plurality of objects, each of 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) an output device; and

(iv) a processor coupled to said memory and said output device and in communication with said keyboard, said processor operable to (a) apply approximate typing rules to predict at least one object from said memory based on a sequence of signatures associated with a sequence of signals from said keyboard, and (b) output to said output device at least one character combination associated with said at least one object.

2. An apparatus as in claim 1, wherein characters are associated with signatures and keys according to touch-typing assignments for at least eight digits.

3. An apparatus as in claim 2, wherein said one row is based on a standard keyboard layout, and wherein said layout follows a character set associated with any one of a plurality of national character sets.

4. An apparatus as in claim 2, wherein said keys are arranged into a left side set and a right side set.

5. An apparatus as in claim 3, wherein said standard keyboard layout is a QWERTY layout.

6. An apparatus as in claim 1, wherein characters are associated with signatures and keys according to thumb-typing assignments.

7. An apparatus as in claim 1, further comprising one or more control keys from a standard keyboard.

8. An apparatus as in claim 1, wherein said at least one of said non-letter characters includes at least one punctuation mark.

9. An apparatus as in claim 1, wherein said keyboard is a physical keyboard.

10. An apparatus as in claim 1, wherein said objects are associated with beginning-of-word character combinations and organized in said memory according to a beginning-of-word path ordering.

11. An apparatus as in claim 1, wherein said memory contains only objects from said objects that comprise delimiter-terminated sequences of signatures and sequences of signatures less than or equal to some fixed length.

12. An apparatus as in claim 11, wherein, on an as-needed basis, said 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.

13. An apparatus as in claim 1, wherein said prediction rules are based on, at least in part, one or more similarity measures or typing models.

14. An apparatus as in claim 13, 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.

15. An apparatus as in claim 14, wherein said observed user key selection behaviors are adjusted to account for behaviors of a specific user.

16. An apparatus as in claim 1, further operable to apply rules to predict at least one object based on, at least in part, a reduced keyboard disambiguation method.

17. An apparatus as in claim 16, wherein said disambiguation method is a path-ordered beginning-of-words method.

18. An apparatus as in claim 1, wherein at least one of said object character combination attributes are 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.

19. An apparatus as in claim 18, wherein at least one of said context tags is associated with a part-of-speech tag.

20. An apparatus as in claim 1, further operable to apply display optimization rules to stabilize said character combination output.

21. An apparatus as in claim 1, wherein said output device is an electronic display device.

22. An apparatus as in claim 1, further comprising at least one key on said keyboard for cycling through alternate character combinations resulting from said prediction.