Dynamically manipulating an emoticon or avatar

• US 8,620,850 B2
• Filed: 09/07/2010
• Issued: 12/31/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/07/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Inventors: Brown, Robert William, Hung, Michael Hin Kai, Young, Rebecca Lynne
• Primary Examiner(s): Chaki, Kakali
• Assistant Examiner(s): Bharadwaj, Kalpana
• Application Number:
  US12/876,580
• Publication Number:
  US 20120059787A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,211 Days
• Field of Search: 706/52
• US Class Current: 706/52
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/30 Semantic analysis
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/08 Annexed information, e.g. attachments
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72427 for supporting games or graphical animations
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72439 for image or video messaging
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72454 according to context-related or environment-related conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72457 according to geographic location
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/22 including a touch pad, a touch sensor or a touch detector digitizers for touch screens G06F3/041

Abstract

Graphical user representations, such as emoticons or avatars, used to convey mood and emotion, can be dynamically modified and manipulated, e.g. by squeezing, rotating, distorting, coloring, etc. This enables a user to customize or tailor an existing emoticon to better reflect the user'"'"'s current mood or emotion. For example, a user may insert a smiley face emoticon into a text message and then manipulate or distort the face or a component of the face (e.g. the smile) to broaden the smile into a grin, or twist the smile into an ironic smile, etc. This enables the user to personalize the emoticon rather than having to select the most appropriate emoticon from a palette of predefined emoticons. Another aspect is device hardware (e.g. dedicated or shared user interface elements or specific touchscreen gestures) for recognizing the squeezes or other gestures that are meant to modify or manipulate the emoticon.

Claims

1. A method of dynamically modifying a graphic user representation displayed on a wireless communication device, the method comprising:

composing a textual electronic message in a message user interface in response to user input provided by an end user;

inserting into the textual electronic message a graphic user representation;

detecting a change in context for the electronic message; and

modifying a visual appearance of the graphic user representation already inserted in the electronic message to indicate the change in context for the electronic message.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the graphic user representation is one of an emoticon and an avatar.

3. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the graphic user representation is an emoticon manually incorporated into the electronic message in response to receiving a user input directing incorporation of the emoticon into the electronic message.

4. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the graphic user representation is an emoticon automatically incorporated into the electronic message in response to one or more inferences of an emotional state of the end user drawn by an artificial intelligence module coupled to the message user interface.

5. The method as claimed in claim 4 wherein the one or more inferences are textual inferences derived from parsing the message.

6. The method as claimed in claim 4 wherein the one or more inferences are circumstantial inferences based upon the change in context.

7. The method as claimed in claim 6 wherein the circumstantial inferences are based on at least one of current location, current calendar entry, current weather, and currents news.

8. The method as claimed in claim 2 wherein modifying the visual appearance of the graphic user representation comprises at least one of distorting, stretching, squeezing, rotating and coloring.

9. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions in code which when loaded into memory and executed on a processor of a computing device is adapted to:

compose a textual electronic message in a message user interface displayed by a computing device in response to user input provided by an end user;

insert into the textual electronic message a graphic user representation;

detect a change in context for the electronic message; and

modify a visual appearance of the graphic user representation already inserted in the electronic message to indicate the change in context for the electronic message.

10. The computer-readable medium as claimed in claim 9 comprising code that causes the device to manually incorporate the graphic user representation into the electronic message in response to a user input.

11. The computer-readable medium as claimed in claim 9 comprising code that causes the device to automatically incorporate the graphic user representation into the electronic message in response to one or more inferences drawn by an artificial intelligence module coupled to the message user interface.

12. The computer-readable medium as claimed in claim 9 comprising code for modifying the visual appearance of the graphic user representation by at least one of distorting, stretching, squeezing, rotating and coloring.

13. A computing device comprising:

a memory;

a processor coupled to the memory, the processor operable to execute a communication application that enables composition and transmission of messages;

a display operable to display a graphic user representation;

a message user interface in which a textual electronic message is composed in response to user input provided by an end user; and

a user input device operable to insert into the textual electronic message the graphical user representation, to detect a change in context for the electronic message and to modify the graphic user representation already inserted into the textual electronic message to indicate the change in context for the electronic message, wherein the display presents the modified graphic user representation.

14. The computing device as claimed in claim 13, wherein the graphic user representation is one of an emoticon and an avatar.

15. The computing device as claimed in claim 14, wherein the user input device is operable to receive a command to manually incorporate the graphic user representation into a message.

16. The computing device as claimed in claim 14, further comprising an artificial intelligence module executable by the processor and memory to automatically incorporate the graphic user representation into a message based on one or more inferences.

17. The computing device as claimed in claim 16 wherein the inferences are textual inferences drawn from parsing the message.

18. The computing device as claimed in claim 16 wherein the inferences are circumstantial inferences.

19. The computing device as claimed in claim 14 wherein the user input device comprises at least one of a haptic key, a force-sensitive key and a force-feedback key to manipulate graphic user representation.

20. The computing device as claimed in claim 14 wherein the user input device comprises a touch screen to interpret recognizable gestures to manipulate the graphical user representation.